"العربي الجديد" ينشر شروط الإذلال المصريّة للمساعدات إلى غزّة

الجزائر ــ العربي الجديد

10 أغسطس 2014 

كشفت وثيقة رسمية مصرية، حصل "العربي الجديد" عليها، عن شروط "تعجيزية" تضعها السلطات المصرية أمام قوافل الإغاثة التي تسعى لإيصال المساعدات الطبية والغذائية إلى قطاع غزة عبر معبر رفح.

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ممنوع إدخال أسطوانات الغاز والأموال ومواد البناء والمنازل الجاهزة

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وتحدثت الوثيقة عن "القاعدة المنظِّمة لآلية دخول قوافل الإغاثة والمساعدات إلى قطاع غزة عبر معبر رفح في المرحلة الحالية". وأكدت الوثيقة، التي سلمتها السلطات المصرية إلى منظمات الهلال الأحمر والصليب الأحمر في الدول العربية خلال الاجتماع الأخير في الأردن، أن السلطات المصرية ألزمت الهيئات الإغاثية الراغبة في إدخال مساعدات إلى غزة بتقديم طلب عبر وزارات الخارجية في دولها، على أن يتضمن الطلب كشفاً بقائمة المساعدات المقدمة.

وألزمت السلطات المصرية الهيئات الإغاثية انتظار موافقة وزارة الخارجية المصرية قبل إرسال مساعداتها. وحددت مطار الإسماعيلية وميناء بور سعيد البحري لوصول المساعدات. وحمّلت السلطات المصرية الهيئات الإغاثية المانحة نفقات إنزال وتفريغ وشحن المساعدات الطبية والغذائية في مطار الإسماعيلية أو ميناء بور سعيد. كما منعت السلطات المصرية الهيئات الإغاثية من إدخال مواد البناء بمختلف أنواعها واسطوانات الغاز والوقود والمبالغ المالية والمنازل الجاهزة. وأبلغت الهيئات أن عدداً محدوداً من المرافقين للمساعدات الإغاثية سيُسمح لهم بالعبور.

وشددت الوثيقة أيضاً على أنه يتعيّن على الصحافيين والإعلاميين الراغبين في العبور إلى غزة موافاة السلطات المصرية بأسمائهم وجوازاتهم مسبقاً، مع اشتراط الحصول على الموافقة من وزارات الخارجية لبلدانهم أو سفاراتهم، لكن السلطات المصرية أكدت أن لها الحق في الاعتراض الأمني على دخول مَن تريد من دون إبداء الأسباب.
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السلطات المصرية تريد إلصاق شارة الهلال الأحمر المصري على كل المساعدات المتوجهة إلى غزّة

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وبشأن الطواقم الطبية، أشارت الوثيقة الى أنه يتوجب على الأطباء تقديم طلبات إلى وزارات خارجية دولهم والتنسيق مع وزارة الصحة الفلسطينية في رام الله، قبل الحصول على موافقة السلطات المصرية على دخول قطاع غزة.

وقالت الوزيرة الجزائرية السابقة، رئيسة الهلال الأحمر الجزائري، سعيدة بن حبيلس، في مؤتمر صحافي عقدته في العاصمة الجزائرية، إن السلطات المصرية تريد إلصاق شارة الهلال الأحمر المصري مع شارات المنظمات الأهلية والإغاثية على كل المساعدات المتوجهة إلى غزة.

وأبدت بن حبيلس انزعاجها من الشروط المصرية بشأن إدخال المساعدات، وأعلنت أن الهلال الأحمر الجزائري اضطر الى إلغاء حملة تبرع بالدم كانت ستتوجّه الى قطاع غزة بسبب الاشتراطات المصرية.

مئات الآلاف يتظاهرون في مدن أوروبية تضامنا مع غزة

Thousands march through London in protest at Israeli military action in Gaza

• Nadia Khomami
• The Observer, Saturday 9 August 2014

Protesters in Portland Place unite against military action in Gaza. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty

Cries of 'Free Palestine' and 'Shame on you, Barack Obama' as 20,000 people protest in London. Demonstrations in Manchester, Edinburgh and Dublin too

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Britain and in several other cities around the world yesterday to call for an end to Israeli military action in Gaza. In London a peaceful protest was organised by the Stop The War Coalition. According to police, more than 20,000 people marched from the BBC's offices on Portland Place, via the US embassy to Hyde Park.

