Analysis: Jonathan Cook on The Victory of Defeat

Full text available on Electronic Intifada.

Rather than being an aberration in response to rocket attacks, the blockade of Gaza has become Israel’s template for Palestinian statehood. The West Bank is rapidly undergoing its own version of disengagement and besiegement, with similar predictable results.

Gaza’s blockade — and the savage battering it took in December and January — has suggested even to Netanyahu that the Israeli version of the carrot-and-stick approach works.

The stick — a devastated Gaza unable to rise from the rubble because aid and basic goods are kept out — has transformed most of the population into a nation dependent on handouts, borrowing where possible to buy necessities smuggled through the tunnels, and concentrating on the lonely art of survival.

As the normally restrained International Committee of the Red Cross reported last month: “Most of the very poor have exhausted their coping mechanisms. Many have no savings left. They have sold private belongings such as jewelry and furniture and started to sell productive assets including farm animals, land, fishing boats or cars used as taxis.”

The carrot — if it can be called that — is directed towards Gaza’s leaders, Hamas, rather than its ordinary inhabitants. The message is simple: keep the rocket fire in check and we won’t attack again. We will allow you to rule over the remnants of Gaza.

In the West Bank, the carrot for the leadership is even more tantalizingly visible. The Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas is colluding in the creation of a series of mini-fiefdoms based on the main cities.

Trained by the US military, Palestinian security forces with light weapons are taking back control of Jenin, Nablus, Jericho, Qalqilya, Ramallah and so on, while the PA is encouraged by promises of economic charity to prop up its legitimacy.

The stick, as in Gaza, is directed at the ordinary population. The news headlines are of the easing of movement restrictions at the checkpoints. That may be true at a few places deep in the West Bank. But at the big checkpoints that separate Israel from what is left of the West Bank, such as the one at Qalandiya between Ramallah and Jerusalem, the monitoring of Palestinian movement is becoming fearsomely sophisticated.

Should Abbas and his PA functionaries sign up to this Israeli vision of statehood, the defeat for the Palestinians will be greater still.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

Analysis: Sara Roy on Destroying Gaza

*Full text available on Electronic Intifada.

Gaza is an example of a society that has been deliberately reduced to a state of abject destitution, its once productive population transformed into one of aid-dependent paupers. This context is undeniably one of mass suffering, created largely by Israel but with the active complicity of the international community, especially the US and European Union, and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Gaza’s subjection began long before Israel’s recent war against it. The Israeli occupation — now largely forgotten or denied by the international community — has devastated Gaza’s economy and people, especially since 2006. Although economic restrictions actually increased before Hamas’ electoral victory in January 2006, the deepened sanction regime and siege subsequently imposed by Israel and the international community, and later intensified in June 2007 when Hamas seized control of Gaza, has all but destroyed the local economy. If there has been a pronounced theme among the many Palestinians, Israelis and internationals who I have interviewed in the last three years, it was the fear of damage to Gaza’s society and economy so profound that billions of dollars and generations of people would be required to address it — a fear that has now been realized.

After Israel’s December assault, Gaza’s already compromised conditions have become virtually unlivable. Livelihoods, homes and public infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed on a scale that even the Israeli army admitted was indefensible. In Gaza today, there is no private sector to speak of and no industry. Eighty percent of Gaza’s agricultural crops were destroyed and Israel continues to snipe at farmers attempting to plant and tend fields near the well-fenced and patrolled border. Most productive activity has been extinguished.

Today, 96 percent of Gaza’s population of 1.4 million is dependent on humanitarian aid for basic needs. According to the World Food Program, the Gaza Strip requires a minimum of 400 trucks of food every day just to meet the basic nutritional needs of the population. Yet, despite a 22 March decision by the Israeli cabinet to lift all restrictions on foodstuffs entering Gaza, only 653 trucks of food and other supplies were allowed entry during the week of 10 May, for example, at best meeting 23 percent of required need.

