This May Not Be Israel's Good Middle-East Outing

January 7, 2009

Abu Jundal stands on a Gaza City street, unarmed and wearing civilian clothes. Only his black, multi-pocketed tabard and his beard give a hint of who he really is: a Hamas platoon commander having a day off in the middle of the war with Israel.

“We work in shifts, one day on, one day off, so we do not get exhausted,” he said, adding that his shifts run from 10pm until 5am every other night. His was one of three platoons operating in this sector of the northern Gaza Strip.

Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, has promised “all-out war” against the Islamist movement, but Abu Jundal, 29, said that Hamas had so far thrown only a fraction of its 15,000-strong guerrilla force into the fray. At the current rate of attrition, he said, it could carry on the battle for another three months.

“We are only working at 10 per cent of our capacity. There is always somebody backing us up, held in reserve. There are different lines of defence,” he said, looking strained from days of fighting. Despite serving on the shifting front lines, Hamas fighters still have to provide for their families in their time off, as Gaza runs out of basic supplies of food and fuel.

He said that his unit had not yet seen close-quarters combat, having used only rocket grenades, landmines and mortars to try to halt the onslaught, in which Israeli officials claim have killed 130 Hamas fighters. “The Israelis are not coming on foot, they are mostly in tanks and using helicopters and drones,” he said.

To combat the superiority of Israel's US-funded war machine, Hamas has prepared a number of what the platoon leader called “surprises”. He refused to elaborate, but said that the key priority for him and his comrades was to kidnap Israeli soldiers in an attempt to use them as bargaining chips. Hamas already holds one Israeli corporal seized in a tunnel raid under the border in 2006.

“Our main aim is to capture as many Israeli soldiers as we can,” he said. “We'll do whatever we can to achieve this and to destroy the myth of the invincible Israeli army.”

Israeli security sources have described finding elaborate tunnel complexes running from houses and mosques, allowing Hamas to outflank Israeli forces, emerge with anti-tank rockets and to try to snatch soldiers who have strayed too far from their units.

Israeli media reported a capture attempt on the first day of the ground offensive, when a soldier from the Golani Brigade climbed into a tunnel that his unit had found underneath a house.
He ran into waiting Hamas fighters and fought a gunfight in which he was wounded as the guerrillas tried to capture him. The Israeli managed to flee back to his comrades, who blew up the tunnel.


“Until now, we have not faced any enemy worthy of our respect. Any army that concentrates on killing civilians does not deserve our respect,” said Abu Jundal, whose comrades have been firing crude but occasionally deadly rockets at Israeli towns for years. “They will pay a high price for their crimes,” he said, adding that morale was high among his men.


The overall commander of Hamas's armed wing said yesterday that close combat had occurred in some sectors of the front, which now snakes around the outskirts of Gaza City and down to Khan Younis, a large city in the south.


Abu Obeida, head of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said that his fighters had ambushed a unit of undercover Israeli soldiers trying to infiltrate deep into the strip, hitting them with mortar shells and a buried landmine weighing 100lb.


He said that another Israeli unit had entered a house with Hamas fighters inside, one of whom had blown himself up with a suicide bomb.


“We have hundreds of suicide bombers waiting for the Israelis, whose options are limited to either be killed, wounded or captured,” he said in a telephone interview with al-Jazeera, the Arabic television news channel.

Source: Times Online

Posted by Dr A.H. Awang Mois

Only Turkey's Erdogan Dares to Rap Israel For Its Gazan Holocaust?

Erdogan Raps Israel's Gaza Savagery

IslamOnline.net & News Agencies

There is an atrocity in our region, and we cannot support those who are responsible for it," said Erdogan. (Reuters)

ANKARA — With more bloodshed spelt in the devastated Gaza Strip, Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan rapped Israel on Tuesday, January 6, insisting its slaughter of armless civilians, including children, is unjustifiable.

"Any reason cannot justify the fact that 550 people were killed and more than two thousand others were injured in the strikes," Erdogan told the parliament, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"What reason can justify such savagery?"

More than 40 Palestinians were killed Tuesday in an Israeli strike on a UN-run school in the northern town of Jabaliya where civilians had taken shelter.

