Poor Gaza. When are civilian deaths on this scale not collctive punishment = whatever the provocation? December 19th was the date of the end of the cease-fire - and no one had made any attempt to extend it. Not Israel. Not Palestine. Nor had anyone made any attempt to homor it. Not Palestine and certainly not Israel. This came in from an organisation called Avaaz:

The Gaza crisis has exploded -- put your name to our emergency petition demanding a ceasefire. We'll deliver it immediately to the UN Security Council, the Arab League, the US and other world leaders!
Take Action NowAs we watch the Gaza bloodshed with horror, appalled at how the crisis is spiraling further out of control, one thing is clear -- this violence will only lead to further civilian suffering and an escalation of the conflict. There must be another way. Over 280 are dead so far in the Gaza Strip and hundreds more injured -- rockets are striking Ashdod deep inside Israel for the very first time, and the sides are mobilising for invasion. A global outcry has begun, but it'll take more than words -- the immediate violence won't end, nor will wider peace be secured, without firm action from the international community.Today, we're launching an emergency campaign which will be delivered to the UN Security Council and key world powers, urging them to act to ensure an immediate ceasefire and address the growing humanitarian crisis -- only with robust international oversight and action can civilians on all sides be protected and real steps be taken toward a wider peace. Follow this link now to sign the emergency petition and send it to everyone you know: http://www.avaaz.org/en/gaza_time_for_peace/?cl=162568193&v=2609 After Gaza's bloodiest day in recent memory and eight or more years of ineffective US and global diplomacy, we need to get world leaders to do more than issue statements if they're to ensure a lasting ceasefire.1 Through the UN Security Council and other international bodies, the world can provide the help and pressure needed to stop the violence and change the situation on the ground in Gaza -- preventing the rockets and incursions, re-opening crossing-points under international oversight so that instead of weapon-smuggling, the 1.5 million ordinary people of Gaza can get the fuel, food and medicines they so desperately need.All sides to the conflict will continue to act as they have in the past if they believe that the world will stand by and allow them to do so. We mobilised for a ceasefire in 2006's Israel-Lebanon war and succeeded, but this time the international community must not delay -- let's raise a truly worldwide outcry. 2009 is a year that things can be different. As we face this crisis, and the possibilities of a new year, it's time for us everywhere to work together to stop this violence.With hope and determination,Brett, Ricken, Alice, Ben, Pascal, Paul, Graziela, Paula, Luis, Iain and the whole Avaaz team 1 Further actions could include: a formal resolution from the Security Council rather than issuing a press statement as was done on 28 December 2008; explicit private and public international pressure on the parties to end the hostilities including developing clear terms for the resumption of negotiations; proper international oversight of the Rafah border; and in time, a detailed Security Council resolution setting out the terms in international law for a permanent peace between Israel and Palestine. For background, see this Jerusalem Post article, "No international pressure to end op": http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230456497503&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull)

Iranian 'Blogfather' Hossein Derakhshan has been arrested on the charge of spying for Israel. This is just one more example of the fear that bloggers are able to instill in governments that have been used to being able to control and restrict the information reaching its public. New develepments in electronic media make it more and more difficult to limit the sharing of knowledge within a nation and between peoples globally. This breaks down the state monopoly on knowledge and the power that this affords them.

Hossein Derakhshan was based in London after spending several years in Canada and had returned to live in Iran a few weeks ago. In 2006 he had made a trip to Israel; his aim was to show his “20,000 daily Iranian readers what Israel really looks like and how people live there”.

Obviously Israel's recent incursion into Rafah, and consequently the end of the 5 month ceasefire, was a pretty bad piece of news. However, since William has already commented on this, I shall draw your attention to recent British moves to correct European law regarding imports from Israel. Essentially, Israel has a deal with the EU concerning its imports, whereby lower tariffs are placed on them than most non-EU nations. However, these were only supposed to be products from within the green line, and there have been allegations that some of these (including dates and wine) are the produce of West Bank settlements.

This links up with another row over supermarket displays advertising products (such as, again, dates) as the produce of Israel. Even goods which are labelled as "West Bank" could still be from settlements and therefore no informed ethical consuming can take place from this knowledge alone. Thus, British attempts to get these correctly labelled are part of a wider attempt to reduce the economic power of the settlements - described by the government as "are illegal and...an obstacle to peace". Haaretz has described this British objection as using a mere "technicality" in the trade treaty. This is ludicrous as the government of Israel agreed to the "Green Line" rather than any other borders. Israeli businesses know they are in the wrong and attempt to hide the fact by creating headquarters in Jerusalem for operations which in fact utilise land outside of that which is allowed by the mutually agreed treaty.

This is a small matter that may in fact set an important precedent in trade relations between the EU and Israel, and for West Bank settlements . We should hope that the letter of the law is observed for, as the saying of one supermarketgoes, every little helps.

