Israel eases Gaza blockade on civiliams, tightens security blockade

Just hours after the dramatic decision  to ease the Gaza Strip blockade and lift various restrictions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  explained the significance of the decision Sunday night. In a closed conversation, Netanyahu said this is "no civilian blockade on Gaza, but only a security blockade."


"The security blockade is tightened now," the prime minister said, "because we have taken away Hamas' ability to blame Israel for harming the civilian population and because our friends around the world are backing us up on this decision and granting legitimacy to the continued security blockade against Hamas."

"We have taken the right decision for Israel from a security and political point of view," Netanyahu asserted.
 --ynetnews
 

Obama and Six Ways Israel is More Secure

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From: Aaron Keyak [mailto:aaron.keyak@mail.house.gov]
Sent: Friday, June 18, 2010 2:25 PM

Rep. Rothman has identified as "six hugely important developments that have happened in the last month that will provide extraordinary help to protect Israel’s security." Unfortunately, these events have been underreported in the media.

 

Israel's Security: What the Media has Underreported

By Representative Steve Rothman (D-NJ)

 

There are six hugely important developments that have happened in the last month that will provide extraordinary help to protect Israel’s security. Unfortunately, these events have been underreported in the media:

 

1.     On June 9, 2010,  the U.N. Security Council passed a set of new sanctions against Iran with Russia, China, the U.S. and nine others voting in favor, with Brazil and Turkey voting no, and Lebanon abstaining.  While these sanctions will have some additional effects, and are expected to result in even greater sanctions from the Europeans and the U.S., the most immediate, as well as long term benefit of the sanctions is that Russia has agreed not to sell its S-300 anti-aircraft system to Iran!  The S-300 system is extremely difficult to overcome, according to all knowledgeable military experts.  If delivered to Iran, it would be a game-changer in Iran’s military position vis-a-vis Israel.

(Russia now says Iran sanctions ban S-300 missiles)

 

2.     On June 12, 2010, Saudi Arabia agreed to permit Israel to over fly a portion of its territory, should Israel feel it necessary to undertake military actions against Iran.

(Saudi Arabia Gives Israel Clear Skies to Attack Iranian Nuclear Sites)

 

3.     On June 10, 2010, the Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, publically stated that Israel should not be forced to end its blockade of Gaza.

(Abbas to Obama: I'm against lifting the Gaza naval blockade)

 

4.     On June 9, 2010, Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas publically declared in Washington, D.C. that he and the Palestinians were ready to recognize that the Jewish people have a right to some portion of Israel and the territories.

(Washington - Abbas Tells U.S. Jews: I Would Never Deny Jewish Right to The Land of Israel)

 

5.      On May 10, 2010, Israel was admitted, unanimously, to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This enables Israel to join the world’s fellow economic powers as a co-equal, first class citizen for the first time.

(The State of Israel Joins the OECD)

 

6.      On May 13, 2010, President Barack Obama announced his intention to give the state of Israel $205 million so that Israel might purchase additional Iron Dome anti-missile defense batteries for deployment throughout the State of Israel.On May 20, 2010, the House of Representatives voted 410 - 4 to affirm President Obama’s decision. The Iron Dome Short Range Artillery Rocket Defense System is designed to intercept short-range rockets, missiles, and mortars launched by terrorists in Gaza and southern Lebanon. It can protect Israel from rockets within a range of 2.5 – 45 miles.

(Obama authorizes $205 million for Iron Dome)

 

All these six items have a major, positive impact on the security of the State of Israel!

 

Each of these six accomplishments was only made possible with the direct, powerful, and demanding insistence of President Barack Obama. In my opinion, the big picture for Israel’s security has improved!

 

There is, obviously, a long way to go, but progress such as this is important not to overlook, ignore, or belittle.

 

Congressman Steve Rothman (D-NJ) is in his seventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives.  He serves on the House Appropriations Subcommittees of Defense; and State and Foreign Operations, which appropriate all spending for the United States military, and all foreign aid, respectively.

 

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Aaron Keyak
Communications Director
Congressman Steve Rothman (NJ-9)
2303 Rayburn HOB
o: 202/225-5061
c: 202/905-6361

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the World bays

Who cares about Hamas's 'reign of terror'?

