On Thursday, Israel’s Deputy Ambassador to Britain, Talya Lador-Fresher, “Challenges and Hopes in the Middle East” to an University of Birmingham audience.
For her first challenge, Lador-Fresher chose the 2008/9 Gaza War. This had been “successful” since life in southern Israel is becoming normal and Egypt’s eyes have been opened so it no longer allows smuggling through almost 150 tunnels.
Challenge #2 is that the Fatah Party of Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayad do not represent the majority of Palestinians since Hamas is controlling the Gaza Strip. Hamas poses Challenge #3 is that Hamas is killing and hiding among the civilian population and then crying as if they have done nothing. (Lador-Fresher stated that both the Goldstone Report and the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations are biased against Israel on the Gaza issue.)
The European Parliament on Wednesday endorsed the Goldstone Report and urged its 27 members to monitor the Israeli and Palestinian probes into alleged war crimes committed during the Gaza War.
Israel’s reaction was harsh. The spokesman for the Israeli mission to EU, Yoel Mester, said:
We find this resolution flawed and counterproductive. While other players are striving to support the peace process and to start the proximity talks between Israel and Palestinians, it is regrettable that the European Parliament chooses to concentrate on a highly controversial issue.
Haaretz says that the most recent visit to Damascus by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns on February 17 was unsatisfactory, with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad denying American claims that his regime was providing military aid to Iraq, Hezbollah, and other Palestinian groups.
No ICC Date for Israel: A former International Criminal Court official, legal attorney Nick Kaufman, told Haaretz on Sunday that the claims of alleged war crimes in the Goldstone Report on the Gaza War will not reach the ICC at the Hague, since the US will veto such a move.
Clashes on Temple Mount in Jerusalem: Four policemen were wounded and a dozen protesters were hurt in clashes between security forces and Palestinians at the Temple Mount on Sunday. Seven people were arrested on suspicion of hurling rocks.
The Dubai Assassination: On Monday, Dubai officials announced they had new suspects in the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Following the announcement, Australia’s Government called the Israeli ambassador to receive further information: three of the 15 suspects held Australian passports.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said:
We will not be silent on this matter. It is a matter of deep concern. It really goes to the integrity and fabric of the use of state documents, which passports are, for other purposes.
The Son of Hamas Spy Scandal: The Haaretz article alleging that Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, was a long-time Israeli spy continues to provoke. Hamas parliament member Mushir a-Masri said that the story was not worthy of a response and called it Zionist propaganda.
Gaza Clashes: Israel Defense Forces soldiers on Friday opened artillery and gun fire on a group of four Palestinians rigging explosives near the Gaza border. Two of Palestinians were killed. Following the incident Hamas’s Khaled Meshal, in an interview with London-based Al Hayat newspaper, threatened that a new conflict would not be limited to Gaza.
Israel Tries to Cut Off Gaza Enquiry: The Jerusalem Post has learned that the response Israel gave to United Nations on the investigations it is conducting into Operation Cast Lead seeks to deter UN action.
“Israel feels the report it gave was a serious, comprehensive, credible and complete answer to the UN secretary-general,” one senior official in the Prime Minister’s Office said.
With two Israeli army officers, “disciplined” for firing artillery shells towards a densely-populated area near a UN compound, still not facing a criminal investigation by the Israeli Defense Forces, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon confirmed on Thursday that he had received a full internal report from the Israelis.
This document completely expresses Israel’s commitment to conduct an honest internal probe according to the standards of international law. Despite the difficult conditions of fighting against Hamas terror, Israel has stringently abided by international norms and will continue to do in the future – though our foremost obligation is to protect our citizens.
However, The Independent of London reported a confession from a high-ranking Israeli official who talked to Israel’s Yedhiot Ahronot. The officer said that the Israeli army went beyond its previous rules of engagement, concerning the protection of civilian lives, to minimise military casualties during the Operation Cast Lead. The senior commander said:
Means and intentions is a definition that suits an arrest operation in the Judaea and Samaria [West Bank] area… We need to be very careful because the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] was already burnt in the second Lebanon war from the wrong terminology. The concept of means and intentions is taken from different circumstances. Here [in Cast Lead] we were not talking about another regular counter-terrorist operation. There is a clear difference.
According to the newspaper, a more junior officer who served during the operation described the new policy as one of “literally zero risk to the soldiers” as a part of the policy to avoid the heavy military casualties of the 2006 Lebanon war.
UPDATED 2 FEBRUARY: Haaretz reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to persuade Defense Minister Ehud Barak to accept an Israeli investigation into civilian deaths during Operation Cast Lead. However, officials said that both Barak and Gabi Ashkenazi, the Chief of Staff of Israel Defense Forces, refused to yield authority to investigators from outside the defense establishment.
“The prime minister knows what he wants to do on this matter – but he does not want to bring the matter to the cabinet,” a senior source close to Netanyahu said.
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With the General Assembly convening on 5 February 5 to discuss progress on the Goldstone Report and its recommendations, Israel submitted its response to United Nations over last year’s Gaza War.
The committee will reportedly have the authority to summon everyone who was in charge of the IDF investigations and any civilian who took part in the main deliberations. However, it will not have the authority to question operational commanders. The committee is likely to take testimony of lower-ranked officials, ensuring that there is no basis to send officials to international courts.
Israel’s bigwigs attacked at dawn on a wide front. The president in Germany, the prime minister with a giant entourage in Poland, the foreign minister in Hungary, his deputy in Slovakia, the culture minister in France, the information minister at the United Nations, and even the Likud party’s Druze Knesset member, Ayoob Kara, in Italy. They were all out there to make florid speeches about the Holocaust.
Wednesday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and an Israeli public relations drive like this hasn’t been seen for ages. The timing of the unusual effort – never have so many ministers deployed across the globe – is not coincidental: When the world is talking Goldstone, we talk Holocaust, as if out to blur the impression. When the world talks occupation, we’ll talk Iran as if we wanted them to forget.
On Thursday, Israel’s Deputy Ambassador to Britain, Talya Lador-Fresher, “Challenges and Hopes in the Middle East” to an University of Birmingham audience.
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