Hamas – praag.org

Palestinian leader to visit Pretoria

President Jacob Zuma will host his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, in Pretoria this week.

This visit follows a war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza earlier this year. More than 2100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed in Gaza. Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and six civilians were killed by rockets and attacks by Hamas and other militant groups.

The war prompted Pretoria to send a special envoy to the Middle East in an attempt to secure peace.

Zuma will receive Abbas on Wednesday, presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said.

Source: timeslive.co.za

Spain’s parliament calls for recognition of Palestine

The Spanish parliament supported Palestine’s recognition in a symbolic vote Tuesday.

Spanish Congress of Deputies (lower chamber of the parliament) has called on the government to recognize Palestine as a state in a non-binding motion.

According to a member of parliament and former Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez, the “formal and symbolic recognition” of Palestine by the parliament should spur peace talks, RIA Novosti reporter said.

In late October Britain held a similar vote that recognized the Palestinian state. France is to have symbolic voting on November 28.

Sweden officially recognized the state of Palestine on October 30, becoming the first EU country to do so.

Palestinians seek the creation of an independent state on the territories of the West Bank in East Jerusalem, partially occupied by Israel, as well as on the Gaza Strip territory controlled by Hamas militants. Palestine has designated Jerusalem as its capital and calls on Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories it took after the 1967 war.

Sweden officially recognizes state of Palestine

The decision, which has drawn the ire of Israel, comes unexpectedly early

The Swedish government became the first E.U. member to officially recognize the state of Palestine on Thursday.

Newly elected Prime Minister Stefan Lofven first announced the move at his swearing-in ceremony on Oct. 3, but he was not expected to follow through so soon, writes the Israeli daily Haaretz.

“Some will claim that today’s decision comes too early. I’m rather afraid it’s too late,” writes Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom in the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter. “The past year, we’ve seen how the peace negotiations once again have halted, how decisions on new settlements on occupied Palestinian land have obstructed a two-state solution and how violence has returned to Gaza.”

Wallstrom writes that the recognition aims to support moderate forces among the Palestinians, make future negotiations more equal and give young Palestinians hope of a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Israel has publicly protested the move, which some believe is feeding unrealistic Palestinian expectations of working out a resolution with the international community but without involving Israel, writes the Jerusalem Post.

A total of 134 other countries recognized Palestine before Sweden. Hungary, Poland and Slovakia all did so before joining the E.U.

Those fighting for Palestine – currently Hamas – are labeled as “terrorists” by Israel.

“EU members confirmed in 2009 their readiness to recognize the state of Palestine when it was appropriate,” Wallstrom said.

“We are now ready to take the lead. We hope this can show the way for others.”

She added that the fact that the Palestinians don’t have full control of their land or have fixed borders should not be an obstacle to international recognition.

A vote at the UN General Assembly in 2012 secured a de facto Palestinian statehood, although a ‘yes’ vote from most EU members is still pending. While Sweden is the first EU member in Western Europe to have recognized the state, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Malta, Romania, Poland and the Czech Republic have already done so.

Iceland – the only non-EU member in the pack, has also recognized the Palestinian state.

Leave ISIS to the homies

There was a great cry throughout the land. Non-stop propaganda from a monolithic media-military- congressional complex had convinced a petrified people of the need for a military offensive in Iraq and Syria, in pursuit of a pack of wild dogs: the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS or ISIL). A plurality of Americans canvassed has indicated that it is in the United States’ interest to take military action against ISIS.

The people wailed and railed. The Leader, they complained, lacked a plan to combat this force, which, they had been told, posed a grave existential threat to them. The war network led in jingoism. What precisely did President Barack Obama say that had Chucky Krauthammer and the chicken hawks in the Fox News coop so exercised? He told reporters that he didn’t have a strategy yet for confronting ISIS “on a regional level.” Anchor Megyn Kelly—her show has degenerated into a rah-rah, flag-waving, hour-long session, bemoaning diminished US world hegemony—poured scorn on one wag’s non-combative suggestion: Let the Arab League deal with ISIS.

