Reading the News from Iran to Gaza

A reader from Birmingham offers this excellent analysis of developments in Iran and in the Israel-Gaza conflict:

In Tehran, there is the usual mix of stories of protest, support for Hamas and Obama's Iranian 'dilemma'- but the strangest story is this from the Los Angeles Times:

In Tehran, Iran, a senior Iranian official and ranking cleric told worshippers that Hamas possesses a “new weapon” to use if Israel decides upon a ground invasion. The advanced weapon would allow the militant group to target Israeli tanks “from a long distance,” said former Iranian president Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, chairman of Iran’s powerful Expediency Council.

Is Rafsanjani's sabre rattling related to this from couple of days ago? Radio Free Europe/Farda has a story that an Iranian newspaper has been closed for criticising the Iranian Government's support of Hamas. US public diplomacy has subsequently stirred the pot by claiming the reform paper was close to Rafsanjani.

Perhaps the most significant and under-reported story is that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki today started a visit to Iran, telling Iranian state television that his government would not allow Iraq to be used as a base to threaten its neighbours. The question of the Iraqi-based Iranian exile organisation MKO, whom Iraq wants to expel and Iran wants to extradite, will doubtless also come up. He will talk with Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khameini.

Anne Penketh of the Independent also balances a non-story that the war in Gaza will harden Israeli support for strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, with a few home truths about the reality of Iran's nuclear threat to Israel. There was also the story a few days ago that Iranian groups have been recruiting suicide bombers to travel to Israel and have been lobbying the government for assistance (which was not forthcoming)

Meanwhile, what has been lacking in news coverage is any real contemplation of the nature of an Israeli ground offensive. Only the Los Angeles Times has this quote from an Israeli military analyst:

Israeli analysts and experts have said that any ground operation should be brief but powerful. Alex Fishman, the military analyst of the daily Yediot Aharonot, wrote Friday, “Since the name of the game is killing and destruction, the ground operation has to be quick, with a lot of firepower at friction points with Hamas.” He added, “The goal is to exact a high price in the early stages of the ground operation and to end it quickly.”

Gaza: Worst Historical Analogy of the Week?

Deroy Murdock of the Hoover Institute asks us (and presumably Hamas) to remember that the civil rights movement narrowly avoided disaster by Dr. Martin Luther King's decision not to launch rocket attacks into the Upper West Side from bases in Harlem:

Picture the rockets' red glare as they rise from Watts and land in Beverly Hills. Up they soar in Harlem, and down they rain on the Upper West Side.

Such mayhem would have triggered a white crackdown on black areas. The squandered opportunity for greater racial equality and economic prosperity would have hobbled black progress, probably for decades. Barack Obama's presidential victory might have been a non-starter had Dr. King taken this low road.

Thank God Almighty, he did not.

Gaza Update (8 p.m. Israel; 6 p.m. Britain)

Urgent Update: Israeli Ground Forces Reportedly Entering Gaza

Israel diversified its attacks on Day 7 of the Gaza conflict. An Israeli airstrike on a mosque in northern Gaza killed 9 and wounded 60, and the American school in Gaza, a college building in El-Atatra, and Gaza's airport were also hit. A targeted assassination by missile killed Hamas commander Azkariah al-Jamal. Air and naval attacks were supplemented by Israeli artillery, which began shelling across the border.

Amidst speculation that Israel ground forces, massed on the border, may enter Gaza, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said "several operations" are possible if rocket fire continues.



The Palestinian death toll has reached 450. In addition to the latest casualties from attacks, wounded in hospital are dying because of a lack of medicine and equipment and overstretched medical personnel. Fifteen patients, including several children, died from wounds on Friday. The food crisis is getting worse, as Chris Gunness of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency noted:

Even when people want to get food for their hungry family, they are very aware of the dangers they are facing in going out....But, as things stand now, we have only a few days supply left.

Gaza Update (3 January): Getting Fatah Back In

Update: An Israeli bomb has killed nine and wounded at least 60 in a mosque in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. According to CNN, "leaflets signed by the commander of the Israeli military were dropped over northern Gaza on Saturday morning, warning residents to 'leave the area immediately' to ensure their safety".

So, a week into the Israeli attack on Gaza, we finally get the political gameplan, courtesy of President Bush: "I urge all parties...to support legitimate Palestinian leaders working for peace."

"Legitimate Palestinian leaders" means the Fatah Party, which is the dominant Palestinian leadership in the West Bank. But how do you get Fatah back in, when they were rejected --- both politically and militarily --- from Gaza over the last years? Amidst a lull in most media coverage, the answer comes from McClatchy News Services:

Israel, Arab countries and the United States are discussing how to create an international force that would safeguard an eventual cease-fire, diplomats said Friday. A key part of the arrangement is that the main Palestinian rival to the ruling Hamas party would be asked to take charge of border crossings.

Thus the other key sentence in Bush's statement, to be broadcast on Saturday, "There must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end."

In fact, that's been part of the American and possibly the Israeli strategy from the start of operations: topple Hamas, with whom you won't negotiate, and install Fatah/the Palestinian Authority, with whom you will. CNN television's carefully-orchestrated interviews with experts such as Jon Alterman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, were playing this out last weekend.

On the surface, putting Fatah/PA in would satisfy not only Washington and Tel Aviv but most Arab countries, who prefer to back PA leader Mahmoud Abbas rather than Hamas. Only one problem: where is the support for Fatah, which was discredited by charges of inefficiency, corruption, and a failure to provide public services even before Hamas beat them at the Gaza polls in 2006? McClatchy concludes:

While there's Arab and Western support for Abbas' U.S.-backed security forces taking control of the crossings, it isn't clear how that could be carried out. U.S. officials acknowledge that there's little chance that the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, could reassume political power in the Gaza Strip anytime soon.

I think it's safe to say that the Hamas leadership in Gaza won't be accepting any proposal for Fatah security forces on the borders. So, if they maintain their support amongst the Gazan population, the question is thrown back to Israel and its supporters in Washington.

Do they accept another cease-fire proposal based not on the political goal of getting Fatah in but on an "international monitoring force"? Or does Israel play its last military card and send the ground troops across the border?

Get The Latest From Gaza- On YouTube

BAGnewsNotes has word of an interesting development- the IDF now has a YouTube channel ("Age: 60. Hometown: Jerusalem."). One of the videos featured is this one, in which "The Israeli Air Force strikes terror operatives transferring short-range missiles destined for innocent civilians":




[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qG0CzM_Frvc&eurl=http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/2008/12/the-chance-of-biscuits.html&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Only back at The Bag, where they're calling the video a 'Snuff Film', some are suggesting that the missiles are actually gas cylinders and the Hamas operatives innocent civillians:



Don't expect this particular video to be up for long.