Gaza

Other blogs have said a lot about this and I've made some comments on those.

I used to be a 'fan' of Israel, but since Likud and the more extreme Right there took power about 25 years ago, that country has steadily slid ever downward in my estimation. Their tactics today are too often akin to those Jews fled Europe to avoid. In particular, the collective punishment (including the indiscriminate deaths of hundreds men, women and children) of everyone in Gaza for the actions of a few. This is clearly a crime by any measure. So are the indiscriminate missile attacks on Israel from Gaza.

The problem here is that there is no overlap in aspiration for peace. The Israelis don't really want to give up any land and the palestinians won't accept anything less.....so conflict ensues.

Both sides are reaping the "dividend" - the consequences - of their inflexibility, pushing the price of peace ever higher.

I see no end to it until these attitudes change. As it is, Israel thinks more force will solve their problem. The reality of the failure of this policy over 30 years (at least) doesn't seem to penetrate their collective consciousness.

Hamas won't stop reacting to what they see as Israeli intransigence and aggression. The more lethal force used against them, the more hatred is stored in the "bad will" bank. Israel may be able to destroy the organisation temporarily, but their actions simply ensure the perpetuations of the emotions / passions that demand something like Hamas, doing what it does, must exist in the first place.

People don't respond to beatings and torture with love and affection. If they get their chance, they may well slit your throat and claim it was justified. Both sides need to bear that in mind. Neither seems capable - despite the teachings of their respective 'peaceful' religions - of the generosity of spirit and frank, open-eyed appreciation of reality that this sad situation demands.

Until they can, the rest of us owe them no support enabling agression by either side. The United States funding Israel's military to the tune of US$ 3 billion annually is clearly enabling the crimes currently underway. Again (for those with one eye and no 'ears' -> the dishonest sort who accuse critics of Israel of being "anti-semitic"), that does not excuse or justify crimes committed by anyone else. But right now, Israel has - more or less randomly - killed close to a thousand people in one week in response to Hamas having killed 27 people in 8 years. That IS the sort of collective punishment the Nazis used to mete out in France in towns and villages where German soldiers were killed by the resistance. That comparison is apt and makes this not just sad, but tragic. Israel is becoming what it was established to allow its people to escape from. That isn't anti-semitism. It's a frank apprecition of the explicit Israeli policy of collective punishment.

Arthur or Martha? Bush and Israel on Iran

Another day dawns. Confusion reigns.

Will Iran be attacked by Israel the US or both? Is the escalation of tensions with Iran being driven by US and Israeli domestic political considerations? Will we ever actually see any proof of the claims the US and Israel make about an Iranian nuclear weapons program? So far, there is none at all.

The Sunday Times in the UK makes it look like an Israeli attack on Iran prior to the US elections in November is all but a done deal.

President George W Bush has told the Israeli government that he may be prepared to approve a future military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down, according to a senior Pentagon official.

Despite the opposition of his own generals and widespread scepticism that America is ready to risk the military, political and economic consequences of an airborne strike on Iran, the president has given an “amber light” to an Israeli plan to attack Iran’s main nuclear sites with long-range bombing sorties, the official told The Sunday Times.

On the other hand, a dispassionate analysis of pros and cons by the BBC makes an attack on Iran seem very unlikely, with tough talk in Tel Aviv being driven by the Kadima Party's leadership vote in September.

Politicians, of course, have to talk tough wherever they come from, and here Israel's leaders need no lessons from outside.

Everything now is influenced by domestic politics.

The weakness of Israel's embattled Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, beset by allegations of financial irregularity, means that the battle to replace him has already been joined.

Israeli media are saying Olmert is toast.

The hawkish Jerusalem Post looks at how the US and Israel are more or less agreed on what they believe may have to be done, but increasingly out of sync as to what actions should be taken and when. The Israelis appear to have talked themselves into a corner with respect to attacking Iran while overlooking the lack of any proof Iran is working on a bomb.

