Scott Lucas on BBC Radio Wales: The Obama Inauguration

Had a chance yesterday to chat about Tuesday's events in Washington. Afraid I played the Grumpy Old Man role (my father would be proud). I expressed optimism about the images on the day, given that Barack Obama is "one of the best speakers I have ever heard", but also concern tht the new President faces immediate challenges of substance with the economy and the situations in Gaza and Afghanistan.

You can have a listen here: the item is just after the 11-minute mark in the BBC iPlayer.

The Israeli Invasion of Gaza: Rolling Updates (18 January)

Earlier updates: The Israeli Invasion of Gaza (17 January)
Latest Post: Hello? Gaza is Not Tehran

1 a.m. Last night we closed with: "At the very least, I’m grateful that there has been a cessation of violence in Gaza. My concern is that we’re at the start of a different phase which will not bring resolution but further hardship."

More of the same tonight. Today has been for mourning rather than dying --- only one death from violence to my knowledge, while close to 100 bodies have been pulled from the rubble. There appears to be a very gradual Israeli pullback from the edges of the cities as they re-trench in their military occupation.

The politics today was posturing, as a lot of leaders tried to figure out how to respond to Israel's unilateral "cease-fire". The Europeans appear to be paralysed, as they await a President Obama, while Egypt's Hosni Mubarak is scrambling to save his personal position. The Saudis have gone into hiding.

That means that the diplomatic baton --- perhaps unexpectedly, if you scripted this a month ago --- passes to Syria and other countries pursuing a stronger line in favour of Hamas. They will be at the Arab countries' economic summit in Kuwait tomorrow, and it will be interesting to see how forthright they take their position to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The main question remains: how long will Israel hold out with its re-occupation in the hope that Hamas will crumble?

Good night and peace to all.



12:30 a.m. United Nations official Chris Gunness has told Al Jazeera that 53 UN installations have been destroyed or damaged in the Gaza conflict.

12 midnight: The "other" emerging regional bloc in this conflict, with Syria as the Arab country in the lead and including Turkey and Iran, took a back seat to the Sharm el-Sheikh summit today. Tomorrow, however, all Arab states are at an economic summit in Kuwait, and you can expect manoeuvring to take the lead in the discussions over Gaza. So this comment from Syrian leader Bashir al-Assad, made on Friday at the Qatar mini-summit, might be noteworthy:

We will take care to remind our children of the Gaza slaughter. We will save the pictures of the children of Gaza with their wounds and blood, and we will teach our children that the strong believer is better than the weak. We will teach them: “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and he who started it is the more unjust. What is taken by force will not be returned but by force.

11:25 p.m. And now Political Quick Move of the Day: apparently Bono, while performing at the Inaugural Concert for President-elect Barack Obama, just shouted out for "a Palestinian dream". As an observer noted, "Oy, the Israelis are not going to like that." (Obama, having promised not to issue any meaningful statements on Gaza until Tuesday, will react in 36 hours.)

11 p.m. Dropping objectivity for a moment to offer the Horrific Propaganda Story of the Day:

The Israeli Consulate has Twittered proudly that "Israel Opens Field Clinic at Gaza Border to Treat Palestinian Wounded": "One Palestinian woman was already being treated in the clinic eight-bed clinic that includes a pharmacy, an X-ray machine and five consultation rooms."

Hmm, this feels like offering a fella a Band-Aid after you've beaten him to a pulp. I guess it would be churlish of me to note that it would take 650 of these clinics for all the wounded from the conflict. And even more churlish to note that a lot of wounded died in the last three weeks because of appalling conditions in hospitals and Israel's bombing and shelling of medical services.

8:45 p.m. The video report of the demolition of houses and killing of at least 14 in Khuza'a is now posted on YouTube.

8 p.m. Israel military sources say to Al Jazeera and Reuters, "I can confirm that a gradual withdrawal of our forces is under way," but it is unclear how many troops are involved and how far they are pulling back. Eyewitnesses are reporting some Israeli units are moving back from edge of Gaza City, and Israeli television is showing images of tanks re-crossing border from Gaza.

Israeli military says 19 rockets fired into Israel today.

7:30 p.m. Speaking of Rafah Kid, he has video on his website of the mass killing at Khuza'a, which an article today in The Observer exposed today as a possible Israeli war crime.

7:25 p.m. Rafah Kid offers a pertinent twist on the formula, put forth at today's Sharm el-Sheikh summit, of a "secure Israel and a viable Palestine":

Ha! Imagine if written like this --- "viable Israel and a secure Palestine". Because that's the paradox that is the cause of this mess.

7:20 p.m. More than 90 bodies found today in rubble in Gaza.

4:30 p.m. Further from the Sharm al-Sheikh summit: not much of significance. Notable that King Abdullah of Jordan talked about need for Europe and US to revive the peace process but did not refer to an Arab country apart from Egypt. And United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon made a speech that was so relevant that British and Spanish Prime Ministers Brown and Zapatero could be seen laughing and chatting about other matters.

