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Today's Stories March 8-9, 2008 Weekend Edition JoAnn Wypijewski The Only Way to Fight the Clintons Mike Whitney Sorting Through the Rubble in Post Bubble America Mike Whitney Sorting Through the Rubble in Post Bubble America Peter Morici Fed and Treasury Fiddle as Economy Plummets Jonathan Cook The Meaning of Gaza's Shoah Steve Niva Behind the Israeli Escalation in Gaza Bill and Kathy Christison Crisis over Teheran's Alleged Nuclear Plans Nearing Climax Hervé Do Alto and Franck Poupeau Bolivia: Morales is Checked Eric Walberg To Leave and Stay at the Same Time: Putin to Medvedev to…? Scott Johnson City of A Thousand Foreclosures Mark Scaramella James Brown's Gate Bill Clinton President Clinton's Remarks on Naming William M. Daley as NAFTA Task Force Chairman Poet's Basement St. Thomasino, Engel, Davies and Willson March 7, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Why Iraq Could Blow-Up in John McCain's Face Robin Blackburn Question for Barrack Obama: Why Afghanistan is the 'Right War'? Saul Landau The Stupid Economy Binoy Kampmark When Competition is Good: McCain and the Muddled Democrats Chris Floyd Crushing the Ants: Admiral Fallon and His Empire Andy Worthington Spanish Drop "Inhuman" Extradition Request for Guantánamo Britons Will Potter Before the Smoke Even Clears in Seattle: Bringing Out the T Word Eric Walberg To Leave and Stay at the Same Time: Putin to Medvedev to…? March 6, 2008 Vincent Navarro The Next Failure of Health Reform Forrest Hylton High Stakes in the Andes: Colombia's Cornered President Peter Morici Why the Dollar is So Cheap George Ciccariello-Maher Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats John Ross Taxi! Taxi! The Dark Side of the Oscars Jacob Hornberger No Standing to Lecture on Justice Paul Watson Illegal Japanese Whaling by the Numbers Dan Bacher Off the Deep End Website of the Day A Katrina Reader Online   March 5, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair A Great Day for John McCain (and Maybe Nader) Joanne Mariner After Guantanamo Fidel Castro The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa Christopher Brauchli The Turkish Invasions Steven Sherman Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left Dave Lindorff Busting Bush & Co. in New England James Murren Bombing Somalia Adam Engel Necropolis Now Website of Day Remember Song   March 4, 2008 Wajahat Ali Mumbo Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed William Blum How Could Hillary Have Known? Bill Quigley The Cleansing of New Orleans Ralph Nader The Prince Harry Solution Patrick Irelan Oil and Health in Venezuela James J. Brittain / R. James Sacouman Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America Norman Solomon The War Election Jacob Hornberger Hillary in Waco: the Missing Apology Andy Worthington Guantánamo and the European Parliament Mike Averko Kosovo and the Press Website of the Day Tex-Mex Primary   March 3, 2008 Jennifer Loewenstein Gazan Holocaust Alan Farago American Politics and the Faltering Economy Richard Gott Colombian Deaths in Ecuador Wajahat Ali Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup Poll with John Esposito Paul Craig Roberts The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution Robert Weissman When Multinationals Say Adieu Uri Avnery Good Morning, Hamas Martha Rosenberg When Your Meat is a Downer Eva Liddell Leave the Next Dance for Bill Michael Donnelly Will Ferrell Does Flint Website of the Day Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues   March 1 / 2, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Race Card Paul Craig Roberts The Political Trial of Don Siegelman Kathleen and Bill Christison Nader the Best Antidote to American Imperialism Nelson P. Valdés Cuba After Fidel Christopher Brauchli Meet Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev: Friend of Bill, George and Dick Ron Jacobs Inside the Secret City: Bomb Making at Oak Ridge John Ross The New Conquistadores: Spain's Reconquest of Mexico Robert Fantina Posturing Over Patriotism: Obama and Those Lapel Pins Robert Weissman Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Rights Hypocrisy Mohammed Omer Fear in Gaza Remi Kanazi Barack Obama and the Politics of Xenophobia Bob Jackson Why is Yellowstone Destroying Its Bison Herd? Richard Rhames Casual Threats: Loaded with Mercury Franklin Lamb Lebanon Awaits the Arrival of the USS Cole Rannie Amiri Showboat Diplomacy: US Warships Steam Toward Lebanon David Michael Green The Three Faces of Hillary: the Politics of Flim-Flam Conn Hallinan Notes from the Southern Cone Faheem Hussain Prince Harry of Afghanistan and the Meaning of Normalcy Poets' Basement Gibbons, Orloski, Gardner and Ford Website of the Weekend The Palestine Chronicle Needs (and Deserves) Your Help!     