Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

In taking over much of Beirut (including Sunni neighborhoods formerly controlled by pro-government forces), Hezbollah has engineered what I call a “coup on the ground.” It hasn’t touched the levers of power or elected government. But by controlling much of the territory of the capital city it has taken physical control of almost everything else. The message from Hezbollah is: “we can topple you at will.” And shows the government to be little more than a paper tiger. It reminds me in some ways (though not precisely) of Hamas’ pre-emptive Gaza coup of last June and one can certainly say that Hamas and Hezbollah have learned from each other to the detriment of their respective adversaries.

I don’t know how this will play out, but Hezbollah has clearly upped the ante which may eventually or immediately require the pro-U.S. Lebanese government to resign under duress and accede to Hezbollah political demands for veto power over most political decisions. This seems a disaster for the viability and integrity of a democratic Lebanon as a whole (if there can be said to be such a thing as “a whole”). It is a sad day.

But the main purpose of this post is to decry the bankrupt U.S. and Israeli policy toward Syria which might’ve help avoid this sorry mess. Both governments stubbornly wore ideological blinders which prevented them from embracing a Syrian track to resolve the Israeli-Syrian-Lebanese conflict. Now, the chickens are coming home to roost. Now, Syria and her Hezbollah allies sit in the cat bird seat.

Think where Israel and Lebanon could be if Ariel Sharon or Ehud Olmert had responded positively to Alon Liel’s negotiating track with Syria over the past year or so in which the latter essentially provided the outline for a negotiated settlement with Syria. Instead, Liel was met with stony silence or outright disdain. It appears that over the past few months Olmert has gradually turned the Titanic around regarding Syria negotiations. But it is too late in several senses. It is too late because his political career is almost over in light of his current bribery investigation. And it is too late because Hezbollah has pre-empted any possible future settlement in which it might’ve been neutered or moderated.

When thinking of this conflict I’m always reminded of Abba Eban’s saying intended by him to criticize the Palestinians who, he claimed: “Never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Of course, like many who are quick with bons mot, Ebban neglected to understand that this referred to himself and his own government as well.

tags abba eban, gaza, hamas, hezbollah takes over beirut, israel syria peace negotiations, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, signaled flexibility last month by saying that military attacks on Gaza would stop if its Hamas rulers stopped cross-border rocket salvos.

Israel dismissed a proposal by the Palestinian group Hamas for a six-month truce in the Gaza Strip…

New York Times

So, let’s get this straight: Olmert says if Hamas stops rocket attacks on Israel that he’ll stop IDF attacks on Gaza; then Hamas offers to do precisely that and Israel refuses. Curiouser and curiouser…

Ah, but Israel can afford to play the tough guy on this one. Its current policy toward Hamas is going so swimmingly. 1.5 million Gazans subsisting on UN food rations. Qassams raining down on Sderot. Israelis killed in cross border infiltrations. Shalit still in his kidnappers’ hands. Hamas holding onto power with no dent made in its popularity by Israel’s tough love approach. Yes, it’s going so well there’s absolutely no need to meet Hamas halfway. Take the high road. They’ll come around. They always do.

And don’t forget those media talking points–Israel is the one who wants peace. Israel is the one open to compromise. It’s just those nasty terrorists who you can’t trust as far as you can throw ‘em.

No doubt tomorrow’s headline in Israeli dailies will trumpet how Hamas is rearming and preparing for all-out war; how Iran is resupplying Hamas with bigger and better rockets. All part of the IDF-intelligence apparatus spin machine trying to spook Israelis into believing they have no recourse but to continue with the same bankrupt policy which has produced no results for so long.

Look at what Israel’s UN ambassador did to Jimmy Carter yesterday. For having the temerity to meet with Hamas, encourage a deputy prime minister to meet with Hamas, and for urging Israel to meet with Hamas–Gillerman took out the long knives and put a shiv in Carter’s gut calling him “a bigot” with “blood on his hands.” Wow. That’s pretty good knife play for a mere diplomat. Maybe he learned to rough his victims up verbally with some prior training in the Israeli Border Police.

tags gaza, israel rejects hamas ceasefire offer, qassams, shalit

I wrote earlier about the death of Fadel Shana, the Gaza Reuters cameraman, whose spine was severed by metal flechette darts fired by an Israeli tank, which also killed five other civilians in the same incident. Human Rights Watch has denounced the attack:

New York-based Human Rights Watch has said it has evidence suggesting that the tank fired “recklessly or deliberately” at the Reuters news crew.

