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January 7, 2009
Change of Shift in Gaza

Sarkozy is coming forward with some ceasefire proposal that is supposed to be between the Egyptian side, Israel and the Palestinian Authority of Mahmud Abbas. His main success which follows an Israeli demand is some initiative or scheme against smuggling through the tunnels between Gaza and Egypt.

The people in Gaza are hungry. In the last months Israel shut off the most basic supplies through the normal borders and the tunnels were all that kept Gaza alive.

The proposal will go nowhere. No one will agree to the various conditions the other sides will attached to it. And what about Hamas? Did Sarkozy talk to them at all? It does not seem so:

"This aggression must cease. The blockade must be lifted. The crossings must be unconditionally open. The oppression of our people must end. After that, we can talk," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said. He said Wednesday's lull was an Israeli "ruse."

Israel stopped some fighting for three hours today for 'humanitarian reasons.'
I agree with the Hamas spokesperson, the lull was a ruse and a public relation stunt.

The three Israeli brigades in Gaza have now been fighting for some 72 hours and it is time to replace them and give them some rest. Israel has called up reserve troops and is moving them into position. That is easier to do when the shooting stops for a few hours.

The shift change It is also a game changer. Instead of young elite professionals now some middle age reservists from some suburb will have to fight the Palestinian resistance.

That will likely increase the toll Israel has to pay for its outrages operation.

Posted by b on January 7, 2009 at 17:14 UTC | Permalink
Comments

they know it
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE50642720090107
Military analysts believe Israeli forces would be severely challenged by combat in Gaza’s congested casbahs and alleyways, where much of their air support would be irrelevant and where Palestinian gunmen would be able to mount hit-and-run ambushes.
Conquering Gaza could amount to a reoccupation of a territory the Jewish state captured from Egypt in a 1967 war and quit in 2005. Israeli leaders have said they do not want to reoccupy Gaza or, for now, to topple the Islamist Hamas rule.
Seven Israeli soldiers have died in an offensive that has killed more than 640 Palestinians, at least a quarter of them civilians, medics said. Palestinian rockets have killed four Israelis during the same period.
Israel said its troops had killed 130 guerrillas since Saturday, a figure that suggested the total Palestinian death toll since December 27 might be close to 770 and that bodies could still be on the battlefield.
According to an Israeli source with knowledge of the security cabinet’s discussions, the initial ground sweep was executed well but the military top brass was disappointed by what they saw as relatively little Palestinian resistance.
“The assumption was that our forces could draw out the enemy into open areas where they could be eliminated, but they didn’t come out in the number we expected,” the source said. “Taking the fight into the populated areas would be much tougher.”

Posted by: outsider | Jan 7 2009 17:32 utc | 1

This offensive is being financed by Saudi Arabia who wants to remain the only Sunni power. They want to crush the only other Sunni power, ie, the Hamas.
And it is being supported by Egypt which has trained and positioned some 10000 fighters ready to enter stage when the Israelis have crushed the backbone of Hamas.
Israel will think twice before letting them in as a defeat on their part would translate into a huge political fiasco for Israel.
When Sarkozy meets the parties of the conflict, one would think that Moubarak and the Saudi representative are representing the non Israeli side. That’s the beauty in the scheme.
All the parties the Western world agrees to talk to are all ganging up together. Only you don’t know about it.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article158933.html

Posted by: Stephane | Jan 7 2009 17:42 utc | 2

“That will likely increase the toll Israel has to pay for its outrages operation.”
Well, not really. Israel can takes ZERO casualties (except from friendly fire) if they just use enough firepower and blow up every building as they go. What the shift means is that more “accidents” will happen, more civilians will die, and more excuses will be made (“Hamas was there just a moment ago”).

