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Entries in Gaza (117)

Thursday
Jan222009

Your Obama on Top of the World Updates (22 January)

Related Post: The Joseph Lowery Benediction
Related Post: The Inaugural - The Daily Show Tribute

5:55 p.m. Mike here- one last update: Obama has called on Israel to open its borders with Gaza.

5 p.m. Well, that's Day 2 (so far) of the Great Obama Foreign Policy Journey. Tomorrow, we'll attempt an assessment of the ups, downs, and in-betweens of the initial meetings and decisions.

The President's moves not only on Guantanamo Bay but on CIA black sites were encouraging, even if they cannot be implemented soon. Less encouraging, despite all the fanfare at the State Department were the Mitchell and Holbrooke appointments, as it is not clear the Administration has really thought through its diplomatic approach. It is a blessing, at least, that Obama and Hillary Clinton did not make the situation worse by naming Dennis Ross as envoy on Iranian matters, a move only slightly less provocative than appointing Mike Tyson to keep the peace.

The emerging conflict and muddle over Iraq and Afghanistan, brought out by the Robert Gates statement and the military-White House competing briefings on Iraq, is not encouraging.

Good night and peace to all.

4:50 p.m. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has issued what is, frankly, a very strange statement on the Administration's goals in Afghanistan.

Gates, unintentionally, points to the conflict that has already broken out over troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, stating that "no decision on troop deployments to Afghanistan has been made". What is even more disconcerting, however, is his explanation that the Obama Administration's new war plan will focus on "very concrete things" such as establishing control in parts of the country, going after al Qaeda, and delivering services and security for the Afghan people.

Hmm....isn't that what the Bush Administration was doing? Apparently not: "The goals we did have for Afghanistan [were] too broad and too far into the future, [were] too future-oriented, and [were] we need more concrete goals that can be achieved realistically within three to five years."

That, to be blunt, is gobbledy-gook. One can only hope it is not reflective of the thinking in the NSC-military meeting yesterday.



4:40 p.m. And is that an Obama pre-emptive strike in the US approach to Iran? He declares that all external support for "terrorist organizations in the Middle East" must be halted.

4:35 p.m. But George Mitchell, I fear, may already be boxed in by his President. After declaring to applause that "the US will not torture", Obama firmly declared that Hamas must not re-arm and recognise Israel's right to exist.

The question is whether the US Government will discreetly talk to Hamas in advance of such a statement, hoping to move the organisation towards recognition of Tel Aviv, or set recognition as a pre-condition for any discussions. If the latter, the Mitchell mission is a non-starter.

4:30 p.m. George Mitchell's opening statement was professional and suitably non-committal. He said there was no conflict that could not be resolved and promised a sustained effort by the Obama Administration towards Middle Eastern peace.

A reader notes, "The word Palestinians was used twice, the word Ireland I lost count. Good to know they're sending a clear message."

4:25 p.m. A bit of a show at State Department as President Obama and Vice President Biden in clear show of support --- a far cry from the ostracism of the Department and its Secretary,  Colin Powell, in first term of Bush Administration.

3:55 p.m. Richard Holbrooke has also been confirmed as envoy to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. However --- and this is both unexpected and significant --- Dennis Ross has not been named as envoy on Iranian matters.

3:40 p.m. Confirmation that George Mitchell will be Barack Obama's envoy to the Middle East. The former Senator and experienced negotiator, who helped broker the 1998 Northern Ireland agreement and served as Bill Clinton's envoy in 2000 to Israel and Palestine, is of Lebanese descent. Officials and Administration contacts are keen to play up Mitchell as an honest broker:
By naming Mitchell as his personal envoy, Obama is sending a diplomatic heavyweight to the region. "He's neither pro-Israeli nor pro-Palestinian," Martin S. Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, told The New York Times. "He's, in a sense, neutral."

Mitchell is probably best known on the world stage for the Good Friday agreement he negotiated between Roman Catholics and Protestants that created a cease-fire in Northern Ireland in 1998.

2:35pm A list of all Obama's executive orders to date is being published here. (Thanks, mhasko)

1:35 p.m. It's official. Obama has signed an executive order requiring the Guantánamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year.

1:30 p.m. ABC News reports that there were no arrests at Tuesday's inauguration.

10 a.m. And so the manoeuvring within the Obama White House begins. The President, as we noted, tried to lock down any speculation over the outcome of yesterday's meeting of the National Security Council and military with the statement, "I asked the military leadership to engage in additional planning necessary to execute a responsible military drawdown from Iraq."

