Israeli Attack on Gaza: 2014 Version

[Magda Hassan]

Israeli Intelligence Eavesdropped on Kerry's Phone During Palestine-Israel Peace Talks

by Richard Silverstein on August 3, 2014 in Mideast Peace


Ronen Bergman's summary of Der Spiegel article

Der Spiegel reports in today's edition that Israeli intelligence (likely Unit 8200) eavesdropped on phone calls John Kerry made to his Palestinian interlocutors during the peace talks he conducted for the past year. Though Kerry usually talked on encrypted phone lines from his State Department office or Georgetown home, when he was in flight to or from the region he had to use a satellite phone, which was not encrypted. This allowed the Israelis to listen in on everything he said to the Palestinians. It allowed them to know what ideas he was floating and prepared for them to counter them in the negotiation process. When the Israelis really disliked a proposal they knew better how to attack it before Kerry had even brought the subject up.

The Spiegel reporter, who was the same one who first revealed that the NSA was eavesdropping on Andrea Merkel's cell phone conversations as well.

A second country was also listening in on Kerry's calls, though the report doesn't say which one. Either Israel was enabling that country to eavesdrop. Or the two countries were doing it independently of each other. My money is on a shared mission. Which countries might Israel have wanted to know of these secret calls? My money is on the new Israel toady, Egypt. Or possibly Saudi Arabia, which which Israel has a very close intelligence relationship related to the Iranian "threat."
Ronen Bergman published a summary of the article in Yediot yesterday. It has just been published in German by Der Spiegel.

[Magda Hassan]

Another day. Another UN school sheltering displaced Palestinian refugees bombed by Israel.

An Israeli air strike killed at least ten people and wounded about 30 others today in a UN-run school in southern Gaza, witnesses and medics said, as dozens died in renewed Israeli shelling of the enclave.
The Israeli military declined immediate comment on the attack, the second to hit a school in less than a week.
A missile launched by an aircraft struck the entrance to the school in the town of Rafah, the witnesses and medics said.
Hundreds of Palestinians in the area, where the Israeli military has been battling militants, had been sheltering in the facility.
Chris Gunness, spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said the school had been housing thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) who had been forced to flee their homes by the ongoing violence in Gaza.
"Shelling incident in vicinity of UNRWA school in Rafah sheltering almost 3,000 IDP. Initial reports say multiple deaths and injury," he wrote on his Twitter feed.

Initial reports say there are multiple deaths and injuries at the UNRWA school in Rahah #Gaza caused by shelling RT
Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) August 3, 2014

Last Wednesday, at least 15 Palestinians who sought refuge in a UN-run school in Jabalya refugee camp were killed during fighting, and the UN said it appeared that Israeli artillery had hit the building.
The Israeli military said gunmen had fired mortar bombs from near the school and it shot back in response.
Earlier today, Israeli shelling killed at least 30 people in Gaza, a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep up pressure on Hamas even after the army completes its core mission of destroying a tunnel network that extends into Israel.
In Cairo, efforts to find a new truce were due to resume today.
A delegation from Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad arrived in the Egyptian capital, but a quick breakthrough seemed unlikely in the absence of Israeli representatives.
After accusing Hamas of breaching a US and UN brokered ceasefire on Friday, Israel said it would not send envoys as scheduled.
In Gaza, Israel intensified attacks in the area of Rafah along the border with Egypt, where 23-year-old officer Hadar Goldin was feared captured on Friday shortly after what was to have been a 72-hour truce began.
The military later said Lt Goldin, who was dragged by militants into a tunnel after two of his comrades were killed by a suicide bomber, had also died in action.
"The findings on the ground, the items that we found led us to the conclusion that he was killed in the initial attack," said Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner, a military spokesman.
Lt Col Lerner said ground forces were being redeployed in the Gaza Strip, though he gave no details of their new positions, and added that residents from a number of evacuated Palestinian neighbourhoods had been told by the military they could return.
More than 30 tunnels and dozens of access shafts have been unearthed and were being blown up.
"We have proceeded with the mission in order to eliminate those [tunnels] that we have found and we expect to complete that within a short period of time, probably within the next 24hours or so," he said.
Israel began its air and naval offensive against Gaza on 8 July following a surge of cross-border rocket salvoes by Hamas and other guerrillas, later escalating the operation into ground incursions.
The fighting today pushed the Gaza death toll given by Palestinian officials to 1,726, most of them civilians.
Israel says 64 soldiers have died in combat, while Palestinian rockets have also killed three civilians in Israel.
At least 30 Palestinians in Rafah were killed by Israeli fire today, including nine from the same family, hospital officials said.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0803/634895-...ign=buffer