After five months the Gaza cease fire is over. It was inevitable I guess but very sad. Israel decided it had had enough and wanted to go back to war. But when you consider that Ismail Haniyah has recognised Israel within its 67 borders on behalf of Hamas it seems such a shame that we can't see some better progress.

The RPS have sent round a really comprehensive background not on the new Obama foreign policy advisor. He's not as pro-Israel as he's been painted.

Excerpts from John Perazzo's Article "Obama's Road to Damascus"

Washington - Nov. 11, 2008 (RPS Opinion) -- A Harvard-trained lawyer and Rhodes Scholar, Robert Malley is no newcomer to the Obama team. In 2007, Obama selected him as a foreign policy adviser to his campaign. At the time, Malley was (and still is today) the Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group (ICG), which receives funding from the Open Society Institute of George Soros (who, incidentally, serves on the ICG Executive Committee).In his capacity with ICG, Malley directs a number of analysts who focus their attention most heavily on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the political and military developments in Iraq, and Islamist movements across the Middle East. Prior to joining ICG, Malley served as President Bill Clinton’s Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs (1998-2001), and as National Security Adviser Sandy Berger’s Executive Assistant (1996-1998).Robert Malley was raised in France. His lineage is noteworthy. His father, Simon Malley (1923-2006), was a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party. A passionate hater of Israel, the elder Malley was a close friend and confidante of the late PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat; an inveterate critic of “Western imperialism”; a supporter of various revolutionary “liberation movements,” particularly the Palestinian cause; a beneficiary of Soviet funding; and a supporter of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. According to American Thinker news editor Ed Lasky, Simon Malley “participated in the wave of anti-imperialist and nationalist ideology that was sweeping the Third World [and] .. wrote thousands of words in support of struggle against Western nations.”In a July 2001 op-ed which Malley penned for the New York Times, he alleged that Israeli—not Palestinian—inflexibility had caused the previous year’s Camp David peace talks (brokered by Bill Clinton) to fall apart. This was one of several controversial articles Malley has written—some he co-authored with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat—blaming Israel and exonerating Arafat for the failure of the peace process.Malley’s identification of Israel as the cause of the Camp David impasse has been widely embraced by Palestinian and Arab activists around the world, by Holocaust deniers like Norman Finkelstein, and by anti-Israel publications such as Counterpunch. It should be noted that Malley’s account of the Camp David negotiations is entirely inconsistent with the recollections of the key figures who participated in those talks—specifically, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, and then-U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross (Clinton’s Middle East envoy).Malley also has written numerous op-eds urging the U.S. to disengage from Israel to some degree, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies such as Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah (a creature of Iran dedicated to the extermination of the Jews and death to America), and Muqtada al-Sadr (the Shiite terrorist leader in Iraq). In addition, Malley has advised nations around the world to establish relationships with, and to send financial aid to, the Hamas-led Palestinian government in Gaza. In Malley’s calculus, the electoral victory that swept Hamas into power in January 2006 was a manifestation of legitimate Palestinian “anger at years of humiliation and loss of self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion, Arafat’s imprisonment, Israel’s incursions, [and] Western lecturing ..”
Moreover, Malley contends that it is both unreasonable and unrealistic for Israel or Western nations to demand that Syria sever its ties with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or Iran. Rather, he suggests that if Israel were to return the Golan Heights (which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War, and again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War—two conflicts sparked by Arab aggression which sought so permanently wipe the Jewish state off the face of the earth) to Syrian control, Damascus would be inclined to pursue peace with Israel.Malley has criticized the U.S. for allegedly remaining “on the sidelines” and being a “no-show” in the overall effort to bring peace to the nations of the Middle East. Exhorting the Bush administration to change its policy of refusing to engage diplomatically with terrorists and their sponsoring states, Malley wrote in July 2006: “Today the U.S. does not talk to Iran, Syria, Hamas, the elected Palestinian government or Hezbollah.. The result has been a policy with all the appeal of a moral principle and all the effectiveness of a tired harangue.”This inclination to negotiate with any and all enemies of the U.S. and Israel—an impulse which Malley has outlined clearly and consistently—clearly has had a powerful influence on Barack Obama.It is notable that six months ago the Obama campaign and Malley hastily severed ties with one another after the Times of London reported that Malley had been meeting privately with Hamas leaders on a regular basis—something Obama had publicly pledged never to do. At the time, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt minimized the significance of this monumentally embarrassing revelation, saying: “Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future.”But indeed, within hours after Obama’s election victory, Malley was back as a key player in the president-elect’s team of advisors—on his way to Syria. Mr. Obama, meanwhile, received a most friendly communication from Hamas, congratulating him on his “historic victory.”

Further to Alexander's blog below, this seems to be becoming a habit. Now an Arab family evicted in Sheikh Jarar. But to be honest there are worse crimes. The Gaza seige is collective punishment. But there is muh less fuss made about that.

