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	<title>Middle East violence &#8211; Evening Report</title>
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		<title>Israeli extremism has a new best friend in the White House</title>
		<link>https://eveningreport.nz/2024/12/07/israeli-extremism-has-a-new-best-friend-in-the-white-house/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Asia Pacific Report]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Dec 2024 13:17:23 +0000</pubDate>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://eveningreport.nz/2024/12/07/israeli-extremism-has-a-new-best-friend-in-the-white-house/</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[COMMENTARY: By Antony Loewenstein The incoming Trump administration will bring a dangerous brew of Christian nationalism and anti-Palestinian racism Things can always get worse. Much worse. The Biden/Harris administration has bank-rolled and funded Israel’s mass slaughter in Gaza, the sight of the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world. Israeli soldiers wilfully ]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>COMMENTARY:</strong> <em>By Antony Loewenstein</em></p>
<p>The incoming Trump administration will bring a dangerous brew of Christian nationalism and anti-Palestinian racism</p>
<p>Things can always get worse. Much worse.</p>
<p>The Biden/Harris administration has bank-rolled and funded Israel’s mass slaughter in Gaza, the sight of the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world.</p>
<p>Israeli soldiers wilfully post their crimes online for all the globe to see. Palestinian journalists are being deliberately targeted by Israel in an unprecedented way.</p>
<p>Every day brings new horrors in Gaza, Lebanon and beyond. And that’s not ignoring the catastrophes in Syria, Sudan and Myanmar.</p>
<p>But we can’t despair or disengage. It can be hard with an incoming Trump White House stuffed with radicals, evangelicals and bigots but now is not the time to do so.</p>
<p>We must keep on reporting, investigating, sharing, talking and raising public awareness of the real threats that surround us every day (from the climate crisis to nuclear war) and finding ways to solve them.</p>
<p>Always find hope.</p>
<p><strong>New global project</strong><br />Here’s some breaking news. I’ve said nothing about this publicly. Until now.</p>
<p>I’ve spent much of the year working on a documentary film series inspired by my best-selling book, <em><a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/the-palestine-laboratory-9781922310408" rel="nofollow">The Palestine Laboratory</a>.</em> I’ve travelled to seven countries over many months, filming under the radar due to the sensitivity of the material.</p>
<p>I can’t say much more at this stage except that it’s nearly completed and will be released soon on a major global broadcaster.</p>
<p>The photo at the top of the page is me in a clip from the series in an undisclosed location (after I’d completed a voice-over recording session.)</p>
<p>Stay tuned for more. This work will be ground-breaking.</p>
<p>My recent work has largely focused on the worsening disaster in the Middle East and I’ve spoken to media outlets including CNN, Al Jazeera English, Sky News and others.</p>
<p>You can see these on <a href="https://antonyloewenstein.com/" rel="nofollow">my website</a> and YouTube channel.</p>
<p>I’m an independent journalist without any institutional backing. If you’re able to support me financially, by donating money to continue this work, I’d hugely appreciate it.</p>
<p>You can find donating options in the <a href="https://liberapay.com/antloew/donate" rel="nofollow">menu bar at the top of my website</a> and via <a href="https://antonyloewenstein.substack.com/" rel="nofollow">Substack</a>.</p>
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<p>Article by <a href="https://www.asiapacificreport.nz/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">AsiaPacificReport.nz</a></p>
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		<title>Peace doesn’t come by trying to bludgeon the Middle East into accepting the Gaza genocide</title>
		<link>https://eveningreport.nz/2024/01/13/peace-doesnt-come-by-trying-to-bludgeon-the-middle-east-into-accepting-the-gaza-genocide/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Asia Pacific Report]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 13 Jan 2024 10:18:17 +0000</pubDate>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://eveningreport.nz/2024/01/13/peace-doesnt-come-by-trying-to-bludgeon-the-middle-east-into-accepting-the-gaza-genocide/</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone The US has carried out another air raid on Yemen, with targets reportedly including the international airport in the capital city of Sanaa. This comes a day after US and UK airstrikes on Yemen in retaliation for Houthi attacks on Red Sea commercial vessels. For weeks Yemen’s Houthi forces have been ]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>COMMENTARY:</strong> <em>By Caitlin Johnstone</em></p>
<p>The US has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/biden-warns-more-strikes-yemens-houthis-if-red-sea-attacks-persist-2024-01-13/" rel="" rel="nofollow">carried out another air raid on Yemen</a>, with targets reportedly including <a href="https://twitter.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1745984140330127709" rel="" rel="nofollow">the international airport</a> in the capital city of Sanaa. This comes a day after US and UK <a href="https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/western-empire-bombs-yemen-to-protect" rel="" rel="nofollow">airstrikes on Yemen</a> in retaliation for Houthi attacks on Red Sea commercial vessels.</p>