4:25 p.m. Al Jazeera's Mouin Rabbani: "This war, perhaps more than any other event in the last decade or so, has transformed peace into a dirty word and has transformed negotiations into an even dirtier word. And resistance, which had been very much a dirty word in the last 15 words, is now the word and the concept which is increasingly on the lips of the people in this region."

4:20 p.m. Al Jazeera's Mouin Rabbani has just roasted Mubarak, Sarkozy, and Brown: "I'm speechless that in 2009, you can have a major international gathering to discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict and have a whole series of keynote speeches in which the word 'occupation' is not mentions even once."

4:13 p.m. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who oftens play the aid card at international conferences, starts with a pledge to treble Britain's humanitarian aid to Gaza. That step, however, rests on Israeli goodwill towards aid distribution in Gaza, and Brown can only blather --- after a name-check to "President Obama" --- Europe must ensure political settlement to ensure "secure Israel and a viable Palestine".

4:10 p.m. French President Nicolas Sarkozy follows Mubarak. He initially emphasises the deal with Israel to stop arms shipments to Gaza but then delivers a stinger to Tel Aviv: "Israel should state immediately and clearly that, when rocket fire stops, the Israeli army will leave Gaza. There is no other solution for peace."

It looks like Israel may have unilaterally put itself into isolation over political and military issues in Gaza.

4 p.m This could be fun: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak just opened the Sharm el-Sheikh conference and, after the platitudes, told Israel to "get stuffed" on any ideas of an international force monitoring the Egypt-Gaza border from the Egyptian side: "Egypt will never accept a foreign force." Mubarak also invoked an "independent Palestianian state" without using the US and Israeli formula of the Palestinian Authority as the "legitimate Palestinian Government".

3:40 p.m. Another rocket reported to have hit Ashdod about 30 minutes ago.

3:20 p.m. A bit disturbing: Barack Obama either hasn't caught up with the plot or he is so cautious that he risks putting himself in a difficult position when he takes office on Tuesday: his spokesman says Obama "welcomes Israel's ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and is committed to helping Israelis and Palestinians work toward peace".

Unlike the Bush Administration and Condoleezza Rice's statement, which focused on the Cairo talks today and looked beyond Tel Aviv to put hope in a "true" internationally-arranged cease-fire, Obama is on the verge --- unintentionally or deliberately --- of tying himself to Israel.

3:07 p.m. Clarification on the Zeitoun atrocity: the number of "95 bodies" appears to have been a misstatement in the confusion as recovery efforts were disrupted by the advance of Israeli tanks. More than 100 people were in the al-Samouni compound; in addition to the more than 30 confirmed killed last week, at least 15 bodies have been recovered today and more are in the rubble.

3:05 p.m. Al Jazeera's Ayman Moyheldin: "It's going to take years to rebuild what has been destroyed in these 22 days."

2:45 p.m. An intriguing statement from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice which, despite Reuters' headline "US Welcomes Gaza Ceasefire", is far from a ringing endorsement.

Of course Rice did not criticise Tel Aviv, but she clearly looked beyond it when she said, "The goal remains a durable and fully respected ceasefire that will lead to stabilisation and normalisation in Gaza." In particular, Rice tried to boost the manoeuvres in Cairo today: "The United States commends Egypt for its efforts and remains deeply concerned by the suffering of innocent Palestinians. We welcome calls for immediate coordinated international action to increase assistance flows and will contribute to such efforts."

I suspect the US, like Egypt, has been a bit wrong-footed by Israel's unilateral move, and Washington is now trying to recover an international strategy towards Gaza and Hamas.

2:35 p.m. Al Jazeera's Ayman Moyheldin: "The destruction we are seeing is unimaginable." He says, "Streets have been bulldozed for kilometres", and building reduced to rubble.

2:30 p.m. An important move by Hamas: Ayman Taha has told Reuters that the Gazan organisation is ceasing fire for one week, giving Israel a chance to pull out of the territory.

2 p.m. The scale of the Zeitoun atrocity, which we noted last week, is becoming clear: medics report up to 95 bodies in the al-Samouni compound. Israeli tanks are in area, so ambulances, medical personnel, Al Jazeera's crew, and bystanders are fleeing.

1:50 p.m. Israeli military spokeswoman Amital Leibovich lays down Tel Aviv's line: "If Hamas chooses to still launch rockets, we'll answer back and we'll answer back harshly."

1:10 p.m. Israeli Government spokesman Mark Regev: "We can't talk about a timetable for withdrawal until we know the ceasefire is holding."

12:25 p.m. The first death of the "cease-fire": Gazan civilian killed by Israeli fire near Khan Younis.

11:35 a.m. The challenge to the Israeli strategy: The Observer of London offers this evaluation of Hamas, based on interviews with Gazans: "The organisation's prestige appears to have survived intact, and even emerged enhanced."