Sheikh Jarar eviction

Walid Muallam has just been in London. His visit coincided with the U.S bombing of the Syrian border village. Whilst talking to the press on that issue he did say that the ball was in the Isaeli court when it came to the Golan Heights problem. Apparently Syria is ready to go ahead tomorrow if negotiations are on the basis of hte '67 borders. Of course Israel has problems of its own getting its act together and heaven knows how Tzipi Livni's bid for power will pan out in the long run. Perhaps Olmert will stay on as caretaker Israeli premier till January and find the courage to do something on the Syrian track in the interim.

The Middle-East peace process appears to be, as so often seems the case, in a state of arrest. The comparative calm of the five month truce was recently violated by both sides. Four Palestinian-owned buildings in East Jerusalem were demolished in one day by order of the Israeli governent. However, a development that may prove to have a more harmful effect on the procss is Tzipi Livni's failure to form a governing coalition. Unwilling to cave in to unreasonable demands from minor parties, she has asked Presiden Shimon Peres to call early elections. She trails Benjamin Netanyahu in the polls and, if successful, his administration could prove disastrous for the peace process. Ehud Olmert announced in July that it was his intention not to stand in September's elections. Since the new polls caused by Livni's coalition failure are scheduled for February 2009, and an effective government may not be formed until even later, due to wrangling over coalitions, Israel will have been under a lame duck leadership for six months!

This power vacuum is complemented by the period of transition that America is currently going through. While this can be a useful time for a President-Elect to form a strong cabinet, ultimately it is an error in the US Constitution that was only partly cleaned up when the inauguration date was moved back from March to January after the disastrous interregnum between Presidents Hoover and F.D. Roosevelt. George W. Bush, and many in his administration, desperately want to create peace between the Palestinians and Israelis before January 20th, and thereby repair his already tattered legacy. With the great expectation surrounding Barrack Obama's Presidential election victory, it is probably more sensible to hope that the tentative ceasefire can be reasonably well maintained until his inuaguration. Condaleeza Rice et al can do little to affect the situation and we should trust that Bush exercises his power, now unbridled by party loyalty or election worries, sparingly. Little can be done until all sides have resolved their internal struggles and electoral processes.

The eternal debate continues. Should Bush bomb Iran before he leaves office? Will he do it? Of course not - But . . . ah well we'll see.

But one thing's for sure - there are plenty of people eager that he should do it.

Numerous questions remain concerning who will and will not stand in next the Iranian presidential elections in June 2009. The players seem reluctant to show their moves too early, in fear of losing face. However, it seems one key player is being given a possible way out. Ahmadinejad, who is facing increasingly hostile criticism for the way he has handled the Iranian economy and foreign policy, is thought to be suffering from ill health. As his supporters fall away, the once rarely challenged assumption that Ahmadinejad would win a second term as president is collapsing. The announcement about his ill-health comes as doubts are raised as to whether Ahmadinejad will even stand for re-election.

Iran is becoming a dangerous place for students and academics coming from abroad. Esha Momeni, an Iranian-American from Los Angeles, went to Iran to conduct research on women's rights in Iran. She was arrested on 15th October. It is thought she is being held in Evin prison near Tehran, which is where political activists are held. Last year Mrs. Haleh Esfandiari, a prominent Iranian-American academic working at the Wilson Woodrow Centre’s Middle East Programme, was also arrested. She too was taken to Evin prison. Not only is the Iranian government suspicious of foriegn academics, but also those based in Iran whose arrests receive less publicity. Kian Tajbakhsh, a prominent social scientist, and Dr. Mahmoud Sariolghalam were both arrested in 2007 without formal charges.

Peace in Darfur is still far from being achieved; an upsurge in fighting having recently displaced thousands of civilians. Yet another conflict is brewing, this time in the region of South Kordofan. The situation in the state is volatile, with tensions between the different ethnic groups rising. It is critical that the situation is diffused before elections in 2009. Otherwise circumstances could spiral violently out of control.

The Israel Defence Force have recently started to employ a new weapon called "skunk". This involves the firing of a putrid liquid from a water cannon and is principally used as a crowd control device. While the horrible smell lingers for up to three days and is somewhat indiscriminate in its targets, this organic substance must be a better option than rubber bullets and tear gas.

To sniff out the source of this, please click here.

I hope that others may be able to contribute superior punch lines than mine.

So Laragani is in Bahrain trying to sooth the fears of Iran's little brother. Curious though if Bahrian is the first place in the firing line for collateral damage should the USA go to war with Iran.

23 October, 2008: Visiting Iranian Majlis (parliament) Speaker Ali Larijani said here Wednesday Iran was ready to provide adequate security and economic guarantees to Gulf countries.Tehran seeks to forge bonds of rapprochement and understanding with other countries, particularly Gulf ones, Larijani told a news conference at the wrapping-up of his current visit to Bahrain.