Posted by: Bill | Jan 7 2009 17:46 utc | 3

Separately, some reports now indicate that US troops are now directly involved in the starvation of Gaza:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3652097,00.html
“US Engineering Corps officers have arrived in southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah to monitor the Egypt-Gaza border and unearth underground tunnels in the area, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi reported Wednesday.
According to the report, the US Military deployed troops to the area several weeks ago, at Israel’s request, in light of its statements that Egypt is doing nothing to curb weapons smuggling into Gaza through the Rafah border.”
I actually like YNet a lot. Their reporting is very raw. They don’t even pretend Mubarak’s Egypt is an independent country, noting that US troops deploy in Egypt “at Israel’s request.”

Posted by: Bill | Jan 7 2009 17:48 utc | 4

…and Siun finds this in Haaretz:

What to do about Hamas’ arms smuggling currently appears to be the main sticking point holding up a cease-fire agreement. Israel is holding intensive talks with the United States in an effort to reach a deal that would be acceptable to Egypt. The proposals include sending in the U.S. Army’s engineering corps to systematically destroy the entire Philadelphi Road, where the smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border are located.

Posted by: beq | Jan 7 2009 17:58 utc | 5

Hamas has stated today that they will reject any ceasefire deal if it doesn’t guarantee open borders and the removal of the blockade. Can’t say I blame them.

Posted by: Ensley | Jan 7 2009 18:09 utc | 6

@Bill – @3 – Israel can takes ZERO casualties (except from friendly fire)
That is why I am dubious about the “friendly fire” incidents that have been reported. While those are possible, there seem to be too many. So I suspect some massaging of real casualties into the “friendly fire” category to keep the toll within the range the public accepts.

Posted by: b | Jan 7 2009 18:36 utc | 7

Israel is holding intensive talks with the United States in an effort to reach a deal that would be acceptable to Egypt.
john bolton (sorry, to lazy to go find it) has written a piece for either nyt or wapo that fairly well rolls out the neocon goals. obviously israeli hard liners don’t ever want a palestinian state. they want gaza’s perceived overlords to be egypt (taking orders from israel obviously), for the area to be absorbed into egypt, and for the west bank to be absorbed into jordan.
this is in line with other rightwing pro israel sentiment i have heard on other sites, albeit they don’t come out and just say it. they want some concessions and agreements w/egypt that preceeds any upcoming negotiations, concessions that tip any eventual outcome in the direction of a palestinian state being an impossibility to achieve.

Posted by: annie | Jan 7 2009 18:42 utc | 8

here it is Bolton’s zombie idea

John Bolton proposes in today’s Washington Post giving up on Palestinian governance and a two-state solution, instead opting for a “three-state approach” in which “Gaza is returned to Egyptian control and the West Bank in some configuration reverts to Jordanian sovereignty.”

Posted by: annie | Jan 7 2009 18:45 utc | 9

WAPO has run the bombing of the gaza/UN school on page A1.
bloomberg informs us

The incident at the school may force the Israeli government to scale back its military offensive aimed at stopping rocket attacks by Palestinian militants on cities and towns in the country’s south.
“If it becomes the dominant story for the next 48 hours, especially in the U.S., then it will give Hamas a significant advantage,” Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, said in a telephone interview.

Posted by: annie | Jan 7 2009 19:02 utc | 10

Draw the enemy out? I wonder how could they be that stupid. It’s Hamas and the other palestinian factions that have been trying to draw them in.
I wonder how in hell would the US Army be better at finding and destroying tunnels than the colonizer forces were. Unless that the thinking is that they can be killed without much political fallout for the colonizer government. What would be a few US army engineers with explosives in one of hoter spots for radical arabs? Good targets.

Posted by: ThePaper | Jan 7 2009 19:04 utc | 11

The fact that Israel and the US have always prevented the UN from posting peacekeepers (however toothless) in Gaza and the West Bank puts the lie to so much of Zionist arguments. This and opening outside access to Gaza could have been done years ago and negated the issue of the rockets.