However, CNN has heard from "Pentagon officials [who] said the generals left believing they were not ordered to being implementing [Obama's] campaign promise to pull all US combat troops from Iraq within 16 months". So a White House official is "insisting that the President did remind the commanders of his goal to remove troops, but he wants to get their input, so he asked them to come up with a plan that's workable".

9:35 a.m. They Just Won't Go Away: All week long, The Wall Street Journal has been desperately insisting that former President Bush was jolly good for the United States and one day we'll all be grateful for his wisdom and leadership. Today it's Karl Rove's turn, as he moves from "the thoughtfulness and grace so characteristic of this wonderful American family" to declare "right about Iraq", "right to take the war on terror abroad", "right to be a unilateralist", say on AIDS in Africa, right on tax cuts, right on Medicare, etc.

Number of times Hurricane Katrina mentioned in article: 0

9:30 a.m. Dramatic, almost star-struck scenes as the new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, addresses State Department staff. Career diplomats are standing on desks to get a glimpse of Clinton. There is huge enthusiasm when Clinton promises to remedy the "neglect" the Department has suffered in recent years.

7:25 a.m. Today's Axis of Evil Alert: Lawyer Robert Amsterdam in The Washington Post:

The administrations of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Vladimir Putin in Russia are enjoying a robust, burgeoning friendship. Though they are separated by 6,000 miles, the two leaders' bond is sealed not only by their similar tastes for repressive authoritarianism, oil expropriations and large arms deals but also by parallel trends of increasing violence and murder on the streets of their cities.



7:15 a.m. Culture of Fear Alert: Marc A. Thiessen, former speechwriter for former President George W. Bush: "President Obama has inherited a set of tools that successfully protected the country for 2,688 days -- and he cannot dismantle those tools without risking catastrophic consequences."

(Note: George W. Bush was also President from 20 January to 11 September 2001, when more than 3000 people were killed in attacks in the United States.)

7 a.m. The Dark-Horse Crisis? Under the radar of most of the media, the situation in Somalia (and the Bush Administration's policy there) continues to deteriorate. The Washington Post sounds the alarm, "With Ethiopian Pullout, Islamists Rise Again in Somalia". UN agencies are threatening to halt food distribution because of attacks on their staff.

The US-fostered and Ethiopia-implemented overthrow of the Islamic Courts government in 2006 was meant to install a "proper" Government that would support American plans in East Africa. Instead, that Somalian administration has collapsed, and "more radical" Islamic groups such as al-Shahab have emerged.

6:30 a.m. In overnight fighting in eastern Afghanistan, NATO and US military claim that 28 militants killed.

4:30 a.m. Still no significant word, however, on Obama's National Security Council meeting with military commanders, including General David Petraeus, on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Instead, after the meeting, Obama issued a holding statement:“I asked the military leadership to engage in additional planning necessary to execute a responsible military drawdown from Iraq....[I plan] to undertake a full review of the situation in Afghanistan in order to develop a comprehensive policy for the entire region.”

Dexter Filkins of The New York Times has an article, "In Afghan South, Taliban Fill NATO's Big Gaps", which highlights the tenuous situation in the country and possibly makes the Administration's case for a doubling of US troop levels.

4:20 a.m. Now, this is huge. According to The New York Times:

President Obama is expected to sign executive orders Thursday directing the Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantánamo detention camp within a year.



So the closure is not just of Camp X-Ray but of all the "black sites" involved in the rendition programmes pursued by the Bush Administration. Those sites, reportedly scattered across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia have handled and hidden away far more detainees than the number remaining in Guantanamo Bay. If Obama combines this with an order that US intelligence services do not operate these covert prisons in future, that will be a major step back to legal campaigns against those who threaten American security.

One caveat: this order will not affect Camp Bagram in Afghanistan, which is run by the US military and is by far the biggest American detention facility outside the United States.

3:45 a.m. Well, He's Got Fidel's Endorsement: Castro on-line statement says, "I do not have the slightest doubt of the honesty of Obama when he expresses his ideas."

2:45 a.m. So let me understand this: a President re-takes the oath of office to ensure he adheres to the US Constitution while a former President and his advisors, who trampled all over the Constitution, don't have to do anything?

1:05 a.m. Today Obama will sign the order, which we mentioned yesterday, promising the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility within 12 months.

Morning update (1 a.m.) One of the minor setbacks for President Obama yesterday was the delay in naming a team to implement the approach to the Middle East, Iran, and Central/South Asia. Simple reason --- it wouldn't have been fitting to roll out his special envoys before Hillary Clinton was appointed as Secretary of State.

This will be remedied today with the naming of George Mitchell as envoy to Israel and Palestine, Dennis Ross as envoy to Iran, and Richard Holbrooke as envoy to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. The announcement brings back three politicians/diplomats from the global negotiations of the 1990s.