<p>For weeks Yemen’s Houthi forces have been greatly inconveniencing commercial shipping with their blockade, with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-eilat-port-sees-85-drop-activity-amid-red-sea-houthi-attacks-2023-12-21/" rel="" rel="nofollow">reports last month</a> saying Israel’s Eilat Port has seen an 85 percent drop in activity since the attacks began.</p>
<p>This entirely bloodless inconvenience was all it took for Washington to attack Yemen, the war-ravaged nation in which the US and its allies have <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2019/03/26/4-years-yemen-independence-us-saudi-war-worst-humanitarian-crisis/" rel="" rel="nofollow">spent recent years</a> helping Saudi Arabia <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211123-yemen-war-will-have-killed-377-000-by-year-s-end-un" rel="" rel="nofollow">murder hundreds of thousands of people</a> with its own maritime blockades.</p>
<p>Yemen has <a href="https://news.antiwar.com/2024/01/12/yemen-issues-defiant-response-to-us-and-uk-strikes/" rel="" rel="nofollow">issued defiant statements</a> in response to these attacks, saying they will not go “unanswered or unpunished”.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" readability="14.263803680982">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">The U.S. can have a multi-decade long blockade on Cuba and it’s normalized.</p>
<p>Israel can have a decade and a half long total air, land, and sea blockade on Gaza and it’s normalized.</p>
<p>But Yemenis block some ships to stop a genocide and all the sudden it’s indefensible.</p>
<p>— James Ray 🔻 (@GoodVibePolitik) <a href="https://twitter.com/GoodVibePolitik/status/1745962723039453448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow">January 13, 2024</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Biden administration’s dramatic escalation toward yet another horrific war in the Middle East has been <a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/houthi-missile-strikes-congress/" rel="" rel="nofollow">hotly criticised</a> by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who argue that the attacks were illicit because they took place <a href="https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/1745683250633142646" rel="" rel="nofollow">without congressional approval</a>.</p>
<p>This impotent congressional whining will never go anywhere, since, as Glenn Greenwald <a href="https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1745849564853055807" rel="" rel="nofollow">has observed</a>, the US Congress never actually does anything to hold presidents to account for carrying out acts of war without their approval.</p>
<p>But there are some worthwhile ideas going around.</p>
<p>After the second round of strikes, a Democratic representative from Georgia named Hank Johnson <a href="https://twitter.com/RepHankJohnson/status/1745958838786822608" rel="" rel="nofollow">tweeted</a> the following:</p>
<blockquote readability="8">
<p>“I have what some may consider a dumb idea, but here it is: stop the bombing of Gaza, then the attacks on commercial shipping will end. Why not try that approach?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>By golly, that’s just crazy enough to work. In fact, anti-interventionists have been screaming it at the top of their lungs since the standoff with Yemen began.</p>
<p>All the way back in mid-October Responsible Statecraft’s Trita Parsi was already <a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-weapons-to-ukraine/" rel="" rel="nofollow">writing urgently</a> about the need for a ceasefire in Gaza to prevent it from exploding into a wider war in the region, a position Parsi <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/8/gaza_israel_wider_war_trita_parsi" rel="" rel="nofollow">has continued pushing</a> ever since.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" readability="7.1311475409836">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">“Huge Miscalculation”: Biden’s Refusal to Push for Gaza Ceasefire Could Drag U.S. into Middle East War <a href="https://t.co/eJuzswi2BJ" rel="nofollow">https://t.co/eJuzswi2BJ</a></p>
<p>— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) <a href="https://twitter.com/democracynow/status/1744379590112350405?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow">January 8, 2024</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>As we <a href="https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/we-are-entirely-too-close-to-another" rel="" rel="nofollow">discussed previously</a>, Israel’s US-backed assault on Gaza is threatening to bleed over into conflicts with the Houthis in Yemen, with Hezbollah in Lebanon, with Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and Syria, and even potentially with Iran itself – any of which could easily see the US and its allies committing themselves to a full-scale war.</p>
<p>Peace in Gaza takes these completely unnecessary gambles off the table.</p>
<p>And it is absolutely within Washington’s power to force a ceasefire in Gaza. Biden could end all this with one phone call, as US presidents have done in the past. As Parsi <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/israel-hamas-hezbollah-iran/" rel="" rel="nofollow">wrote for <em>The Nation</em></a> earlier this month:</p>
<blockquote readability="22.255005268704">
<p>“In 1982, President Ronald Reagan was ‘<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Reagan-Paradox-Conservative-Icon-Todays/dp/1618933833" rel="" rel="nofollow">disgusted</a>’ by Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. He stopped the transfer of cluster munitions to Israel and told Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in a phone call that ‘this is a holocaust.’ Reagan demanded that Israel withdraw its troops from Lebanon. Begin caved. Twenty minutes after their phone call, Begin ordered a halt on attacks.</p>