February 29, 2008 Matt Gonzalez The Obama Craze Jonathan Cook Academic Freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel Joshua Frank Obama and Israel Anthony DiMaggio The Unilateral Presidency: Signing Statements and the Rollback of American Law Linn Washington, Jr. Cop Abuse in America Binoy Kampmark Hubris and Nemesis Robert Bryce Energy Efficiency May be a Good Thing, But It Won't Cut Energy Use Sonja Karkar Australia's Government Continues Its Love Affair with Israel Dave Lindorff A Manchurian Candidate in the White House? Obama or Bush? Website of the Day Olduvai George   February 28, 2008 Patrick Cockburn "Iraq" Falls Apart Fred Gardner The Birth of NAFTA Michael Levitin The Crisis in Kosovo is Just Beginning William S. Lind The Fake State of Kosovo David Macaray A Ray of Hope for Organized Labor Stephen Fleischman Nader's Latest Run: Monkey Wrench or Cattle Prod? George Wuerthner The Myths of Forest Health: Why Ecological Logging is an Oxymoron Laura Carlsen The North American Union Farce Carl Finamore Why the Delta-Northwest Deal Hasn't Taken Off Michael Dickinson The Day I Bombed the House of Commons Website of the Day Plane Stupid   February 27, 2008 David Rosen Playing the Race Card: Obama, Love Across the Color Line and Political Dirty Tricks Vijay Prashad Bomber John: McCain and the 100 Year War Harvey Wasserman Incident at Turkey Point: Did Florida Go to the Radioactive Brink? Andy Worthington Guantánamo's Shambolic Trials: Pentagon Boss Resigns, Ex-Prosecutor Joins Defense Wajahat Ali Pakistan for Sale: an Interview with Ayesha Siddiqa on Pakistan's Military Economy Peter Morici The Auction-Rate Securities Fiasco: a Drama of Greed and Betrayal Stephen Philion Conspiracy Theory, Fears of Betrayal and Today's Anti-War Movement Michael Donnelly Obama by Unanimous Decision Erica Rosenberg / Janine Blaeloch After the Land Deals: Will There be Any Wilderness Left to Protect? Website of the Day Dress Blues   February 26, 2008 Debbie Nathan Confessions of a Gitmo Guard Alan Dershowitz v. Frank Menetrez On Finkelstein Harvey Wasserman How Ohio Got Nuked Michael Colby Ralph Nader vs. the Fundamentalist Liberals Gary Leupp Condi vs. Putin on Bullying Belgrade David Orchard The New Conquistadors: Canada in Afghanistan Martha Rosenberg The Big HRT Fran Shor The Electoral Circus and Nader's Sideshow Serge Halimi The Dom Perignon Socialist Manifesto: Bernard Henri-Levy's Plan for the French Left Global Balkans Neo-Liberalism and Protectorate States in the Post-Yugoslav Balkans: an Interview with Tariq Ali Website of the Day Texistentialism   February 25, 2008 Roger Morris A Death in Damascus Anthony DiMaggio Military Bases, the Media and the Democrats Ralph Nader Why I'm Running Patrick Cockburn Iraq Broils Paul Craig Roberts Kosovo and the Empire Crazies Peter Morici Bernanke's Failing Policies: a Long Recession Looms Dave Lindorff General Welch's Whitewash: What We Still Don't Know About That Minot Nuke Incident Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers: a Bloody Oil Film Heather Gray James Orange, Civil Rights Legend Robert Weitzel Accomodating Torture John Halle Kucinich Goes Down Website of the Day Do the Trunk Monkey! February 23 / 4, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain Paul Craig Roberts Obama and Global Trade Wajahat Ali Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon on the 9/11 Commission Ralph Nader Neutering the FDA Jürgen Vsych "What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?" Fidel Castro Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo David Macaray Unions Under Assault Jeremy Scahill The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence David Krieger Stanley Sheinbaum Caging the Cold War Monster Ron Jacobs Building for the Future Michael Garrity The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies Brian McKenna Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down Missy Beattie Over the Hill with John McCain Fred Gardner American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly) Boris Kagarlitsky The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement Mike Ferner Kick That Barrel Dan Bacher On the Trail with the Border Angels Christopher Ketcham Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread Poets' Basement Davies and Buknatski Website of the Weekend Obama Mariachi   February 22, 2008 Mike Whitney The Bonfire of Capital Jason Hribal Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet Liaquat Ali Khan Arresting Musharraf Joshua Frank