"The point Toameh constantly makes in one way or another is that it is hypocritical to say you desire a better life for Palestinians and look the other way at Fatah and Hamas abuses. Keep that in mind as the world mobilizes to force Israel to end its weapons blockade." 

By Stephanie Gutmann        June 14th, 2010   http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/stephaniegutmann/100043249/who-cares-about-hamass-reign-of-terror/

 

As President Obama gets ready to send an additional 400 million dollars in aid to “ordinary Palestinians” (most of which will probably end up with a small inner circle of Hamas weapons enthusiasts) it’s worth remembering who is causing the most misery to the people of Gaza.

The Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh has written a blistering essay for the Hudson New York blog headlined, “What About Hamas’s Siege of Gaza?“. He reminds us that while the world bayed about Israel’s naval blockade, “Hamas [has continued] its reign of terror on the local population in general and its critics in particular.”

What is that reign like? Well, here are some snapshots of life in Gaza under Hamas: on June 6, “A senior United Nations official… expressed deep concern at reports that Hamas has broken into the offices of [NGOs] in the Gaza Strip… confiscated materials and equipment, and forced the offices to shut down.”

In late May, masked gunmen raided a UN children’s camp, tearing down tents and burning storage buildings. It’s not known who was behind those masks but earlier what the Irish Times called “a previously unknown militant group, The Free of the Homeland, issued a statement criticising [the UN] for, ‘teaching schoolgirls fitness, dancing and immorality.’” Hamas often uses proxies and has been attempting to impose strict sharia law. In April, as the same Irish Times article points out, Hamas sent “police to break up the Gaza Strip’s first major hip-hop concert [because, it said,] organisers failed to get a permit.”

Toameh was born in the West Bank city of Tulkarm 45 years ago. He was thus able to observe Yasser Arafat’s rise to power and the accompanying loss of freedoms and prosperity as the dictator (who had hopped over from Tunisia) whisked foreign aid money into his personal bank account and took control of media outlets. When Toameh was slightly older, and to avoid Arafat rule, his family moved to Israeli-controlled East Jerusalem and Toameh was educated at the Anglican Church School in West Jerusalem. He went on to get a college degree at an Israeli university; nevertheless his first job out of college was at a Palestinian Liberation Organization newspaper. People are free to move around like that in Israel. I can assure you that you don’t see that kind of fluidity in the Palestinian territories.

Because he speaks English, Arabic and Hebrew fluently, he is one of less than a handful of Middle East reporters who is able to attend Israeli, Hamas and Fatah press conferences without dependence on poltiically-motivated fixers for translation. What I’m trying to say is that he is as good a window into real life as you can find.

It’s a shame there aren’t more Palestinian journalists who can write freely, but if they haven’t, in effect, escaped to become Israeli citizens, they live a life of constant harassment, jailings and beatings by both the Fatah and Hamas regimes.

The point Toameh constantly makes in one way or another is that it is hypocritical to say you desire a better life for Palestinians and look the other way at Fatah and Hamas abuses. Keep that in mind as the world mobilizes to force Israel to end its weapons blockade.

A pro-Hamas coordinator of the "Gaza Flotilla" speaks

This video is aimed at people who believe the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is about land and borders.
 

 
 
 
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=abd_1276623881

" [I]t is quite shocking to find Turkey’s Islamist government seemingly focused on joining the Hamas-Hezbollah-Iran resistance front against Israel. "  --Tom Friedman

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/opinion/16friedman.html

 

June 15, 2010   Op Ed,  New York Times

Letter From Istanbul

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Istanbul

Turkey is a country that had me at hello. I like the people, the culture, the food and, most of all, the idea of modern Turkey — the idea of a country at the hinge of Europe and the Middle East that manages to be at once modern, secular, Muslim, democratic, and has good relations with the Arabs, Israel and the West. After 9/11, I was among those hailing the Turkish model as the antidote to “Bin Ladenism.” Indeed, the last time I visited Turkey in 2005, my discussions with officials were all about Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union. That is why it is quite shocking to come back today and find Turkey’s Islamist government seemingly focused not on joining the European Union but the Arab League — no, scratch that, on joining the Hamas-Hezbollah-Iran resistance front against Israel.

Now how did that happen?

