Gaza: Demonstrations in Jerusalem, West Bank, and the Islamic World

Trying to limit demonstrations over the attacks in Gaza, the Israeli Government has barred men under 50 from entering mosques in Jerusalem for Friday prayers. All entry points from the West Bank have been closed until Saturday night.

Al Jazeera's Twitter channel is reporting more than 10,000 demonstrators in Indonesia. Hundreds have protested in Egypt despite a ban on prayers in certain mosques. Police in Amman, Jordan, have fired tear gas on marchers moving towards the Israeli Embassy.

There has been some attention in British media to the Iranian demonstrations at the British Embassy, but the reaction to Gaza is much wider amongst the population. A reader from Tehran has commented on another thread:

It’s a somewhat chaotic situation. Student protests are taking place all over Tehran including at the airport where there is a 24 hours a day vigil. Some have taken place in front of the Egyptian government’s Interest Section because of the Egyptian Government's support for the slaughter in Gaza. Other protests have been held in front of the Saudi and Jordanian embassies. Every day there have been massive rallies held in Palestine Square (today’s had many non-students as well as it is a public holiday). The Saudi Airlines office was attacked, and the building belonging to the British embassy was briefly taken. The police have trouble keeping up.

Holiday Story of the Day: Muslim Family Looks for Safe Seats, Gets Booted Off Flight

Follow-Up: Nine Muslim Passengers Booted from AirTran Flight
Follow-up: Flashback in the War on Terror --- The Muslims at Shoney's Big Boy Restaurant

From CNN:

A Muslim family removed from an airliner Thursday after passengers became concerned about their conversation say AirTran officials refused to rebook them, even after FBI investigators cleared them of wrongdoing.

Atif Irfan said federal authorities removed eight members of his extended family and a friend after passengers heard them discussing the safest place to sit and misconstrued the nature of the conversation.

Irfan, a U.S. citizen and tax attorney, said he was "impressed with the professionalism" of the FBI agents who questioned him, but said he felt mistreated when the airline refused to book the family for a later flight.

Gaza Update: Washington Seeking a Cease-Fire?

Just after posting our morning update, noting US-Israeli discussions of @an international monitoring system that would keep Hamas from rearming during a cease-fire and ensure an end to rocket attacks on Israel", we belatedly discovered a significant article from Paul Richter in The Los Angeles Times indicating that elements of the Bush Administration are trying to get an Israeli timetable to stop operations:

Behind closed doors, U.S. seeks Israel exit strategy

December 31, 2008

Reporting from Washington — While publicly declaring strong support for Israel, the Bush administration is increasingly nervous about the 4-day-old campaign in the Gaza Strip and is urging its ally to settle on a timetable and exit strategy, say foreign diplomats and Middle East experts close to the discussions.



U.S. officials are concerned that the campaign could drag on without destroying Hamas, and might even bolster support for the militant group -- just as the 2006 Israeli campaign in Lebanon strengthened Hezbollah, they say.

"You're not hearing that same confidence you did in 2006 that the Israeli military can impose a new strategic reality and should go full force," said one Arab diplomat in Washington. "There's a real contrast between their words then and now."

U.S. officials were talking intensively Tuesday to Arab and European powers about the possibility of a two- or three-day cease-fire, diplomats said. U.S. diplomacy is complicated by differences between the White House and the State Department, these sources said.

President Bush has been a steadfast supporter of Israel's right to take whatever steps it considers necessary for its defense, and U.S. officials are not pressuring Israel to stop fighting before it believes it can safely do so.

But the State Department must deal with the growing international pressure for a halt in the campaign. U.S. officials are calling for a "durable" cease-fire -- meaning the Israelis need to stop fighting only after Hamas has done enough to convince them that rocket attacks will not resume within hours.

Yet U.S. officials have keen memories of what happened in Lebanon. The administration gave broad support to that campaign, which Israeli officials said could "eviscerate" Hezbollah. The war, which lasted 34 days and involved intense ground and air attacks, strengthened America's enemies and weakened its friends in the region, most observers agree.

"The United States put itself in a vulnerable position internationally with that commitment," said Daniel Senor, a former administration official now affiliated with the Council on Foreign Relations. "Just like Israel, the Bush administration is thinking now about the lessons of the Lebanon war."

U.S. officials have also been warning Israel to take care to avoid any single strike that, by inflicting devastating civilian casualties, could further swing international opinion against it.

That happened in July 2006, when Israeli warplanes hit a building in the Lebanese village of Qana, inflicting dozens of casualties.

The Qana attack "was a big turning point in that war," Senor said. "The administration wants Israel to execute this operation in ways that avoid the mistakes, setbacks and blemishes of 2006."

Of the almost 400 Palestinian deaths in the latest violence, the United Nations estimates that 62 were civilians. Four Israeli civilians have been killed by rocket fire from Gaza.

Senor said the Americans' desire for clarity about the end game and exit strategy may put them in conflict with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who wants to preserve his options and keep his enemies guessing.

Though Bush is in his last three weeks on the job, he and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have an enormous stake in the outcome of the battle.

They have been claiming that their peace efforts have been yielding results, but the war has weakened their foremost Palestinian ally, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, while raising the prospect that it will give his Hamas rivals both greater public support and political power.

