penman2/middle east

From the page: "My courageous Times colleague in Gaza, Taghreed el-Khodary, quoted a 37-year-old father weeping over the corpse of his 11-year-old daughter: From now on, I am Hamas. I choose resistance."

Why is the Israeli administration playing Hamas' tune ? Could it have something to do with their forthcoming elections in February and the fact that by having such a foe to attack has markedly changed their chance of staying in power ?

From the page, written by an ex-Israeli soldier:

"Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel's vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration's complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.

I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war had very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism. The aim was to establish Greater Israel through permanent political, economic and military control over the Palestinian territories. And the result has been one of the most prolonged and brutal military occupations of modern times."

From the page: "is this why we created a state? The Jewish people did not survive for two millennia in order to pioneer new weaponry, computer security programs or anti-missile missiles. We were supposed to be a light unto the nations. In this we have failed.

It turns out that the 2,000-year struggle for Jewish survival comes down to a state of settlements, run by an amoral clique of corrupt lawbreakers who are deaf both to their citizens and to their enemies. A state lacking justice cannot survive. "

A reasonably good analysis of guerrilla tactics in Northern Ireland and how they may be being copied in Iraq. It's not that surprising: the author fails to point out that Middle-Eastern terrorists and the IRA trained together at the same paramilitary camps in Libya and elsewhere - plenty of opportunity to hone the tactics for the professional modern guerilla.

However, the IRA were not as successful as the author claims. They failed to achieve their stated primary aim: to unite Ireland. The people they claimed to represent - the population of Eire - voted to remove that aim from the Irish Constitution in disgust at the IRA's tactics of bombing innocent civilians. All that was left was the negotiating table.



What is depressing is that the UK Govt and military tried to warn the US about the problems the Allies would face after the invasion and - according to the UK Ambassador to the USA at the time - were "laughed out of the room". Anyone with half a brain (like me) could see that the Iraquis were not going to repeat the tactics of the First Gulf War and - having seen the impatience of the US public over Vietnam - would resort to a long-drawn out guerilla war.