US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, said this week:

"There is a lot of signaling going on," he said. "But I think everybody recognizes what the consequences of any kind of a conflict would be. And I will tell you that this government is working hard to make sure that the diplomatic and economic approach to dealing with Iran, and trying to get the Iranian government to change its policies is the strategy and is the approach that continues to dominate."

The Washington Post carries a column by Lamis Andoni, a Middle East consultant for Al Jazeera, may have the best overall analysis of what we are seeing now:

Israel has been openly and aggressively inciting war against Iran – with the complicity of the Pentagon.

According the Israeli Yediot Ahranot, the news about Israeli military exercises for war with Iran was deliberately leaked by the Pentagon, in coordination with Israel, to prepare the atmosphere for war against Iran.

I think that the Bush Administration is determined to plant the seeds for war before it leaves, but the question remains if that means an overt strike or a covert action against Iran. It could be an Israeli strike or a covert – yet huge – act of sabotage on Iran that could set the wheels of war turning.

In other words, the administration will not go quietly without starting another explosion.

What I notice above all else in reading report after report, is the near complete lack of any questioning of the so far unproven claim by the US and Israel that Iran is working to make nuclear weapons.

We have seen no proof at all. None.

The US and UK media - yet again - appear to be dropping the ball spectacularly. No one is asking why we have not seen any proof of US and Israeli claims regarding an alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Our own media simply carry the wire stories and features from overseas without apparent thought or comment. Of the few who have mentioned it, like Fran O'Sullivan in the Herald, there is no recognition whatever that the claims against Iran remain completely unproven.

After the lies told to sell the invasion of Iraq, such one-sided and persistent blindness by most of the media to the lack of proof of claims about Iran can only be deliberate. There can be no more excuses for not rigorously testing a US or Israeli case for war after the way the US and UK-based media we source our news from almost completely ignored the lack of proof of any WMD in Iraq...and effectively enabled a war based on lies they refused to question.

Our own journalists and politicians should be asking tough questions instead of swallowing whole unproven claims being used to justify more war.

"Israel ready to act" over Iran

As Iran conducts its second day of missile tests, the BBC reports Israel is ready to act over Iran "if it feels threatened".

As in past conflicts, Israel has effectively provoked the current tensions by steadily ratcheting up the rhetoric until the target responds in a provocative way. Israel then uses this response as evidence of the threat.

I've had the same thing happen to me in the playground at school when someone wanted to pick a fight. They would harrass and needle until you finally had a go at them....only to find them then playing the victim and you end up looking like the bully. No one is interested in your protestations to the contrary.....especially the influential friends of the harrasser.

We've been seeing the same thing with respect to Israel and Iran for some years now (roughly since Bush got into the White House) and Iran has typically responded in a reasonably measured way to the ongoing threats from the US and Israel to unilaterally nuke Iran.

Why Iran now appears to have taken the bait is worth speculating on. Is it simply bad judgement based on hubris? Or is Iran bluffing? Or is Iran taking a "Make my day...." stance with respect to the usual Israeli threats of attack for some other purpose?

Certainly by keeping tensions high, Israel, the US and Iran are all doing their best to keep the price of oil high, which keeps the economic pressure on everyone who uses oil. That ties in with Iranian President Ahmedinejad's view that the US is "on the threshold of bankruptcy — from political to economic".

From the perspective of the Bush Administration and the Kadima-lead conservative government in Israel, a tensions, or perhaps even conflict, with Iran may help John McCain take the White House or, failing that, make it all but impossible for a more moderate Barak Obama to adopt a more conciliatory stance with respect to Iran. The current governments in Israel and the US do not want this situation to be resolved. That is made evident by their fresh threats each time things calm down.

The best way to undertstand why these tensions have arisen is too look at who gains by them: the groups currently in power in the US and Israel. Their respective political constituencies are held together by fear as much as any other thing. So fear it is.

There is no benefit for Iran in any of this.