The fighting also has resulted in criticism of U.S. allies Egypt and Jordan, both of which have diplomatic relations with Israel and are regarded by some Arabs as unable to halt the current conflict. That could enhance the status of Iran and its hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has been under tremendous pressure because of his country's slumping economy.

The Arab diplomat, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the diplomacy, said that until the offensive, "Hamas was in a bind -- their popularity was declining. . . . Now they could be the winner."

White House and State Department officials declined to comment on what they are telling the Israelis. A State Department spokesman, Gordon Duguid, said U.S. diplomats were "working as hard as we can to help reestablish a cease-fire that can be fully respected, one that's sustainable, one that's durable."

Foreign diplomats who have been talking to U.S. officials say they see a difference in emphasis between the White House and State Department.

On Saturday, when the Israeli campaign began, Rice issued a statement calling for restoration of the cease-fire, which had been mediated by Egypt and which Hamas often violated.

Now, however, both State Department and White House officials are referring to a "durable cease-fire," entailing new and stricter terms.

A diplomat from another Middle Eastern country said there appeared to be a "back and forth" between the State Department and White House, leaving the U.S. position in flux.

Senor said the White House was emphasizing support for Israel while Rice was conveying that the State Department could not indefinitely hold off international pressure for an end to the campaign.

Ziad Asali, president of the American Task Force on Palestine, which lobbies for the Palestinian cause in Washington, said he thought U.S. concerns had been heightened by the possibility of Israel sending in infantry.

Such a move would probably mean higher civilian casualties and more provocative media coverage that could inflame Arab public opinion and "have real consequences for the stability of several of the regimes in the region," he said.

Steven J. Rosen, a former senior official with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, said U.S. concerns were being heightened by fears that Israel probably cannot destroy Hamas, a view shared by many Israelis. Washington and moderate Arab governments in the neighborhood would have more patience if they thought there was a realistic chance Hamas could be overthrown, he said.

Rosen said the Americans, like the Israelis, wonder whether Hamas will emerge politically stronger, even if its military arsenal is badly depleted.

In these circumstances, he said, the U.S. message is: "I know why you're getting in -- but how are you going to get out? How does this end?"

Follow-up on Iran: Closure of Human Rights Center

The offices of lawyer and Nobel Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi were raided on Monday by Government officials who said they were from the tax office. Two computers, files, and folders on Ebadi's clients, most of them political activists, were seized.

In a curious reference implying that the raid has more to do with intelligence-gathering rather than prosecution of Ebadi, "an informed source in Tehran said the country's judiciary was not involved in the most recent raid". The official line, at least from the Iranian mission to the United Nations, was "that it was unaware of any campaign to silence Ebadi's work".

Yesterday "medical students" protested in front of Ebadi's home, accusing her of supporting Israel and spray-painting slogans on her building. The protests came two days after Ebadi and the Center for the Defenders of Human Rights, whose offices were closed last  month by Iranian authorities, issued a statement condeming the Israeli attacks and calling for international action to stop the assault.

Gaza Update (10 a.m. Israel/Palestine; 8 a.m. Britain): Israeli Manoeuvres in Paris?

Update to the Update: "Israel is discussing with Washington the possibility of establishing an international monitoring system that would keep Hamas from rearming during a cease-fire, and ensure an end to rocket attacks on Israel, said diplomats familiar with the discussions."

It seems almost callous to speak of a "routine" of Israeli airstrikes against Gaza, as more than 50 attacks were carried out on Thursday. In addition to the killing of Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan, Israeli raids hit the home of "senior Hamas military operative" Nabil Amrin, the Parliament building, the Ministries of Justice, Education, and Civil Defense, and a mosque in Jabaliya. The Israeli Defense Forces said more than 40 rockets were fired into Israel.

There may be a twist in the diplomatic tale, however. Israeli Tzipi Livni traveled to Paris to meet Prime Minister  Nicolas Sarkozy and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, only 24 hours after a French proposal for a humanitarian truce was rejected by the Israeli Cabinet. Livni said that the Israeli attacks had "achieved changes" and said the aim was to "weaken Gaza".



One possibility is that the Israeli Government, which has just permitted the departure of foreigners from the Gaza Strip, could be preparing for a ground assault. The Foreign Minister's words, however, point to another possibility: could Livni be backing away from the objective, declared on the eve of the Israeli assault, of overthrowing Hamas? And does her statement of "achieved changes" indicate that Israel may be ready to pause?

Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, I noted this yesterday from Donald Macintyre in The Independent:

There was a moment, back at the end of July 2006, when the second Lebanon war might just have ended five or six days after it began. We now know that Tzipi Livni, Israel's Foreign Minister, expressed serious concern that Israel might be missing a chance to reach a peace agreement at least as good as the one which would come a full four weeks and many hundreds of casualties – on both sides – later.

Reportedly, it was Minister of Defense Ehud Barak rather than Livni who supported the 48-hour truce in Israeli Cabinet discussions. Yet, with Sarkozy pressing his own role as an international statesman and travelling to Israel on Monday, it appears negotiations are ongoing for some manoeuvre which will permit an easing of Israeli operations while allowing Tel Aviv to claim victory in its immediate aim of facing down Hamas.

As Livni said, somewhat cryptically, after Thursday's talks, "The question of whether it's enough or not [for a truce] will be the result of our assessment on a daily basis," she said.