If Palestinians are continually denied what we want and demand for ourselves — an ordinary life, dignity, livelihood, safety and a place where they can raise their children — and are forced, yet again, to face the destruction of their families, then the inevitable outcome will be greater and more extreme violence across all factions, both old and increasingly new. What looms is no less than the loss of entire generation of Palestinians. And if this happens — perhaps it already has — we shall all bear the cost.

Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. She is the author of Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. This article was originally published by The Harvard Crimson and is republished with the author’s permission.

Top EU Official Calls for Deadline on Palestinian State

Maan: The European Union’s top foreign policy official called for the United Nations Security Council to recognize a Palestinian state by a certain deadline even if Israel does not.

Javier Solana made these comments on Saturday at a lecture in London. The Palestinian Authority leadership currently refuses to enter negotiations with Israel until it stops construction of illegal West Bank settlements, recognizes past agreements, and agrees to the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state.

“After a fixed deadline, a UN Security Council resolution should proclaim the adoption of the two-state solution,” Solana said, adding the declaration should include the borders of the Palestinian state, the fate of Palestinian refugees, control over Jerusalem and security arrangements, according to Reuters.

“It would accept the Palestinian state as a full member of the UN, and set a calendar for implementation. It would mandate the resolution of other remaining territorial disputes and legitimize the end of claims,” Solana also said, according to the news agency.

Calling for a return to Israel’s borders before the 1967 war in which it occupied the West Bank, Gaza, and other territory, Solana said mediators should set a timetable for a final peace agreement, according to the report.

“If the parties are not able to stick to it (the timetable), then a solution backed by the international community should be put on the table,” he said, as quoted by Reuters.

The EU, along with the United States, Russia and the United Nations, is part of the Quartet charged with brokering Middle East peace negotiations.

U.K. Imposes Partial Arms Embargo On Israel

Haaretz: Britain has slapped a partial arms embargo on Israel, refusing to supply replacement parts and other equipment for Sa’ar 4.5 gunships because they participated in Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip earlier this year.

Britain’s Foreign Office informed Israel’s embassy in London of the sanctions a few days ago. The embassy, in a classified telegram to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, said the decision stemmed from heavy pressure by both members of Parliament and human rights organizations.

The embargo followed a government review of all British defense exports to Israel, which was announced three months ago. In total, the telegram said, Britain reviewed 182 licenses for arms exports to Israel, including 35 for exports to the Israel Navy. But it ultimately decided to cancel only five licenses, all relating to the Sa’ar 4.5 ships. The licenses in question apparently cover spare parts for the ship’s guns.

Red Cross Report Calls for End to Israeli Blockade on Gaza

AAPER: Last week, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued a report entitled “Gaza: 1.5 Million People Trapped in Despair.” The report concludes that, because of Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, Palestinians have been unable to rebuild their homes, cities and lives, all of which were destroyed during Israel’s 22-day offensive six months ago. The ICRC called upon Israel to lift the blockade and corresponding sanctions in order to allow building materials, health care products and other items necessary for repair and recovery into the area.

The ICRC’s report states that conditions in the Gaza Strip were deplorable even before Israel’s military assault, which began in December of 2008 and concluded in January of 2009. In October of 2007, Israel, which maintains control over Gaza’s borders, initiated a blockade that remains in place to this day. The restricted movement of people and goods led to a humanitarian situation characterized by the ICRC as “a major crisis affecting all aspects of daily life.”  The destruction wrought by the Israeli military during its offensive in Gaza would be difficult to overcome in the best of conditions.  Under such a comprehensive siege, rebuilding has, in fact, proven an impossible task for thousands.

Six months after the Israeli military pulled out of Gaza, the infrastructure remains on the brink of collapse. Emergency repairs to water and sanitation systems, meant merely as a temporary solution, have become permanent, offering Palestinians only occasional access to properly treated water.  The ICRC warns of an impending public health crisis if these systems are not adequately repaired in the near future. In order for this to happen, Israel will need to allow pipes, concrete and chemicals required for sanitation purposes to enter Gaza unimpeded.