Earlier in the day, two people were killed when an artillery shell slammed into another UN-run school in the southern town of Khan Yunis and three in a raid on a school in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City.

One strike killed 13 -- including seven children -- from the same family in Gaza City.

The latest fatalities, which included 13 members of the same family, took the Palestinian death toll in 11 days of Israeli attacks to over 600.

"They should have been aware of the fact that lives of children, women and the elderly are so sacred," said Erdogan, who shuttled Arab countries to broker a truce conducive the end of Israeli onslaught.

"We are trying to do our utmost in search for a ceasefire in the region. There is an atrocity in our region, and we cannot support those who are responsible for it."

Israel has spurned all international calls, including an initiative by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, for an immediate ceasefire.

Millions of Turks have taken to the streets in recent days to condemn the Israeli onslaught.
A basketball game between a Turkish and an Israeli team was suspended on Tuesday after hundreds of Turkish fans began chanting "Israel, killers!"

Political War

Erdogan, whose country has good ties with Tel Aviv, accused Israeli leaders of waging an all-out war against the coastal enclave of 1.6 million people for political gains.

"I am telling Ehud Barak and (Tzipi) Livni to forget about the elections, because history will judge them for the black stain they are leaving on humanity," he said, refereeing for the Israeli defence and foreign ministers.

Many observers believe the Gaza offensive may make or break Barak’s political future, and that of his Labor Party.

Success probably wouldn’t be enough to propel Barak to the premiership but would strengthen his position within the ruling coalition and help restore Labor’s flagging political fortunes.

"It is unforgivable that the people who suffered profound pains in their history, could do such a thing," said Erdogan.

"In fact, they should have displayed more respect to human life than anyone else in the world."

The Turkish premier noted that hundreds of Jews have protested against the Israeli aggression.

"As a matter of fact, Jewish people living in different parts of the world also express their concerns about the developments."

On Tuesday, more than 100 Australian Jews, including a former environment minister, two novelists and a politician, denounced Israel's invasion of Gaza.

"We are Australian Jews who join thousands in Israel and around the world condemning ongoing Israeli military attacks on Gaza," they said in a joint statement.

"Together with Israeli peace group Gush Shalom, we condemn the current war as 'inhuman, superfluous' and 'abominable.'"

Source: IslamOnline.net & News Agencies

Posted by Dr. A.H. Awang Mois

Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said that Israeli government has started to look for a political solution to the war ?

An Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said that the Israeli government has started to look for a political solution to the war after the first moments of the ground military operation against Gaza?

Banyak persoalan yang ditimbulkan oleh laporan surat khabar yang disiarkan oleh Palestine Information Center di sebelah. Kenapakah negara haram Israeli yang telah dibina atas tanah Palestin oleh negera2 besar Perancis, Inggeris, Amerika dan Russia tiba-tiba ingin mencari penyelesaian politik kepada peperangan yang dicetuskan oleh Israeli bersama Tukang Kasut No 1 Amerika bernama Presiden Bush. Bukankah selama ini dunia yang dipimpin oleh Amerika dan Great Briatin bersama konco2 mereke seperti France dan Russia telah mengadakan beratus-ratus mesyuarat di merata tempat di dunia untuk mencari penyelesaian politik kepada perperangan yang berlarutan antara orang Arab dan pendatang haram Yahudi di bumi Palestin? Tetapi apa dah jadi kepada penyelesaian-penyelesaian politik atau penyelesaian-penyeselaian damai ini? Ke mana pergi formula perdamaian yang telah dihasilkan oleh Mesyuarat Camp David, Persidangan Oslo dan sebagainya? Berapa orang pemimpin negara Arabkah yang sudah meninggal dunia sama ada kena bunuh oleh orang-orang Arab sendiri atau kena racun oleh agen-agen Zionist seperti arwah Presiden Palestine Yasser Arafat dan pemimpin Israel sendiri pula yang telah bertukar ganti secara permainan ala magical chair yang ada daripada mereka yang sudah dan ada pula yang sedang mampus (Ariel Sharon) tetapi negara Israel terus belum dapat hidup damai dengan rakyat dan negara Palestin. Kalau Seniman Agong P.Ramlee yang memegang watak salah seorang Abdul dalam cerita hasil karyanya Tiga Abdul masih hidup, saya percaya beliau pasti akan bertanya kepada Abdul-Abdul yang lain, "Eh, Berapa Kali Mau Damai Da...Tapi Tak Damai-Damai Lagi?"