<p>“Indeed, it is absurd to claim that Biden has no leverage, particularly given the massive amounts of arms he has shipped to Israel. In fact, Israeli officials openly admit it. ‘All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the US,’ <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/12/how-joe-biden-became-americas-top-israel-hawk/" rel="" rel="nofollow">retired Israeli Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Brick conceded in November</a> of last year. ‘The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability.… Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.’ ”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the end, you get peace by pursuing peace. That’s how it happens. You don’t get it by pursuing impossible imaginary ideals like the total elimination of Hamas while butchering tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians.</p>
<p>You don’t get it by trying to bludgeon the Middle East into passively accepting an active genocide. You get it by negotiation, de-escalation, diplomacy and detente.</p>
<p>The path to peace is right there. The door’s not locked. It’s not even closed. The fact that they don’t take it tells you what these imperialist bastards are really interested in.</p>
<p><a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.com/" rel="nofollow"><em>Caitlin Johnstone</em></a> <em>is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include <a href="https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/the-un-torture-report-on-assange-is-an-indictment-of-our-entire-society-bc7b0a7130a6" rel="nofollow">The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society</a>. She publishes a website and <a href="https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/" rel="nofollow">Caitlin’s Newsletter</a>. This article is republished with permission.</em></p>
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		<title>When all the world’s failings end in Gaza – Selwyn Manning, Paul Buchanan assess the crisis</title>
		<link>https://eveningreport.nz/2023/10/20/when-all-the-worlds-failings-end-in-gaza-selwyn-manning-paul-buchanan-assess-the-crisis/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Asia Pacific Report]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Oct 2023 22:17:55 +0000</pubDate>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://eveningreport.nz/2023/10/20/when-all-the-worlds-failings-end-in-gaza-selwyn-manning-paul-buchanan-assess-the-crisis/</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[By Selwyn Manning, editor of Evening Report As we prepared for this podcast, representatives of Arab states have presented a united front at the United Nations, criticising the UN Security Council of doing nothing to protect civilians from Israeli bombing and missile attacks on Gazan civilians and locations. Since then, the UN Security Council has ]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>By Selwyn Manning, editor of <a href="https://eveningreport.nz/">Evening Report</a></em></p>
<p>As we prepared for this podcast, representatives of Arab states have presented a united front at the United Nations, criticising the UN Security Council of doing nothing to protect civilians from Israeli bombing and missile attacks on Gazan civilians and locations.</p>
<p>Since then, the UN Security Council has considered two resolutions, the latter calling for a pause in hostilities to allow a humanitarian effort to enter Gaza to assist civilians.</p>
<p>The United States vetoed that Security Council resolution.</p>
<p>Al Jazeera has detailed that Israel forces have targeted and bombed civilian facilities include hospitals, schools, residential areas resulting in the deaths of thousands of people, civilians – around one-third of the deaths are children.</p>
<p>It remains contested by all sides in this conflict as to who, or what, is responsible for the deadly attack on Gaza Hospital, resulting in the deaths of at least 471 people.</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Additional to this, Israel has sealed the borders of Gaza while it prevents food, water and medical supplies from reaching civilians — in breach of international law requirements and laws of conflict.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Israel ordered Gazan civilians, who wish to get to safety, to get out of North Gaza and move toward the south, to the border with Egypt.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><strong>Heavy bombing, sealed border</strong><br />But as people fled south toward what appeared to be safety, Israel bombed the southern Gaza region killing more civilians and sealing off that corridor for others who sought refuge.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">As a consequence of the bombing, Egypt responded by sealing the Gaza-Egypt border.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Humanitarian aid now sits on trucks, waiting, on the Egypt side of the border, while United Nations officials implore Israel and Egypt to allow medical supplies, food and water to get through to those who are injured and dying.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The Israel Defence Force strikes followed a surprise-attack on Israeli citizens by soldiers operating under the Hamas banner.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Civilians were slaughtered and others taken hostage, only to be used as bargaining chips and leverage against their enemies.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Even Palestinian advocacy groups like the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa suggested that breaches of international humanitarian Law, crimes against civilians, have been committed by those Hamas-aligned fighters.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">But they are clear, as others are too, that crimes against humanity, war crimes, have been committed by Israel, without consequence, as we all give witness to its response which is disproportionate, brutal, and disregarding of the thousands of Palestinian lives that have already been taken.</span></p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NRuObMSC4ns?si=DnH09iwAlihGlxLW" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen">[embedded content]</iframe><br /><em>The View From Afar podcast on Gaza.</em></p>
