Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the
Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its
merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions:
Israel is a "rogue state" that practises terrorism and threatens the
use of weapons of mass destruction, the Palestinians have built "the
only genuine democracy in the Arab world" against all odds.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
Israeli historian Avi Shlaim shows that in July 1981, US diplomat
Philip Habib brokered a ceasefire between the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) and Israel. For the next year, the PLO infuriated
Israel by refusing to violate the ceasefire and thereby provide an
excuse for Israel's long-planned attack on PLO refugee camps and
bases in Lebanon. Then, on 3 June 1982, a member of the Abu Nidal
organization shot and wounded Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador in
London. Abu Nidal, or Sabri Khalil al-Banna, was a Palestinian, but
he was anything but a PLO stalwart: "Abu Nidal was supported by Iraq
in his struggle against Arafat's 'capitulationist' leadership of the
PLO. Abu Nidal customarily referred to Arafat as 'the Jewess's son.'
The PLO had passed a death sentence on Abu Nidal for assassinating
some of its moderate members who advocated a dialogue with Israel."
The next day, Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin called an
emergency cabinet meeting. When his advisor Gideon Machanaimi and
Avraham Shalom (the head of the General Security Service) began to
discuss the nature of the Abu Nidal organization, Begin cut them off:
"'They are all PLO.' [Army Chief of Staff] Rafael Eitan was equally
dismissive. Shortly before entering the conference room, an
intelligence aide told him that Abu Nidal's men were evidently
responsible for the assassination attempt. 'Abu Nidal, Abu Shmidal,'
he sneered; 'we have to strike at the PLO!'"
Two days later, Israel invaded Lebanon, which would kill over 18,000
people, including the massacres of Palestinian refugees at Sabra and
Shatila, and push Lebanon further into a morass of imperial and
sectarian violence. Of course, the lying excuse endlessly proffered
for the invasion, enshrined in its nickname "Operation Peace for the
Galilee," and obligingly circulated by the American media, was that
Israel could no longer be expected to tolerate a constant barrage of
PLO rockets across its northern border.
In Israel's recent rush to invade Gaza, we witness the same
predisposition to violence, the same aching aggravation with
Palestinian peace offensives, and the same willingness to conflate
all resistance, all frustrations, into a single enemy: "They are all
Hamas!" And we see that Hamas, like the PLO, refused to oblige Israel
with a single provocative act. For more than four months after 19
June 2008, Hamas refrained from any military actions that might
endanger the negotiated truce or "calm" with Israel.
The evidence for this is ready to hand. For example, the Wikipedia
entry on the events of the summer,
"<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_rocket_and_mortar_attacks_in_Israel_in_2008&oldid=261804495>List
of rocket and mortar attacks in Israel in 2008" (revised 4 January
2008), based almost exclusively on Israeli newspapers and government
sources, confirms that there were no rocket or mortar attacks claimed
by or plausibly attributed to Hamas during the calm. This can also be
verified by surveying archives of news reports from the period.
The few that were launched, none of them causing any casualties, were
claimed by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, by Islamic Jihad, by "the
Badr Forces," or by nobody. Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh
called repeatedly for a cessation of rocket fire, and denounced those
factions who broke the truce. A Hamas spokesman criticized Fatah for
allowing the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is affiliated with Fatah,
to fire rockets. Meanwhile, Israeli occupation forces' murders and
settler pogroms continued unabated on the West Bank. They included an
attempt by a settler to fire a homemade rocket toward the Palestinian
village of Burin, which nearly killed another settler. During the
lull, then, Israeli settlers fired more rockets (i.e., one) than did Hamas.
In a document entitled
"<http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+since+2000/Missile+fire+from+Gaza+on+Israeli+civilian+targets+Aug+2007.htm>The
Hamas terror war against Israel," The Israeli Ministry of Foreign
Affairs provides striking visual evidence of Hamas's good faith
during the lull.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10123.shtml
john g
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