That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child Dave Lindorff Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for Her! Liliana Segura When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion Robert Fantina Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen? Yifat Susskind The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women Norm Kent Pushing 60 with Pot Website of the Day Bush Gets Down in Liberia February 21, 2008 Saul Landau Fidel Steps Aside Elizabeth Schulte Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed Helen Redmond Health Care as a Human Right Benjamin Dangl Undermining Bolivia Michael Levitin Kosovo's Dilemma Liam Leonard Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle Patrick Irelan Land and Food in Venezuela Linn Cohen-Cole Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto Michael Simmons Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music CounterPunch News Service A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs Website of the Day Cop Abuse in Shreveport   February 20, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Lies and Spies Paul Krassner My Brief Encounter with Fidel Castro Fawzia Afzal-Khan The Pakistani Elections Farzana Versey The Great Dictator: Musharraf, Peace and the Autumn of the Patriarch Allan Nairn Dying for a Second Round: Israel's New Plan to Attack Lebanon John V. Whitbeck If Kosovo, Why Not Palestine? Niranjan Ramakrishnan A Balcony Seat to Our Own Balkanization? Steve Eckardt Cuba Sans Fidel: No News is Big News Lee Sustar Union-Busting at Freightliner Mike Ferner How Sick of It are You? Website of the Day The US Military Index   February 19, 2008 Uri Avnery Blood and Champagne Paul Craig Roberts Paying Insurgents Not to Fight Gary Leupp The Independence of Kosovo Fidel Castro The Moment Has Come David Macaray Management's Dirty Little Secret Reza Fiyouzat Buck the Circus! The Left and the Elections Valerie Morse The New Zealand Terror Raids: Land of the Long White Lie Walter Brasch Bush on Safari Website of the Day Don't Think Twice, It's Alright   February 18, 2008 Wajahat Ali Free Pakistan: an Interview with Imran Khan Diana Johnstone NATO's Kosovo Colony Paul Craig Roberts What Do We Stand For? Andy Worthington Gitmo: "We're Making This Up as We Go Along" Debbie Nathan Bernie Ward's Sex Tapes Anthony DiMaggio Following the Money Trail: the Democratic Party and the Business of Elections Bill Simpich Ten Years Ago, People Power Stopped Clinton in Iraq Eva Liddell A Short History of Super-Delegates: Hope, Yes! But Pay in Cash Christopher Brauchli The President Who Couldn't Keep His Word: Short-Changing Veterans Stephen Soldz Wikileaks is Under Attack! Johann Rossouw The Ouster of Thabo Mbeki: South Africa and the Costs of Neoliberalism Website of the Day Sick of It Day!   February 16 / 17, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Terrorists Still at Ground Zero, 7 World Trade Tower, Lower Manhattan Ralph Nader We the Corporations ... David Macaray The Big Buy Out: Did GM Drive Another Nail in Labor's Coffin? William J. Peace Wheelchair Dumping Ron Jacobs War on the Psyche: Shellshock and Redemption Diane Christian War Corrupts Alan Maass Oil, Blood and Greed: Taking Upton Sinclair to the Big Screen (and Beyond) Ramzy Baroud Iraq and the US Elections Michael Donnelly Genitalia First! Old Guard Feminists Play the XX Card Cpt. Paul Watson The Art of Finding Whalers James L. Secor China Diary: Spring Festival and New Year 2008 Eve Bachrach Bush Returns to Africa Nikolas Kozloff Hugo Chávez's Anti-Imperialist Army Stephen Gowans Steven Spielberg, Faux-Humanitarian Missy Beattie To Vote or Not to Vote? David Michael Green Warming Slowly to Obama Wajahat Ali Attack of the Info-tainment Circus Poets' Basement Gibbons, Willson, Mickey Z., Orloski and Reuther Website of the Day Yellowstone's Bison Need Your Help--NOW!     February 15, 2008 George Szamuely The Absurdity of "Independent" Kosovo Patrick Cockburn Ground-Truthing the Surge: Is the US Really Bringing Stability to Baghdad? Wajahat Ali Pakistan is Burning: an Interview with Steve Coll on the Taliban, Bin Laden and the Bush Administration Mike Whitney Henry Paulsen's Wild Ride on the Economic Hindenberg Alan Farago God and the Democrats Chris Genovali Alberta's Black Gold Rush Jacob Hornberger Courting Injustice: Scalia on Torture Dave Lindorff Snoops Always Ring Twice: Bush's Protect America Bill Bull Website of the Day Live From the Land of Hopes and Dreams     February 14, 2008 Kathleen and Bill Christison Palestine in the Mind of America Mike Whitney Swan Song for NATO Clancy Sigal Strike Notes from a Screenwriter George Wuerthner A Bloody Sham: the Yellowstone Bison