thegipples/middle east

Jimmy Carter: "Three of us had previously visited Gaza, which is now a walled-in ghetto inhabited by 1.6 million Palestinians, 1.1 million of whom are refugees from Israel and the West Bank and receive basic humanitarian assistance from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Israel prevents any cement, lumber, seeds, fertilizer and hundreds of other needed materials from entering through Gaza's gates. Some additional goods from Egypt reach Gaza through underground tunnels. Gazans cannot produce their own food nor repair schools, hospitals, business establishments or the 50,000 homes that were destroyed or heavily damaged by Israel's assault last January.

We found a growing sense of concern and despair among those who observe, as we did, that settlement expansion is continuing apace, rapidly encroaching into Palestinian villages, hilltops, grazing lands, farming areas and olive groves. There are more than 200 of these settlements in the West Bank."

From the page: "The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it plans next week to authorize construction of hundreds of new homes in the West Bank, a move that drew immediate rebukes from Palestinian officials and Washington."

From the page: "There was no beginning to the "Clash of Civilisations" so it cannot have an end. Simply consider the circumstances at the time when the doctrine was promulgated by Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington. The most populous Muslim state was Indonesia, a close US ally since 1965, when General Suharto carried out a murderous coup, killing hundreds of thousands of people and opening up the country's rich resources to the industrial societies. He remained an honored friend though innumerable crimes at home and abroad, among them the invasion of East Timor, which came about as close to genocide as any event of the modern period. ... The most extreme fundamentalist Muslim state was Saudi Arabia, Washington's oldest and most valued ally in the region. At the time Washington, was bringing to a bloody end its murderous wars in Central America, specifically targeting the Catholic Church. ... If we continue, we find familiar confrontations, but no "clash of civilizations" -- a notion that was constructed at the end of the Cold War as a pretext for policies undertaken for other reasons"

From the page: "On June 30, the Israeli navy hijacked the Free Gaza movement boat "Spirit of Humanity" -- in international waters, according to those aboard -- and forced it to the Israeli port of Ashdod. The boat had left from Cyprus, where the cargo was inspected: it consisted of medicines, reconstruction supplies, and toys. The human rights workers aboard included Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire and former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who was sent to Ramleh prison in Israel -- apparently without a word from the Obama administration. The crime scarcely elicited a yawn"

From the page: "'Read this and you'll understand who the Arabs are.'"

From the page: "• Civilians were used as human shields, entering buildings ahead of soldiers

• Large swathes of homes and buildings were demolished. Accounts say that this was often done because the houses might be booby-trapped, or cover tunnels. Testimony mentioned a policy referred to as "the day after", whereby areas near the border where razed to make future military operations easier

• There was widespread vandalism of property of Palestinians

• Soldiers firing at water tanks because they were bored, at a time of severe water shortages for Gazans

• White phosphorus was used in civilian areas gratuitously and recklessly

• Many of the soldiers said there had been very little direct engagement with Palestinian militants"

From the page: "Obama is implementing an increase in military aid to Israel for an unprecedented 10 years into the future. Also of significance is the rapid expansion of US hi-tech investment in Israel, notably a huge Intel plant intended to carry out a revolution in chip manufacture. There is, typically, a close relation between government and corporate policy, for obvious reasons, and there are other close ties, particularly military and intelligence, that are well-known and stable."