Families with children and members of Jewish groups were among the demonstrators, who carried Palestinian flags and banners calling for an end to the civilian deaths in Gaza. The crowed chanted "Free Palestine" and "Shame on you, Barack Obama", and a huge Palestinian flag was unfurled and held open for the benefit of the news helicopters above.

There were also demonstrations in Manchester, Edinburgh and Dublin, where several hundred people demonstrated for the fifth Saturday in a row. In South Africa an estimated 50,000 people took to the streets of Cape Town, led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in what the authorities called the biggest post-apartheid rally the city has seen. Demonstrators called for peace and appealed to President Jacob Zuma and the South African government to stop selling arms to Israel. "Zuma has historical amnesia" read one banner.

In Australia, Sydney and Melbourne saw sizeable protests, too. The day of protest came as the Disasters and Emergency Committee (DEC) – the umbrella fundraiser for British aid agencies – announced that it had received £4.2m in donations from the British public in less than 24 hours.

DEC Chief Executive Saleh Saeed said there was amazing generosity being shown . "We have also benefited from the kind support of DFID, which matched the first £2m donated by the public," he said. "The funds are desperately needed, with on-going fighting in Gaza creating an unbearable situation for families and children. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes, the healthcare system is on the verge of collapse and many people have little or no clean water.

Abbas and his "Efforts" to Join the International Criminal Court

Abbas and his "Efforts" to Join the International Criminal Court......

HE KEEPS BARKING, BARKING, .......

AS THEY SAY, A DOG THAT KEEPS BARKING IS NOT GOING TO BITE.

ENOUGH OF THIS CHARADE, STOOGE. 

WE KNOW WHAT YOU CARE ABOUT: YOUR STATUS AND YOUR POCKETBOOK, NOT THE PALESTINIANS!

Hundreds of Thousands March in Day of Rage Against Israel

As airstrikes continued to rain down on Gaza, Palestinian groups call for international arms embargo against Israel

As Israeli airstrikes continued to rain down on the the Gaza Strip on Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people worldwide are taking to the streets in an international Day of Rage to condemn the attacks and demand that their governments do their part and boycott Israel.

In an open letter announcing the demonstration, a coalition of Palestinian groups organized by the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, write: "As we face the full might of Israel’s military arsenal, funded and supplied by the United States and European Union, we call on civil society and people of conscience throughout the world to pressure governments to sanction Israel and implement a comprehensive arms embargo immediately."

Taking up their call, an estimated 170,000 people took to the streets of Cape Town, South Africa in one of the biggest demonstrations the city has seen in 20 years. According to reports, Archbishop Desmond Tutu joined the marchers who carried signs that read: "Africans understand colonialism," and “Zuma suffer of (sic) historical amnesia."

In London, over 100,000 people rallied in Hyde Park in a massive outpouring of solidarity and in Paris activists marched through the city carrying a large banner which read: "Boycott Israel Apartheid."

Updates could be seen on Twitter:

#dayofrage Tweets

The BDS letter continues:

From Gaza under invasion, bombardment, and continuing siege, the horror is beyond words.  Medical supplies are exhausted. The death toll has reached 1813 killed (398 children, 207 women, 74 elderly) and 9370 injured (2744 children, 1750 women, 343 elderly). Our hospitals, ambulances, and medical staff are all under attack while on duty. Doctors and paramedics are being killed while evacuating the dead. Our dead are not numbers and statistics to be recounted; they are loved ones, family and friends.

While we have to survive this onslaught, you certainly have the power to help end it the same way you helped overcome Apartheid and other crimes against humanity. Israel is only able to carry out this attack with the unwavering support of governments – this support must end.

According to an IDF spokesman, Israel struck 33 targets within the Gaza Strip overnight and has carried out over 100 airstrikes since the 72-hour ceasefire ended early Friday.

Among the targets hit overnight were a mosque and a number of residential houses. On Friday, five people were killed in the resumed strikes, including three children, and on Saturday reports indicate that two men were killed when their motorcycle was struck while riding through the al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

The strike on the mosque brought the number of mosques destroyed in the assault to 63 completely destroyed, the Ma'an News Agency reports. The strikes have also damaged more than 32,000 homes, displacing roughly 485,000 people—or around one-third of Gaza's total population.

Not in Any Arab Capital

If you thought that this massive demonstration, in support of Gaza, was held in any part of the Arab world, you would be wrong.