The potential public health crisis feared by the ICRC would likely cause a total collapse of Gaza’s already crumbling health care system. Because of the blockade and the destruction wrought by Israel’s attack, hospitals are in dire need of equipment and medicine, as well as substantial repairs to buildings damaged during the incursion.  In 2009, ICRC-run medical centers have sometimes had to wait up to five months for medical equipment to pass Israeli inspections and be allowed into Gaza.  Due to these restrictions, hospitals in Gaza are under equipped to treat the seriously ill and injured, and yet Palestinians in need of such care are often denied permission by Israeli authorities to leave the Gaza Strip in order to seek treatment elsewhere.

Poverty in the Gaza Strip is rampant. A May 2008 report conducted by the ICRC found that even then, over 70% of Gazans were living in poverty. As of April 2009, unemployment had reached 44% and 96% of all industrial operations in Gaza had been shut down for lack of properly functioning equipment and adequate materials.  Malnutrition is becoming an increasingly severe problem for adults and children, with tens of thousands of children exhibiting stunted growth, vitamin deficiencies and chronic illness.  The economy has deteriorated so dramatically that the ICRC predicts that, even if imports were allowed free entry and Palestinians were permitted to export their goods and products, it would still take many years for the economy of Gaza to fully recover.

Agriculture was once an important component of Gaza’s economy, with 25% of the population earning the majority of their income from farming. The ICRC reports that thousands of trees were uprooted, hundreds of acres of farmland were destroyed and irrigation systems were devastated by Israeli military machinery during its attack. Furthermore, Israel’s imposition of a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of the fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel has cost Palestinians 30% of the arable land in Gaza. Palestinians attempting to work this land risk being shot by Israeli soldiers guarding the border.

In its report, the ICRC calls upon Israel to end the blockade of the Gaza Strip and free the 1.5 million Palestinians trapped inside. “Israel’s right to address its legitimate security concerns must be balanced against the right of the population of Gaza to lead a normal and dignified life.” Furthermore, as the occupying power, international law compels Israel to ensure that the basic needs of Gaza’s citizens are consistently met. Emergency measures must be taken so that the Palestinians can begin to rebuild their lives, but significant and long-term policy changes, allowing the people of Gaza to prosper and live in dignity, must likewise be put in place.  Until these steps are taken, there is little hope for recovery and relief.

European Commission Report Slams Israel’s Colonial Settlements

Maan: Israel’s Foreign Ministry will seek a meeting with the representative of the European Commission over what the Israeli press called an “unusually harsh statement” on Israel’s settlement policy.

The statement, released Monday, said Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank was strangling the Palestinian economy and forcing residents into aid dependency.

“[I]t is the European taxpayers who pay most of the price of this dependence,” the commission said, including 280 million US dollars so far this year, because settlements prevent the PA from functioning normally.

The position was earlier put forward by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which cites the 2 billion shekels (509 million US dollars) spent annually on maintaining the road and checkpoint infrastructure that separates Palestinians from accessing land outside of “Area A” zones, prescribed by the Oslo Accords as areas under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction.

Palestinians have difficulty farming, building on or travelling through lands designated “Area B” – land under Palestinian civil and Israeli military control – or “Area C” – lands under total Israeli control in the West Bank.

OCHA has recently come out with position papers describing the system of roads and blocks in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a system that entrenches the settlement system. Byproducts of the entrenchment mean making commutes to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv faster for settlers, while ensuring Palestinian agricultural workers have scant access to areas around settlements, settler roads or military bases on Palestinian land.

The EC statement echoed much of OCHA’s findings through their West Bank and East Jerusalem field work, and were contacted for a meeting with Israeli officials Monday. There was no indication when the meeting would take place.