Throughout, ISIS’s neighbors, Israel included, didn’t seem particularly concerned about the barbarians at the gate. The promise of eternal American intervention had, likely, enabled inertia and apathy among regional players.

Despotism and populism finally coalesced. Driven by polls and craving plaudits from the pundits, the president cobbled together a strategy. Within hours, love was in the air again. Members of a lovelorn liberal media scurried about like teens on prom night. It had been a long time since they felt the same rush about Obama. In his televised address to the nation, the president committed to increasing the ongoing airstrikes in Iraq; said he would take the fight to ISIL in Syria, too. The hormonal monitors at CNN spiked with each paternal promise of protection. “If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven,” roared Big Daddy.

Gullible Americans did not seem to compute that King Hussein’s commitment to take care of them was preposterous. Consider: “The FBI’s most recent national threat assessment for domestic terrorism” did not even mention the threat of Islamist terror. Like his predecessor, this president and his malevolent minions consider the signal danger to the homeland (i.e. to their reign) to emanate from local yokels: “anti-government militia groups,” “white supremacy extremists,” “sovereign citizen nationalists,” and, naturally, “Puerto Rican nationalists.” And, while He has thrown a bone to the ISIS-obsessed boneheads at home, the homeland’s southern border remains, by His decree, open to all.

Easily the most ludicrous aspect of Dr. Feelgood’s “plan” is the promise of “military assistance to the Syrian opposition”: “I again call on Congress, again, to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters.”

There is no telling the good Syrian opposition from the bad. If anything, there is a “growing preponderance of radical Islamists in the Syrian rebel force fighting Assad’s army,” seconds the outstanding intelligence provider DEBKAfile. Currently fighting ISIS is Bashar Hafez al-Assad, Syria’s embattled leader, whom Hussein, McCain and Clinton wanted to unseat.

The unseating of yet another extremely effective law-and-order leader, Saddam Hussein, is what unleashed ISIS. Despite what Delphic Oracle Dana Perino says in praise of her “prescient” boss’s “strategizing”; Bush 43 owns ISIS. Iraq has gone from a rogue state to a failed state, where mad dogs thrive. Fidelity to historical fact demands that Bush get Brownie points for that.

Mere weeks back, when Israel and Hamas were locking horns, two organic coalitions emerged in the Middle East. By DEBKAfile’s telling, the one “regional coalition” in the conflict included Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi, the UAE ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and … the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas. The rival axis consisted of Hamas, Qatar, Turkey and a turkey named Kerry (John). U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and “a brace of European ministers” joined this last group, known in the neighborhood as the “Save Hamas Squad.”

The first alliance was borne of “Netanyahu’s dilemma: Back Obama’s save Hamas policy, or fight for its downfall with Egypt and Saudis.”

My point? America thinks that it must and can be a force for good in the Middle East. Closer examination suggests that the region’s players march to their own drumbeat. In “Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East 1789-1923,” Efraim and Inari Karsh marshaled prodigious scholarship to show that, “Twentieth-century Middle Eastern history is essentially the culmination of long-standing indigenous trends, passions, and patterns of behavior rather than an externally imposed dictate.” The trend obtains.

American efforts notwithstanding, Assad is hanging on for dear life. The Israeli government is already endeavoring to “radically change its tack on Syria, reversing a policy and military strategy that were long geared to opposing Syrian President Bashar Assad.” U.S. meddlers should grow a brain too and quit degrading the Syrian Army. Leave ISIS to Syria, Tehran and Tel Aviv.

Let the locals take out their trash.

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Israeli strike levels 12-story Gaza building

The targeting of large buildings appears to be part of a new military tactic by Israel. Over the weekend, the army began warning Gaza residents in automated phone calls that it would target buildings harboring “terrorist infrastructure” and that they should stay away.

A senior military official confirmed that Israel has a policy of striking at buildings containing Hamas operational centers or those from which military activities are launched. The official said each strike required prior approval from military lawyers and is carried out only after the local population is warned.

