The Diplomatic Times Review

Is Israel Seeking a Diplomatic Exit out of ‘Operation Cast Lead’?

“Three days into Operation Cast Lead, Israel is proposing a diplomatic exit,” reports Haaretz correspondents Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff in a December 30, 2008, post headlined “ANALYSIS / Hamas is hoping for an IDF ground operation in Gaza.”

The correspondents said, “A ground operation likely looms in an effort to increase the pressure on Hamas. At the same time, however, others argue that the air force is close to exhausting its target bank, so if Hamas can be brought to accept a cease-fire on terms convenient to Israel in the near future it would be better to do so.”

Technorati Tags: Haaretz.com,Amos Harel,Avi Issacharoff,Hamas,Operation Cast Lead,Diplomatic Exist,Israel

Recommended: ‘George Washington's warnings and U.S. policy towards Israel’

Recommended: Glenn Greenwald’s December 30, 2008, Unclaimed Territory column at Salon.com headlined “George Washington's warnings and U.S. policy towards Israel.” He highlights  prominent U.S. congressional leaders views on “Operation Cast Lead”, Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza City to destroy the Islamic Resistance Movement ( (Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamat al-Islāmiyyah) known as Hamas.

Mr. Greenwald also has a recommendation:

If someone asked me to recommend just one must-read article on the Israeli-Gaza conflict, I would select this column from yesterday in The Guardian by Israeli-American journalist Nir Rosen.

The attorney, book author and prominent blogger adds: “I disagree with several of his points, particularly some of the specific ones about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but his generalized explanation about how the concept of "terrorism" is distorted and exploited by stronger countries can't be emphasized enough.”

Technorati Tags: Glenn Greenwald,Salon.com,Israel and Hamas,Nir Rosen

Recommended: ‘African Coup D’etat: The Sequel – And The Rule Of Law’

“One would get the impression from reading the headlines of the Western press these days that Americans and Europeans have an appetite for news about coup d’états in African Nations that is as great as their appetite for James Bond thrillers,” opines Oscar. H Blayton, a “U.S based practicing Attorney, in a December 28, 2008, post at AfricanLoft headlined “African Coup D’etat: The Sequel – And The Rule Of Law.” I recommend it. Mr. Blayton adds:

And the taste for news about the violence that often accompanies these coups is similar to the obvious taste for the flavor of violence that Agent 007 metes out the enemies of Western governments. The headlines about the recent coup in Guinea have shoved even the U.S. president elect Barack Obama’s Hawaii Christmas vacation from the front pages.

For the most part, the Guinea coup has been replaced by Israel’s attacks on Gaza to annihilate the Palestinian group Hamas. See “Israel bombs Gaza in 'all-out war' on Hamas.”

Technorati Tags: Oscar H. Blayton,AfricanLoft,Coup D'etats

Ghana’s Presidential Contenders ‘Running Neck-and-Neck’

allAfrica.com reported December 29, 2008, that, “With more than half the results counted in the second round of Ghana's presidential election, the two candidates,” John Atta Mills of the  National Democratic Congress’ and Nana Akufo-Addo, the ruling New Patriotic Party’s candidate, “are running neck-and-neck.” See “Ghana: Presidential Election Too Close to Call.”

With coup fever gripping West Africa, I hope the army stays in its barracks regardless of the election outcome. But anything could happen in a country that has seen several coups since independence from Britain in 1957.

Technorati Tags: John Atta Mills,Nana Akufo-Addo,Ghana Elections 2008

PNN Comments on World Reaction to Israel’s Attacks on Gaza

The Palestine News Network (PNN) says, “Official international reactions have been mixed to the deadly Israeli air raids on the Gaza Strip which have killed 285 Palestinians as of early Sunday evening [December 28, 2008]. See “Arab League and UN meetings, mixed international reactions”.

“Before and after Arab League and United Nations emergency sessions, many have been tripping over themselves to draw parallels between the projectiles of the armed resistance and the strength of the world’s fourth largest military, when issuing their condemnations,” PNN said.

Technorati Tags: Palestine News Network,Arab League,United Nations

Israeli Views On War in Gaza Are Not Monolithic

Haaretz Correspondent Bradley Burston asserts in “Wartime in Gaza: The worst anti-Israel charges you'll hear,” a December 28, 2008, commentary in response to Israel’s current attacks on Hamas in Gaza:

It is, abruptly and again, wartime. Across the globe, the selective pacifists of the left and the recliner Rambos of the right are spoiling for their next battle, the war in Gaza. They will fight one another in letters to Congress, in cable news sound bites, in raucous talk-radio phone-ins, in the virtual mega-heroics of the online battlefield of the talkback.

They will fight one another in the United Nations as well, unashamedly one-sided in their concern for human life.

Haaretz.com’s Aluf Benn reported December 29, 2008, that,

The current "Gaza War" is being waged in the shadow of the tense relations between Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.” See “The First Gaza War / Olmert and Barak go head to head.

Meanwhile, Haaretz’s Gideon Levy writes in a December 29, 2008, post headlined : “The neighborhood bully strikes again.”

Israel embarked yesterday on yet another unnecessary, ill-fated war. On July 16, 2006, four days after the start of the Second Lebanon War, I wrote: "Every neighborhood has one, a loud-mouthed bully who shouldn't be provoked into anger... Not that the bully's not right - someone did harm him. But the reaction, what a reaction!" Two and a half years later, these words repeat themselves, to our horror, with chilling precision. Within the span of a few hours on a Saturday afternoon, the IDF sowed death and destruction on a scale that the Qassam rockets never approached in all their years, and Operation "Cast Lead" is only in its infancy.