11 a.m. And The Observer of London is also preferring to look at issues beyond the "unilateral cease-fire":

Israel stands accused of perpetrating a series of war crimes during a sustained 12-hour assault on a village in southern Gaza last week in which 14 people died. In testimony collected from residents of the village of Khuza'a by the Observer, it is claimed that Israeli soldiers entering the village attempted to bulldoze houses with civilians inside; killed civilians trying to escape under the protection of white flags; opened fire on an ambulance attempting to reach the wounded; used indiscriminate force in a civilian area and fired white phosphorus shells.

10:50 a.m. The Independent of London is way off-script this morning, noting the cease-fire but leading with the headline: "'Tungsten bombs' leave Israel's victims with mystery wounds." Physicians, including the Norwegian doctor Erik Fosse who helped expose the scale of civilian casualties, detail the injuries suffered from dense inert metal explosive (DIME) weapons.

10:30 a.m. Al Jazeera's Ayman Moyheldin: 25 bodies found as Gazans dig through rubble.

10:16 a.m. Tel Aviv, attempting both to gloss its claimed victory and to turn the game back towards Iran, puts out the Hamas=Tehran line: "Israeli leaders say the pounding of Hamas dealt a blow to Iran, which Israel accuses of backing the Palestinian group, and to Hezbollah, the Shiite militia in Lebanon that fought Israel to a stalemate in 2006."

10:15 a.m. Israeli Army announces that it has launched airstrikes against sites for this morning's rocket launches.

9:50 a.m. While we think the Israeli strategy sought "regime change" in Gaza, there is another explanation: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert --- and this has been "Olmert's War" --- wanted a military victory to erase his failure in 2006 against Hezbollah. Aluf Benn in Ha'aretz sets this out, but adds, "Hamas' gains cannot be ignored: It has won international legitimacy and sympathy, and its forces still control the Gaza Strip."

9:35 a.m. Our colleague Rami Khouri to Al Jazeera: "There is no chance of any unilateral move by Israel having any success. It has to be a negotiated agreement that responds to the basic legitimate needs of both sides."

9:25 a.m. At least four rockets fired towards Sderot in southern Israel this hour. Machine-gun fire in Gaza on the ground, with constant overflights by Israeli planes.

9:20 a.m. Hamas advisor Ahmed Youssef: Israel still occupying and threatening Gaza so "we have to do something. This is not a treaty. This is not a peaceful initiative. This is nothing." If Israel withdrew, "of course" Hamas would halt operations.

Morning update (9:15 a.m. Israel/Gaza time): So Gaza awoke this morning to the "cease-fire" that isn't a cease-fire. Israel, unable to finish off Hamas militarily with a battle in the cities, now moves into a "Phase 4": Tel Aviv hopes either to finish off its Gazan enemy through further political and economic constriction or, if Hamas offers a suitable pretext through rocket fire or attacks on Israeli troops, re-starting more bombing and even more intensive ground operations.



The Israeli manoeuvre both tries to deflect growing international pressure against its Gazan strategy and to put the ball in Hamas' court. Does the Gazan leadership offer a clear sign that "resistance continues" through rocket attacks, inviting Tel Aviv to resume its military campaign, or does it sit back, hoping to win the political and diplomatic battle? The possible answer is an attempted balance between a limited number of rocket launches and a visible political campaign to free Gaza from its misery and re-occupation, but this may be difficult to achieve with the leadership so dispersed and, in some cases, operating out of hiding.

Ironically, the Israeli unilateral "cease-fire" may bring regional countries to the forefront of this crisis. Hamas needs support to withstand Tel Aviv's latest moves, and this could come from the emerging bloc led by Syria, Turkey, and Iran and supported by some Gulf countries.

Meanwhile, Egypt will try to fashion an alternative multi-national response today when it hosts leaders from the Palestinian Authority, European countries, and the United Nations, and representatives from the European Commission, Russia, and the US. (The sharp-eyed will notice that Jordan is the only other Arab country present. Saudi Arabia is staying away.) Those attending walk another tightrope: how closely do they follow Tel Aviv, for example with support for the initiative to block arms to Gaza, and how much distance do they keep given internal difficulties and the lack of a post-Hamas solution?

A Note to President Obama: The Case for Torture

A lot of woolly liberals are insisting that President Barack Obama, almost as he tosses aside the Bible (or Koran, according to Conservapedia) upon which he takes the oath of office, should forbid any use of "coercive interrogation" by American authorities. Mark Kleiman, however, still sees a need for torture to preserve the United States from wrongdoers who brought this country close to ruin over the last eight years:

Every step taken since the Bush administration took power: ignoring the al-Qaeda problem until the 9/11 attacks, covering up the role of the House of Saud in facilitating those attacks, using the aftermath of those attacks for partisan advantage rather than forming a government of national unity, allowing bin Laden's escape, failing to establish an effective anti-Taliban coalition in Afghanistan, continuing to prop up Pervez Musharraf despite his strong support for the Islamofascist ISI, failing to secure international support for the invasion of Iraq, invading Iraq, failing to prevent looting in Iraq, disbanding the Iraqi army and most of the civil service in the name of de-Ba'athification, supporting Ahmed Chalabi in his power-lust despite his ties to Iran, staffing the CPA with ignorant young wingnuts instead of professionals, allowing the looting of the CPA by contractors and cooking up legal interpretations to protect them from criminal liability, engaging in torture, failing to cover up the fact that they were engaging in torture -- Need I go on? -- has tended to weaken this country, and the West, in this existential struggle....