We'll offer an analysis as soon as the news is confirmed but, in brief.... Mitchell (with experience that includes the brokering of a Northern Ireland settlement) is an excellent choice but will be limited by Obama's so-far passive approach to the Gaza crisis and possibly by a policy that will not countenance any inclusion of Hamas in negotiations. Holbrooke (with his record in cases such as the Balkans talks in the 1990s) is well-qualified. Ross (as Bill Clinton's representative in Israel-Palestine talks) has experience but --- with a hard-line towards Tehran and ties with groups that countenance coercion of Iran rather than diplomacy --- could be a major error.
Thursday
Jan222009

The Latest from Gaza/Palestine (22 January)

Latest Post: The Gaza Conflict Reaches Home - Demonstrations at the University of Birmingham

11:40 p.m. And is that an Obama pre-emptive strike in the US approach to Iran? He declares that all external support for "terrorist organizations in the Middle East" must be halted.

11:35 p.m. But George Mitchell, I fear, may already be boxed in by his President. After declaring to applause that "the US will not torture", Obama firmly declared that Hamas must not re-arm and recognise Israel's right to exist.

The question is whether the US Government will discreetly talk to Hamas in advance of such a statement, hoping to move the organisation towards recognition of Tel Aviv, or set recognition as a pre-condition for any discussions. If the latter, the Mitchell mission is a non-starter.

11:30 p.m. George Mitchell's opening statement was professional and suitably non-committal. He said there was no conflict that could not be resolved and promised a sustained effort by the Obama Administration towards Middle Eastern peace.

A reader notes, "The word Palestinians was used twice, the word Ireland I lost count. Good to know they're sending a clear message."



10:45 p.m. Confirmation that George Mitchell will be Barack Obama's envoy to the Middle East. The former Senator and experienced negotiator, who helped broker the 1998 Northern Ireland agreement and served as Bill Clinton's envoy in 2000 to Israel and Palestine, is of Lebanese descent. Officials and Administration contacts are keen to play up Mitchell as an honest broker: ""He's neither pro-Israeli nor pro-Palestinian. He's, in a sense, neutral."

10 p.m. Ha'aretz reports that Hamas is pledging to distribute a total of $37 million to the Gazan population from Sunday. It's a shrewd political as well as economic move, if it can be pulled off, as the Palestinian Authority has been prevented by Israel from distributing $60 million in Gaza since the war began on 27 December.

5:30 p.m. We've just posted on the significance of an extended comment by Moussa Abu Marzook, the deputy political director of Hamas, in The Guardian of London.

1:55 p.m. Speaking to Al Jazeera's Ayman Moyheldin, European Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner not only rebuffs Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal's approach for talks but presses "inter-Palestinian reconcilation": "There is a President elected by all the Palestinians: that is Mahmoud Abbas." European Commissioner will not talk to Hamas until it "renounces violence and recognises Israel".

(Note: Technically, Abbas' term as President ended on 9 January.)

1:50 p.m. Important development: Egypt is hosting meeting with Palestinian factions under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, which includes Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Hamas is still "forming its delegation" to go to Cairo. Topics will include reconstruction.

This is not quite a "reconciliation" meeting, but it at least gets Hamas in the same location as the groups in the PLO.

1:30 p.m. Al Jazeera reporting at least 100,000 Gazans homeless.



12:30 p.m. The United Nations has released photographs of the Israeli assault on its compound, including what appear to be white phosphorous "wedges" falling upon the buildings.

11:30 a.m. Stephen Erlanger's analysis in today's New York Times of the Israel/Palestine situation opens with a howler:

The new Obama administration faces an immediate policy choice: support a Palestinian unity government, as Egypt and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, want, or continue to isolate Hamas and concentrate on building up the West Bank as a political alternative to radical Islam.



This, of course, is not a choice. The support of Abbas and the Palestinian Authority is part of the strategy to isolate Hamas. Erlanger apparently doesn't fathom that the political coding of "Palestinian unity government", as long as no one will speak with Hamas, means the support of one Palestinian faction over another.

11:10 a.m. Meanwhile, in the Symbolic but Largely Irrelevant Department: UN Security Council unanimously adopts statement, drafted by Britain and France, welcoming "ceasefires", expressing "grave concern" over humanitarian situation, and calling on member states to step up efforts to stop arms trafficking and ensure the reopening of all crossings in the territory.

It's largely irrelevant because the statement puts no pressure on Israel to relinquish its grip on Gazan economy and infrastructure, let alone reopen the crossings. Conversely, the reference to an end to arms trafficking will be seen as support of the US-Europe-Israel initiative to police the sea-lanes and tunnels of Gaza.