It's worth remembering we have not yet seen any evidence that Iran is actually working on nuclear weapons. The attempts to create panic about Iran appear to be designed to stop anyone from bothering to ask for such proof.

How can anyone trust anything they say?

As in past cycles, Iran has responded to months of escalating threats from the US and Israel by demonstrating its intention (NZ Herald) to defend itself if attacked.

The story in the print version of the Herald Wednesday morning included this hilarious, presumably straight-faced, lie:

"Israel does not threaten Iran, but the Iranian nuclear programme combined with their aggressive ballistic missile programme is a matter of grave concern", Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said after the tests

In fact, Israel is on record in the past several weeks alone overtly threatening Iran with attack and has been threatening Iran overtly with nuclear attack over the past 5 years at least.

This quote is not included on the online version of the Herald's report, which will be seen by fewer people than the print version.

Neo-Con O'Sullivan frames the Israel / Iran situation

The Weekend Herald included a fascinating column by Fran O'Sullivan. She says we should listen to Alexander Downer on the subject of Iran and Israel.

Downer was Australia's foreign minister in John Howard's Liberal government when that country decided to join the United States invasion of Iraq. In "staying the course" on that disastrous decision, Downer was clearly among those deceived by the US Bush Administration's bogus case for war. To my mind, that would make him an excellent person to NOT listen to where the lives of innocent people are at stake. He was a key part of a government that signed Australia up to kill and be killed based on lies Iraq had weapons it did not have.

Fast forward to July 2008.

Since at least 2003, conservative governments in both Israel and the United States have been claiming Iran is making a nuclear bomb. They have never provided proof to support these claims.

Despite that, many media outlets and journalists treat these unproven claims as fact, just as they did prior to the invasion of Iraq. Some people never learn. Fran O'Sullivan would appear to be one of them.

Iran has responded to these threats to attack it by saying it was not making a bomb and that anyone who attacked it would be very sorry. In 2005, it was claimed in the world's media that Iran had said it would wipe Israel off the map. This claim was false, but the true story was never verified and the error never corrected.

This erroneous claim has since then been a prominent propaganda tool used by conservatives everywhere to build popular support for Israel and any measures taken against Iran, including attacking it with nuclear weapons.

Fran O'Sullivan, arguably the NZ Herald's most doctrinaire neo-conservative columnist in political matters and neo-liberal columnist in economic matters, starts her column by saying:

"Australia's longest serving foreign minister, Alexander Downer, has ignited a behind-scenes debate here over just what position Western democracies should take to Israel's right to defend itself against Iranian threats."

This is an interesting way to frame what is happening right now between Israel and Iran. By any objective measure, Israel's government and military establishment have been making the threats while Iran's official response has been firm but measured.

O'Sullivan then proceeds to repeat the same propaganda referred to above:

"While the Western world debates what steps should be taken to deter Iran from carrying out threats to wipe Israel from the earth, New Zealand's foreign affairs triumvirate - Helen Clark, Phil Goff and Winston Peters - remain relatively silent."

Fran O'Sullivan has clearly bought into the Bush / Olmert narrative without apparently attempting to verify any of it. Is she just lazy or sloppy? You'd think a senior journalist like O'Sullivan would be skeptical of claims made by proven liars like George W. Bush and Israeli PM, Ehud Olmert, but apparently not.

Given she has not verified the claims she has signed up for, her advice to take note of anything Alexander Downer says should be ignored. He went to war without verifying Bush's claims in 2003. They have a lethal (for others) credulity in common.

In this case, their misconception is based on a very one-sided view of the situation in the Middle East that holds the Israeli government can do no wrong and never has. The consequences of past actions of the Israeli government are thus translated into aggression unconnected to the cause. Evil.

It's a view that gives the Israeli government a free pass to continue its slow-motion ethnic cleansing in Palestine and use any level of violence against people who dare resist the never ending encroachment of Israeli settlements into Palestinian lands.