It took place today in London! Tens of thousands protested British complicity with the Israeli attacks on Gaza, and demanded the end of the Israeli occupation and the siege of Gaza.

IS THERE ANY LIFE LEFT IN THE ARAB WORLD? 

DO OTHER ARABS CARE ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE BESIDE FILLING THEIR BELLIES? I WONDER. 

Gaza: Widespread Impact of Power Plant Attack

Curtailed Sewage Treatment, Food and Water Supply, Hospital Operations

Jerusalem, August 9, 2014) – The apparent Israelishellfire that knocked out the Gaza Strip’s only electrical power plant on July 29, 2014, has worsened the humanitarian crisis for the territory’s 1.7 million people, Human Rights Watch said today. Damaging or destroying a power plant, even if it also served a military purpose, would be an unlawful disproportionate attack under the laws of war, causing far greater civilian harm than military gain.

The shutdown of the Gaza Power Plant has had an impact on the population far beyond power outages, Human Rights Watch said. It has drastically curtailed the pumping of water to households and the treatment of sewage, both of which require electric power. It also caused hospitals, already straining to handle the surge of war casualties, to increase their reliance on precarious generators. And it has affected the food supply because the lack of power has shut off refrigerators and forced bakeries to reduce their bread production.

“If there were one attack that could be predicted to endanger the health and well-being of the greatest number of people in Gaza, hitting the territory’s sole electricity plant would be it,” said Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Deliberately attacking the power plant would be a war crime.”

The spokesperson for the Energy Distribution Authority, Jamal Dardasawi, was quoted in the media as saying that Israeli tank shells hit one of Gaza Power Plant’s fuel storage tanks. The attack caused a massive explosion and a fire that damaged other parts of the facility and took much of the day to extinguish.

The plant’s shutdown cut off all power for much of the territory. For years, Gazans have been living with electricity service for only part of each day, and those who can afford fuel run private generators to provide back-up power. A week after the strike, some service was restored to most neighborhoods, but less than the limited pre-conflict levels.

Shortly after the attack was reported, Israel denied targeting the plant but said its forces might have hit it accidentally. Human Rights Watch was unable to determine whether Palestinian fighters were deployed in the area when the plant was hit. However, Fathi al-Sheikh Khalil, deputy chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Authority in Gaza, said that the al-Nusseirat area, where the plant is located, was being heavily bombed at the time of the strike. Khalil said that Gaza firefighters phoned him to say they could not approach the plant because of the ongoing attacks in the vicinity. As a result, the fire spread from the small storage tank that was initially hit to a larger one, he said.

The strike came at about 3 a.m. on a day of bombardment that was widely described as the heaviest in the first three weeks of fighting. Israeli airstrikes that day destroyed a central mosque and the home of the Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniya, and damaged government buildings and a building that housed the offices of Hamas-controlled television and radio stations. Israeli military operations that day killed about 100 Palestinians.

Israeli military operations have caused massive damage to Gaza’s infrastructure, including housing, factories, hospitals, mosques, and schools.

Under the laws of war, power plants, like airports, are considered dual-use objects – civilian objects that also benefit an armed force. As such they can be military objectives, subject to attack. However, any attack on a dual-use object must be proportionate. Attacks that can be expected to cause more harm to civilians and civilian structures than the anticipated military gain of the attack are prohibited. Expected civilian harm encompasses casualties over time as well as immediate civilian losses. Thus any attack on the Gaza Power Plant that would cause a significant shutdown would invariably be disproportionate, violating international humanitarian law.

Israel has denied attacking the power plant. Brig. Gen. Yaron Rosen, the commander of the Israeli Air Support and Helicopter Air Division, said on July 29 that Israel “has no interest” in attacking the plant. “We transfer to them the electricity, we transfer in the gas, we transfer in the food in order to prevent a humanitarian disaster,” he said. “So we attacked the power plant?” Rosen said it was possible Israel hit the power plant accidentally and that an internal investigation was under way. An August 4 CNN storyon the electricity crisis stated that an Israeli Defense Ministry spokesperson had told CNN that Israeli forces were not involved in the attack.

Ribhi al-Sheikh, deputy head of the Palestine Water Authority, said the lack of electricity had idled wells – except where generators were able to provide some back-up power – as well as water treatment and desalination plants. Idling wells endangers crops that require water at the hottest time of year.