When I earlier wrote about this I was under the mistaken impression that the cameraman was the only person killed. But two others died with him and two others died subsequently–all from the same single shell. This clearly indicates how savage, destructive and heinous the flechette weapon is. It is a tank version of a cluster bomb which explodes in the air above the target and sprays sharp metal darts indiscriminately throughout the vicinity.

The tank attack took place shortly after a Hamas ambush which resulted in three IDF soldiers being killed. Could we surmise that the tank was outfitted with such weaponry and the tank crew eager to fire in order to avenge the deaths of their comrades–even if the Palestinian target was of no military value? An act of sheer, naked vengeance?

One of my readers has attempted to argue that one of the victims was armed as an attempt to explain the tank’s firing. I haven’t even heard the IDF claim this and one would think it would be eager to do so if there was any evidence at all to support it (hell, they’re not even above lying in these types of circumstances so I truly doubt if that charge can be supported). Others have argued that the tank crew might’ve confused the cameraman’s camera for an RPG launcher. But there were at least seven, and probably more civilians standing at the scene of this incident. Can anyone credibly argue that Hamas militants gather in groups this large in the open air when they fire an RPG?

I think it’s important also to document how one dies when hit by such a shell:

Shana’s body armour, which bore a blue-on-white “PRESS” marking, was ripped off by the attack, which medical examination showed had thrust several 1.5-inch (38-mm) metal darts through his neck, shredding his flesh and severing his spine.

I seem to spout the same old almost cliches by now about how Arab life is so cheap to the IDF. But it bears repeating until Israel learns the lesson if it ever will. A man wearing a clearly marked flak jacket indicating he was a journalist, and whose vehicle was similarly marked, was blasted to kingdom come by an Israeli tank using ultra-lethal anti-personnel weapons. It’s unfortunately par for the course for this conflict.

The total inadequacy of the Israeli Supreme Court in policing the IDF’s overaggressive tactics is indicated by this passage:

The Israeli army has defended its use of flechettes, noting that the Israeli Supreme Court turned down a petition to ban their use as a danger to civilian bystanders.

Maybe they’d want to reconsider their previous ruling in light of the death toll from this incident and the international opprobrium that will attach to it. Even if a sense of humanity doesn’t move Israel to act properly, sometimes just plain embarrassment will do the trick. Whatever it takes.

tags fadel shana, flechette weapon, gaza, idf, reuters

The Arab haters who frequent this site are fond of throwing around cliches and racist prejudice about Arab religious and cultural attitudes. According to the haters, Arabs are bloodthirsty for revenge against Israel. They are certainly liars and totally untrustworthy. Even when Arabs say something conciliatory they are only saying it for the benefit of western media.

Well, this passage will throw a wrench in the works of those shallow thought processes of theirs. A Haaretz reporter visited the Atamnas family, which lost 18 members to errant IDF shells which killed them as they lay sleeping. The victims must be crying blood curdling calls for revenge, right? Hardly.

At the mourning tent erected by the Atamna family, which lost 18 members when errant IDF shells hit the family’s house, the stream of visitors has ebbed, and only some 20 people were there Tuesday.

Tahani Atamna, whose son Mahmoud, 12, was killed in the shelling, clutched her son’s geometry book. “He was number one in his class. The best student,” she said.

Three of her other children - Khaled, 7, Khalil, 9, and Khulud, 13 - are unwilling to return home, she added. “Yesterday, we brought them here with two psychologists. But they started to cry and said that they don’t want to die. The whole family went. All those who remain are wounded in body or soul.”

“I don’t wish any Jewish mother to go through what I’m going through, this disaster of seeing her son die before her eyes,” she continued. “I only hope that we will be the last victims of this war.”

Nor did other family members sound hungry for revenge. “I don’t want this to happen to anyone in the world,” said Riad Atamna. “Not to Jews, not to Christians and not to Muslims. Enough blood. Enough.”

Does Israel deserve such empathy especially from victims who have suffered so much due to the unconscionable mistakes of an incompetent IDF? I only applaud the victims for being able to muster such humanity in the face of such horrid brutality.