However, he said, there was now a widening of locations that the military can target. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to discuss the matter with reporters.

In the 12-story apartment tower, the target was a fourth-floor apartment where Hamas ran an operations center, according to Israeli media. In the past, Israel has carried out pinpoint strikes, targeting apartments in high-rises with missiles, while leaving the buildings standing. However, this time a decision was made to bring down the entire tower, according to Channel 10, an Israeli TV station.

The military declined immediate comment when asked why it collapsed the entire building instead of striking a specific apartment.

Source: AP

62 Palestinians killed in Gaza ‘massacre’ as death toll exceeds 400

At least 62 Palestinians were killed on Sunday in Israeli shelling of a Gaza neighborhood that left bodies strewn in the streets and thousands fleeing for shelter to a hospital packed with wounded, Palestinian witnesses and officials said.

The Israeli military said militants from Gaza’s dominant Hamas group responded with anti-tank missiles and heavy weapon fire in some of the bloodiest fighting since Israel launched its Gaza offensive 13 days ago.

A two-hour “humanitarian ceasefire” in the area, agreed by both sides at the request of the International Committee of the Red Cross, broke down in minutes with each side blaming the other.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of carrying out a massacre and declared three days of mourning. The Israeli military said Hamas had fired rockets and built tunnels and command centers in Sheja and that it had warned locals to evacuate two days earlier. Its ground forces were backed up by air strikes and artillery, the army added.

Anguished cries of “Did you see Ahmed?” “Did you see my wife?” echoed through the courtyard of Gaza’s Shifa hospital, where panicked residents of Shejaia gathered in family groups. Inside, bodies and wounded lay on blood-stained floors.

Elderly men there said the Israeli attack was the fiercest they had seen since the 1967 Middle East war, when Israel captured Gaza.

Shifa hospital’s director, Naser Tattar, said 17 children, 14 women and four elderly were among the 62 dead, and about 400 people were wounded in the Israeli assault.

Death toll exceeds 400

Gaza’s Health Ministry officials said at least 403 Palestinians, many of them civilians, have been killed and about 2,600 wounded in the 13-day offensive, that Israel says it launched to halt mounting cross-border rocket fire by militants.

On Israel’s side, two civilians have been killed by cross-border fire and five soldiers have died in fighting. More than 50 Israeli troops have been wounded, hospital officials said.

Thousands fled Shejaia, some by foot and others piling into the backs of trucks and sitting on the hoods of cars filled with families trying to get away. Several people rode out of the neighborhood of 100,000 in the shovel of a bulldozer.

Video given to Reuters by a local showed at least a dozen corpses, including three children, lying in rubble-filled streets, though the footage could not be verified independently.

As the tank shells began to land, Shejaia residents called radio stations pleading for evacuation. An air strike on the Shejaia home of Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, killed his son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren, hospital officials said.

Israel, which has accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields by launching rockets from residential areas, sent ground forces into the Gaza Strip on Thursday after 10 days of air, naval and artillery barrages failed to stop the salvoes.

The military said it beefed up its presence on Sunday, with a focus on destroying missile stockpiles and a vast tunnel system Hamas built along the frontier with Israel.

“It has been a tough day of combat, but it won’t deter us,” Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid said, without referring to events in Shejaia.

“The operation is necessary and, if needed, we will broaden it,” he told reporters while visiting wounded Israeli soldiers in a hospital in the southern city of Beersheba. – Reuters

Israel could become a new banned nation, like South Africa

by Jacques Attali

Once again, a conflict breaks out between Israel and one of its neighbors; this time, as in 2008, against Hamas, which still governs Gaza.

The downward spiral appears to be unstoppable: The killing of 3 Israeli teens. The abhorrent murder of a Palestinian teen. Missiles launched from Gaza by Hamas on Israeli cities and at Ben Gurion International Airport, without provoking a catastrophe for the time being, because of the extraordinary efficiency of the Israeli anti-missile shield. And the deadly Israeli bombing raids in Gaza to halt the rocket strikes.