The President-elect should, therefore, as his first official act -- indeed, perhaps as part of his Inaugural Address -- order the immediate detention of George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, David Addington, and perhaps a few others, at a secret location outside the sovereign U.S., for the purposes of extracting from them evidence of the plot and the identities of the other participants, who can in turn be detained and interrogated to see what they have to say for themselves.

TORTURE: A MODEST PROPOSAL

The incoming Obama administration confronts the problem of how to deal with the criminal (by domestic as well as international law) infliction of torture by elements of the United States government, with authority coming from the very top, and not merely on important terrorists but on random innocent victims.

While the Bush administration has no doubt made errors in the course of its valiant attempts to protect us all from Islamofascist terrorists, in one respect it has displayed admirable creativity, from which the Obama administration could benefit: assuming only that the President-elect is sufficiently generous-minded (as he seems to be) to be willing to learn from adversaries.

I refer to the question of the limits of executive power, or rather the unlimitedness of executive power. To call the legal positions taken by the Bush administration "creative" would be to undervalue them: "breathtakingly audacious" would be more accurate. But those positions, and the actions taken in accordance with them, now stand as precedent, and the President-elect has expressed his admiration for audacity.

Audacity is certainly called for. Our situation today is historically unique. Not only are we (as the Bush administration and its supporters tirelessly insist) at war with an enemy so nebulous as to guarantee that the war will have no end, but we confront strong evidence of the existence of a Fifth Column, though not the particular Fifth Column the war hawks predicted.

Every step taken since the Bush administration took power: ignoring the al-Qaeda problem until the 9/11 attacks, covering up the role of the House of Saud in facilitating those attacks, using the aftermath of those attacks for partisan advantage rather than forming a government of national unity, allowing bin Laden's escape, failing to establish an effective anti-Taliban coalition in Afghanistan, continuing to prop up Pervez Musharraf despite his strong support for the Islamofascist ISI, failing to secure international support for the invasion of Iraq, invading Iraq, failing to prevent looting in Iraq, disbanding the Iraqi army and most of the civil service in the name of de-Ba'athification, supporting Ahmed Chalabi in his power-lust despite his ties to Iran, staffing the CPA with ignorant young wingnuts instead of professionals, allowing the looting of the CPA by contractors and cooking up legal interpretations to protect them from criminal liability, engaging in torture, failing to cover up the fact that they were engaging in torture -- Need I go on? -- has tended to weaken this country, and the West, in this existential struggle.

It is of course possible to explain each of those decisions individually as the product of ideology, corruption, incompetence, or some combination of the three. But surely it strains credulity to imagine that the entire pattern, tending inevitably to the end of strengthening our enemies and weakening our institutions and our alliances, was mere accident. Surely the least hypothesis is that there were, in the Bush administration and its supporting institutions, one or more Islamofascist moles. The Hansen case reminds us that the best cover for a mole is apparent fanatical hatred of whichever foreign power the mole is working for. So we should seek out our Fifth Column among those who have been loudest in denouncing Islamofascism, and especially among those most insistent on subverting our Constitution to do so.

That points directly at Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Gonzales, Addington, and Yoo. Perhaps they are innocent, but the presumption of innocence is one of those ideas Yoo properly dismissed as "quaint." Remember, it was precisely the decision to treat terrorism as a law enforcement problem (with responses constrained by the Constitution) that the Bush administration correctly identified as the key weakness of the Clinton administration in its response to terrorism.

No, this is a matter of national security, and therefore covered by President-to-be Obama's inherent and unlimitable powers as Commander-in-Chief in wartime. According to the various doctrines offered by the Bush administration, he he can order the indefinite detention, and aggressive interrogation, of anyone he deems, his sole and un-reviewable judgment, to be an enemy combatant, including anyone who has given "material support" to terrorism. And as long as those detentions and interrogations occur outside the sovereign territory of the United States -- at Gitmo or Bagram, for example -- neither the courts nor the Congress has any authority to intervene, or even to inquire: even in cases where the subjects of the detention were known in advance to be innocent of anything but boasting. Indeed, any Congressional inquiry at all into any action by the president or his aides -- even frankly criminal activity such as the obstruction of justice -- is barred by the doctrine of Executive Privilege, as asserted by the Bush administration.

The President-elect should, therefore, as his first official act -- indeed, perhaps as part of his Inaugural Address -- order the immediate detention of George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, David Addington, and perhaps a few others, at a secret location outside the sovereign U.S., for the purposes of extracting from them evidence of the plot and the identities of the other participants, who can in turn be detained and interrogated to see what they have to say for themselves.