Satu pertanyaan yang juga ditimbulkan oleh kenyataan dalam surat khabar Yahudi ini ialah adakah Angkatan Tentera Penyerang Israel (IOF) kali ini masih fit atau sekuat pasukan tentera negara Israel pada zaman 1970an untuk menawan negara atau bumi Arab. Adakah mereka masih ada daya sustenance untuk meneruskan perang lebih daripada tempoh masa dua minggu atau dua bulan. Nampak macam pasukan Tentera Israel selepas peperangan Israel dengan Hezbollah di Lebanon tempoh hari sudah semakin kehilangan semangat (dan kita doakan mereka memang sudah kehilangan semangat atau demoralised). Perlu kita ingatkan bahawa tentera negara Israeli dan Israel sendiri pun wataknya hampir sama dengan Arab kerana orang Yahudi (bukan Zionists) dengan Arab ini sebenarnya sepupu - atuknya sama. Beza Israel dengan Arab Palestin ini Israel mempunyai penaung yang bernama Amerika dan Israel adalah anak angkat Amerika yang sangat manja sehingga kalau Israel terkena demam selsema dan hidungnya berhingus, Amerika sanggup tebang satu batang pokok di hutan Tropika yang jauh di khatulistiwa untuk dijadikan tisu paper bagi menyapu hinggus yang meleleh di hidung Israel ini! Dan falsafah ketenteraan Angkatan Bersenjata Isareli ini pun sama seperti falsafah peperangan Angkatan Tentera Amerika - mereka mahu perang tetapi tidak mahu mati. Eh mana ada perang dan tentera yang berperang itu tidak akan mati? Apa jenis perang seperti itu? Perang di Studio Filem Hollywood bolehlah. Perang sebenar lain. Dalam perang sebenar manusia mesti bersedia untuk mati. Di sinilah letaknya perbezaan antara nilai perperangan yang dianuti oleh tentera Islam di seluruh dunia tak kira namanya tentera HAMAS seperti Qassam Brigade, tentera Hizbollah, Mujahid Chechen dan Inguhsetia, Muslim Insurgents di Iraq atau tentera Islam yang selalu dipersenda-sendakan oleh Amerika dan konco-konconya di Afghanistan yang bernama Taleban. Tentera-tentera yang menjadi kesayangan majoriti umat Islam di seluruh dunia ini TIDAK TAKUT MATI. Malah mereka memang pergi berperang untuk mencari mati. Kerana mati dalam perang dengan musuh2 Islam menjanjikan SYURGA yang memang diingini oleh semua Mujahid Islam sejak bermulanya sejarah Islam yang diperjuangkan oleh Nabi Muhammad SAW.