[Peter Lemkin]

Israel now states their 'missing' soldier is dead...when before they admitted he was 'captured' in Rafa. I really have to wonder if they intentionally or through their own violent military actions killed him. No force in Gaza would kill him - as he'd be worth much more alive than dead - the last time an Israeli soldier was traded, it was one Israeli soldier for over 1000 Palestinians from prisons.

Death toll in Gaza now just about 1850 (over 80% civilians; many children) and hundreds more lie unrecoverable under their crushed buildings. 68 Israeli dead - 3 civilians; Israeli PM and butcher-in-chief states that military action will go on for a long time after all tunnels are destroyed (a planned, if thinly disguised genocide).

A large protest finally took place in Washington D.C., falling on deaf ears in Congress and the White House, I'm afraid. Protests growing around the World, but leaders of almost all countries doing little or nothing......

Just heard a Col. in the IDF trying to explain about the 'dead' 'lost' 'captured' soldier. It was very strange. They do NOT have his body - but they are 'sure' he is dead. Under hard and good questions from Al Jazeera, he was not able to really explain how they knew what they claimed to know and when they knew it.

Gazans are now dying at about 100 per day. It will [if fighting stopped today] take, at minimum, quite a few years and billions of dollars to rebuild the homes, hospitals, mosques, schools, power stations, other infrastructure destroyed - of course the lives can never be; even less so the terror the living are left with in loses, grief, suffering, indignities, injustices, lost limbs, wounds - physical and mental.

I sometimes can barely stand to watch the reports.....one young child, badly injured crying for her mother [not yet been told that she is dead - along with all of her brothers, sisters, grandparents, father....]. Another UN school targeted, as Magda posted above. Hospitals are full, running out of medicines and supplies - many wounded can't be transported; several ambulances shot at; one ambulance driver killed. Will this ever end?...or is Israel intent on killing all the 'fish' in their 'barrel' concentration camp?

[Magda Hassan]

Gazans are now dying at about 100 per day. It will [if fighting stopped today] take, at minimum, quite a few years and billions of dollars to rebuild the homes, mosques, schools, power stations, infrastructure destroyed - of course the lives can never be; even less so the terror the living are left with in loses, grief, suffering, indignities, injustices, lost limbs, wounds - physical and mental.

Apart from the dead and injured as a result of the bombing there is a looming health crisis with bodies everywhere left unburied for days weeks and no medical supplies able to get in to the country no food either. No electricity in much of the place. God knows raw sewerage everywhere. malnourished in body and traumatised in mind. UN has asked for helicopters to take the severely injured out to other countries to get medical help. People with conditions requiring routine medicine (heart disease, asthma etc) or procedures (dialysis, blood tranfusions etc) are in danger.
Israel has already said they wont be paying for any repairs to any thing they have bombed. The siege still stays and building materials will not be allowed in (they also make tunnels)so I don't know how anything will get repaired. Let alone the people.

[Peter Lemkin]

From Israeli sources it is now pretty clear to me that they always knew that their 'captured' soldier was dead [won't go into which side might have killed him], but they ignored Hamas' statement that they had NO captives nor had they seen him or had him dead, and made a false-flag event out of his 'capture' [knowing it was false] in order to bomb the hell out of Gaza. Well, that they did and do still. The death toll is now over 2000, with over 10,000 badly injured. Several tens of thousands of homes destroyed completely, along with much infrastructure. Untold lives ruined forever. Entire families wiped-out. Many bodies are still rotting in Rafah un-recovered - as the IDF will not allow ambulances in yet. Sickening behavior and even the Arab countries need to be condemned at this point; no one is coming to their aid, really; while the USA is sending .25 billion in new weapons to the aggressors. AND it was disclosed today that the NSA is helping Israel to pinpoint their 'targets'.

