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By Madison Ruppert
Editor of End the Lie
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took his typically aggressive stance recently in openly raising the prospect of a full-scale ground invasion of Palestinian territories.
The Israeli military reportedly has said that they are “ready” to carry out such an operation, which would be the first such operation since 2009’s brutal Operation Cast Lead (characterized by Amnesty International as "22 days of death and destruction"), which killed an estimated 1,400 people and resulted in the total decimation of countless dwellings and businesses.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has leveraged the most recent attacks as justification for increasing isolation and collective punishment of Palestinians.
He claims that Palestinians will no longer be able to have a territorially contiguous state, saying that they “have condemned themselves to a separation that looks like it will continue for generations.”
Netanyahu has been exploiting this tragic violence as much as possible, making some (arguably typically) unbelievably nonsensical statements.
Netanyahu’s statements – covered yesterday by the Jerusalem Post – were made to the Likud party’s Knesset contingent.
The comments were clearly quite calculated, as Netanyahu is well aware that much of the world is watching this situation closely after witnessing the atrocities of Cast Lead.
“The IDF is continuing to strongly and decisively attack the terrorists in the Gaza strip,” he said. “The IDF is ready to expand its operations and continue them as necessary.”
This makes it clear that despite the case fire, which has reportedly already been broken by militants, is by no means binding and the Israeli military is ready and willing to carry out another bloody crusade in Palestine.
Defense officials and some Israeli politicians had previously threatened to expand the attacks on Gaza which began on Friday after the murder of the head of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), Zuhair Qaisi.
However, this is the first instance of Netanyahu raising the prospect in a public setting.
“We will strike at whoever intends to harm our citizens,” he said, claiming that the “winning combination” in this battle was “crushing offensive capabilities” and “important defensive measures.”
By “crushing offensive capabilities” Netanyahu was referring to the Israeli military ability to murder alleged militants “wherever they are,” of course while killing some civilians in the process.
“Important defense measures” is a reference to the anti-rocket system known as the Iron Dome and what Netanyahu called “the resistance of the citizens in the South” who the Jerusalem Post say “are living under a constant missile threat,” even though that threat does not, by any metric, constantly materialize.
Netanyahu nonsensically leveraged this violence as justification for military action against Iran.
He met with Italian Defense Minister Giampaolo Di Paola and claimed that the current rocket attacks “hammered home the dangers that would exist were Iran to gain nuclear capability, since the organizations firing the rockets from Gaza were trained and funded by Iran,” according to the Jerusalem Post.
The Israeli government is claiming that there is not only a danger of nuclear material falling into the hands of terrorists if Iran gains nuclear capabilities (which they are not currently working towards according to U.S. intelligence agencies and U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta) but also the possibility that organizations supposedly linked to Iran would be encouraged to attack Israel.
Similarly, Lieberman has been exploiting this tragic violence to further isolate Palestinians, saying that this rocket fire means that they have forfeited all hopes for a territorial link, or “safe passage,” between Gaza and the West Bank.
“As long as Hamas is in control of the Gaza Strip, there is no chance that we will agree to a safe passage, or unsafe passage, or elevated passage, or underground passage or any passage whatsoever,” Lieberman said. “The Palestinians have condemned themselves to a separation right now that looks like it will continue for generations.”
This is yet another instance of Israel – which constantly bills claims the title of “the only democracy in the Middle East” – rejecting democracy when it does not serve their interests.
The “safe passage” concept dates all the way back to the Gaza-Jericho Agreement of 1994 along with the Taba negotiations of 2001, during which one of the only things that both sides could agree on was the passage from north Gaza to the Hebron region.
Lieberman claims that terrorists and weaponry to be used on Israel would be transported to Judea and Samaria through any passage from Gaza to the West Bank.
This is a laughable assertion given that any such passage would likely be heavily guarded by Israeli military with heavily fortified checkpoints making any such smuggling operation near impossible.
Lieberman, like Netanyahu, exploited the current violence as an excuse to demonize Iran.
He claimed – while of course providing no evidence or justification whatsoever – that Iran is responsible for today’s terror attacks in Israel, as they were supposedly responsible for the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the 1994 bombing of the Jewish center there as well, both of which were blamed on Hezbollah.
Lieberman also claimed that Iran provided the “oxygen” for every single terrorist organization in Gaza that is carrying out violent acts. He said that without that “oxygen” provided by Iran, the ability for terrorists to survive would be in question.
Following this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, it appears that Lieberman is calling for Iran to be wiped out completely based on the dubious claims of Israeli politicians in order to starve terrorist organization in Gaza of their “oxygen.”
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that he was “gravely concerned” about the latest violence at a Security Council meeting addressing changes in the Middle East region.
He said that once again civilians were paying a high price, calling the rocket attacks “unacceptable,” adding that they “must top immediately.” He also called on Israel to show “maximum restraint” which they have not demonstrated.
Meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke out against the Israeli air strikes, calling them “state terror” and a “massacre.”
The Egyptian state news agency MENA reported on Monday that the Egyptian parliament called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador in Cairo, in addition to recalling the Egyptian envoy to Israel.
The text prepared by the Arab affairs committee of the People’s Assembly, which calls for “the expulsion from Egypt of the Israeli ambassador and the recall of Egypt’s envoy from Tel Aviv” was unanimously approved by Egyptian members of parliament.
Ahram Online points out that this measure is almost entirely symbolic because the ruling military council is the only body actually capable of making such decisions and thus is unlikely to hurt Egyptian-Israeli relations which have been bound by a peace treaty since 1979.
It is quite true that it is purely ceremonial, as Egypt is currently governed by a military dictatorship and thus the MPs have little to no real power.
However, the unanimous adoption of the text shows a popular Egyptian opposition to Israeli activities in Gaza, as the text even calls for a halt to gas exports to Israel.
The text also declares that “Egypt will never be the friend, partner or ally of the Zionist entity which we consider as the first enemy of Egypt and the Arab nation,” as well as calling for the revision of “all [of the Egyptian government’s] relations and agreements with that enemy.”
It remains to be seen if the cease fire brokered through Egypt wil
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