Jadi kenapa Israel tiba-tiba mahu mencari political solution pada waktu dia menyerang HAMAS di Gaza pula? Ada beberapa kemungkinan saja: (i) Israel ingin berpura-pura menunjuk kepada dunia bahawa dia ni budak baik, walaupun dia anak luar nikah Amerika, nakal dia, samseng dia, memang samseng seorang budak baik, samseng seorang anak manja kesayangan bapanya yang bernama Amerika dan emaknya yang bernama Great Britain dan paman2nya bernama Perancis dan Russia. Dalam Bahasa Indonesia ini disebut sebagai "psikolohi murahan" atau "psikolohi anak jalangan"; (ii) Israel sedang berhadapan dengan pasukan tentera berani mati HAMAS yang bergelar Qassam Brigades yang memang berani mati, cukup terlatih, cukup bersedia dan cukup bersenjata untuk berperang secara guerilla. Pada bulan Julai 2008 sebuah laman web yang pro-jihad bernama Jihad Unspun telah melaporkan bahawa Qassam Brigades ini telah mengadakan pertemuan dan memohon bantuan ketenteraan dari satu Pertubuhan Jihad Islam yang cukup terkenal di seluruh dunia sehingga dibenci oleh Amerika dan konco2nya bernama Al-Qaeda. Mungkin selepas perjumpaan ini Qassam Brigades telah belajar teknik-teknik silat dan mempertahankan diri yang baru dan ganggeh dari Al-Qaeda atau pasukan-pasukan tentera Islam yang lain sehingga di round pertama serangan Israel ke atas HAMAS dan Gaza negara Israel sendiri yang merasa risau kerana meriam-meriam katak yang dilancarkan oleh tentera HAMAS ini capaiannya agak jauh dan Israeli takut pula missile yang dituju ke atas bumi Israel menggena Logi Nuklearnya sendiri. Inilah dasar perang Hollywood bila berperang bangunan yang dibom pun mahu dikekalkan bersih dan tidak rosak. Israel harus ingat bahawa kalau dia serang negara orang sehingga hancur lebur dan badan-badan orang Arab dan Islam sampai berkecai-berai orang2 Arab dan Islam juga akan serang dan bom negaranya sampai hancur lebur dan kecai bederai. Ini hukum perang! (iii) Israeli ingin melihat pandangan atau reaksi dunia sama ada dakyahnya yang menganggap dirinya teraniaya oleh lautan negara Arab menyebelahi anak Samseng bikinan Amerika dan Great Britain atau menyebelahi HAMAS; (iv) menawarkan satu hidangan atau "menu" lama untuk seorang presiden Amerika yang baru bernama Barak Obama. Seperti presiden-presiden Amerika yang lain USAH mengharap banyak dari presiden Amerika yang seorang ini, kerana banyak laporan di laman web di Amerika yang melaporkan Obama ini pun terikat dengan kumpulan rahsia dan pelobi Yahudi dan yang lebih kita takuti Zionist Amerika. Maka itulah Obama telah digelar oleh salah seorang strategist dan perancang Al-Qaeda sebagai "House Slave". Mungkin juga Israel pada kali ini tidak seyakin Israel pada zaman pemerintahan Ariel Sharon kerana Israel tahu bahawa negara Amerika yang mendakwa dirinya "Kuasa Terbesar Dunia" pun sudah terbukti tidak sekuat mana; di Iraq pun kereta-kereta kebal Amerika didapati sudah tidak kebal lagi. Malah banyak kereta perang yang baru berupa Humvee-nya sudah dijadikan seperti Tin Milo murahan atau besi buruk yang tidak laku di padang pasir Iraq akibat diletupkan oleh kumpulan Mujahid Iraq yang cukup mahir dalam bidang letupan. Di Afghanistan pula Amerika terkial-kial dan menjerit-jerit minta tolong konco-konco dan boneka-bonekanya untuk melawan tentera kesayangan umat Islam bernama Taleban yang berjuang dengan motosikal scrambler dan Toyota pacuan 4Roda. Dan satu satu demi satu konco-konco dan boneka-boneka Amerika meninggal Amerika untuk melawan pasukan Taleban yang serba-serbi kekurangan kelengakapan dan makanan. Itu pun tentera Amerika tidak terlawan! Namun begitu Si Tukang Kasut No 1 Bush dan yang sedihnya penasihat beliau dari Gerakan Neo-Conservatives di Amerika masih lagi ingin meneruskan perjuangan mereka untuk menghapuskan Islam dan masyarakat Islam.

Walau apapun kemungkinan yang ada dalam otak dan perut busuk Israeli kita boleh meminjam sekali lagi pertanyaan yang pernah ditimbulkan oleh arwah P.Ramlee dalam filem Tiga Abdul , "Eh berapa kali mau damai da?". Doa kita yang sesuai dengan Tahun Baru Hijri inilah ialah kemenangan untuk pihak tentera Islam HAMAS, seperti Qassam Brigades dan sekutu2 mereka di tanah suci Palestin. Amin.

Tulisan oleh

Dr. A.H. Awang Mois,

Bangi

6 Januari 2009

Israel says it has learned a valuable lesson in Lebanon; so let Almighty Allah Teaches Them More in Gaza!

News Analysis
Is the Real Target Hamas Rule?
By ETHAN BRONNER
Published: January 3, 2009

Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers waited Saturday at the Gaza border for a ground assault. It is not clear who would lead Gaza if Israel were to push Hamas from power.