Slaughter Peter Morici Is Bernanke Headed for the Exit? John Ross Drug War Mayhem Boils Over from Border to Border Allan Nairn Mafia Rules in the Middle East: If You're Big Enough, You Can Whack Anyone Rannie Amiri Lebanon's Warmongers Niranjan Ramakrishnan The New Tractatus: Where Wittgenstein Meets Feinstein Donna Volatile Be Careful What You Vote For, You Just Might Get It Seth Sandronsky The Student Squeeze: Fighting California's Tuition Hikes Website of the Day Conventions: the Land Around Us   February 13, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff Meet John McCain: Mr. Big Stick in Latin America Alan Farago Hell to Pay: Warren Buffett on the Goal Line Christina Kasica King's Dream Foreclosed: the Subprime Crisis in Black America Vicente Navarro How to Read the U.S. Primaries Hall Greenland Australia's Finest Hour Lee Sustar Strange Stimulation: Too Little for Those Who Need It Most David Macaray The Writers' Strike Finally Ends Roderick Frazier Nash Celebrating Wilderness Patrick Irelan Hugo Chávez and High Anxiety at the NYT Anthony Papa Mean Mister Mukasey: AG Tries to Block Crack Cocaine Releases Carl Finamore Another Parade Passes Me By: Don't Let Your Movement be Coopted by Politicians Website of the Day John He Is   February 12, 2008 Frank J. Menetrez The Case Against Alan Dershowitz Paul Craig Roberts War Without End Dr. Trudy Bond The Elephant at Gitmo: Camp 7 and the Torturer's Shrink Andy Worthington The Guantánamo Six: Why Charge Them Now? What About the Torture? Col. Dan Smith The Psychology of Killing: Close In or Far Away? Ronnie Cummins Globalization: Standing at the End of the Road Ralph Nader Open the Government John V. Walsh Antiwarriors, Divided and Conquered Dave Lindorff Obama and Progressive Change: Let's Hope the Movement Transforms the Candidate Michael Donnelly Who's Pimping Whom? The Clintons' Selective No Talk Rules Ron Jacobs La Lucha Continua: Castro's "Life" Ben Tripp Beggars Collide Website of the Day Springsteen and Youngstown   February 11, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Lessons for Obama: When is a Delegate Not a Delegate? Wajahat Ali A Discussion with Walt and Mearsheimer on the Israel Lobby Ray McGovern Waterboarding for God and Country Allan Nairn The Shooting of Jose Ramos Horta Uri Avnery An End Foreseen? Chris Floyd American Psycho: the Meaning of Mitt Romney's Exit Speech Martha Rosenberg School Lessons in a Lunchbox: Lunchmeat from Tortured Cows Stephen Fleischman The Bonnie and Clyde of American Politics Marc Lamont Hill Not My Brand of Hope Liliana Segura Obama and Torture: the Sounds of Silence and Equivocation Peter Morici Challenges for the New President Christopher Brauchli A Drug Rant from a Former Taker Website of the Day Annie vs. the Blue Angels   February 8 / 10, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Does the GOP Have Aces Up Its Sleeves? Patrick Cockburn Will Moqtada al-Sadr's Truce Hold? Mike Whitney The Great Bust of '08 Anthony DiMaggio How the Press Covers Waterboarding Andy Worthington The Guántanamo Trials: Where are the Terrorists? Linn Cohen-Cole Hillary, Will You Renounce Your Ties to Monsanto? Firmin DeBrabander Notes from the Foreclosure Front: Suing Your Way to Solvency Cpt. Paul Watson The Other Whaling Industry: How Greenpeace Cashes In on the Suffering and Deaths of the Great Whales Kenneth S. Pope Why I Resigned from the American Psychological Association Jacob G. Hornberger American Soldiers Will Pay the Price for Bush's Torture Policy Robert Bryce Beyond Group Think on Climate Change: If More CO2 is Bad ... Then What? P. Sainath The Last of the Buccaneer Editors Allan Nairn Give Me Back My Land Fred Gardner / Pebbles Trippet "The District Attorney of Shasta County Doesn't Know the Law!" Andrew Wimmer Growing Up Catholic: Ignorance is Death Robert Fantina America's Disgrace: the Case of Omar Khadr David Michael Green Partycide in Six Easy Steps: Watch the Democrats Destroy Themselves Kevin Zeese Is Dennis Kucinich Being McKinney'd? Peter Morici Wall Street Gives Bernacke a Vote of No Confidence Chris Driscoll Could Nader be the Come-Back Kid of 2008? Prairie Miller Black August: Bringing George Jackson's Life to the Screen Poets Basement Davies and Buknatski   February 7, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Why Baghdad Will Explode Again Bill Christison Potholes Bigger Than Ever for Palestinians David Anderson NBC's "To Entrap" a Predator: Perverting Justice for the Sake of Ratings Ron Jacobs Innocent Flesh: Recruiting Kids to Kill Nikolas Kozloff Hugo Chávez's Coca: It's the Real Thing Jane Rockefeller The Moral Economy of an Anti-Poverty Foundation Andy Worthington On Waterboarding: Two Questions for Michael Hayden         Subscribe Online