[Tracy Riddle]

It's pretty clear that Israel's long-term strategy is to make life so miserable in Gaza that people will eventually leave, ending up as refugees someplace else (many were already refugees from other parts of Palestine). Then Israel can move in and settle their own people in the strip.

[Magda Hassan]

5/8/2014 5:46

Israel Let US in on Plans to Destroy Gaza Economy in 2008 Wikileaks

Topic: [B]Wikileaks founder Julian Assange case[/B]

Wikileaks.org web-site
© RIA Novosti. Ilya Pitalev


20:54 04/08/2014
Tags: diplomatic relations, economy, military conflict, Wikileaks, Palestine, Gaza, Israel


MOSCOW, August 4 (RIA Novosti) The US embassy in Tel Aviv had access to reliable information about Israel's intention to keep Gaza economy functioning at the lowest possible level, Wikileaks website said on Monday, citing the US diplomatic document.
"Israeli officials have confirmed to Embassy officials on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis," reads the document as quoted by Wikileaks.
A diplomatic dispatch was sent by the embassy to the US State and Treasury Departments on November 3, 2008.
In order to achieve its goals, Israeli government introduced a tight monetary policy in the Gaza Strip, cutting the financing of the enclave, as it considered Gaza a "hostile entity."
A new portion of diplomatic leaks was published on the Wikileaks website amid a new round of ongoing confrontation between Israel and Hamas militants.
According to the documents, the United States was aware of Israel's oppression of Palestinian people, but took no action.
The Israel Defense Forces launched its Operation Protective Edge, its first military campaign since November 2012, in response to continued rocket attacks carried out by Palestinian militants.
On July 17, following days of fighting, Tel Aviv switched to a ground offensive to find and destroy the network of Hamas tunnels around the border area.

http://en.ria.ru/business/20140804/19171...-2008.html

[Magda Hassan]

Cash, Weapons and Surveillance: the U.S. is a Key Party to Every Israeli Attack

By Glenn Greenwald 4 Aug 2014, 12:00 AM EDT 348
U.S. President Barack Obama (L) greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference on March 20, 2013 in Jerusalem, Israel. Photo credit: Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images

The U.S. government has long lavished overwhelming aid on Israel, providing cash, weapons and surveillance technology that play a crucial role in Israel's attacks on its neighbors. But top secret documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden shed substantial new light on how the U.S. and its partners directly enable Israel's military assaults such as the one on Gaza.
Over the last decade, the NSA has significantly increased the surveillance assistance it provides to its Israeli counterpart, the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU; also known as Unit 8200), including data used to monitor and target Palestinians. In many cases, the NSA and ISNU work cooperatively with the British and Canadian spy agencies, the GCHQ and CSEC.
The relationship has, on at least one occasion, entailed the covert payment of a large amount of cash to Israeli operatives. Beyond their own surveillance programs, the American and British surveillance agencies rely on U.S.-supported Arab regimes, including the Jordanian monarchy and even the Palestinian Authority Security Forces, to provide vital spying services regarding Palestinian targets.
The new documents underscore the indispensable, direct involvement of the U.S. government and its key allies in Israeli aggression against its neighbors. That covert support is squarely at odds with the posture of helpless detachment typically adopted by Obama officials and their supporters.
President Obama, in his press conference on Friday, said "it is heartbreaking to see what's happening there," referring to the weeks of civilian deaths in Gaza "as if he's just a bystander, watching it all unfold," observed Brooklyn College Professor Corey Robin. Robin added: "Obama talks about Gaza as if it were a natural disaster, an uncontrollable biological event."
Each time Israel attacks Gaza and massacres its trapped civilian population at the end of 2008, in the fall of 2012, and now again this past month the same process repeats itself in both U.S. media and government circles: the U.S. government feeds Israel the weapons it uses and steadfastly defends its aggression both publicly and at the U.N.; the U.S. Congress unanimously enacts one resolution after the next to support and enable Israel; and then American media figures pretend that the Israeli attack has nothing to do with their country, that it's just some sort of unfortunately intractable, distant conflict between two equally intransigent foreign parties in response to which all decent Americans helplessly throw up their hands as though they bear no responsibility.
"The United States has been trying to broker peace in the Middle East for the past 20 years," wrote the liberal commentator Kevin Drum in Mother Jones, last Tuesday. The following day, CNN reported that the Obama administration "agreed to Israel's request to resupply it with several types of ammunition … Among the items being bought are 120mm mortar rounds and 40mm ammunition for grenade launchers."
The new Snowden documents illustrate a crucial fact: Israeli aggression would be impossible without the constant, lavish support and protection of the U.S. government, which is anything but a neutral, peace-brokering party in these attacks. And the relationship between the NSA and its partners on the one hand, and the Israeli spying agency on the other, is at the center of that enabling.
Tally of UN Vote on July 22, 2014 to investigate violations of international law in West Bank and Gaza (Credit: Ken Roth, Human Rights Watch)