Analysis: Bibi’s Bait-and-Switch

The Daily Beast (Eric Alterman): Expectations could hardly have been higher for Bibi Netanyahu’s speech Sunday afternoon at Bar-Ilan University. Today was Netanyahu’s opportunity—his last opportunity—to be Israel’s de Gaulle in Algeria, its Nixon in China, or to take a more recent example, its de Klerk in Cape Town. Barack Obama traveled to Cairo University to ask both Arabs and Jews to re-imagine themselves, their enemies, and the possibilities of peace.

Leading up to the speech, Netanyahu not only met with U.S. peace envoy George Mitchell, but also with Israel’s most respected and admired author, David Grossman, who lost his son on the final day of the failed invasion of Lebanon, together with the writer Eyal Meged. The authors pleaded with him to embrace the fateful moment and “take the path of giants.” Over the weekend, he also met with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and President Shimon Peres. All reportedly urged him to embrace Obama’s plan to end settlement expansion and begin negotiations for the creation of a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu had no choice but to at least feint in this direction. Anything less would be considered a direct slap in the face of Barack Obama, coming in the wake of his extremely well-received Cairo speech, and sour U.S.-Israeli relations at a moment when Netanyahu is seriously seeking U.S. support for a potential military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, (however costly, politically, and minimal its possibility of achieving its aims).

But to really move forward with both the Obama administration and genuine peace talks with the Palestinians, Netanyahu would have had to be willing to alienate the members of his coalition to the point of risking the dissolution of his hard-line coalition and sharing power with his rival, Kadima’s Tzipi Livni. Likud’s Benny Begin, son of Menachem Begin, Israel’s Ronald Reagan, has promised to leave the government should anything substantial be yielded. The right-wing National Union head, MK Yaakov Katz, also threatened Netanyahu’s coalition, predicting that the prime minister would “not repeat the mistake of being unfaithful to his voters, which toppled his previous government.” (This being Israel, Katz also suggested that Netanyahu use the speech to make “a heroic appearance… in front of the entire world, like Shimon, Son of Mattityahu the Hasmonean, who declared—‘we have not taken a foreign land or ruled over foreigners’ property, but the land of our forefathers.’”)

So Bibi’s answer to this dilemma was a bait and switch. He did agree to endorse the notion of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but he demanded as a condition of this endorsement, not only the demilitarization of a future Palestinian state—not a dealbreaker in and of itself but a precondition that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state.  ”A public Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish nation-state is a precondition for regional peace,” he announced.

This condition not only forces Palestinians to relinquish their right of return in advance of discussions—something no Palestinian leader of political significance has ever been willing to do—but it also invites a charge of betrayal by Israel’s Palestinian population, which now constitutes approximately 20 percent of those living within its pre-1967 boundaries. (According to Israel Business News, the relatively moderate Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told television network Al Jazeera that in his speech, Netanyahu had unilaterally buried negotiations on a permanent settlement of the dispute, and that he would have to wait 1,000 years before he heard a single Palestinian willing to cooperate with his declarations at Bar-Ilan.)

No less significant, Netanyahu refused to make good on Israel’s May 2003 pledge to end its relentless settlement expansion, insisting on allowing what he calls their “natural expansion” to continue. According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics reports that in 2007—the most recent year for which there are figures—the West Bank settlement population grew 5.6 percent. As the Israeli-American journalist Gershom Gorenberg poins out, “That’s three times faster than the growth of the Israeli population as a whole.”

Obama’s line in the sand, drawn in Cairo, could hardly have been clearer. “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,” he promised. “This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.” And according to a poll published by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, a majority of Israelis prefer a settlement freeze to a conflict with Obama on the issue. But not Bibi. As settler spokesman Pinchas Wallerstein proudly observed, “The speech made no mention of the evacuation of settlements or the freezing of construction. “

Netanyahu no doubt believes he bought himself some time with his rhetorical shift on the two-state solution. And his short-term position was undoubtedly strengthened by the unhappy turn of events in Iran this weekend. As the Israeli journalists Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff pointed out in Haaretz that “from Israel’s point of view, the victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is actually preferable. Not only because “better the devil you know,” but because the victory of the pro-reform candidate will paste an attractive mask on the face of Iranian nuclear ambitions.”