The result of this downward spiral is clear: Thousands of victims from Palestine’s coastal strip, which will weaken Fatah, accused of « collaboration » with Israel. And other victims on the Israeli side, which will nourish a desire for vengeance.

In both countries, those in power increasingly weak.

In Palestine, a discrediting of all leaders; so much so that, if elections were to be held today, Hamas would win in the West Bank, and Fatah in Gaza, leaving the country, or its equivalent, totally ungovernable.

In Israel, a ramshackle coalition between the extremists of Mr. Lieberman and those of Mr. Netanyahu, losing ground. As President Peres prepares to step down from the presidency.

Not far, an already convalescent Egypt who fights against both the Muslim Brotherhood at home and Hamas in Gaza. Lebanon paralyzed by Hezbollah, that is to say: Iran. A martyred Syria, whose tyrant, and enemies alike, are supporting Hamas. Iraq in full meltdown in which two new States are emerging. One is a Kurdish state and peaceful, the other is a Sunni Islamic state, spearhead of a war of creeds between the two branches of Islam.

In this context, no great power is at ease.

The United States, who find themselves on the same side with Iran against Sunni terrorists, have timidly proposed the use of arbitration, that nobody wanted. France, who is torn between the traditionally pro-Palestinian position of the Quai d’Orsay and that of the French political class, a more balanced position, from both the Left and the Right. A Europe without leadership. China and Russia obsessed by the desire not to breed Islamic extremism for their own benefit.

If this situation continues for much longer, the Arabs, the Turks, the Persians, almost all Muslim, Sunni and Shia, will soon reconcile at the expense of Israel, in order to prevent the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from spreading discontent at home. And they will abandon the claim of creating a Palestinian State, realizing that Israeli colonization and messianism, make this option less viable with each passing day. They will advocate a one-state and binational solution.

At that point, it will be the programmed end of the State of Israel. Some will accept the single State, convinced that they will be able to dominate or expel the Arabs. Others will see the trap coming, that would transform Israel into a new South Africa, speedily banned by nations. Before its identity is lost, through demography and democracy.

Consequently, this leaves Israel very little time to dare to encourage the creation of a viable Palestinian State, next to it. And providing it with the means needed to ensure its development, without ever lowering its guard before the danger of terrorist attacks. Which is what the vast majority of Israelis desire.

This leaves very little time for the Arab countries, swimming in their dollar reserves, to provide Gaza with suitable ways to be a beautiful tourist destination in the Mediterranean.

There is even less time for other nations to create the conditions needed to solve this problem, which is causing all forms of violence to flourish.

In particular, France, (where Jewish and Arab communities could take sides and look for sources of division there) must speak loud and clear. And lead by example on the successful path to living together. – www.attali.com

Jacques Attali is a French economist, writer and senior civil servant.

Former adviser to President François Mitterrand and first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, he founded the non-profit organization PlaNet Finance and was nominated President of the Commission for the Liberation of French Economic Growth. He is also Founder and President of A&A, a consultancy firm. He published more than fifty books, including essays and novels.

He belongs to the top 100 public intellectuals in the world, according to the Foreign Policy Magazine (May/June 2008).

Israel’s strikes wipe out families, but few Hamas militants

The Israeli military’s “pinpoint strikes” on houses in Gaza have killed whole families and children but few of the wanted men they are meant to target because they have long made themselves scarce, Palestinian residents say.

After five days of cross-border barrages between Gaza militants and Israel’s air force, at least 81 of the 121 Palestinians killed have been civilians, including 25 children, according to Palestinian medical officials.

While relatively few militants and even fewer of their commanders have been killed, according to Hamas sources and media reports, Israel appears more determined than in previous wars to bring the fight to their homes in the densely populated enclave hugging the Mediterranean coast.

Kin, neighbors and others who deny any ties to militants have been most often in the firing line of Israel’s assaults.