Haarez’s Amira Hess also has a December 29, 2008, post  worth reading. See “Amira Hass / 'Gaza strike is not against Hamas, it's against all Palestinians'”

By the way, Haaretz and other Israeli publications are providing diverse and interesting commentary on Israel’s effort to destroy Hamas.

Technorati Tags: Haaretz.com,Aluf Benn,Gideon Levay,Amira Hess

The Jerusalem Post: “IAF Uses New US-supplied Smart Bomb’ in Gaza City

The Jerusalem Post’s Yaakov Katz reported December 24, 2008, that, “The Israel Air Force used a new bunker-buster missile that it received recently from the United States in strikes against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip on Saturday [December 27, 2008], The Jerusalem Post learned on Sunday,” December 28, 2008. See “IAF uses new US-supplied smart bomb.”

Mr. Katz said, “The missile, called GBU-39, was developed in recent years by the US as a small-diameter bomb for low-cost, high-precision and low collateral damage strikes.”

“Israel received approval from Congress to purchase 1,000 units in September [2008] and defense officials said on Sunday that the first shipment had arrived earlier this month and was used successfully in penetrating underground Kassam launchers in the Gaza Strip during the heavy aerial bombardment of Hamas infrastructure on Saturday [December 27, 2008]. It was also used in Sunday's [December 28, 2008] bombing of tunnels in Rafah,” Mr. Katz reported.

Technorati Tags: GBU-39,Israel Air Force,Bunker Buster,The Jerusalem Post,Yaakov Katz,U.S. Supplied Smart Bombs

Israel Doing to Hamas What Palestinian Authority Couldn’t Do

While reading Khaled Abu Toameh’s December 29, 2008, article in The Jerusalem Post headlined “Analysis: A viable successor to Hamas is hard to find,” the following stood out:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah loyalists are dying to return to the Gaza Strip after being kicked out by Hamas in the summer of 2007 [See “Battle of Gaza (2007)”] .

On Sunday, senior Fatah officials in the West Bank relayed a message to Israel to the effect that they would like to see the IDF (Israel Defense Force "finish off the job" in the Gaza Strip by removing Hamas from power.

The officials made it clear that they were ready to assume control over the Gaza Strip as soon as the IDF eliminated the Hamas regime. Abbas, who held talks with the Egyptians, Saudis and Jordanians over the past 48 hours, is also reported to have expressed his readiness and desire to return to Gaza.

Abu Toameh said, “Judging from the reactions of the Palestinian and Arab masses, it's highly unlikely that Abbas and his forces would be allowed to regain control under the current circumstances.”

He said, “Ramadan Shallah, secretary-general of the Islamic Jihad organization, warned that any Palestinian "who dares to return to the Gaza Strip aboard an Israeli tank would be condemned as a traitor."

Technorati Tags: Khaled Abu Toameh,Ramadan Shallah,Palestinian Islamic Jihad,Mahoud Abbas,Palestinian National Authority,IDF

Who Will Replace Hamas?

Journalist Khaled Abu Toameh, writing in the December 29, 2008, edition of The Jerusalem Post, reports that, "Hamas's top leaders in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, Mahmoud Zahar and Said Siam, have all gone underground out of fear of being targeted by Israel. See "Analysis: A viable successor to Hamas is hard to find."

Israel is currently engaged in an operation to destroy Hamas. See "Six months of secret planning - then Israel moves against Hamas."

"Just a few days ago," he writes, "the three had proudly announced that they were not afraid of death and would be "honored" to join the bandwagon of Palestinian "martyrs." [See Hamas: Our leaders do not fear death] The general feeling on the streets of the Gaza Strip on Sunday night [December 28, 2008] was that the countdown to the collapse of the Hamas regime had begun. As one local journalist put it:

We don't know who's in control of the Gaza Strip. The feeling is that the Hamas regime is crumbling.

"But," Abu Toameh added, "it's not clear at this stage whether there is any Palestinian party that would be able to fill the vacuum in the aftermath of the downfall of the Hamas government."

Abu Toameh contends: "Even if Hamas is totally crushed, there is no reason to believe that those who would succeed the Islamist movement would be any better or less radical. These are days when only the voices of the extremists in the Arab and Islamic world are being heard. Or as a Hamas-affiliated academic put it on Sunday night, "If you bring down Hamas, you will get either Islamic Jihad or al-Qaida. Then the Israelis will miss Hamas."

Zvi Barel Sees Israeli ‘Delusions of Victory in Gaza’

“As of yesterday, politicians and the public at large have been enthralled by a new prospect: that of a wide-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip,” contends Zvi Barel in a December 28, 2008, post in Haaretz headlined “Delusions of victory in Gaza.”

Mr. Barel said, “Such a prospect answers all their heart's secret wishes: Avenging the rocket fire by Gazan militants, reclaiming Israel's prestige, delivering a fatal blow to Hamas, providing payback for Israel's 2005 pullout from Gaza, sending a strong message to Iran, an implicit one to Hezbollah, and also showing the government's concern for its citizens and scoring some points with the electorate ahead of the elections.”

It’s worth reading along with Yaakov Katz’s December 28, 2008, article in The Jerusalem Post headlined “Analysis: Shock, awe... and deception.”  .

Technorati Tags: Zvi Barel,Haaretz.com,Israel,Gaza,ID's Gaza Invasion,Yaakov Katz,The Jerusalem Post