But however worrisome the Iranian threat to Israel may be, the nation’s fundamental quandary remains inescapable. As difficult as it may appear to be to make peace with a corrupt and potentially powerless Palestinian Authority and a hostile Hamas, Israel’s other choices are actually worse: Either expel millions of Palestinians from their lands to preserve the state’s Jewish character or give up on democratic rule entirely, embracing a nightmare future much like that in South Africa under apartheid. Barack Obama offered Bibi Netanyahu an escape hatch, perhaps the last one Israel is likely to see while the conflict remains potentially solvable. Absent the pomp and circumstance, Netanyahu’s response could hardly have been clearer: “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Eric Alterman is a professor of English and journalism at Brooklyn College and a professor of journalism at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author, most recently, of Why We’re Liberals: A Handbook for Restoring America’s Important Ideals.

Obama’s Failure to Call Settlements Illegal Is Undermining Hope

FP: This week, Barack Obama’s Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell met in New York with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to begin discussing a potential “compromise” regarding the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. Israel’s continued settlement expansion has been at the top of America’s Middle East agenda since Obama’s Cairo speech in June, when he declared that “the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”

The establishment of settlements in the West Bank violates international humanitarian law which establishes principles that apply during war and occupation. Moreover, the settlements lead to the infringement of international human rights law.

Obama’s statement has been heralded (and criticized) as a striking departure from the policy of George W. Bush. In fact, the Cairo speech squandered Obama’s best opportunity to revitalize U.S. policy in the Arab-Israeli arena by describing Israeli settlement activity not merely as violating previous agreements and undermining efforts to achieve peace, but as “illegal,” because the settlement of Israeli civilians in occupied territory violates the Fourth Geneva Convention.

More broadly, Obama’s rhetoric in Cairo strongly suggests that his Middle East diplomacy will extend America’s decades-long record of ineffectual efforts at Arab-Israeli peacemaking — a record that has its origins in the Reagan administration’s 1981 decision to abandon the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations’ characterization of Israeli settlements in occupied Arab territory as “illegal.” While the European Union and most of the rest of the world have consistently done so, the last four U.S. administrations have not — a position Obama is continuing.

By shrinking from declaring Israeli settlement activity illegal, Obama has guaranteed that, in substance, his Middle East policy cannot depart significantly from that of George W. Bush. Obama’s insipidly favorable response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conditional “acceptance” of the two-state formula underscores an unfortunate continuity in America’s Middle East policy. In the end, Obama’s Middle East policy is rooted in his predecessor’s profoundly flawed 2003 road map for a two-state solution and the feckless process that Bush’s secretary of state, Condoleeza Rice launched at Annapolis in 2007. Worse, in contrast to other policy mistakes made early in his presidential tenure, Obama will be hard put to reverse the damage done by his lack of clarity and courage on the settlements issue by coming back at a later date and arguing that Israeli settlements in occupied territory are, in fact, illegal.

To appreciate the full significance of Obama’s obfuscation of the legal status of Israeli settlements, it is necessary to understand the road map’s fundamental weaknesses. Among its many deficiencies are two especially damaging flaws.

First, in its initial phase, the road map makes restrictions on Israeli settlement activity contingent on Palestinian security performance. As senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council in 2002 and early 2003, when the road map was being prepared, coauthor Flynt Leverett argued that the call for Israel to halt settlement activity in the first phase needed to stand on its own – just as the call for Palestinians to take action against terror and violence was not contingent on improvements in Israeli behavior. However, under pressure from the Sharon government, President Bush and his senior national security team retreated on this pivotal issue.