“I still can’t believe this happened, it’s like a bad dream,” said Shadi Hamad, standing in the demolished courtyard of a family home with tearful relatives.

“It was 11 at night and the family had just sat down in a circle for coffee in the front porch after breaking the Ramadan fast. The missile landed in the middle. Everyone was killed.”

The air strike was targeting Hafez Hamad, a local commander in the Islamic Jihad militant group, and killed him, as well as his parents, two brothers and niece.

“Where were their human rights, which Israel and its backers say they defend?” said Bassam Qassem, a neighbor. “Even if he (Hamad) was a resistance fighter, does that allow them to kill his whole family? This is murder.”

For their part, nervous Israeli civilians have for days had to heed warning sirens to seek shelter from Palestinian rockets, around 700 of which have lobbed from Gaza since Tuesday. They have so far caused no Israeli fatalities, but some injuries and damage.

Israel disavows any responsibility for the Gaza deaths, saying Hamas stows its people and weapons among civilians and hopes to score a cheap sympathy boost from their deaths.

“We are using all our attacking capabilities, not without brains, reason – not without taking into consideration that there are also civilians in Gaza. We remember that there are civilians. Hamas has turned them into hostages,” Israeli military chief Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz said on Friday.

“We continue to attack as best we can, rockets, command centers, tunnels, munitions and defense infrastructure and Gaza is sinking into a tragedy,” Gantz said.

Early on Saturday two disabled women were killed and four other people seriously wounded when an Israeli tank shell struck a rehabilitation center in the eastern part of Gaza City, Palestinian medics said. An Israeli military spokeswoman said she was checking for details on why the center was targeted.

Residents also said a mosque in the central Gaza Strip was bombed to rubble. The military said it had housed a weapons cache.

Israel says it has attacked more than a thousand targets in the coastal territory since the recent fighting began. – The Jewish Daily, Forward

EU’s Ashton visits Morsi

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said on Tuesday she found that deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was well and had access to television and newspapers when she visited him.

Sources told AFP that Ashton had left Cairo in a military helicopter heading to the undisclosed location where Morsi is being held.

Ashton was speaking to journalists after meeting Morsi on Monday night. “I’ve tried to make sure that his family know he is well,” said Ashton.

Ashton, who is trying to mediate a resolution to Egypt’s political crisis, added: “I said I wouldn’t come unless I could see him (Morsi).” Asked about a media report that she had offered Morsi a “safe exit”, she replied: “I did nothing of the kind.”

Spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said on her Twitter feed that Ashton and Morsi had an “in-depth discussion” lasting two hours.

Morsi is in army detention at an undisclosed location, facing charges of conspiring with Islamist group Hamas to carry out “hostile acts.”

Ashton was on her second visit to Egypt since widespread political unrest gripped the country following Morsi’s ouster on July 3. – Voice of Russia/dpa

Gaza M75 perfume captures ‘victory’ scent

“Victory” has never smelled so sweet — or at least that’s what they would have you believe at the shop selling Gaza’s newest fragrance named M75 after a long-range Hamas rocket.

It’s a bold move by the “Stay Stylish” shop in Gaza City’s upscale Rimal neighbourhood, but one that store owner Abu Ahmed expects to pay dividends.

“We came up with the name M75 for a new perfume in the shop as a symbol of the rocket of the resistance, and the victory of Gaza,” he told AFP.

The M75 rocket was among several long-range missiles Gaza militant groups fired into Israel during an eight-day conflict last month, which ended with a ceasefire between Hamas and the Jewish state.

The conflict killed at least 174 Palestinians, including more than 100 civilians, and six Israelis, four civilians and two soldiers, but many in Gaza felt Hamas emerged from the violence victorious.

The goal of the perfume is “to promote and market our products, and its only natural to use something like a victory to market our goods,” added Abu Ahmed, who declined to give his full name.

“We want to send a fast message to people about this perfume to market it as quickly and easily as possible,” he said.

“People are proud that we were able to hit Tel Aviv and Jerusalem with this M75 rocket and this name is much talked about and liked by people here.”