<p><strong>Getting worse<br /></strong> That is the grave current situation and it is likely to get much worse.</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">In this episode, <strong>Selwyn Manning</strong> and global security and geopolitics analyst <strong>Dr Paul Buchanan</strong> discuss the crisis yesterday:</span></p>
<ul>
<li class="p1"><span class="s1">What are the world’s leaders doing to stop the carnage?</span></li>
<li class="p1"><span class="s1">Are the world’s nations being drawn into what will be an ever-expanding war?</span></li>
<li class="p1"><span class="s1">Are we witnessing the beginning of a war where on one side authoritarian-led states like Russia, Iran, the wider Arab states, and possibly China stand unified against the United States, Britain, Germany, and other so-called liberal democratic allies representing the old world order?</span></li>
<li class="p1">Is what we are witnessing, what happens when a global rules-based order, multilateralism and institutions like the United Nations no longer have influence to prevent war, or restore peace and stability, or assert principles of international justice and enforce the rights of victims to see recourse to the law?</li>
<li class="p1"><span class="s1">Why has this slaughter become an opportunity for the US and Russia to square-off against each other at the UN Security Council — a body that was once designed to advocate and achieve peace, but has now become a geopolitically divided entity of stalemate and mediocrity?</span></li>
<li class="p1"><span class="s1">Eventually, will humanitarianism prevail? Will the world recognise that all people, the elderly, women, children, people of all ethnicities and religions, that they all bleed and die irrespective of their state of origin, when leaders of all sides, while sitting back in their bunkers, unleash weapons designed to kill as many people as is possible?</span></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/NRuObMSC4ns?si=PurgYOxvg2sdRmvu" rel="nofollow"><strong>Watch this episode of A View from Afar</strong></a></p>
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		<title>Operation Al Aqsa Storm: How, why, and where to now in Gaza?</title>
		<link>https://eveningreport.nz/2023/10/11/operation-al-aqsa-storm-how-why-and-where-to-now-in-gaza/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Asia Pacific Report]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Oct 2023 08:18:54 +0000</pubDate>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://eveningreport.nz/2023/10/11/operation-al-aqsa-storm-how-why-and-where-to-now-in-gaza/</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[ANALYSIS: By Mouin Rabbani Almost 50 years to the day after the joint Egyptian-Syrian offensive that launched the 1973 October War, Israel has once again been caught with its pants down. On this occasion its briefs were dangling from its ankles as well. Operation Al Aqsa Storm, as Hamas named its 7 October 2023 offensive ]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>ANALYSIS:</strong> <em>By Mouin Rabbani</em></p>
<p>Almost 50 years to the day after the joint Egyptian-Syrian offensive that launched the 1973 October War, Israel has once again been caught with its pants down. On this occasion its briefs were dangling from its ankles as well.</p>
<p>Operation Al Aqsa Storm, as Hamas named its 7 October 2023 offensive into Israeli territory, represents an even greater Israeli failure.</p>
<p>Extensive and reasonably successful Egyptian and Syrian efforts to conceal their intentions, preparations, and capabilities notwithstanding, Israel in 1973 received multiple warnings about an impending Arab attack from, among others, King Hussein of Jordan, a high-level Egyptian agent, and several of its own intelligence officers.</p>
<p>Its primary failure was not ignorance, but the haughty dismissal of knowledge that contradicted preconceptions.</p>
<p>While hubris and complacency have been mainstays in Israel’s dealings with Arab military adversaries, on this occasion it additionally had no information about the impending operation.</p>
<p>This despite its world-leading surveillance and intelligence capabilities, and the reality that the Gaza Strip is not only miniscule in size but also the most intensively and intrusively surveilled territory and population on the planet, and one that has furthermore been under blockade for 17 years.</p>
<p>That Hamas and Islamic Jihad were under these circumstances able to plan and prepare an operation of such scale, scope, and sophistication, a process that will have consumed many months at the least, and will have required extensive communications among leaders, cadres, and operatives, is an astonishing achievement and testament to the legendary resourcefulness of Gaza’s Palestinians.</p>
<p><strong>Launched in plain view</strong><br />While we can at this point only speculate as to how Hamas managed to prepare and launch this offensive in plain view of Israel, the avoidance or effective encryption of electronic and digital communications will certainly have played an important role.</p>
<p>Similarly, Hamas has in recent years considerably improved its counter-intelligence capabilities to minimise infiltration, an essential feature given the nearly constant flow of Palestinians who transit through Israeli-controlled border crossings and are susceptible to recruitment by Israeli intelligence as conditions for access to health care, employment, and the like.</p>
<p>Rather than serving as Israel’s eyes and ears within the Gaza Strip, it seems likely at least some of these Palestinians conducted reconnaissance for Operation Al Aqsa Storm within Israel.</p>