11:00 a.m. Juan Cole has an excellent review of the situation in Gaza, asking --- among other questions --- where Israel's military attempt to break Hamas has actually strengthened the organisation.

Morning update (10:30 a.m. Israel/Gaza time): The Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization issued a statement from Ramallah on Wednesday that "any resumption of peace talks with Israel would require the Jewish state to commit to withdraw from land occupied in 1967 and freeze all settlement activity".

This can be read as an attempt by the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas to regain some initiative after the Gaza conflict, with the PA trying to shape an agenda ahead of President Obama's appointment of George Mitchell as Middle Eastern envoy later today. It will be intriguing to see if the US and Israel accept the PA's placing of these issues on the table; if they don't, then the PA is in a very difficult, almost subservient, position.

Of course, this does nothing to approach the Gaza situation but is in effect an attempt to work around it.
Thursday
Jan222009

UPDATE: Demonstrations at the University of Birmingham

Guardian Education reports protests at eight English universities including Birmingham. A week-long occupation at LSE ended peacefully last night after the school's director Howard Davies issued a joint statement with students which included a pledge to back a fundraising drive for Palestinian scholarships, as well as the setting up of, "a working party to look at socially responsible investments that will be "content to receive" proposals about disinvestment from companies implicated in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories."
Thursday
Jan222009

A Gaza Settlement? Hamas' Signals in The Guardian of London

The Guardian of London runs an extended comment by Moussa Abu Marzook, the deputy political director of Hamas.

The first section is the defiance you would expect, with Marzook claiming that "Israel lost, and lost decisively", as Palestinian resistance was not broken. Marzook, however, then leaves a couple of important political signals and leaves a question answered.



Marzook's first signal is that Hamas clearly sees a wider goal in the Israeli invasion and is looking to counter-act that through diplomatic manoeuvres: "Europe must accept that bringing back Abbas on an Israeli tank is not an option." As we noted earlier today, the European Commission has rebuffed the approach of Khaled Meshaal, Marzook's boss, but Hamas could well be pressing its case, especially in light of the clear weaknesses of the Palestinian Authority.

Marzook's second signal is a brief but direct challenge to the new US Administration to engage with Hamas: "To President Obama we say: the wave of hope that met your election was heavily dampened by your silence on the Gaza massacre."

And the hanging question? Consider Marzook's final sentence, directed to President Obama: "Only if you decide to fairly address the issue of the 6 million Palestinian refugees and the ending of occupation of Palestinian lands, including Jerusalem, will you be able to start a new relationship with the Muslim world."

Do "Palestianian lands" refer to all of pre-1948 Palestine, effectively removing Israel as a political entity, or do "Palestinian lands" refer to the post-1948 territories of the West Bank and Gaza? In the answer to that question, in effect the possibility of a settlement in which Israel returns to its borders before 1967, may be an eventual agreement.

But only if Hamas is inside, not outside, the negotiations.
Thursday
Jan222009

The Gaza Conflict Reaches Home: Demonstrations at the University of Birmingham

bham-gaza-demo

Extraordinary events, in the context of the recent history of the University of Birmingham, in the last 48 hours....

On Tuesday afternoon,  a group of students protesting the Israeli invasion of Gaza ---- I was told there were more than 40 --- occupied a lecture room, hanging a banner on the balcony overlooking the University Quadrangle. A detailed statement by the students condemned both the Israeli military offensive and the firing of rockets into Israel and emphasised:


We are acting in solidarity with Palestinian students whose right to education is being denied by the current conflict (both directly and as a consequence of a) the killing and injuring of hundreds of students, teachers, and other workers associated with education in Gaza during Israel’s military operation; b) the deliberate targetting and destruction of university buildings, the destruction of schools, the ministry of education, and other educational infrastructure in Gaza as part of Israel’s military operation; c) the conditions of the illegal occupation enforced by the Israeli military and supported by the political and military leaders of the state of Israel within the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, which includes deliberate strategies to restrict the movement of students and generally disrupt education within the territories.



The demonstration turned into a mini-standoff with police before University officials and students reached an agreement. Under that agreement, the Vice-Chancellor of the University is meeting student representatives today to hear their petition and a list of nine points for action, which includes a public discussion of the issues surrounding the Gaza conflict. As I write, there are two demonstrations involving, according to one of our readers, about 250 students.

This may not seem much, both in the context of Gaza events and the size of other protests, but Birmingham has not had a significant student demonstration since the 2003 Iraq War and has not had an occupation since I started here in 1989.
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