Meanwhile, Israel's government continues to threaten Iran with nuclear attack while people like Fran O'Sullivan and Alexander Downer pretend that Iran is the aggressor for claiming the right to defend itself if attacked as both the US and Israel have threatened to do.

Is Fran O'Sullivan merely misguided? Or is she a propagandist with a job to do?

Iran responds to US / Israeli threats of attack

Iran appears to be taking the US and Israeli threats of attack seriously, moving long rang missiles into defensive positions.

I keep using Al Jazeera clips because for depth of coverage of ALL sides, they are leaving everyone else I can see in the shade. (I can't see any BBC coverage). The US broadcast media I have seen do not question the completely unproven Bush Administration claims that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. I'm not saying no one is questioning it. Just no one I've seen.

Inside Story - Iran/Israel tensions - 29 Jun 08 - Part 1



Inside Story - Iran/Israel tensions - 29 Jun 08 - Part 2

Seymour Hersh on US escalation against Iran

Seymour Hersh, author of an article in the New Yorker that I posted about yesterday, talks on Al-Jazeera about the US escalation against Iran.


I was going to add the "stupid people" label, but G W Bush is already among the labels.

Dear Mr. Key

Dear Mr. Key

Re: "Drumbeats of War", NZ Herald, Monday, June 30, 2008, pA13

Can you please inform me what, if any, view the National Party might have of a possible attack on Iran by Israel, the United States, or any other nation?

I am aware that claims have been made by the US and Israel that Iran is attempting to make nuclear weapons.

I am aware they have so far presented no credible evidence to support these claims.

I am aware that the IAEA has found no evidence of any nuclear weapons programme in Iran.

I am aware Iran, an Islamic theocracy, denies any such programme and has declared that nuclear weapons are un-Islamic and contrary to the will of Allah.

I am aware Iran asserts that electronic documents from US and Israeli intelligence services are forgeries. These documents purport to show a link between the civilian nuclear program and the Iranian military. The US and Israel have refused to allow Iran, or anyone other than the IAEA, to examine the subset of (electronic) documents they claim as solid proof.

As Israeli rhetoric has recently shifted from "if" there will be an attack to "when" there will be an attack, I think it important and urgent that the New Zealand government express a view on any such attack that makes it very clear any unprovoked attack on Iran is unjustifiable and that an attack without authorisation from the UN Security Council, based on clear ,unequivocal evidence, would be a war crime. I would hope your party would support such action.

The current campaign against Iran is very similar to the one against Iraq in 2002 and 2003: a rising tide of unsupported claims and aggressive rhetoric and propaganda. Then comes the attack.

Your answer to this question is particularly important as your party, had it been in government in 2003, made it very clear you would have joined those invading Iraq despite the then obvious lack, to me and millions of others, of any credible proof of the claims being made by the Bush Administration against Iraq. We now know President Bush lied to start that war and it has seen disastrous and unnecessary loss of life and the squandering of trillions of dollars.

I hope the National Party would learn from the lessons of the very recent past and object in the strongest possible terms to any such attack should it occur. I hope you would urge the Government to also refuse to join in any subsequent escalation of any conflict arising from the aftermath of such an attack.

Yours sincerely, ......etc

Dear Mr. Peters

Dear Mr. Peters

Re: "Drumbeats of War", NZ Herald, Monday, June 30, 2008, pA13

Can you please inform me what, if any, view the Government might have of a possible attack on Iran by Israel, the United States, or any other nation?

I am aware that claims have been made by the US and Israel that Iran is attempting to make nuclear weapons.

I am aware they have so far presented no credible evidence to support these claims.

I am aware that the IAEA has found no evidence of any nuclear weapons programme in Iran.

I am aware Iran denies any such programme and has declared that nuclear weapons are un-Islamic and contrary to the will of Allah.

I am aware Iran asserts that electronic documents from US and Israeli intelligence services are forgeries. These documents purport to show a link between the civilian nuclear program and the Iranian military. The US and israel have refused to allow Iran, or anyone other than the IAEA, to examine the subset of documents they claim as solid proof.