<p>As for the weaponry used, much of it is either rudimentary or of local manufacture, making ingenious use of available materials such as paragliders, steel from a British ship that sunk off the Gaza coast decades ago to manufacture rocket tubes, and unexploded Israeli ordnance. More advanced capabilities will have been smuggled in, presumably with the assistance of Hizballah in Lebanon, perhaps with the cooperation of sympathetic or corrupt Egyptian border patrols.</p>
<p>The legendary corruption of Israel’s own border crossings with the Gaza Strip may also have played a role.</p>
<p>Committed to fighting the previous war, Israel constructed formidable underground obstacles to prevent Palestinian commandos from infiltrating Israel through their tunnel network. In response, Hamas and Islamic Jihad simply breached the weak points in the barriers surrounding the Gaza Strip, such as wire fences that relied on electronic monitoring rather than more sturdy concrete obstacles (some of which also appear to have been breached).</p>
<p>And a key objective of the initial Palestinian missile barrage, which targeted Israeli military airfields among other objectives, was to paralyze and thus delay Israel’s ability to rapidly respond.</p>
<p><strong>Immediate objectives</strong><br />Al Aqsa Storm’s immediate objectives were to infiltrate and seize key Israeli security installations, such as the Re’im military base which serves as the headquarters for the Gaza Division; kill or capture a significant number of Israeli soldiers; establish Palestinian territorial control over population centers within Israel’s boundaries for the first time since 1948; and present significantly improved Palestinian capabilities to the Israeli public and security establishment with a massive missile barrage at Israeli cities and the deployment of new infiltration and combat techniques.</p>
<p>While Israeli civilian casualties do not appear to have been an objective as such, it appears that many were killed, and others abducted. Additionally, there are reports of a massacre at a desert party.</p>
<p>In the event, the operation succeeded in nearly all respects, one suspects beyond the wildest expectations of those who planned and executed it. Dozens of Israeli soldiers, including a major general, were spirited into captivity inside the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>Many more, including senior officers, were killed and wounded, and almost 24 hours after the operation commenced, Palestinian fighters remained ensconced in multiple locations and installations inside Israel.</p>
<p>Images of Israeli bulldozers and missiles deployed against the Israeli police headquarters in Sderot to dislodge Palestinian fighters within it will remain with us for some time, and as with the Egyptian military’s nearly effortless crossing of the Suez Canal in 1973, won’t be erased by subsequent developments.</p>
<p>A more difficult question concerns Hamas’s motives and broader aims. Seen from the movement’s perspective, Israel has simply gone too far, for too long.</p>
<p>Particularly under the stewardship of the Netanyahu government and its predecessor, escalation has been consistent and transformed into a strategy.</p>
<p><strong>Ethnic cleansing</strong><br />Ethnic cleansing of the Jordan Valley, army-enabled attacks on villages throughout the West Bank by settler auxiliaries, and increasing incursions by prominent Israeli politicians and settler groups into the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem’s Old City have reached new heights, and done so in the explicit service of formal annexation.</p>
<p>Indeed, speaking last month to the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/netanyahu-map" rel="nofollow">displayed a map that showed both the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of Israel</a>.</p>
<figure id="attachment_94365" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-94365" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-94365 size-full" src="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Benjamin-Netanyahu-CD-680wide.png" alt="Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a map of the &quot;New Middle East&quot; without Palestine " width="680" height="421" srcset="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Benjamin-Netanyahu-CD-680wide.png 680w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Benjamin-Netanyahu-CD-680wide-300x186.png 300w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Benjamin-Netanyahu-CD-680wide-356x220.png 356w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Benjamin-Netanyahu-CD-680wide-678x420.png 678w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px"/><figcaption id="caption-attachment-94365" class="wp-caption-text">Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a map of the “New Middle East” without Palestine during his September 22, 2023, address to the UN General Assembly in New York. Image: Common Dreams</figcaption></figure>
<p>In the Gaza Strip, Israel has shown no inclination to lift or significantly relax the blockade, and treats Hamas as a force that can safely be ignored on the grounds that the movement cares about little else than maintaining its rule over the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>Within Israel’s prisons, the situation of Palestinian detainees has been deteriorating by design. Yet every Israeli escalation has been normalised by Israel’s US and European partners, with each outrage met by little more than paeans to “shared values” and Israel’s “right to defend itself” and, under Washington’s leadership, a focus on an Israeli-Saudi agreement intended to render Palestine and the Palestinians irrelevant.</p>
