israel

Israeli media revealed ... that one of the first acts of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister elected in 2006, was to send a message to the Bush White House offering a long-term truce in return for an end to Israeli occupation. His offer was not even acknowledged.

Instead, according to the daily Jerusalem Post, Israeli policymakers have sought to reinforce the impression that “it would be pointless for Israel to topple Hamas because the population [of Gaza] is Hamas”. On this thinking, collective punishment is warranted because there are no true civilians in Gaza.

TOTAL DEATHS SINCE SEPT 2000:

Israeli children: 123
Palestinian children: 1050

TOTALS FOR 2000:

Israeli children: 0
Palestinian children: 91

Interview with Meir Dagan, former chief of the Mossad

Lesley Stahl: You have said publicly that bombing Iran now is the stupidest idea you’ve ever heard. That’s a direct quote.

Dagan: An attack on Iran before you are exploring all other approaches is not the right way how to do it... The regime in Iran is a very rational regime.

Stahl: Do you think Ahmadinejad is rational?

Dagan: The answer is yes. Not exactly our rationale, but I think that he is rational.

Stahl: Do you think they’re rational enough that they are capable of backing down from this?

Dagan: No doubt that the Iranian regime is maybe not exactly rational based on what I call Western-thinking, but no doubt they are considering all the implications of their actions.

Dagan says the best solution is to push the mullahs out by supporting Iranian students and minorities. According to a leaked State Department cable, he told his American counterparts as early as 2007, more should be done to foment regime change.

Dagan: It’s our duty to help anyone who likes to present an open opposition against their regime in Iran.

Stahl: Has Israel done anything to encourage, help, support the youth opposition groups that have been marching against the regime?

Dagan: Let’s ignore the question.

Dagan: We are going to ignite, at least from my point of view, a regional war. And wars, you know how they start. You never know how you are ending it.

2007, in a closed discussion: Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that in her opinion "Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel." She "also criticized the exaggerated use that [Israeli] Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, claiming that he is attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears.1"

2009: "A senior Israeli official in Washington" asserted that "Iran would be unlikely to use its missiles in an attack [against Israel] because of the certainty of retaliation.2"

In 2010 the Sunday Times of London (January 10) reported that Brigadier-General Uzi Eilam, war hero, pillar of the Israeli defense establishment, and former director-general of Israel's Atomic Energy Commission, "believes it will probably take Iran seven years to make nuclear weapons."

Early last month, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told a television audience: "Are they [Iran] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No, but we know that they're trying to develop a nuclear capability.3"

A week later we could read in the New York Times (January 15) that "three leading Israeli security experts — the Mossad chief, Tamir Pardo, a former Mossad chief, Efraim Halevy, and a former military chief of staff, Dan Halutz — all recently declared that a nuclear Iran would not pose an existential threat to Israel."

Then, a few days afterward, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in an interview with Israeli Army Radio (January 18), had this exchange:

Question: Is it Israel's judgment that Iran has not yet decided to turn its nuclear potential into weapons of mass destruction?

• 1. Haaretz.com (Israel), October 25, 2007; print edition October 26
• 2. Washington Post, March 5, 2009
• 3. "Face the Nation", CBS, January 8, 2012

In December 2009, the U.N. General Assembly passed 18 resolutions on “The Question of Palestine” which, among other things: reaffirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people over their natural resources, including land and water; reaffirmed the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and their independent State of Palestine; reaffirmed that the Fourth Geneva Convention is applicable to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem; and reaffirmed that Israel’s settlements in Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and an obstacle to peace and economic and social development. The United States under President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Ambassador Rice, voted against each of these resolutions. Overall, Obama, Clinton, and Rice, by voting with Israel, voted against 16 of 18 General Assembly resolutions in 2009, which were otherwise approved by an overwhelming majority of U.N. member states...

Likewise, in 2010, the General Assembly passed 16 resolutions concerning The Question of Palestine, including those reaffirming Palestinian sovereignty over their own natural resources, the right of Palestinian self-determination to an independent state, the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to Israel’s occupation, and the illegality of Israel’s settlements under the Fourth Geneva Convention. As in 2009, Obama, Clinton, and Rice voted against these resolutions, and overall voted against 14 of 16 General Assembly resolutions on Palestine in 2010, all of which passed with a huge majority of votes...

Thus, Rice and her bosses, Obama and Clinton, have supported not a single General Assembly resolution on The Question of Palestine, and voted with Israel on 30 of the 34 resolutions over the two-year period.

Number of Palestinian children killed as a result of Israeli military and settler presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories:

2000 94
2001 98
2002 192
2003 130
2004 162
2005 52
2006 124
2007 50
2008 112
2009 315
2010 8
TOTAL 1337