As Israeli rhetoric has recently shifted from "if" there will be an attack to to "when" there will be an attack, I think it important and urgent that the New Zealand government express a view on any such attack that makes it very clear any unprovoked attack on Iran is unjustifiable and that an attack without authorisation from the UN Security Council, based on clear ,unequivocal evidence, would be a war crime.

This current campaign against Iran is very similar to the one against Iraq: a rising tide of claims and aggressive rhetoric and propaganda, unsupported by evidence. Then come the attacks.

I hope the New Zealand government would object in the strongest possible terms to any such attack should it occur. We should also refuse to join in any subsequent escalation of conflict arising from the after math of such an attack.

Yours sincerely.......etc.

Israel wants US to attack Iran

Israel recently conducted a long-range rehearsal for an air attack on Iran. The 100 aircraft, 900 mile / 1400km mission around the Mediterranean was intended to train Israeli pilots for a long range air attack. Each leg requires the aircraft to refuel three times.

Since then, Israel has stepped up the rhetoric and made it clear that it wants Bush to attack Iran before he leaves office. Other reports suggest the Israeli air force is not ready to launch such a complex air mission over such a distance.

Iran, understandably, has taken a dim view of threats to attack it.

Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said an attack would turn the region into a "fireball". He also said he would resign if there were a military strike. The IAEA is charged with monitoring Iran's compliance with the Nuclar Non-Proliferation Treaty which Iran is signatory to. The most recent Board report from the IAEA in early June found nothing amiss, but did ask Iran to respond to allegations made by the US and Israel about its nuclear programme.

The news of the Israeli attack training was leaked to the New York Times by the Pentagon. Oil prices immediately went up. Maybe that was the aim: monster Iran for added oil profits. Time will tell.

Interestingly, the CBS News reports linked to here do not make it clear that no one has presented any proof that Iran is working on nuclear weapons. CBS viewers are told Iran has a nuclear weapons program as though it were established fact. These claims by the US and Israel are not questioned or described as allegations, which is what they are.

You would think American media might have learned from the build up to the attack on Iraq to question more deeply, but apparently not. CBS is still parroting the White House and Pentagon line, unquestioned, in their primary news bulletins. This may be understandable as CBS's parent company, Westinghouse, is one of the largest weapons contractors in the United States.

War, or threat of war, is their bread and butter.
*

Israel has zero commitment to peace?

Israel's current government can arguably be said to have zero commitment to any peace settlement in the region as they have continued to approve new settlements in disputed lands. Over 7,000 new residences have been approved this year alone. The issue threatens to create a rift between the Israeli government and the Bush Administration. Real or for show, as the US heads into elections?

Al Jazeera reports:

Iraq II: Iran in the frame?

I won't beat around the Bush (so to speak). I don't claim to know either way whether Iran is making nukes or not. How could I?

I am suspicious, but not just about Iran.

The escalating rhetoric and allegations about weapons of mass destruction (Nukes! Nukes!) being made by the United States and Israel against Iran is looking more and more like a re-run of the same claims made against Iraq in 2002.

Then, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was fed essentially false and é or misleading (dis)information by the United States and others and was (ab)used by the United States and others to front a steadily escalating propaganda campaign against Iraq.

Last week, the IAEA released a Board Report (PDF) that essentially verified Iran's compliance on all material matters, but at the same time asked Iran to respond to allegations that it was progressing tasks that would see a nuclear weapon eventuate.

Iran has responded in detail. As with Iraq in 2002, each time the Iranians respond to allegations, refuting them, still more allegations are made, effectively preventing the process from arriving at a conclusion. Like Iraq, in 2002, it looks like this is running to a time table with some conclusion in mind. Perhaps an attack on Iran in the near future. (I will detail the converging indications of such an attack in a post later today or tomorrow.)