<p>Within the region, a growing number of Arab states have in practice extended to Greater Israel a halal certificate, at Palestinian expense. Closer to home, Turkey has forced a number of Hamas leaders it previously hosted to leave the country, and Qatar has in recent months reduced the financial support it provides to Gaza in agreement with Israel, on the grounds that Hamas needs to find a more sustainable solution to its financial crisis.</p>
<p>So what is Operation Al Aqsa Storm meant to achieve? It appears that the movement concluded, some time ago, that a repeat of previous confrontations with Israel, such as during the 2021 Unity Intifada, the first that Hamas rather than Israel initiated, would be insufficient to break the logjam, and that only a spectacle on the scale of what we witnessed on October 7 would serve to concentrate minds in Israel and other relevant capitals.</p>
<p>In other words, the main objective would seem to be to render the status quo obsolete and put paid to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade, entirely or at least in its current form. Secondly, Hamas appears determined to free Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, and additionally use those it has captured and abducted as leverage in negotiations on other matters, including for example those relating to the Haram al-Sharif.</p>
<p><strong>Insurmountable obstacles</strong><br />It is highly unlikely that undermining Saudi-Israeli diplomacy formed an important motivation, because the proposed deal faces too many insurmountable obstacles in Washington and Israel, and both Hamas and its allies understand this.</p>
<p>Additionally, if Muhammad bin Salman is determined to proceed with such a deal, there’s no indication he would be deterred by a mound of Palestinian corpses any more than his Arab cohorts who preceded him, and in any case, could consummate any agreement after a decent interval.</p>
<p>This notwithstanding, embarrassing not Riyadh specifically but all regional capitals that maintain formal or informal relations with Israel is an added benefit for Hamas. Particularly so if mass demonstrations in the region in support of the Palestinians serve to remind its governments and the world at large that Palestine remains a live issue.</p>
<p>Hamas and Islamic Jihad can additionally be presumed to hope that their offensive fatally weakens the PA ensconced in Ramallah, thereby creating greater freedom of action for their movements in the West Bank.</p>
<p>The above notwithstanding, the timing of this operation is curious, because conventional wisdom held that Israel’s various adversaries were content with a strategy of managed escalation so as not to interrupt the growing polarisation and dysfunction within the Israeli political arena.</p>
<p>That Hamas nevertheless chose an unprecedented offensive at this moment may have been related to matters of operational security and fears of exposure, or an assessment that this was an opportune moment with Israel having prioritised sadism in the West Bank and reinforcement of its border with Lebanon, or indeed a revised assessment that exposing the colossal failure of Israel’s extremists and security establishment is the best way to weaken them.</p>
<p>It is inconceivable that Hamas would have embarked on an operation of this scale without also preparing for an unprecedented Israeli response. Together with Islamic Jihad and others, it will probably have prepared for massive Israeli incursions into the Gaza Strip launched for the purpose of significantly degrading their organisations and infrastructure, killing cadres and assassinating leaders it can locate, and leaving a massive trail of death and destruction.</p>
<p><strong>Last stand thinking</strong><br />Better a last stand than a slow death, the thinking apparently goes, particularly if that stand gives a renewed lease on life. Israel will presumably also conduct a massive sweep throughout the West Bank, crack down on Palestinians within Israel, and may also seek to abduct or liquidate Hamas leaders based abroad.</p>
<p>It’s a scenario based on the reasonable assumption that Israel remains unprepared to resume direct control of the entire territory for a protracted period of time. In other words, and as with previous assaults on the Gaza Strip, Israel’s objective may ultimately be to restore a version of the status quo that produced the present crisis.</p>
<p>Inflicting significant casualties in close-quarter combat, as the Palestinians succeeded in doing in 2014, could reduce the length and intensity of such incursions. The Palestinian organisations presumably know better than to believe that holding dozens of Israeli prisoners will provide them with a measure of protection from the authors of the Hannibal Doctrine, which considers a dead Israeli soldier preferable to a captive one.</p>
<p>It is an issue that can at most be used for psychological warfare.</p>
<p>A key question is whether Gaza’s militants will confront Israel only with their existing preparations, or whether Operation Al Aqsa Storm is part of a broader initiative by the self-styled Axis of Resistance, in which Hezbollah and perhaps others will join the fray if Israel crosses certain red lines to relieve the pressure on the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>If Israel follows through on its demands of mass evacuations of densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods and proceeds with intensive carpet bombing to flatten them, causing mass casualties in the process, we may soon find out.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.jadaliyya.com/Author/4114" rel="nofollow">Mouin Rabbani</a> has published and commented widely on Palestinian affairs, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. He was previously senior analyst Middle East and special advisor on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group, and head of political affairs with the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria. He is co-editor of <a href="https://www.jadaliyya.com/" rel="nofollow">Jadaliyya Ezine</a>.</em></p>