EREZ CROSSING, on the Israel-Gaza border — As Israel’s tanks and troops poured into Gaza on Saturday, the next phase in its fierce attempt to end rocket attacks, a question hung over the operation: can the rockets really be stopped for any length of time while Hamas remains in power in Gaza?


Israeli soldiers took position on Saturday before entering Gaza at its northern border. It is not clear whether Israel hopes to overthrow Hamas, or who would lead Gaza if Hamas were ousted.
And if the answer is determined to be no, then is the real aim of the operation to remove Hamas entirely, no matter the cost?

After her visit to Paris on Thursday to explain to French authorities why she thought this was not the time for a quick cease-fire, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of Israel said, “There is no doubt that as long as Hamas controls Gaza, it is a problem for Israel, a problem for the Palestinians and a problem for the entire region.”

Vice Premier Haim Ramon went even further Friday night in an interview on Israeli television, saying Israel must not end this operation with Hamas in charge of Gaza.

“What I think we need to do is to reach a situation in which we do not allow Hamas to govern,” Mr. Ramon said on Channel One. “That is the most important thing.”

Neither Prime Minister Ehud Olmert nor Defense Minister Ehud Barak has made such a statement. Still, there is a growing and shared concern among Israeli leaders that any letup against Hamas would be problematic for Israel’s broad goals in the long term because it could bolster and validate the group, which says Israel should be destroyed.

“If the war ends in a draw, as expected, and Israel refrains from re-occupying Gaza, Hamas will gain diplomatic recognition,” wrote Aluf Benn, a political analyst, in the newspaper Haaretz on Friday. “No matter what you call it,” he added, “Hamas will obtain legitimacy.”

In addition, any potential truce deal would probably include an increase in commercial traffic from Israel and Egypt into Gaza, which is Hamas’s central demand: to end the economic boycott and border closing it has been facing. To build up the Gaza economy under Hamas, Israeli leaders say, would be to build up Hamas. Yet withholding the commerce would continue to leave 1.5 million Gazans living in despair.

Implicit in Mr. Benn’s argument, however, is that the only way to stop Hamas from gaining legitimacy is for Israel to fully occupy Gaza again, more than three years after removing its soldiers and settlers. That is a prospect practically no one in Israel or abroad is advocating.
Moreover, while it may sound decisive to speak of taking Hamas out of power, almost no one familiar with Gaza and Palestinian politics considers it realistic. Hamas legislators won a democratic majority in elections four years ago, and the group has 15,000 to 20,000 men under arms. It has consolidated its rule in the past 18 months since pushing out its rivals loyal to the more Western-oriented and moderate Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas, who sits in Ramallah in the West Bank.

And while there are plenty of Gazans who would prefer Fatah, they seem hardly organized or strong enough to become the new rulers, even with the help of former colleagues in exile in Ramallah who say, anyway, that they would never be willing to ride into Gaza on the back of an Israeli tank. In fact, the longer Israel pounds Gaza, the weaker Fatah is likely to become because it will be seen as collaborating.

The likelier result of a destruction of the Hamas infrastructure, then, would be chaos, anathema not only to the people of Gaza but also to those hoping for peace in southern Israel.

Yet in its campaign so far, which has killed scores of children and other bystanders, Israel has not spared the trappings of Hamas sovereignty or limited itself to military targets. It says that the mosques it has destroyed were weapons storehouses and that the Islamic University, which it has hit repeatedly, housed explosives factories. But it has also reduced many government buildings to rubble without any claim that they were military in nature.

“The government buildings are a place where financial, logistical and human resources serve to support terror,” said Capt. Benjamin Rutland, a spokesman for the Israeli military. “Much of the government is involved in the active support and planning of terror.”

Taken together, it suggests that even if Israel intends to hold back from completely overthrowing Hamas, its choice of assault tactics could head that way anyway. And the Israelis may already be facing a kind of mission creep: after all, if enough of Hamas’s infrastructure is destroyed, the prospect of governing Gaza, a densely populated, refugee-filled area whose weak economy has been devastated by the Israeli-led boycott, will be exceedingly difficult.

In the background, too, is broad international criticism of this war on Gaza, not only because of the unspeakable suffering seen on television screens but also because of a feeling that Israel has tried such tactics in the past and never succeeded.