Reading the report, were from unspecified sources as they are not named in the report. They are based on documents provided to the IAEA only in electronic form. The IAEA was not allowed - or able to - provide some of these documents to Iran for a response. Iran's response to those documents it was shown appears to be credible - at least as credible as the documents that raised the allegations. The key paragraphs are 17-24 of the report. Read them for yourself (in the report) and see if you don't think this doesn't look, smell and sound like an "Iraq II" WMD smear job.

The media globally are lapping it up with most US-based media reporting it - explicitly or implicitly - as though it is a given that Iran is making nukes.

Iran says the documents are fakes and that it dos not have a nuclear weapons program. They say the electronic documents provided contain inconsistencies that reveal they are forgeries. Iran says it cannot respond to the documents that it has not been allowed to examine. In all cases, the documents were in electronic format and Iran says they could have easily been manipulated.

Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, the Majlis, Ali Larijani said:

Larijani said last week that certain aspects of the IAEA report suggested that, "services of some countries are trying to mislead the agency".

Speaking after Sunday's parliamentary session, Larijani said that "this active misleading of the agency will harm both Iran and the IAEA".

He said that Iran has been warning the IAEA inspectors about the false feeding of information by US and Israeli intelligent services, "but they kept getting the wrong information and we used to clarify everything according to the law."

"Iran does not like this happen and will devise another solution," he added.

Summarising, we have essentially anonymous allegations based on documents provided in a form that can easily be manipulated or forged, some of which can't be released in any form to Iran or anyone else. As detailed in the report, the documents that have been released have alternative, non-nuclear explanations. The documents that have not been released purport to show an administrative connection between the ambiguous activities and the nuclear energy program. Yet these most crucial documents are the least visible.

The United States and Israel have been making accusations against Iran repeatedly. Both countries have been threatening to unilaterally attack Iran. These threats have often explicitly refrred to the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons. Here is a small representative sample of US and Israeli military threats against Iran, with just one example from each of the past 5 years: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008.

For the last 3 years, as those links show, Israel has been threatening unilateral strikes, using nuclear weapons, against Iranian sites it deems to be in need of destroying.

Iran's response throughout this period has been to co-operate with the IAEA and to state repeatedly that it does not threaten anyone and will not attack any country, though it will defend itself against any attacks. Iran says it is not developing nuclear weapons as they are un-islamic.

As Iran is a (somewhat democratic) Islamic theocracy, the fatwah issued by head cleric, Ayotollah Khamenei, declaring

"developing, producing, or stockpiling nuclear weapons is forbidden under Islam"

can't be lightly disregarded.

If anyone does attack Iran, its leaders have made it clear there will be dire consequences. The Iranian reaction to American and Israeli threats of pre-emtive attacks have been widely portrayed as aggressive anti-semitic attacks.

It boils down to whether or not the allegations against Iran by anonymous accusers (the US and Israel) are credible. Neither country has an impressive track record for telling the truth. In particular, the US President has already lied to start a war in Iraq. As we now know, the allegations against Iraq were supported by faked documents, bogus interpretations of mundane satellite imagery and other misleading "evidence". They were found, in the end, to be false. But not before they had been successfully used to justify a military adventure that is still underway 5 years later.

Prior to the Iraqi conflict, the IAEA was fed forged documents purporting to show the Iraqis attempting to procure nuclear materials from Niger. It was difficult then for Iraq to respond because the matters contained in the documents were mythical. It's not easy to prove something doesn't exist.

Today, we are seeing the same thing again. The critical piece in the `case` against Iran is the connection between the military and the nuclear energy program, but it is precisely this connection that is most vague and ill-defined. The documents purporting to demonstrate it can`t be seen by anyone..including the Iranians.

On this basis, it looks like the case against Iran is simply not credible. It is being made by countries with a proven track record of using deception - including out right lies and forgery - to justify military adventure.

I hope the New Zealand government looks long and hard at any case against Iran before taking sides. So far, the case doesn't come close to stacking up.