Last September, the Guardian revealed that the NSA "routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens." The paper published the full top secret Memoranadum of Understanding between the two agencies governing that sharing. But the NSA/ISNU relationship extends far beyond that.
One newly disclosed top secret NSA document, dated April 13, 2013 and published today by the Intercept, recounts that the "NSA maintains a far-reaching technical and analytic relationship with the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU) sharing information on access, intercept, targeting, language, analysis and reporting."
Specifically, "this SIGINT relationship has increasingly been the catalyst for a broader intelligence relationship between the United States and Israel." Moreover, "NSA's cyber partnerships expanded beyond ISNU to include Israeli Defense Intelligence's [Special Operation Division] SOD and Mossad."
Under this expanded cooperation, the Americans and Israelis work together to gain access to "geographic targets [that] include the countries of North Africa, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, South Asia, and the Islamic republics of the former Soviet Union." It also includes "a dedicated communications line between NSA and ISNU [that] supports the exchange of raw material, as well as daily analytic and technical correspondence."
The relationship has provided Israel with ample support for both intelligence and surveillance: "The Israeli side enjoys the benefits of expanded geographic access to world-class NSA cryptanalytic and SIGINT engineering expertise, and also gains controlled access to advanced U.S. technology and equipment via accommodation buys and foreign military sales." Among Israel's priorities for the cooperation are what the NSA calls "Palestinian terrorism."
The cooperation between the NSA and ISNU began decades ago. A top secret agreement between the two agencies from July 1999 recounts that the first formal intelligence-sharing agreement was entered into in 1968 between U.S. President Lyndon Johnson and Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, and informally began in the 1950s. But the relationship has grown rapidly in the last decade.
In 2003 and 2004, the Israelis were pressuring the NSA to agree to a massively expanded intelligence-sharing relationship called "Gladiator." As part of that process, Israel wanted the Americans to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to fund Israeli activities. The specific proposed "Gladiator" agreement appears never to have been consummated, derailed by Israeli demands that the U.S. bear the full cost, but documents in the Snowden archive pertaining to those negotiations contain what appear to be two receipts for one or more payments of $500,000 in cash to Israeli officials for unspecified purposes:


The surveillance-sharing relationship with Israel has expanded to include theNSA's British and Canadian counterparts, GCHQ and CSEC, both of which actively participate in feeding the Israelis selected communications data they have collected. Several documents from early 2009, at the height of the Israeli attack on Gaza called "Cast Lead" that left more than 1,000 people dead, detail some of this cooperation.
One top secret 2009 GCHQ project named "YESTERNIGHT" involved "Ruffle," the British agency's code name for ISNU. According to the document, the project involved a "trilateral (GCHQ, NSA and Third Party RUFFLE) targeting exchange agreement covering respective COMSAT accesses." One of the "specific intelligence topics" shared between the parties was "Palestinians", although the GCHQ document states that "due to the sensitivities" of Israeli involvement, that particular program does not include direct targeting of Palestinians and Israelis themselves. Another GCHQ document from February, 2009, describes "a quadrilateral meeting for RUFFLE, NSA, CSEC and GCHQ."
The British agency noted in early 2009 that it had been spying on emails and telephone numbers specifically requested by ISNU, "and they have thanked us many times over."
The NSA and GCHQ receive intelligence about the Palestinians from many sources. The agencies have even succeeded in inducing the U.S.-supported Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF) to provide them with surveillance and intelligence about other Arab groups in the region. One July 2008 GCHQ document states:

Jordan also feeds surveillance data about the Palestinians to the NSA. One classified NSA document from 2013 describes how "NSA's partnership with EWD [the Jordanian Electronic Warfare Directorate] is a well established, long-standing and trusted relationship dating back to the early 1980's." Specifically, the two agencies "cooperate on high-priority SIGINT targets of mutual interest" that includes the Palestinian Security Forces.
The document continues: "EWD provides high-interest, unique collection on targets of mutual interest, such as the Palestinian Security Forces; EWD is the sole contributor to a large body of NSA's reporting on this target."

But even as the NSA and its partners are directed by political branches to feed the Israelis surveillance data and technology, they constantly characterize Israel as a threat both to their own national security and more generally to regional peace. In stark contrast to the public statements about Israel made by American and British officials, the Snowden archive is replete with discussions of the Israelis as a menace rather than an ally.
NSA documents previously published by the Guardian stated that "one of NSA's biggest threats is actually from friendly intelligence services, like Israel." Another notes that the National Intelligence Estimate ranked Israel as "the third most aggressive intelligence service against the U.S."
British officials have a similar view of the Israelis, describing them as a "very real threat to regional stability." One top secret GCHQ planning document from 2008 notes that "policy makers remain deeply concerned over the potential threat that Israel poses to a peaceful resolution of the Iran problem, and to some of Israel's less desirable activities in the region." Moreover, "Israel's thinking on the long-term threat offered by Iran to its fundamental foreign policy strategy of armed deterrence may create very real threats to regional stability in 2009."

The NSA's 2007 Strategic Mission List, identifying priorities for surveillance targeting, repeatedly identifies Israel as one of the leading threats in a diverse range of areas, including: "Combating the threat of development of weapons of mass destruction" and "delivery methods (particularly ballistic and nuclear-capable cruise missiles)." The "focus area" for that concern is "WMD and missile proliferation activities," and one of the leading threats is listed as "Israel (cruise missiles)."
The NSA internal discussion from that document regarding "Mastering Cyberspace and Preventing an Attack on U.S. Critical Information Systems" includes a subheading on "FIS [financial/banking system] threats." The nations identified as the leading FIS threats include India, North Korea, Cuba and Israel. Similarly, Israel appears on the list of countries believed by the NSA to be "Enabling EW (producers/proliferators)."
Another section of the threat assessment document is entitled "Foreign Intelligence, Conterintelligence; Denial & Deception Activities: Countering Foreign Intelligence Threats." It is defined as "Espionage/intelligence collection operations and manipulation/influence operations conducted by foreign intelligence services directed against U.S. government, military, science & technology and Intelligence Community." The countries posing the greatest threat: "China, Russia, Cuba, Israel, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, France, Venezuela, and South Korea."
Asked about its cooperative relationship with Israel, an NSA spokesperson told the Intercept: "We are not going to comment on specific intelligence activities and relationships. The fact that intelligence services sometimes cooperate in a lawful and appropriate manner mutually strengthens the security of both nations. Whenever NSA shares intelligence information or technology, we comply with all applicable laws and rules." A GCHQ official refused to comment on the record beyond the agency's standard boilerplate claiming its activities are legal and subject to "rigorous oversight."
Legal or not, the NSA's extensive, multi-level cooperation with Israeli military and intelligence agencies is part of a broader American policy that actively supports and enables Israeli aggression and militarism. Every Israeli action in Gaza has U.S. fingerprints all over it. Many Americans may wish that the Israeli attack on Gaza were a matter of no special relevance or concern to them, but it is their own government that centrally enables this violence.
Andrew Fishman provided additional reporting for this article