In particular, many point to the 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel also tried to destroy rocket launchers and a hostile organization’s infrastructure, only to end up killing many civilians and leaving Hezbollah more popular and perhaps ultimately stronger than before the war.

But military planners here say that the parallel is inexact and that they, too, have learned a lesson. Gaza is smaller and flatter than southern Lebanon and, most important, does not have a sievelike border with a country like Syria where arms can be constantly resupplied. Destroying the smuggler tunnels from the Egyptian Sinai into Gaza and systematically eliminating weapons depots and launcher sites, along with their supporting infrastructures, will ultimately succeed, they contend.

It may take weeks or months, they assert, but it can work. If true, questions still remain: At what human cost? And who will be in charge when it is all over?

Source: New York Times

Mahmoud Abbas: American-Israeli Palestinian Lackey

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas feels quite depressed these days, having been unceremoniously told by President Bush that the US administration won’t pressure Israel to halt Jewish settlement expansion nor commit itself to a total Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967.

Some of Abbas’s aides have described his recent visit to Washington as the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” Abbas himself described the visit as “a clear failure.”

One Palestinian commentator from Ramallah labeled the visit “ a gigantic and monumental fiasco,” arguing that it amounted to a virtual breakdown of Abbas’s entire strategy of counting on the Bush administration to create a viable and contiguous Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

According to sources in Amman, Abbas informed Bush that he wouldn’t run for a second term as Chairman of the PA.


One source quoted an aide to Abbas as saying that the chairman concluded his meeting with Bush by telling him “you can look for another donkey to preside over the Palestinian Authority.”

The PA chairman reportedly asked Bush to declare his support for the creation of a Palestinian state on the entirety of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem and also to pressure Israel to put an end to Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied territories, especially East Jerusalem.

Abbas, according to aides, was stunned when Bush told him that he couldn’t meet Palestinian demands since that would violate the letter of guarantees he gave former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on 14 April, 2004. Bush further argued that any departure from the infamous letter would lead to the downfall of the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government.

“President Abbas felt as if he was talking to the wall,” one Palestinian official was quoted as saying. “Both Bush and (US Secretary of State Condoleezza) Rice refused to discuss details related to the current peace talks with Israel. We are very depressed.”


Rice arrived in Israel-Palestine Saturday evening, 3 May, apparently to save “the peace process” from an imminent danger of collapse.

Rice told the Israeli media that the purpose of her visit was to press Defense Minister Ehud Barak to remove some of the roadblocks the Israeli occupation army maintains throughout the West Bank in order to punish, torment and control the estimated 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank.


The US has asked Israel for the umpteenth time to remove the roadblocks in order to ease up Palestinian daily life and boost Abbas’s popularity in the eyes of his people.

For its part, Israel made numerous promises to remove the barriers, but to no avail. Last month the Israeli government said it was removing some of the key roadblocks in the West Bank in order to facilitate the flow of goods and services throughout the West Bank.

However, Palestinians, peace activists and human rights organizations operating in the occupied territories have accused the Israeli army of practicing deception and of creating fictitious barriers in the morning and removing them in the evening in order to give Washington a false impression that Israel was honoring the pledges it had made to Rice.


This protracted, lingering procrastination, along with the absence of any substantive progress in Israeli-Palestinian talks, especially over the so-called core issues, such as Jerusalem, the refugees and the settlements, is obviously exasperating the Palestinian leadership, desperate and eager to “clutch an achievement” which it would use to convince the increasingly desperate and skeptical Palestinian masses that Abbas’s way, not Hamas’s, was the right and only way to wrest Palestinian rights from Israel’s parsimonious hands.


Now, however, the manifestly deleterious effect of Abbas’s policy of over-trusting and over-relying on the Bush Administration, are becoming obvious.


Abbas is now realizing, belatedly if not too late, that Bush has never been truly serious about pushing for a dignified and even-handed resolution of the Palestinian plight.

I am saying “belatedly or too late” because Abbas nearly wrecked his relations with his own people, especially since the Gaza events of last year, all for the purpose of appeasing Bush and Rice and receiving from them a certificate of good conduct.