Since most bullies are also cowards, I suspect that the years of maltreatment the Bush Administration inflicted on innocent Afghani peasants to get them to make false confessions will not be necessary to get Bush and his cronies to confess. A month of hypothermia, sleep deprivation, and stress positions, or a few minutes on the waterboard, should suffice. Their confessions will retrospectively justify the interrogations. And of course they cannot be given the right to counsel, since their lawyers would necessarily learn about the interrogation techniques, which are Top Secret Codeword material as intelligence sources and methods, despite the fact that everyone in the world knows what they are. (The techniques are not original: all of them were copied from the Inquisition, the Gestapo, and the KGB.)

Now perhaps some future court might decide that these methods, as applied to people whose status generally makes them "non-torturable," actually exceeded the president's powers, even in wartime. But not only would that decision be wrong on its face -- since those powers have no limits -- but even bringing the case would be wrong. As all our Wise Men agree, no senior official should ever be held legally accountable for actions in the name of national security, no matter how horrible those actions might be.

So now is the moment for the President-elect to confute his critics, and demonstrate that he has the toughness needed to deal with the Islamofascist threat, no matter who its agents may be.

The Israeli Invasion of Gaza: Rolling Updates (17 January)

Later Updates: The Israeli Invasion of Gaza (18 January)

Latest post: "I Want to Save Them But They Are Dead"
Latest Post: Israel Government Documents Confirms No Hamas Rockets 19 June-4 November 2008
Latest post: Olmert's War
Latest Post: The Further Adventures of Joe the Plumber/War Correspondent

1:15 a.m. At the very least, I'm grateful that there has been a cessation of violence in Gaza. My concern is that we're at the start of a different phase which will not bring resolution but further hardship.

Good night and peace to all.

12:30 a.m. Let's be clear: the Israeli move today is not a meaningful cease-fire. It is simply a declaration that they are going to hold their military forces in place, in effect reinstituting an armed re-occupation of Gaza.

Having failed to achieve --- so far --- its goal of removing Hamas from power, Tel Aviv is now tightening its constriction of Gaza, hoping that the economic and security situation will be so untenable that the Gazan leadership eventually put their hands up. And, if Hamas react by upping the ante with rocket fire --- in effect putting their heads above the parapet --- Israel will claim legitimacy to strike even harder with its military forces.

On the surface, it's a clever strategy --- already the cyber-campaign has been launched to claim that Israel has the moral high ground since Hamas has refused to surrender and vowed to continue resistance. But in a few days, I suspect we'll see the flaws in the grand design. Israel has already lost Egypt, its Arab partner in the scheme to overthrow Hamas, and there is a good chance it is re-fashioning a bloc in which Syria, Turkey, and Iran play leading roles. There is even a chance that Tel Aviv may lose American support for the scheme to bring back the Palestinian Authority: we shall see when the Obama Administration steps up to the plate next week.

And here's the weakness in the Israeli strategy that no one will acknowledge. If Hamas fell, who would come into power? The Palestinian Authority? No way --- Gazans who have suffered close to 1300 dead are not going to welcome back a leadership they chucked out in 2006, especially when that leadership privately aided and abetted the Israeli assault.

So that means Israel has to maintain both the economic pressure and the military presence --- either in Gaza or dangling like Damocles' sword on the border --- or pull back and accept a Gazan leadership which may be less amenable to a longer-term agreement than the present one was in mid-2008. And the longer that it maintains that pressure --- given that memories of the humanitarian cost of the last few weeks will not linger but be magnified by an Iron Lead occupation --- the further its international position will erode.



11:45 p.m. A more substantive Hamas response? Rocket hits Hetzarim airbase in Beersheba and six others land elsewhere in last hour.

11:30 p.m. Hamas has already struck back at Olmert's speech, declaring that Israel's announcement "does not end the resistance". It "reserves the right to continue resisting Israel with all means" if Israel does not withdraw and lift the blockade on Gaza.

11 p.m. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making his national broadcast announcing an unilateral cease-fire, beginning at 2 a.m. Israel/Gaza time. He's declaring victory: Hamas have been dealt "a very serious blow", although they are "still not fully aware of how badly they have been damaged". Olmert is also holding up the "international agreement" to block arms to Gaza as a sign of Israel's triumph. And he is killing off any meaningful talks on Gaza, declaring that there will be no recognition of Hamas and that it has "no place in negotiations".

Immediate analysis: Olmert is blowing smoke in everyone's eyes and possibly his own. The Israeli objective was to knock Hamas out, not deliver a glancing military blow. Most of the organization's leadership is still alive, whether in Gaza or Damascus, and their base of support has probably been strengthened by the Israeli assault.

10:40 p.m. Rockets fired from Gaza have hit Ashkelon and Ashdod. Awaiting reports of any casualties.

10:20 p.m. It appears that a lot of people are scrambling to find a response to the Israeli unilateral cease-fire. Egypt, which increasingly looks like it has been wrong-footed by the manoeuvre, is loudly proclaiming that it has invited world leaders to Cairo on Sunday. The list including Palestianian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, the leaders of France, Germany, Spain, Turkey, and Britain, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, and representatives from the United States, Russia, and European Commission.