Posted by: biklett | Jan 7 2009 19:09 utc | 12

Annie
Daniel Pipes had an op-ed yesterday saying the same thing – this seems to be the fantasy end game to get the tar baby off israel’s hands

Posted by: ed_finnerty | Jan 7 2009 19:10 utc | 13

About the quite old colonizer pipedream of moving the remaining palestinians to the puppet regimes next door it won’t solve anything in the long run. Both Egypt and Jordania have already enough internal tensions that threaten their dictatorial regimes to absorb without great risks three or four millions of radicalized palestinians. Even if the colonizer initially are able to implement that scheme it will return back to bit them with much more force 5, 10 or 25 years in the future.
And in the case of the West Bank where the colonizers and the palestinian will remain in close contact it seems nearly impossible to implement.

Posted by: ThePaper | Jan 7 2009 19:11 utc | 14

beq #5, badger also links to that article along w/some others in a post called ‘Israeli press: Judicious withdrawal or racist escalation?’, w/his usual excellent commentary.

Posted by: annie | Jan 7 2009 19:15 utc | 15

And well, basically that solution was already tried from the 1948 to 1967 but with much less colonies and mostly functional palestinian territories … Jordania isn’t much more western or colonizer friendly than it was then with the old ‘king’. The current regime in Egypt may be more friendly but Mubarak and likely his regime is in its last years if not days.
In some way one could say that it’s the history of the colony’s creation playing in reverse for its discreation.

Posted by: ThePaper | Jan 7 2009 19:19 utc | 16

now this can really go on for a long time:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3652454,00.html
DF soldiers ‘waiting for Hamas’
IDF commander: Troops facing little resistance, as Hamas men shy away from contact
Troops operating in Gaza are encountering relatively little resistance, as Hamas fighters shy away from contact with Israeli troops, a commander of an elite IDF engineering corps combat unit says.
I suppose they will have to explain some time before the election why there are still rockets in the South.

Posted by: outsider | Jan 7 2009 19:32 utc | 17

Oh, the Likudniks want a Palestinian “state”: if not, Israel would actually have to be responsible for the Palestinians and what happens to them, somehow. The caveat is, of course, that the Palestinian state they want would always serve the Likudniks’ interests–not their own people’s. That way, they can get everything they want with the “Palestinian content” without having to shed their own blood–while tut-tutting about how backwards and barbaric the Palestinians are whenever something goes wrong in PA-stan. I think this conflict–and all the conflict between the PA and Hamas has to be viewed in this regard. While this is clearly a fantasy, it’s not nearly as fantastical as it might be–after all, this is Israel’s arrangement with Jordan and Egypt. The problem is, while all that Israel wants Jordan and Egypt to be is to be inoffensive and quiet–which their regimes are capable of delivering most of the time–they want far more from PA–they want them to be not only their fully pliant puppets faithfully delivering all the benefits for Israel, but also willing and able to take all the “responsibility” and blame for everything that goes wrong (I think Israel’s situation vis-a-vis Lebanon and Syria is somewhere in between its needs vis-a-vis Egypt and Jordan: Israelis want more, but they don’t need their interlocutors to be really “fictitious” the way they demand PA to be. If Israel weren’t so greedy, they might even be able to cut a deal with Hizbullah too, IMHO). Obviously, this situation is not sustainable for any length of time.

Posted by: kao_hsien_chih | Jan 7 2009 19:56 utc | 18

No good reason Jordan or Egypt would ever take back Gaza or West Bank–especially if they’d been stripped of anything useful for the benefit of the Israelis. They are full of trouble–the Palestinians–and offer no benefits for either of the regimes–unless US increases foreign aid for them by several billion apiece, perhaps.