Perhaps, one day the IDF will become the kind of fighting force that does not make such mistakes, or if it does it confronts the mistake directly and honestly. And perhaps someday when it makes one of these mistakes it will actually do everything in its power to ensure it is never made again. Can we really believe that the current IDF will not make this mistake again next week, next month or next year?

tags atamnas-family, beit-hanun-massacre-victims, gaza, i-only-hope-we-are-last-victims-of-this-war, idf-artillery-kills-18-civilians

This is getting to be a habit. The IDF’s third assassination attempt in a row has ended with multiple dead civilians. Two dead and among them a woman seven months pregnant. This time like the most recent attempt ended with IDF failure to kill the intended targets. The bad guys get away. The innocent suffer. Isn’t that the way it goes in Palestine? Actually, in Israel as well as the residents of Sderot are also innocent victims of Palestinian rocket fire. The prime difference is that the IDF kills far more civilians than the Palestinians. Five Israelis have died in four years of Qassam shelling while 13 Palestinian civilians have died this month alone.

Maybe we’ll have to start calling those IDF pilots the ‘gang that can’t shoot straight.’ Actually, that’s a bad joke. Not funny. But after so many of these disastrous strikes what else can one resort to? Only bad taste comes to mind unfortunately.

Here’s how today’s mayhem went down:

Two Palestinian civilians were killed and 14 others - all members of the same family - were wounded in an Israel Air Force strike in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday evening. ..

Three children were among the wounded…Medical personnel in Gaza said…that some of the wounded were in critical condition.

The 37-year-old woman killed in the strike, Fatima El-Barbarwi, was seven months pregnant. The other casualty was her brother, a 45-year-old doctor named Zakariya Ahmed residing in Saudi Arabia.

Ahmed was visiting his sister in Gaza and the family had settled down for the evening meal when they were hit by the missile. A pool of blood marked the floor in their kitchen.

Doctors tried to save the woman’s seven-month-old fetus, but failed, they said.

Palestinian witnesses said the apparent target of the IAF strike had been a jeep carrying members of the Popular Resistance Committees but the missile struck the house instead. A witness said the vehicle carrying the Palestinian militants passed by the house as the explosion occurred. The men inside jumped out of the car and ran into a nearby field.

How’s this for a pathetic response from the IDF:

“What happened in this case, the missile simply missed,” said the IDF spokeswoman.

A senior IAF officer, speaking on condition of anonymity under military regulations, said the missile missed its target by several dozen meters.

Several dozen meters? That’s outrageous. The IDF boasts of pinpoint accuracy yet misses its targets by wide margins. Next time the Palestinians should erect visual aids to help improve the pilot’s aim. Again, another bad joke. Excuse me but my bile is getting the better of me.

Oh, you’ll be pleased and reassured to know the IDF is appointing yet another inquiry into the recent spate of civilian deaths through IDF action. If it’s anything like the one into the Gaza beach massacre you can be sure it will be thorough, credible and exhaustive and won’t stop till it gets at the truth. Ahem!

There is one very small positive development here. Amir Peretz has apparently decided, at least for the time being, to suspend the IDF artillery barrage against Palestinian rocket launchers after the embarrassment of the Gaza beach massacre. But he’s turned with a vengeance to targeted assassinations by air as his fallback tactic. The only other choice is a land invasion to reoccupy Gaza, which Israel wishes to avoid at all costs becauses it wants the spotlight to remain on the mess that Hamas and Fatah are making of ruling Gaza. But attacks from the air are–judging by the IDF’s recent abysmal failures–apparently just as flawed a tactic as artillery barrages. I wonder how long it’ll take for this to sink in?

Amos Harel writes an informative piece in Haaretz, Nothing ’surgical’ about air force attacks in urban areas, which states in part:

…There is a flawed impression in Israel that it is possible to carry out an assassination without harming innocent civilians.

tags gaza, haaretz, palestinian-civilians-killed-by-idf, qassam-rocket, sderot

(photo: from Reuters video feed) On Saturday, the IDF fired rockets at a truck carrying Muhammad Dahdouh, an Islamic Jihad commander. He died at the scene (see video). Israel accused him of organizing the firing of Grad rockets into Israel. But the IDF rockets also killed members of a Palestinian family driving in a nearby taxi: Fadi Amman, 4, his mother Hanan Amman, 29, and his grandmother, Naima Annan, 45. Another family member was seriously wounded along with four others. I'm not here to tell you that Israel has no right to be concerned about Palestinian rocket fire; nor to say that this threat is ...