March 8-9, 2008 Israel Plots Another Palestinian Exodus The Meaning of Gaza's 'Shoah' BY JONATHAN COOK Nazareth Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai’s much publicized remark last week about Gaza facing a “shoah” -- the Hebrew word for the Holocaust -- was widely assumed to be unpleasant hyperbole about the army’s plans for an imminent full-scale invasion of the Strip. More significantly, however, his comment offers a disturbing indication of the Israeli army’s longer-term strategy towards the Palestinians in the occupied territories. Vilnai, a former general, was interviewed by Army Radio as Israel was in the midst of unleashing a series of air and ground strikes on populated areas of Gaza that killed more than 100 Palestinians, at least half of whom were civilians and 25 of whom were children, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. The interview also took place in the wake of a rocket fired from Gaza that killed a student in Sderot and other rockets that hit the centre of the southern city of Ashkelon. Vilnai stated: “The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they [the Palestinians of Gaza] will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.” His comment, picked up by the Reuters wire service, was soon making headlines around the world. Presumably uncomfortable with a senior public figure in Israel comparing his government’s policies to the Nazi plan to exterminate European Jewry, many news services referred to Vilnai’s clearly articulated threat as a “warning”, as though he was prophesying a cataclysmic natural event over which he and the Israeli army had no control. Nonetheless, officials understood the damage that the translation from Hebrew of Vilnai’s remark could do to Israel’s image abroad. And sure enough, Palestinian leaders were soon exploiting the comparison, with both the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and the exiled Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, stating that a “holocaust” was unfolding in Gaza. Within hours the Israeli Foreign Ministry was launching a large “hasbara” (propaganda) campaign through its diplomats, as the Jerusalem Post reported. In a related move, a spokesman for Vilnai explained that the word “shoah” also meant “disaster”; this, rather than a holocaust, was what the minister had been referring to. Clarifications were issued by many media outlets. However, no one in Israel was fooled. “Shoah” -- which literally means “burnt offering” -- was long ago reserved for the Holocaust, much as the Arabic word “nakba” (or “catastrophe”) is nowadays used only to refer to the Palestinians’ dispossession by Israel in 1948. Certainly, the Israeli media in English translated Vilnai’s use of “shoah” as “holocaust”. But this is not the first time that Vilnai has expressed extreme views about Gaza’s future. Last summer he began quietly preparing a plan on behalf of his boss, the Defence Minister Ehud Barak, to declare Gaza a “hostile entity” and dramatically reduce the essential services supplied by Israel -- as long-time occupier -- to its inhabitants, including electricity and fuel. The cuts were finally implemented late last year after the Israeli courts gave their blessing. Vilnai and Barak, both former military men like so many other Israeli politicians, have been “selling” this policy -- of choking off basic services to Gaza -- to Western public opinion ever since. Under international law, Israel as the occupying power has an obligation to guarantee the welfare of the civilian population in Gaza, a fact forgotten when the media reported Israel’s decision to declare Gaza a hostile entity. The pair have therefore claimed tendentiously that the humanitarian needs of Gazans are still being safeguarded by the limited supplies being allowed through, and that therefore the measures do not constitute collective punishment. Last October, after a meeting of defense officials, Vilnai said of Gaza: "Because this is an entity that is hostile to us, there is no reason for us to supply them with electricity beyond the minimum required to prevent a crisis.” Three months later Vilnai went further, arguing that Israel should cut off “all responsibility” for Gaza, though, in line with the advice of Israel’s attorney general, he has been careful not to suggest that this would punish ordinary Gazans excessively. Instead he said disengagement should be taken to its logical conclusion: “We want to stop supplying electricity to them, stop supplying them with water and medicine, so that it would come from another place”. He suggested that Egypt might be forced to