Reports indicate that Egypt wishes "to restore the truce between Israel and Hamas, and to lift the Israeli-led blockade on the strip". However, given Israel's clear indication today that it wishes to do neither, the more likely explanation is that Cairo is scrambling to protect its reputation in the Arab world after walking hand-in-hand with Tel Aviv and then getting pushed aside.

8 p.m. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has condemned "outrageous attack" by Israel on UN shelter/school. No doubt, after Minister of Defense Ehud Barak apologies for a "grave error" --- as he did yesterday over the shelling of the UN compound --- Ban will says "That's OK" and praise Israel --- as he did yesterday --- for its contribution to humanitarian corridor.

9:05 p.m. Amidst the diplomatic developments, a graphic reminder of the humanitarian issues that are far from resolution. Ahdaf Soueif in The Guardian of London today:

According to the medics here, to reports from doctors inside the Gaza Strip and to Palestinian eye-witnesses, more than 95% of the dead and injured are civilians. Many more will probably be found when the siege is lifted and the rubble is cleared. The doctors speak of a disproportionate number of head injuries - specifically of shrapnel lodged in the brain.

They also speak of the extensive burns of white phosphorus. These injuries are, as they put it, 'incompatible with life'. They are also receiving large numbers of amputees. This is because the damage done to the bone by explosive bullets is so extensive that the only way the doctors in Gaza can save lives is by amputating.

7 p.m. Confirmation coming through that Israel has declared a unilateral cease-fire. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert adds that Israel retains freedom to respond to Hamas attacks.

This is now a de facto military re-occupation of Gaza.

6:40 p.m. Gaza death toll now 1230, of whom 410 are children. More than 5300 wounded.

6:25 p.m. Apparently United Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon met some politicians in Lebanon today and issued a statement. I can't be bothered to say anything further except....

Come back, Kofi Annan, we miss you.

6:05 p.m. Further re-alignment: while we await political reaction to Israel's unilateral ceasefire, its move for a force to block "arms smuggling" to Gaza has been supported by Britain, France, and Germany, all of whom have offered warships.

I know it may be too early to mention this, but does anyone recall what happened when the US and European countries sent warships to control traffic in the Persian Gulf in the late 1980s?

5:55 p.m. Want a clue to the shift of position by Egypt's Hosni Mubarak this afternoon? Reuters reports, "Egyptian police used batons to beat protesters who rallied against the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip in central Cairo on Saturday." The demonstration was called by the Muslim Brotherhood.

And, in an interesting development, Mubarak will meet Palestianian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Sunday. Is this to find a way to work with the new Israeli plan or a sign that they may back away from it?

5:50 p.m. The toll from the UN school/shelter shelled this morning by Israel is two dead and 25 wounded. Three daughters and a niece of a prominent Gazan doctor were killed as he was being interviewed on Israeli television, and at least 10 people were killed by a tank shell during a funeral wake in Gaza City.

Late afternoon update (5:30 p.m.): Egypt's Hosni Mubarak has blinked, at least publicly.

With Israel setting aside the Egyptian proposals for its unilateral cease-fire, Mubarak --- probably to cover his back, both with other Arab states and with his own population --- has had to put a bit of distance between himself and Tel Aviv. He has called for an immediate cease-fire and Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, and he gave a big clue as to the reason for Israel's decision to go it alone, declaring that Egypt would not accept an international monitoring force on its side of the Egypt-Gaza border.

1:50 p.m.To repeat for emphasis, because no one in media seems to take notice: Did Barack Obama and his advisors know of and agree to the Rice-Livni understanding for US-Israeli effort to block arms smuggling to Hamas? And did they anticipate the unilateral Israel ceasefire?

1:30 p.m. Just announced that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will make a televised address today. Get ready for that unilateral ceasefire.

12:20 p.m. Hamas makes its initial diplomatic play today: Osama Hamdan calls on regional states to stand by Gazan "resistance" and on Europe to cut ties to Israel.

12:10 p.m. An interesting twist in the latest analysis from the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. The piece by Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff starts off to find, "Who is really winning the war in Gaza?". However, while wandering about looking for the victory --- maybe Hamas is split between its Damascus and Gazan branches --- they actually point to Israel's inability to define its political objective:

The most effective Israeli deterrence, [advisors to Minister of Defense Ehud Barak] said, had already been achieved by the end of last week. When Barak asked just when, in their opinion, Israel ought to pull out of Gaza, most of the participants answered: Yesterday.

This uncertainty, "What have we really achieved?", may explain the admission in the conclusion that Israel's war has been far from noble:

It is a little difficult to understand how a war, albeit necessary and justified, that includes the dropping of one-ton bombs from a height of 30,000 feet on a densely populated city can stir such national pride. The most nauseating of these new anthems explains that the IDF is the "army of the heroes of glory" and promises to give a hug to each and every one of these heroes, from the lowliest private all the way up to the chief of staff. Just one more reason to hope it all ends quickly: Then these cloying efforts will pass, too.

