It’s a rare and remarkable event when a government broadcasts ahead of time its intent to commit war crimes. Yet that’s just what senior Israeli military officials recently did in the pages of The New York Times. Israeli military officials gave friendly Times correspondent Isabel Kershner a provocative briefing, warning (in her words) that in the “almost inevitable next battle with Hezbollah . . . many Lebanese …
Amnesty whitewashes another massacre – Paul de Rooij
Amnesty International has issued four reports on the Israeli massacre in Gaza in 2014.1Given the scale of the destruction and the number of fatalities, any attempt to document the crimes committed should be welcomed. However, these reports are problematic, and raise questions about the organisation itself, including why the reports were ever written at all.2They also raise questions about the …
Israeli defense minister promises to kill more civilians and threatens to nuke Iran – Asa Winstanley
Israeli defense minister Moshe Yaalon on Tuesday said Israel would attack entire civilian neighborhoods during any future assault on Gaza or Lebanon. Speaking at a conference in Jerusalem, Yaalon threatened that “we are going to hurt Lebanese civilians to include kids of the family. We went through a very long deep discussion … we did it then, we did it in [the] Gaza Strip, we …
Israel orders more than 11,000 demolitions pending in West Bank
There are more than 11,000 currently outstanding demolition orders issued by Israeli authorities against Palestinian-owned properties in the Occupied West Bank, according to new figures. The official data, as presented by UN OCHA in a recent report, shows that Israeli authorities issued 14,087 demolition orders in ‘Area C’ of the West Bank between 1988 and 2014, on the basis that they …
Israel’s Horrific Brutality and War Criminality in Gaza – Glenn Greenwald
The Israeli group Breaking the Silence issued a report this morning containing testimony from Israeli soldiers about the savagery and criminality committed by the Israeli military during the attack on Gaza last summer. The Independent has a good article describing the report’s findings: “The Israeli military deliberately pounded civilian areas in the Gaza Strip with incessant fire of inaccurate ordinance” and “was at best …
Palestine Faces Grave Climate Threat, But Lacks Voice At UN Talks – Ed King
Few conflicts generate as much heat and rage as the ongoing tussle between Israel and Palestine. Peace appears as far away as ever, after the recent collapse of US-led talks, and the 2014 Gaza war. The two nations face an added, unseen and growing threat – that could heighten tensions yet further. Rising global temperatures are likely to make drought …
‘Indiscriminate’ Killing in Gaza Was Top-Down War Plan, say Israeli Veterans – Sarah Lazare
The “massive and unprecedented harm” inflicted on the population of Gaza during last summer’s 50-day Israeli military assault stemmed from the top of the chain of command, which gave orders to shoot indiscriminately at civilians, according to the anonymous testimony of more than 60 officers and soldiers who took part in “Operation Protective Edge.” The Israeli group Breaking the Silence, an …
President Hillary Clinton’s Middle East Policy: Interventions, Wars, More of Same – Juan Cole
illary Clinton announced her bid for the presidency Sunday, prompting another of these attempts at IC to do a quick overview of what we can expect from the candidates with regard to Middle East policy. Clinton supported Israel’s attack on defenseless Gaza last summer, which left about 2000 Palestinians dead and wiped entire civilian neighborhoods off the map. She blamed …
2014 Deadliest Year for Palestinians Since 1967, UN Report Finds
Palestinians suffered a dramatic increase in fatalities last year, with more killed by Israel in 2014 than any other annual period since the 1967 war nearly 50 years ago. A new report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory found that, overall, Israel was responsible for 2,314 Palestinian deaths and 17,125 injuries last …
4 Things more Dangerous to Israel than Iran’s civilian Nuclear Enrichment
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s strident and continual harping on the alleged dangers of Iran to Israel’s security has become like an old song. Netanyahu has raised this issue repeatedly over the past 20 years, often predicting that Iran was as little as a year away from having a nuclear warhead. Decades later, it does not, and Israel is still …