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		<title>John Minto: Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa mosque – and the failings of media</title>
		<link>https://eveningreport.nz/2023/04/12/john-minto-israeli-attacks-on-al-aqsa-mosque-and-the-failings-of-media/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Asia Pacific Report]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Apr 2023 09:18:05 +0000</pubDate>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://eveningreport.nz/2023/04/12/john-minto-israeli-attacks-on-al-aqsa-mosque-and-the-failings-of-media/</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[COMMENTARY: By John Minto The last fortnight has seen a series of brutal, deliberately provocative Israeli attacks on Palestinian worshippers at Al Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Needless to say, Israel had no business interfering in Muslim worship at Al Aqsa, the third holiest shrine for Muslims ]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>COMMENTARY:</strong> <em>By John Minto</em></p>
<p>The last fortnight has seen a series of brutal, deliberately provocative Israeli attacks on Palestinian worshippers at Al Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.</p>
<p>Needless to say, Israel had no business interfering in Muslim worship at Al Aqsa, the third holiest shrine for Muslims after Mecca and Medina, and an area which is not under their authority or control.</p>
<p>Despite this, Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa have intensified in recent years as the apartheid state strives to undermine all aspects of Palestinian life in Jerusalem. It is applying ethnic cleansing in slow motion.</p>
<p>Inevitably missile attacks on Israel from Gaza and Southern Lebanon followed and Israel has reveled in once again trying to portray itself to the world as the victim.</p>
<p>There is an excellent 10-minute video in which former Palestinian spokesperson Hanan Ashrawi more than held her own against a <a href="https://twitter.com/PDeepdive/status/1643975688784056321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1643975688784056321%7Ctwgr%5E8250502eae6913c12a96b8d1d118b16620e26875%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublish.twitter.com%2F%3Fquery%3Dhttps3A2F2Ftwitter.com2FPDeepdive2Fstatus2F1643975688784056321widget%3DTweet" rel="nofollow">hostile BBC interviewer here</a>.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">📽️ WATCH | A masterclass by <a href="https://twitter.com/DrHananAshrawi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow">@DrHananAshrawi</a> illuminating the everyday violence &amp; aggression Palestinians endure at the hands of Israel’s occupation, the inevitable local resistance to it &amp; Israel’s ongoing impunity while also fending off <a href="https://twitter.com/BBCWorld?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow">@BBCWorld</a>‘s spurious line of questioning. <a href="https://t.co/eTpvXV7QbI" rel="nofollow">pic.twitter.com/eTpvXV7QbI</a></p>
<p>— Palestine Deep Dive (@PDeepdive) <a href="https://twitter.com/PDeepdive/status/1643975688784056321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow">April 6, 2023</a></p></blockquote>
<p>There is also an excellent podcast produced by Al Jazeera which backgrounds the increase in violence in the Middle East.</p>
<p><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gXXvgvcr6gM" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen">[embedded content]</iframe><br />
<em>Inside Story: What triggered the spike in violence?   Video: Al Jazeera</em></p>
<p><strong>Nour Odeh</strong> – Political analyst and former spokeswoman for the Palestinian National Authority.</p>
<p><strong>Uri Dromi</strong> – Founder and president of the Jerusalem Press Club and a former spokesman for the Israel government.</p>
<p><strong>Francesca Albanese</strong> – United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.</p>
<p>Further background on the politics around Al Aqsa is covered in this Al Jazeera podcast.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">I strongly condemn Israel’s excessive use of force against Palestinian Muslims praying at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AlAqsaMosque?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow">#AlAqsaMosque</a> during Ramadan, &amp; its breaches of the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/StatusQuo?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow">#StatusQuo</a>. This recklessness risks bringing further devastation to both sides of the Green Line.<br />
Full statement: <a href="https://t.co/ys58j0bIzt" rel="nofollow">https://t.co/ys58j0bIzt</a> <a href="https://t.co/mWfJiHSVaT" rel="nofollow">https://t.co/mWfJiHSVaT</a></p>
<p>— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) <a href="https://twitter.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1644006310831087617?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow">April 6, 2023</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Initially reporting here in New Zealand was reasonable and clearly identified Israel as the brutal racist aggressors attacking Palestinian civilians at worship. However, within a couple of days media reporting deteriorated dramatically with the “normal” appalling reporting taking over — painting Palestinians as terrorists and Israel as simply enforcing “law and order”.</p>
<p>At the heart of appalling reporting for a long time has been the BBC which slavishly and consistently screws the scrum in Israel’s favour. The BBC does not report on the Middle East – it propagandises for Israel.</p>