Wait one minute, Friedman. That is a gross exaggeration, say Turkish officials.

You’re right. I exaggerate, but not that much. A series of vacuums that emerged in and around Turkey in the last few years have drawn Turkey’s Islamist government — led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party — away from its balance point between East and West. This could have enormous implications. Turkey’s balancing role has been one of the most important, quiet, stabilizers in world politics. You only notice it when it is gone. Being in Istanbul convinces me that we could be on our way to losing it if all these vacuums get filled in the wrong ways.

The first vacuum comes courtesy of the European Union. After a decade of telling the Turks that if they wanted E.U. membership they had to reform their laws, economy, minority rights and civilian-military relations — which the Erdogan government systematically did — the E.U. leadership has now said to Turkey: “Oh, you mean nobody told you? We’re a Christian club. No Muslims allowed.” The E.U.’s rejection of Turkey, a hugely bad move, has been a key factor prompting Turkey to move closer to Iran and the Arab world.

But as Turkey started looking more South, it found another vacuum — no leadership in the Arab-Muslim world. Egypt is adrift. Saudi Arabia is asleep. Syria is too small. And Iraq is too fragile. Erdogan discovered that by taking a very hard line against Israel’s partial blockade of Hamas-led Gaza — and quietly supporting the Turkish-led flotilla to break that blockade, during which eight Turks were killed by Israel — Turkey could vastly increase its influence on the Arab street and in the Arab markets.

Indeed, Erdogan today is the most popular leader in the Arab world. Unfortunately, it is not because he is promoting a synthesis of democracy, modernity and Islam, but because he is loudly bashing Israel over its occupation and praising Hamas instead of the more responsible Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which is actually building the foundations of a Palestinian state.

There is nothing wrong with criticizing Israel’s human rights abuses in the territories. Israel’s failure to apply its creativity to solving the Palestinian problem is another dangerous vacuum. But it is very troubling when Erdogan decries Israelis as killers and, at the same time, warmly receives in Ankara Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the bloodshed in Darfur, and while politely hosting Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose government killed and jailed thousands of Iranians demanding that their votes be counted. Erdogan defended his reception of Bashir by saying: “It’s not possible for a Muslim to commit genocide.”

As one Turkish foreign policy analyst said to me: “We are not mediating between East and West anymore. We’ve become spokesmen for the most regressive elements in the East.”

Finally, there is a vacuum inside Turkey. The secular opposition parties have been in disarray most of the decade, the army has been cowed by wiretaps and the press has been increasingly intimidated into self-censorship because of government pressures. In September, the Erdogan government levied a tax fine of $2.5 billion on the largest, most influential — and most critical — media conglomerate, Dogan Holdings, to bring it to heel. At the same time, Erdogan lately has spoken with increasing vitriol about Israel in his public speeches — describing Israelis as killers — to build up his domestic support. He regularly labels his critics as “Israel’s contractors” and “Tel Aviv’s lawyers.”

Sad. Erdogan is smart, charismatic and can be very pragmatic. He’s no dictator. I’d love to see him be the most popular leader on the Arab street, but not by being more radical than the Arab radicals and by catering to Hamas, but by being more of a democracy advocate than the undemocratic Arab leaders and mediating in a balanced way between all Palestinians and Israel. That is not where Erdogan is at, though, and it’s troubling. Maybe President Obama should invite him for a weekend at Camp David to clear the air before U.S.-Turkey relations get where they’re going — over a cliff.

Louie Sloven: Get the facts before you judge Israel

Louie Sloven has an excellent piece in Monday's Daily Iowan
http://www.dailyiowan.com/2010/06/14/Opinions/17472.html

Guest column: Mavi Marmara fight illustrates many complexities

BY GUEST OPINION | JUNE 14, 2010 7:30 AM

And even though you might disagree with me, I’m not going to call you an anti-Semite. Really!As a young Jewish American who recently finished an eight-month-long stint in Israel, where I interned for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, I’m writing to explain how I feel about the world’s reaction to the recent flotilla fiasco.

I’m aware that most Americans, indeed most people the world over, are livid with anger at the current Israeli decision-makers. They’re wondering why Israeli forces were ordered to rappel down from a helicopter onto the deck of the Mavi Marmara; they’re wondering why that operation couldn’t have been handled in a manner that didn’t result in nine Turks and one American dead.