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/...veillance/

[Peter Lemkin]

Why Israel Lies

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_..._20140803/

Posted on Aug 3, 2014

By Chris Hedges

Palestinians evacuate a survivor of an Israeli airstrike that hit a family building Sunday in Rafah, in southern Gaza. AP/Eyad Baba


All governments lie, as I.F. Stone pointed out, including Israel and Hamas. But Israel engages in the kinds of jaw-dropping lies that characterize despotic and totalitarian regimes. It does not deform the truth; it inverts it. It routinely paints a picture for the outside world that is diametrically opposed to reality. And all of us reporters who have covered the occupied territories have run into Israel's Alice-in-Wonderland narratives, which we dutifully insert into our storiesrequired under the rules of American journalismalthough we know they are untrue.
I saw small boys baited and killed by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza refugee camp of Khan Younis. The soldiers swore at the boys in Arabic over the loudspeakers of their armored jeep. The boys, about 10 years old, then threw stones at an Israeli vehicle and the soldiers opened fire, killing some, wounding others. I was present more than once as Israeli troops drew out and shot Palestinian children in this way. Such incidents, in the Israeli lexicon, become children caught in crossfire. I was in Gaza when F-16 attack jets dropped 1,000-pound iron fragmentation bombs on overcrowded hovels in Gaza City. I saw the corpses of the victims, including children. This became a surgical strike on a bomb-making factory. I have watched Israel demolish homes and entire apartment blocks to create wide buffer zones between the Palestinians and the Israeli troops that ring Gaza. I have interviewed the destitute and homeless families, some camped out in crude shelters erected in the rubble. The destruction becomes the demolition of the homes of terrorists. I have stood in the remains of schoolsIsrael struck two United Nations schools in the last six days, causing at least 10 fatalities at one in Rafah on Sunday and at least 19 at one in the Jebaliya refugee camp Wednesdayas well as medical clinics and mosques. I have heard Israel claim that errant rockets or mortar fire from the Palestinians caused these and other deaths, or that the attacked spots were being used as arms depots or launching sites. I, along with every other reporter I know who has worked in Gaza, have never seen any evidence that Hamas uses civilians as "human shields."
There is a perverted logic to Israel's repeated use of the Big LieGroße Lügethe lie favored by tyrants from Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin to Saddam Hussein. The Big Lie feeds the two reactions Israel seeks to elicitracism among its supporters and terror among its victims.
By painting a picture of an army that never attacks civilians, that indeed goes out of its way to protect them, the Big Lie says Israelis are civilized and humane, and their Palestinian opponents are inhuman monsters. The Big Lie serves the idea that the slaughter in Gaza is a clash of civilizations, a war between democracy, decency and honor on one side and Islamic barbarism on the other. And in the uncommon cases when news of atrocities penetrates to the wider public, Israel blames the destruction and casualties on Hamas.
George Orwell in his novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" called this form of propaganda doublethink. Doublethink uses "logic against logic" and "repudiate[s] morality while laying claim to it." The Big Lie does not allow for the nuances and contradictions that can plague conscience. It is a state-orchestrated response to the dilemma of cognitive dissonance. The Big Lie permits no gray zones. The world is black and white, good and evil, righteous and unrighteous. The Big Lie allows believers to take comforta comfort they are desperately seekingin their own moral superiority at the very moment they have abrogated all morality.
The Big Lie, as the father of American public relations, Edward Bernays, wrote, is limited only by the propagandist's capacity to fathom and harness the undercurrents of individual and mass psychology. And since most supporters of Israel do not have a desire to know the truth, a truth that would force them to examine their own racism and self-delusions about Zionist and Western moral superiority, like packs of famished dogs they lap up the lies fed to them by the Israeli government. The Big Lie always finds fertile soil in what Bernays called the "logic-proof compartment of dogmatic adherence." All effective propaganda, Bernays wrote, targets and builds upon these irrational "psychological habits."