11:20 a.m. Of the 1199 Gazans killed to date, 410 are children, 108 are women and 118 are elderly.

11:10 a.m. Want to know the American strategy behind this morning's Israeli unilateral cease-fire? Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice after signing agreement with Israeli Foreign Minsiter Tzipi Livni to halt arms smuggling: "It will be clear that Mahmoud Abbas is demonstrating that he will be the Palestinian leader for all the Palestinian people."

11:05 a.m. This is the deadliest 48-hour period in the conflict, with more than 160 Gazans killed.

11 a.m. UN official Chris Gunness: several shells hit the school/shelter this morning with one "direct hit", killing two and wounding 14 as hundreds took refuge. They are keeping lists for an investigation "to see if war crimes have been committed".

10:55 a.m. Confirmation that the Israeli unilateral cease-fire leads immediately to an open-ended occupation: an official tells Agence France Press, "Israeli troops would remain inside the territory for an unspecified period."

Which in turn means that fighting will continue at some level --- a Hamas official has just told AFP that they will continue to battle occupying forces.

10:40 a.m. Gazan death toll now close to 1200.

10:30 a.m. United Nations officials are calling for investigation of this morning's shelling of a UN school/shelter which killed at least two children.

Five rockets have been fired into southern Israel, after 22 were launched on Friday.

Morning update (10 a.m. Israel/Gaza time): The key development of the day, the Israeli Cabinet declaration of a unilateral cease-fire,  is still awaited.Already, however, it is being reported that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will follow up the announcement with a visit to Egypt on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Hamas representatives are in Cairo. It will be intriguing to see how the Egyptians will explain Tel Aviv's decision or if they even try to do so. There is also an interesting 48-hour period between yesterday's summit in Qatar and the gathering of Arab countries for an economic meeting in Kuwait, where the two emerging blocs (the Egypt-led bloc against Hamas and the Syria-led bloc urging strong support of the organisation) will encounter each other for the time.

A symbolic but pointed development at the United Nations General Assembly, where the 192-member body voted 142-6 with 8 abstentions demanded "full respect" of last week's Security Council resolution for an immediate cease-fire. The debate was dominated by harsh denunciation of Israel and marked by arguments when Egypt and the European Union tried to push through an alternative motion that was less criticial of Tel Aviv.

And, during this diplomatic endgame --- which is far from being an endgame, only the start of a new phase of the conflict --- the military assault and civilian deaths continue. Two children were killed when Israeli artillery shells hit a United Nations school north of Gaza City. Three Gazans will killed in a tower block and two others slain in Khan Younis.

Gaza: It's Not Necessarily All About Tehran

Latest Updates: The Israeli Invasion of Gaza (16 January)

Last week, we noted --- via the wisdom of William Kristol --- the litany of comment setting out the fight in Gaza as a de facto fight against Iran. Israel had to triumph over Hamas, the argument runs, or Hamas' sponsors in Iran would win a big victory in their drive for regional supremacy.

Trita Parsi, in our opinion one of the best analysts of Iranian politics and US-Iranian relations, has offered the following dissection of the Hamas = Iran narrative:

Israel, Gaza and Iran: Trapping Obama in Imagined Fault Lines

In talking about the assault on Gaza, neo-conservative pundits and Israeli hardliners have relied on a familiar frame. The fighting in Gaza, they say, is a struggle between Israel and so-called "moderate" Arab states (namely, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) on the one hand, and Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas on the other. In reality, Israel is fighting Iran in Gaza, the argument reads.
These imagined Manichean fault lines defy logic and reality. This conflict is the last thing Tehran would have wished for in the last few weeks of the Bush administration. It increases the risk of a US-Iran confrontation now, and reduces the prospects for US-Iran diplomacy once President elect Obama takes over - neither of which is in Iran's national interest. Rather than benefiting from the instability following the slaughter in Gaza, Iran stands to lose much from the rise in tensions. And so does Obama.



To Iran, Hamas is no Hezbollah

While there certainly is an underlying rivalry between Israel and Iran that has come to fuel many other otherwise unrelated conflicts in the region, not every war Israel fights is related to Iran. In this specific case, the parallels to the 2006 Lebanon war are inaccurate. Iran's ties to Hamas are incomparable to the much deeper relationship Iran enjoys with Hezbollah. Iran's close relationship with Hezbollah is rooted in the Iranian view that Shiite minorities in Arab countries are Iran's most likely allies and agents of pro-Iranian sentiment; consequently, backing Hezbollah is viewed to be in Iran's core national interest. In contrast, Iran's relationship with Hamas is a marriage of convenience at best.

In spite of its ardent pro-Palestinian rhetoric, Iran's relationship with Palestinian groups -- including Hamas -- has often been strained. Tensions with Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Organization were mostly rooted in Arafat's insistence on defining the Israel-Palestinian conflict as a secular Arab nationalist cause -- leaving non-Arab Iran with no opening to play a leadership role in the Muslim world's cause célèbre. Differences with Hamas, however, derived from a mix of politics and ideology. Hamas' intellectual roots go back to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni fundamentalist movement. Furthermore, during the Iraq-Iran war, both the PLO and Hamas expressed support for Saddam Hussein.