In the real world, Palestinian security performance will never be perfect, so, under the road map, Israel will never be obliged to stop settlement activity — not even through the kind of settlement “freeze” that was theoretically entertained by Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert (with ample allowance for the “natural growth” of existing settlements). Had President Obama explicitly declared Israeli settlements illegal, however, his call for a halt to settlement activity would not be based on a (disputable) judgment that such activity is “unhelpful” or creates “facts on the ground” that prejudge final negotiating outcomes. Instead, the U.S. call to end settlement activity would be grounded in a straightforward argument: Because Israeli settlements are illegal, no negotiating process rooted in international law could responsibly tolerate their expansion.

Beyond its mishandling of the settlements issue, the road map’s most significant flaw comes in its third and final phase, where not a single word is presented regarding the parameters for resolving the “final status” issues — borders, Jerusalem, and Palestinian refugees — at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We all know what these parameters are: 1967 boundaries will be the starting point for negotiating final borders, with the possibility of marginal and mutually agreed adjustments. Jerusalem will be shared as the capital of both Israel and Palestine, with special arrangements for the holy sites in the center of the Old City. Whatever arrangements are made to recompense and resettle Palestinian refugees, perhaps even with the theoretical acknowledgement of a “right of return,” those arrangements will not be implemented in a way that threatens Israel’s Jewish-majority character.

Without such final-status parameters, there can be no credible political horizon for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But their omission was no accident. Again, during 2002 and early 2003, Flynt Leverett argued vociferously within the White House that such parameters were essential. But President Bush and his senior national-security team believed them to be unfairly demanding of Israel, and refused to include them.

By explicitly declaring Israeli settlements illegal, Obama could have transcended this fatal flaw in the road map. If settlements are illegal, then no negotiating process grounded in international law could take any starting point other than the 1967 boundaries for negotiating final borders. Similarly, if settlements are illegal, then any negotiating process grounded in international law would have to start from the premise that all of Jerusalem cannot remain under exclusive Israeli control.

Obama could have reinforced a declaration that Israeli settlements in occupied territory are illegal by embracing the 2002 Arab League peace initiative — perhaps even proposing to make it the basis for a new U.N. Security Council resolution to jump start a revived Middle East peace process. Among other benefits, embracing the Arab initiative would have provided solid grounding for a U.S. position on Palestinian refugees. By stipulating that there should be a “just and agreed” resolution to the refugee issue, the Arab initiative acknowledges that the issue will not be resolved in a way that undermines Israel’s Jewish-majority character. (We have confirmed this reading of the Arab initiative through discussions with Arab diplomats who were deeply involved in its preparation.)

Instead, while acknowledging the Arab peace initiative as a positive step, Obama argued in Cairo that the initiative was not the end, but rather just the “beginning” of Arab states’ responsibilities to promote Middle East peace. In particular, he called on Arab states to “front load” their promise of normalized ties to Israel, before Israel has to take any concrete steps toward ending the occupation of Palestinians (or of the Golan Heights). This is a delusion, driven by a willful misreading of the Arab Peace Initiative. It is also a sad replay of George W. Bush’s indifferent reaction to what in our view is the most significant diplomatic move in Arab-Israeli diplomacy since the 1991 Madrid peace conference, which relaunched the peace process after 12 years of stasis following the 1979 Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt.

There will be many who claim that all this will only make Israel feel less secure and therefore less likely to take “risks for peace.” But the proposition that Israel becomes relatively forthcoming in peace negotiations only when it feels assured of unquestioning U.S. support — a pillar of the Clinton administration’s ultimately failed approach that is unfortunately being resurrected under Obama — is not supported by the historical record. After all, no Israeli prime minister could have felt more assured of unquestioning U.S. support than Ariel Sharon, whom George W. Bush notoriously hailed as a “man of peace” — a description that, in retrospect, seems puzzling at best.