Posted by: kao_hsien_chih | Jan 7 2009 19:58 utc | 19

@ThePaper – @15 – In some way one could say that it’s the history of the colony’s creation playing in reverse for its discreation.
You are on to to something in that …

Posted by: b | Jan 7 2009 21:09 utc | 20

In other words, John Bolton is arguing that Palestine be “wiped off the map”.
Not that we’ll hear it worded that way anytime soon.
-GSD

Posted by: GSD | Jan 7 2009 21:19 utc | 21

Looking at how the map of Israel and its occupied territories has evolved from 1945 to the present (see link below), one need not be a rocket scientist to figure out that Israel is out to swipe Palestine off the map. My guess is that Israelis will do this dirty deed in either one of three ways: 1) they’ll run all remaining Palestinians off what little remains of Palestine, forcing them into exile; 2) they’ll continue to treat Palestinians as caged animals and then blast them into extinction; or 3) they’ll continue to occupy what’s left of Palestine, treating their subjects as sub-human scum.
But no matter how you slice or dice the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, no one can deny that Israel’s treatment of its Palestinian subjects is inhumane to the nth degree. And for Israeli leaders to come forth and announce to the world that what they are doing to the Palestinians isn’t inhumane, by any stretch, are nothing but lying butchers of the worst kind!
http://www.eurotrib.com/comments/2008/12/26/172030/80/89#89

Posted by: Cynthia | Jan 7 2009 21:46 utc | 22

“US Engineering Corps officers have arrived in southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah to monitor the Egypt-Gaza border and unearth underground tunnels in the area, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi reported Wednesday.”
More likely to evaluate the effect of the US$77Mn worth of 1,000 Bunker Busters GBU – 39 the US supplied in September.
Gaza is now CENTCOM (EAST) Bomb Proving Grounds.

Posted by: ziz | Jan 8 2009 4:39 utc | 23

inner city press blogging at the u.n. wednesday

With the UN and Western members of its Security Council now looking for solutions about Gaza in the country to the south, the question has arisen whether Egypt is violating international law in blocking entry to those seeking to flee the bombing. Wednesday at the UN, Inner City Press asked Human Rights Watch expert Sarah Leah Whitson to elaborate on her cursory statement that Egypt is complicit in war crimes for keeping closed its Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip. …
Ms. Whitson responded that Egypt is legally required to open the crossing, but has refused to do so “unless representatives of Fatah” man the crossing. She called this “injecting a political formula onto a humanitarian situation” and legal responsibility.
The UN’s main envoy to the region, Robert Serry, views things decidedly differently. Inner City Press asked Serry to respond to HRW’ statement that Egypt is violating the law by blocking those who flee at the Rafah crossing. “I’m a bit puzzled by the charge,” Serry said, noting somewhat irrelevantly that the Egyptian Red Cross has been “active with medicines” in the Gaza Strip, and that some patients have been allowed out through Rafah. But what about those who are fleeing the bombing of their homes? Serry said, tellingly, “I really don’t want to comment further.” …
While Serry is not alone in this solicitous approach to Egypt, even the UN’s refugee chief Antonio Gutteres has said that international law requires the opening of Rafah. Earlier on Wednesday, UN humanitarian coordinator John Holmes said the Gaza conflict is unique because its victims “have nowhere to flee to.” Inner City Press asked if he meant by this the blockage of the borders, including by Egypt. Holmes nodded. …
So why would the UN’s humanitarian and refugee chieftains say the border must be opened, while top political envoy Robert Serry disagrees and says he’s puzzled? What is the UN’s position? For now we note: Politics kills.

links to the relevant video footage in original post

Posted by: b real | Jan 8 2009 5:23 utc | 24

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfnPjzOGB5s
An ex-IAF captain speaks out. Seems like a sane man.
FkD

Posted by: Anonymous | Jan 8 2009 17:02 utc | 25

Why isn’t Israel legally obligated to open its border.
Cynthia is more correct in her analysis because it takes into account the broadest sweep of historical evidence.
But perhaps, as be believes, we just watching a bunch of crazed politicains jockeying for position in a meaningless election which, as in the US, will change nothing of the established order.

Posted by: Malooga | Jan 8 2009 18:01 utc | 26

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