take over responsibility. Vilnai’s various comments are a reflection of the new thinking inside the defense and political establishments about where next to move Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. After the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, a consensus in the Israeli military quickly emerged in favour of maintaining control through a colonial policy of divide and rule, by factionalizing the Palestinians and then keeping them feuding. As long as the Palestinians were too divided to resist the occupation effectively, Israel could carry on with its settlement program and “creeping annexation” of the occupied territories, as the Defence Minister of the time, Moshe Dayan, called it. Israel experimented with various methods of undermining the secular Palestinian nationalism of the PLO, which threatened to galvanize a general resistance to the occupation. In particular Israel established local anti-PLO militias known as the Village Leagues and later backed the Islamic fundamentalism of the Muslim Brotherhood, which would morph into Hamas. Rivalry between Hamas and the PLO, controlled by Fatah, has been the backdrop to Palestinian politics in the occupied territories ever since, and has moved centre stage since Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005. Growing antagonism fuelled by Israel and the US, as an article in Vanity Fair confirmed this week, [and as described by Kathleen Christison here http://www.counterpunch.org/christison07262007.html  on July 26, 2007, Editors] culminated in the physical separation of a Fatah-run West Bank from a Hamas-ruled Gaza last summer. The leaderships of Fatah and Hamas are now divided not only geographically but also by their diametrically opposed strategies for dealing with Israel’s occupation. Fatah’s control of the West Bank is being shored up by Israel because its leaders, including President Mahmoud Abbas, have made it clear that they are prepared to cooperate with an interminable peace process that will give Israel the time it needs to annex yet more of the territory. Hamas, on the other hand, is under no illusions about the peace process, having seen the Jewish settlers leave but Israel’s military control and its economic siege only tighten from arm’s length. In charge of an open-air prison, Hamas has refused to surrender to Israeli diktats and has proven invulnerable to Israeli and US machinations to topple it. Instead it has begun advancing the only two feasible forms of resistance available: rocket attacks over the fence surrounding Gaza, and popular mass action. And this is whence the concerns of Vilnai and others emanate. Both forms of resistance, if Hamas remains in charge of Gaza and improves its level of organization and the clarity of its vision, could over the long term unravel Israel’s plans to annex the occupied territories -- once their Palestinian inhabitants have been removed. First, Hamas’ development of more sophisticated and longer-range rockets threatens to move Hamas’ resistance to a much larger canvas than the backwater of the small development town of Sderot. The rockets that landed last week in Ashkelon, one of the country’s largest cities, could be the harbingers of political change in Israel. Hizbullah proved in the 2006 Lebanon war that Israeli domestic opinion quickly crumbled in the face of sustained rocket attacks. Hamas hopes to achieve the same outcome. After the strikes on Ashkelon, the Israeli media was filled with reports of angry mobs taking to the city’s streets and burning tyres in protest at their government’s failure to protect them. That is their initial response. But in Sderot, where the attacks have been going on for years, the mayor, Eli Moyal, recently called for talks with Hamas. A poll published in the Haaretz daily showed that 64 per cent of Israelis now agree with him. That figure may increase further if the rocket threat grows. The fear among Israel’s leaders is that “creeping annexation” of the occupied territories cannot be achieved if the Israeli public starts demanding that Hamas be brought to the negotiating table. Second, Hamas’ mobilization last month of Gazans to break through the wall at Rafah and pour into Egypt has demonstrated to Israel’s politician-generals like Barak and Vilnai that the Islamic movement has the potential, as yet unrealized, to launch a focused mass peaceful protest against the military siege of Gaza. Meron Benvenisti, a former deputy mayor of Jersualem, noted that this scenario “frightens the army more than a violent conflict with armed Palestinians”. Israel fears that the sight of unarmed women and children being executed for the crime of trying to