Indeed, most analyses of the issue focus on the morality of the existing Gaza blockade that the flotilla was attempting to circumvent. Representatives from every international organization, with barely an acronym to their name, have rushed to blame Israel for the decrepit conditions in Gaza. In light of that, many outside Israel are wont to take the side of these nautical “activists,” as they’ve been popularly labeled.

I am not surprised because, by now, this has become the modus operandi: Disasters and atrocities happen all over the world, yet Israel remains on the front page and in the world’s collective consciousness. The Obama administration’s prudent efforts to remain “neutral” in the war of words between Palestinians and Israelis is depicted as submission to “the Israel lobby.” The Palestinians back a powerful narrative of victimhood and succeed largely in demonizing Israelis, portraying them as determinedly land-hungry oppressors.

The media, too, paint a picture in which it’s easy to pick out the heroes and villains. If only the real story were that simple.

The nature of the events that unfolded became contentious primarily because the Israelis had no way of knowing what sort of cargo was onboard the flotilla. (A ship called the Francop was intercepted on its way to Lebanon last year; as it turned out, it was full of Iranian weaponry headed to Hezbollah. And Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the man assassinated in Dubai earlier this year, was discovered to be working as a Hamas-Iran liaison in the weapons-trafficking business.) It makes intuitive sense to me that Israel wants to keep close tabs on what goes in and out of Gaza.

Second, it’s not simple because Israeli troops probably did meet armed resistance aboard the Mavi Marmara. Even though video accounts of the actual conflict make the order of events difficult to discriminate, there are some YouTube videos of the “activists” aboard one boat chanting about the glory of jihad. I’m sure, like George Galloway’s recent “Viva Palestina” aid convoy, it was a mix of utopian peaceniks and Islamic extremists.

It’s not simple, third, because two ascendant nations — Turkey and Iran — seem to be writing the script behind the scenes and succeeding. It’s not surprising that a Turkish boat was where this scuffle took place; remember the recently aired Turkish TV series that portrays Israel Defense Forces soldiers indiscriminately gunning down unarmed civilians? Not to mention the slew of pictures featuring Turkish Premier Recep Erdogan warmly greeting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who called this event “the nail in the coffin of the Zionist regime.”

And finally, it’s not that simple for me because I also believe that Israel could have handled the situation more prudently and that there are some fundamental problems with the implementation of the Gaza blockade.

All I want you to understand is this: If you judge Israel before you wade through some of the complexities of the situation, you do us an injustice and you unwittingly serve the agendas of real anti-Semites and anti-Zionists. Don’t believe it’s that simple. We want peace, I swear it.

Louie Sloven
UI graduate

Ghadry: Liberal Muslims allied with Israel based on shared values

http://ghadry.com/why-do-liberal-muslims-see-eye-to-eye-with-israel/

Why Do Liberal Muslims See Eye-to-Eye with Israel?
On June 13, 2010, in Blog, by Farid Ghadry  excerpt

 Some of us liberal Muslims are facing the toughest times in our struggle for common sense and peaceful co-existence as the Middle East rages with extremism and terror. Not unlike Israel suffocating today from exactly the same factors. The fact is that both liberal Muslims and Israel share the same enemies, the same aspirations., and some important common goals.

At the present time, traditional Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt find themselves in agreement with Israel on Iran. But while Israel wants Iran defeated because it is a threat to its own existence, Saudi Arabia wants Iran contained because the country adheres to the Mazhab al-Shi’i. In other words, it is a short-term alliance timed by events very similar to the short-term alliance between extremist Sunnis and extremist Shias that ignores a history of conflicts these Islamists cannot but fight over should they divert their attention away, long enough, from the US and Israel.

But when it comes to liberal Muslims, who have a long-term vision for the region to openly embrace western knowhow and technological advancement aimed at lifting the standards of living of our own people, we find ourselves allied with the State of Israel based on shared values and common interests. Add to this the hope that one day we will open our borders for commerce and you understand why Israel is central to our success. We support Israel not because we are in love with Israelis or because we are taking a stand against our own religion. We support Israel because an alliance with this successful country bears all the hallmarks of protecting [our] interests ...