On the other hand, during the Nixon and Ford administrations, when U.S. policy clearly defined Israeli settlements as illegal, Henry Kissinger was able to broker the disengagement agreements between Israel and neighboring Arab states that laid the groundwork for future peacemaking. Building on that foundation, Jimmy Carter — who was arguably more forthright than any U.S. president in calling Israeli settlements illegal — produced the historic Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel, the most important Arab-Israeli peace treaty to date.

In response to pressure from the Netanyahu government, Mitchell is reportedly already considering a “new” definition of “natural growth” in existing settlements — a definition that would allow Israel to complete construction that has already been started. One can only imagine how many construction permits will be pulled out of drawers in Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank in anticipation of such an arrangement; the practical effect of such “limits” will be as meaningless as the Bush administration’s “understandings” with Sharon and Olmert. For those genuinely interested in a negotiated two-state solution, Obama is hardly proving to be “change we can believe in.”

Amnesty Report Accuses Israel of War Crimes and Israeli Supreme Court Rules Against IDF

Haaretz: Israeli forces killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians and destroyed thousands of Gaza Strip homes in attacks that amounted to war crimes, Amnesty International charged Thursday, in the first in-depth human rights group report on the recent war in Gaza.

Amnesty called on Israel to publicly pledge not to use artillery, white phosphorus and other imprecise weapons in densely populated areas. And it urged Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers to stop rocket fire against Israeli civilians – attacks it also described as war crimes.

Amnesty – which first accused Israel of war crimes shortly after the fighting ended on Jan. 18 – said disturbing questions remain about why high-precision weapons like tank shells and air-delivered bombs and missiles killed so many children and other civilians.

Huffington: The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem won a victory over the army in Israel’s Supreme court Wednesday when a stronger indictment was unanimously ordered against a commander who was complicit in the abuse of a Palestinian protester, Ashraf Abu Rahmeh, in July 2008, the Christian Science Monitor reports. The ruling is the latest installment in an ongoing clash between the Israeli court and the Israeli political right, who considers the court to be too liberal and activist. From CSM:

The ruling comes as right-wing allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are seeking to change the makeup of the court, considered one of the last governmental bastions of Israeli liberalism.
For the last two decades, Israel’s high court has exercised what is seen on both sides of the political spectrum as judicial activism – roiling conservative lawmakers, the country’s Orthodox Jewish rabbinic authorities, and the security authorities. It has come at a cost, drawing criticism that portrays the court as an ivory tower out of touch with the country’s daily trials.

The charges against the military officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Omri Borberg, began when a video recording of the incident — which involves a soldier shooting a bound and blindfolded Rahmeh in the foot with a rubber-coated bullet while Borberg stands idly by — was sent to the human rights group B’Tselem. According to B’Tselem’s website:

B’Tselem immediately published the footage and sent a copy to the Military Police Investigation Unit. The media reported that following the airing of the video, the army opened an investigation, and that the Judea and Samaria Division Commander had known about the incident but had taken no action in the matter.

The video may be viewed here.

The effect of Wednesday’s ruling is that the trial will be postponed while the court weighs the possibility of stronger charges, according to Ynet. The victim protester told Ynet that, “I only hope that justice will be served. I don’t really believe that it will. In the end, they judge what they want to judge and not according to what really happened.”

And Ynet quotes Lt. Colonel’s lawyer as saying, “At no point during the incident did the Lieutenant-Colonel ask that any kind of shooting at the detainee take place. He did not give out any order for such a shooting, did not watch the shooting, and certainly did not think that the soldier misunderstood his intentions.”

Israel Authorizes Settlement in Defiance of US

Scotsman: Israel’s defence ministry said yesterday it had approved construction of 50 new homes at a West Bank settlement in an expansion that defies a US call for a settlement freeze.

News of the planned building work emerged hours before defence minister Ehud Barak left for the US for talks aimed at narrowing a rift with Washington over settlements.

An affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court outlined plans to relocate settlers from Migron, an outpost built in the West Bank without Israeli government permission, to the new settlement.