free themselves from the prison Israel has built for them may give the lie to the idea that the disengagement ended the occupation. When several thousand Palestinians held a demonstration a fortnight ago in which they created a human chain along part of Gaza’s fence with Israel, the Israeli army could hardly contain its panic. Heavy artillery batteries were brought to the perimeter and snipers were ordered to shoot protesters’ legs if they approached the fence. As Amira Hass, Haaretz’s veteran reporter in the occupied territories, observed, Israel has so far managed to terrorize most ordinary Gazans into a paralysed inactivity on this front. In the main Palestinians have refused to take the “suicidal” course of directly challenging their imprisonment by Israel, even peacefully: “The Palestinians do not need warnings or reports to know the Israeli soldiers shoot the unarmed as well, and they also kill women and children.” But that may change as the siege brings ever greater misery to Gaza. As a result, Israel’s immediate priorities are: to provoke Hamas regularly into violence to deflect it from the path of organizing mass peaceful protest; to weaken the Hamas leadership through regular executions; and to ensure that an effective defense against the rockets is developed, including technology like Barak’s pet project, Iron Dome, to shield the country from attacks. In line with these policies, Israel broke the latest period of “relative calm” in Gaza by initiating the executions of five Hamas members last Wednesday. Predictably, Hamas responded by firing into Israel a barrage of rockets that killed the student in Sderot, in turn justifying the bloodbath in Gaza. But a longer-term strategy is also required, and is being devised by Vilnai and others. Aware both that the Gaza prison is tiny and its resources scarce and that the Palestinian population is growing at a rapid rate, Israel needs a more permanent solution. It must find a way to stop the growing threat posed by Hamas’ organized resistance, and the social explosion that will come sooner or later from the Strip’s overcrowding and inhuman conditions. Vilnai’s remark hints at that solution, as do a series of comments from cabinet ministers over the past few weeks proposing war crimes to stop the rockets. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, for example, has said that Gazans cannot be allowed “to live normal lives”; Internal Security Minister, Avi Dichter, believes Israel should take action “irrespective of the cost to the Palestinians”; and the Interior Minister, Meir Sheetrit, suggests the Israeli army should “decide on a neighborhood in Gaza and level it” after each attack. This week Barak revealed that his officials were working on the last idea, finding a way to make it lawful for the army to direct artillery fire and air strikes at civilian neighbourhoods of Gaza in response to rocket fire. They are already doing this covertly, of course, but now they want their hands freed by making it official policy, sanctioned by the international community. At the same time Vilnai proposed a related idea, of declaring areas of Gaza “combat zones” in which the army would have free rein and from which residents would have little choice but to flee. In practice, this would allow Israel to expel civilians from wide areas of the Strip, herding them into ever smaller spaces, as has been happening in the West Bank for some time. All these measures – from the intensification of the siege to prevent electricity, fuel and medicines from reaching Gaza to the concentration of the population into even more confined spaces, as well as new ways of stepping up the violence inflicted on the Strip – are thinly veiled excuses for targeting and punishing the civilian population. They necessarily preclude negotiation and dialogue with Gaza’s political leaders. Until now, it had appeared, Israel’s plan was eventually to persuade Egypt to take over the policing of Gaza, a return to its status before the 1967 war. The view was that Cairo would be even more ruthless in cracking down on the Islamic militants than Israel. But increasingly Vilnai and Barak look set on a different course. Their ultimate goal appears to be related to Vilnai’s “shoah” comment: Gaza’s depopulation, with the Strip squeezed on three sides until the pressure forces Palestinians to break out again into Egypt. This time, it may be assumed, there will be no chance of return. Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His new book, “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East”, is published by Pluto Press. His website is www.jkcook.net

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