This is the world Franz Kafka envisioned, a world where the irrational becomes rational. It is one where, as Gustave Le Bon noted in "The Crowd: A Study of the Public Mind," those who supply the masses with the illusions they crave become their master, and "whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim." This irrationality explains why the reaction of Israeli supporters to those who have the courage to speak the truthUri Avnery, Max Blumenthal, Noam Chomsky, Jonathan Cook, Norman Finkelstein, Amira Hass, Gideon Levy, Ilan Pappé, Henry Siegman and Philip Weissis so rabid. That so many of these voices are Jewish, and therefore have more credibility than non-Jews who are among Israel's cheerleaders, only ratchets up the level of hate.
But the Big Lie is also consciously designed to send a chilling message to Gaza's Palestinians, who have lost large numbers of their dwellings, clinics, mosques, and power, water and sewage facilities, along with schools and hospitals, who have suffered some 1,650 deaths since this assault beganmost of the victims women and childrenand who have seen 400,000 people displaced from their homes. The Big Lie makes it clear to the Palestinians that Israel will continue to wage a campaign of state terror and will never admit its atrocities or its intentions. The vast disparity between what Israel says and what Israel does tells the Palestinians that there is no hope. Israel will do and say whatever it wants. International law, like the truth, will always be irrelevant. There will never, the Palestinians understand from the Big Lie, be an acknowledgement of reality by the Israeli leadership.
The Israel Defense Forces website is replete with this black propaganda. "Hamas exploits the IDF's sensitivity towards protecting civilian structures, particularly holy sites, by hiding command centers, weapons caches and tunnel entrances in mosques," the IDF site reads. "In Hamas' world, hospitals are command centers, ambulances are transport vehicles, and medics are human shields," the site insists.
"... [Israeli] officers are tasked with an enormous responsibility: to protect Palestinian civilians on the ground, no matter how difficult that may be," the site assures its viewers. And the IDF site provides this quote from a drone operator identified as Lt. Or. "I have personally seen rockets fired at Israel from hospitals and schools, but we couldn't strike back because of civilians nearby. In one instance, we acquired a target but we saw that there were children in the area. We waited around, and when they didn't leave we were forced to abort a strike on an important target."
Israel's ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, in a Big Lie of his own, said last month at a conference of Christians United for Israel that the Israeli army should be given the "Nobel Peace Prize … a Nobel Peace Prize for fighting with unimaginable restraint."
The Big Lie destroys any possibility of history and therefore any hope for a dialogue between antagonistic parties that can be grounded in truth and reality. While, as Hannah Arendt pointed out, the ancient and modern sophists sought to win an argument at the expense of the truth, those who wield the Big Lie "want a more lasting victory at the expense of reality." The old sophists, she said, "destroyed the dignity of human thought." Those who resort to the Big Lie "destroy the dignity of human action." The result, Arendt warned, is that "history itself is destroyed, and its comprehensibility." And when facts no longer matter, when there is no shared history grounded in the truth, when people foolishly believe their own lies, there can be no useful exchange of information. The Big Lie, used like a bludgeon by Israel, as perhaps it is designed to be, ultimately reduces all problems in the world to the brutish language of violence. And when oppressed people are addressed only through violence they will answer only through violence.

[Peter Lemkin]

100 schools destroyed
at least one Mosque [the largest] destroyed
40.000 homes destroyed or seriously damaged
no water or electricity in some areas - for two hours ever other day in a few other areas
over 100 public buildings destroyed
hospitals damaged and full - out of supplies
2000+ dead
10.000+ injured seriously
HORRIBLE! - where will the money come from to rebuild? It is expected to take about 5 years, minimum - and this all might not be over yet....but certainly without a major change in Israeli/US 'stance', this will be repeated again before rebuilding is complete......

....as to Israel trying to make the Palestinians leave from Gaza, they can not! They are not allowed out [with a few exceptions]! I think their plan is to kill them in place and blame the victims.