He thought, out of naivety, ignorance, and weakness of character, that the neocons in Washington would award him for his subservience and obsequiousness by pressuring Israel to end the occupation and halt unrelenting theft of Palestinian land.


However, Abbas’s most scandalous blunder has been his uneducated conviction that the big liar of Washington, the man who invaded, occupied and destroyed two sovereign Muslim countries based on lies, would behave honestly and straightly with the Palestinians.


Now it would be very hard for Abbas to salvage his legacy by trying to undo or at least rectify some of the blunders he and his regime committed against the Palestinian masses and their enduring just cause, all in order to please Washington.


As Chairman of the PA, Abbas and his hangers-on abducted, detained, tortured and even killed political opponents in order to demonstrate Palestinian commitment to peace to the malicious duo of the US and Israel. This happened at a time when Israel continued to murder Palestinians in droves and grab more Palestinian land for Jewish settlement expansion.


Abbas also readily accepted, even welcomed, naked American interference in Palestinian internal affairs to the point of allowing Washington to conspire in coordination with certain Palestinian security officials to corrode and overthrow the democratically elected government led by the Hamas movement.


More to the point, Abbas went as far as tacitly collaborating with Israel and the US in maintaining the Nazi-like blockade of 1.5 million Gazans, all in order to weaken Hamas.
I don’t really know if Abbas has the moral courage and intellectual honesty to say to Washington “enough is enough.”


If he does, he should do it now, because tomorrow might be too late.

Source: The Palestinian Information Centre

From Gaza: Al-Qassam fighters inflicted heavy casualties in the ranks of IOF troops

GAZA, (PIC)-- Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said that its fighters inflicted heavy casualties on the invading IOF troops in the east and north of the Gaza Strip, affirming that it managed to kill more than five Israeli soldiers and wound about 30 others.

According to reports published by the Israeli media, which are subject to military censorship on the publication of any information about the number of soldiers killed or wounded, the Israeli soldiers who were injured were from the infantry, artillery, armored brigades and the engineering corps.

In a communiqué received by the PIC, the Qassam Brigades stated that its fighters detonated anti-personnel explosive devices in an Israeli special force near the Beit Hanoun crossing and an Israeli tank.

The communiqué added that the Qassam fighters also managed to detonate other explosive devices in different special units in Al-Zeitoun suburb, east of Gaza city, and in the Atatra area, northwest of Beit Lahiya.

According to the communiqué, the Qassam fighters were able to penetrate the radio waves of the IOF troops and heard Israeli soldiers as they were screaming in pain and talking about the death of five soldiers in their ranks.

A Palestinian field commander affiliated with the Qassam Brigades revealed that the armed wing of Hamas uses in the confrontations with the IOF troops new methods and tactics which cannot be penetrated or discovered by the invading Israeli forces.

The field commander pointed out that Qassam rocket firing units operate cautiously and skillfully and no one is able to know the places from which rockets are fired.

"We continue our mission normally and we are not affected by these raids because we have taken all precautions for such an operation and a larger one as well. We have the ability to operate in this way for a long time," the commander underscored.

In the same context, Palestinian eyewitnesses have reported that ferocious confrontations were raging between Qassam fighters and the invading IOF troops who advanced from the eastern side of Zeitoun district, east of Gaza city.

According to the eyewitnesses, the IOF troops failed to advance several meters because of the intensity of the confrontations they faced in the area despite the heavy aerial reconnaissance.

The Palestinian resistance managed to fire a homemade rockets at dawn Sunday on the Israeli Eshkol settlement built inside the 1948 occupied lands despite the intensive Israeli overflights and the ground military operation against Gaza.

The resistance also fired Saturday evening other homemade rockets on the Sha'er Hanegev settlement in the western Negev.

According to the Israeli media, a Palestinian rocket landed on a crowd of Israeli soldiers in the Sderot settlement and six others fell on the Eshkol settlement on the same day.

In a communiqué received by the PIC, the Qassam Brigades announced that it fired 41 rockets and mortar shells on different Israeli settlements and posts on Saturday, the eighth day of the aggression on Gaza.

Hamas leader Mushir Al-Masri stated that the Palestinian resistance spearheaded by the Qassam Brigades pursues special tactics and move steadily in their confrontations with the invading IOF troops.

Source: The Palestinian Information Centre