The fragrance, available both for men and women, has been successful so far, despite the fairly hefty price tag of 50 Israeli shekels ($13, euros), which the manufacturers justify on the basis of the perfume’s “luxurious” components.

The success, according to Abu Ahmed, has already inspired his fellow Gaza entrepreneurs, whom he expects to slap the M75 label on a whole range of new products.

The M75 rocket, among hundreds that Hamas and other groups fired into Israel during the eight-day conflict, appears to have captured the public’s imagination in Gaza, where it played a commanding role during Hamas’s 25th anniversary celebrations this weekend.

An enormous mock-up of the rocket had pride of place on a stage where the festivities took place, and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal — in Gaza for the first time ever — emerged from a door in the fake missile to give an address. – France24

Israeli air strikes kill 12 in Gaza

Palestinian medical officials said early Saturday that a total of 12 people had been killed and 12 injured in a series of Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli raids came as Palestinians fired dozens of rockets and mortar rounds into southern Israel, wounding four people, one seriously, Israeli military sources said.

One Israeli strike, on a car travelling in the Tel El-Hawa neighbourhood west of Gaza City, killed the head of the militant Popular Resistance Committees, Zohair al-Qaisi, and fellow member Mahmud Hanani, the group said.

Both the PRC and the military wing of Hamas threatened to retaliate for Qaisi’s death.

The Al Quds Brigades, the military arm of Islamic Jihad, said that strikes on the east side of the city had killed its members Obeid al-Gharabli, Mohammed Harara, Hazem Qoureqa and Shadi Seqali.

It said that another two of its members, Fayeq Saad and Moatasem Hajaj, were also killed in strikes.

The Israeli attacks came in response to Palestinian mortar and rocket fire which started on Friday morning. The Israeli military said that in the course of the day about 40 rockets and mortar rounds had landed in southern Israel.

The PRC and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah movement, issued statements claiming to have fired rockets into Israel on Friday.

The official Palestinian WAFA news agency quoted a statement by the Fatah-dominated Palestinan Authority condemning the Israeli retaliation, saying it had created a “negative environment” that would “escalate the circle of violence in the region.”

The Israeli military said Qaisi “was among the leaders who planned, funded and directed” a deadly cross-border attack into southern Israel from Egypt’s Sinai last August.

In that incident, gunmen carried out a coordinated series of shooting ambushes on buses and cars on Route 12, which runs along the Egyptian border some 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of the Red Sea resort of Eilat.

The shootings took place over several hours, leaving eight dead and more than 25 wounded.

The military statement said Qaisi was also involved in a 2008 attack on a terminal for pumping fuel from Israel into the Gaza Strip, in which two Israeli civilians were killed.

The statement added that both the dead men were “responsible for planning a combined terror attack that was to take place via Sinai in the coming days.”

It said that other strikes were aimed at men about to fire rockets into Israel.

Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, has maintained a tacit truce with Israel, but other armed Palestinian groups regularly fire rockets and mortars across the border, which can spark air strikes in response.

The relatively small Popular Resistance Committees is one of the most active, and it pledged to avenge its men’s deaths.

“We are not committed to the truce; we will respond very strongly to this (Israeli) crime,” Abu Ataya, a spokesman for the PRC’s military wing, the Al-Nasser Salahadin Brigades, told AFP.

Hamas’s military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades also warned of retribution.

“Al-Qassam Brigades mourns the martyr leader Zohair Qaisi and martyr Mahmud Hanani and confirms that their blood will not be wasted, the enemy’s crime will be a curse on him,” it said in a statement.

Its political leaders were more restrained.

“The recent Zionist escalation is an unjustified crime, it comes as a part of the destabilization of a stable security situation in the Gaza Strip” the Hamas-run Gaza government’s interior ministry said in a statement.

“We hold the international community fully responsible for the attacks.”

Before Friday’s air strikes, Israeli army radio quoted what it called “senior military sources” as saying the army “does not intend to allow the firing to continue.” – AFP