<p>Journalist <a href="https://asiapacificreport.nz/2023/04/08/al-aqsa-raid-how-bbc-coverage-is-enabling-israeli-violence/" rel="nofollow">Jonathan Cook describes how the BBC coverage</a> is enabling Israeli violence and UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, called out the BBC’s awful reporting in a tweet.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Renewed violence against Palestinian worshippers at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AlAqsaMosque?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow">#AlAqsaMosque</a> on yet another Ramadan turned into suffering,must be condemned,investigated &amp; accounted for.</p>
<p>Misleading media coverage 👇contributes to enabling Israel’s unchecked occupation &amp; must also be condemned/accounted for <a href="https://t.co/JI6YzNgCju" rel="nofollow">https://t.co/JI6YzNgCju</a></p>
<p>— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) <a href="https://twitter.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1643511824623583234?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow">April 5, 2023</a></p></blockquote>
<p>It’s not just the BBC of course. For example <em>The New York Times</em> has been called out for <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2023/04/the-ny-times-deliberately-distorts-the-news-to-blame-palestinians-for-the-al-aqsa-mosque-crisis/" rel="nofollow">deliberately distorting the news</a> to blame Palestinians for Al Aqsa mosque crisis.</p>
<p>It’s not reporting — it’s propaganda!</p>
<p><strong>Why is BBC important for Aotearoa New Zealand?<br />
</strong> Unfortunately, here in Aotearoa New Zealand our media frequently and uncritically uses BBC reports to inform New Zealanders on the Middle East.</p>
<p>Radio New Zealand and Television New Zealand, our state broadcasters, are the worst offenders.</p>
<p>For example here are two BBC stories carried by RNZ this past week <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/487706/uk-israeli-mother-dies-after-west-bank-shooting" rel="nofollow">here</a> and <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/487651/maia-and-rina-dee-father-mourns-at-funeral-of-sisters-killed-in-west-bank" rel="nofollow">here</a>. They cover the deaths of three Jewish women in a terrorist attack in the occupied West Bank.</p>
<p>The media should report such killings but there is no context given for the illegal Jewish-only settlements at the heart in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s military occupation across all Palestine, the daily ritual humiliation and debasement of Palestinians or its racist apartheid policies towards Palestinians — or as Israeli human rights groups B’Tselem describes it “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid”.</p>
<p>Neither are there Palestinian voices in the above reports — they are typically absent from most Middle East reporting, or at best muted, compared to extensive quoting from racist Israeli leaders.</p>
<p>The BBC is happy to report the <em>“what?”</em> but not the <em>“why?”</em></p>
<p>Needless to say neither Radio New Zealand, nor TVNZ, has provided any such sympathetic coverage for the many dozens of Palestinians killed by Israel this year — including at least 16 Palestinian children. To the BBC, RNZ and TVNZ, murdered Palestinian children are simply statistics.</p>
<p>RNZ and TVNZ say they cannot ensure to cover all the complexities of the Middle East in every story and that people get a balanced view over time from their regular reporting.</p>
<p>This is not true. Their reliance on so much systematically-biased BBC reporting, and other sources which are often not much better, tells a different story.</p>
<p>For example, references to Israel as an apartheid state — something attested to by every credible human rights groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch — are always absent from any RNZ or TVNZ reporting and yet this is critical to help people understand what is going on in Palestine.</p>
<p>Neither are there significant references to international law or United Nations resolutions — the tools which provide for a Middle East peace based on justice — the only peace possible.</p>
<p>Unlike their reporting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, RNZ and TVNZ reporting on the Middle East leaves people confused and ready to blame both sides equally for the murder and mayhem unleashed by Israel on Palestinians and Palestinian resistance to the Israeli military occupation and all that entails.</p>
<p><em>John Minto is a political activist and commentator, and spokesperson for <a href="https://www.psna.nz/" rel="nofollow">Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa</a>. This article is republished from the PSNA newsletter with the author’s permission.<br />
</em></p>
<figure id="attachment_86973" class="wp-caption alignnone" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-86973"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="wp-image-86973 size-full" src="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Divide-and-Dominate-Poster-screenshot-600tall.png" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" srcset="https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Divide-and-Dominate-Poster-screenshot-600tall.png 600w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Divide-and-Dominate-Poster-screenshot-600tall-220x300.png 220w, https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Divide-and-Dominate-Poster-screenshot-600tall-308x420.png 308w" alt="&quot;Divide and Dominate&quot; . . . how Israel's apartheid policies and repression impact on Palestinians" width="600" height="818" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-86973" class="wp-caption-text">“Divide and Dominate” . . . how Israel’s apartheid policies and repression impact on Palestinians. Image: Visualising Palestine</figcaption></figure>
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<p>Article by <a href="https://www.asiapacificreport.nz/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">AsiaPacificReport.nz</a></p>
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