Throughout the 1980s, Iran was better at offering rhetoric than practical support to the Palestinian cause, due to Iran's immediate security concerns. This changed in the mid-1990s, when Iran feared that the Oslo peace process was partially aimed at securing Iran's prolonged isolation and political exclusion. But even after the outbreak of the second Intifada, the Iranians took the lead in making grandiose speeches about Iranian backing of the Palestinian cause, but seldom tried to live up to the standards set in its statements. As I describe in Treacherous Alliance: The Secret dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States (Yale University Press), European diplomats in contact with representatives of Islamic Jihad and Hamas visiting Iran after fighting between Israelis and Palestinians had broken out reported back that both groups were utterly disappointed with their Iranian hosts whom they accused of making empty promises -- Tehran neither provided them with money nor weapons. A joke in the streets of Tehran reflected Iran's pretense: "Why aren't there any stones left to stone the adulteress? Per the order of the Supreme Leader, all the stones have been shipped to Palestine as Iran's contribution to the Intifada."

Again, history seems to be repeating itself. After daily demonstrations in Tehran in favor of the Palestinians, including a six-day sit-in at Tehran airport by hard-line students demanding government support for sending volunteers to fight in Gaza, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei contained the protesters by thanking them - while pointing out that Iran was not in a position to go beyond rhetorical support since "our hands are tied in this arena." Other Iranian officials have reinforced that message. General Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, declared that Hamas does not need military support to defend itself. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's brother indicated to the demonstrators at Tehran airport that Iran's support for the Palestinians would be limited to "spiritual support for the victimized people of Gaza."

Why Israel's offensive in Gaza should worry Obama

Tehran's complex, if not conflicted, response to the assault on Gaza can best be understood in the context of its broader strategic aims. By rejecting any material Iranian support or involvement in the Gaza battles, Iran's strategic imperatives trumped its ideological concerns and pretenses once more. Khamenei's statement regarding Iran's hands being tied resembles Ayatollah Khomeini's refusal to support the Lebanese Shiites by directly entering into war with Israel in 1984 through his edict that the road to Jerusalem goes through Karbala. That is, until Iran has defeated Saddam Hussein, it will not be sucked into a conflict with Israel, regardless of Tehran's ideological opposition to the Jewish state.

Contrary to the neo-conservative narrative that the fighting benefits Iran, Tehran seems to view the Israeli assault on Gaza as highly problematic for several reasons. First, there are suspicions in Tehran that Israel's offensive is a trap with the aim of drawing both Hezbollah and Iran into the fighting. With only weeks left till President Elect Obama takes office, any direct conflagration between Iran and Israel would significantly reduce Obama's ability to deliver on his campaign promise of opening talks with Tehran without preconditions.

Second, increased tensions and polarization in the Middle East undermines Obama's ability to pursue a new policy towards this region, including a shift in America's 30-year old policy of isolating Iran. In fact, polarization along the imagined Gaza fault lines - and a misleading equation of Hamas with Tehran - traps the incoming Obama administration in an involuntary continuation of the Bush policies that contributed to the increased instability in the Middle East in the first place. From the vantage point of Israeli hardliners, this may be a welcomed outcome since it will make compromise with Tehran more difficult and pressure on Israel less likely. Hence, Tehran seems poised not to help reduce Obama's maneuverability.

Third, the conflict is creating unwelcome tensions between Iran and key Arab states. Arab dictatorships fearing that the rise of Iran would weaken America's position in the Middle East and that the survival of Hamas would embolden Islamic nationalist opposition groups throughout the region - both of which would undermine these Arab governments' undemocratic rule - initially sided with Israel by remaining silent or explicitly putting the blame on Hamas. But as the casualties rose and the images of slaughter spread on Arab satellite TVs, the anger of the Arab streets reached the Arab palaces and courts. A similar pattern was seen in 2006 when many Arab governments initially welcomed Israel's air assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon. There, the change of heart had less to do with the images of Lebanese casualties and more to do with Hezbollah's surprising resilience and fighting power.

Though it is true that increased tensions enables Iran to score propaganda victories on the Arab streets, since many Arab states have either remained silent or secretly collaborated with Israel to defeat Hamas, this does carry a great risk for Tehran. If the fighting in Gaza goes on for too long, the spillover effects will be felt in increased Arab-Iranian tensions at a time when Tehran is more interested in soothing ties with the Arabs in order to minimize Arab disruption to any potential US-Iran opening.

The neo-conservative narrative and its imagined fault lines may temporarily add fuel to the US-Israeli alliance, but it will neither bring stability nor order to the region. Rather, it will push the Middle East further into endless conflict and restrict America's next president to a mindset and a policy framework that risks making the promise of change a dream unfulfilled.