Most urban households in Gaza need electricity to pump water to rooftop tanks. Ghada Snunu, a worker for a nongovernmental organization, said on August 4 that her home in Gaza City had been without electricity since the attack on the power plant, forcing her family to buy water in jerry cans and to conserve the used household water to empty the toilets. The collapse of electricity service meant that many Gazans lacked access to the 30 liters of water that is the estimated amount needed per capita daily for drinking, cooking, hygiene and laundering, said Mahmoud Daher, head of the Gaza office of the UN World Health Organization.

Daher said that hospitals have been given priority for scarce electricity, with Shifa, the territory’s largest hospital, getting the most, at 16 hours a day. If the fuel required to run generators were to run out, or a generator to fail, a hospital could lose power.

An official at al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City told Human Rights Watch on August 7 that because of electricity interruptions:

We use a large generator for six to eight hours per day, then have to rely on three smaller ones, because the large one cannot be run full-time. If the large one goes, we don’t know how we would repair it, because of the lack of spare parts. It powers the oxygen station, the hospital’s two elevators, and the air conditioners – this amounts to 80 percent of the hospital’s total electricity consumption. When we use the smaller generators, they can only power one elevator, and none of the air conditioners, which makes it difficult for staff to work long hours in the August heat, and dangerous for patients.

Israeli forces had reportedly struck the power plant both earlier in the current fighting and in previous conflicts, Human Rights Watch said. The plant had been hit on five occasions since early July, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. It closed briefly after shelling by Israeli forces on July 22 and 23, said Gisha, an Israeli nongovernmental organization. One of the strikes knocked out one of the plant’s generator sets, said Khalil of the Energy Authority.

He said repairing it and the storage tanks will take more than a year, but the plant can make temporary repairs that will enable it to produce 50 megawatts sooner, though at a higher cost. The power plant, in central Gaza, produced about 60 megawatts of power before the current fighting began, the deputy minister of the Palestine Energy Authority in Ramallah, Abdelkarim Abdeen, told Human Rights Watch.

Khalil said that about two days before the July 29 strike, Israeli authorities had passed a message to him via the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) that the power plant was not a target and that its workers could move safely within the compound. No workers were hurt in the strike, he said.

In addition to the output from the plant, Gaza normally gets 120 megawatts of power from Israel via 10 transmission lines and 28 from Egypt via 3 lines. However, the recent fighting damaged 8 of the Israeli lines and 2 of the Egyptian lines, reducing the supply coming from Israel to 24 megawatts and from Egypt to 18 megawatts as of August 4, Abdeen said.

Damage to the Israeli and Egyptian power lines and then the attack on the power plant cut Gaza’s electricity supply to about 20 percent of the 200 megawatts it had before the conflict began. Gaza’s electricity needs are estimated at 350 megawatts, so power rationing and rolling blackouts were the norm even before war damage slashed the amount of power available.

Since the August 5 ceasefire, electricity power supplies have increased as repair crews have restored eight of the Israeli and all three of the Egyptian lines. Before the ceasefire, conflict conditions had made it hazardous for technicians to perform the necessary repairs, the International Committee of the Red Cross said. As of August 7, households were reportedly getting between three and seven hours of electricity, depending on their location in the Gaza Strip.

Eight years ago, on June 28, 2006, Israeli missiles hit the plant eight times, knocking out its transformers, three days after Hamas fighters in Gaza captured the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Israel then delayed or blocked the delivery of material needed to fully repair the Gaza power plant. Then, in 2008, Israel cut its deliveries of electricity and fuel to Gaza for the declared purpose of pressuring armed groups to end their rocket attacks against civilians in Israel, a form of collective punishment in violation of the laws of war.

Israel has attacked power plants in hostilities outside of Gaza. During its armed conflict with Hezbollah, Israel deliberately bombed electricity plants in southern Lebanon, including on June 24, 1999, February 8, 2000, and May 5, 2000. The day after the 1999 attack, Israeli Brig. Gen. Dan Halutz said at a news conference that the Lebanese infrastructure targets “had been selected a long time ago,” and that the Israeli “government decided to carry out an attack on Lebanese infrastructure and not only on Hezbollah objectives...to stress that all power brokers in Lebanon who support Hezbollah’s murderous activity are liable to attack.” The attacks on electricity plants violated the laws of war prohibition against disproportionate attacks because their expected harm to the civilian population was greater than the military gain achieved.

The laws of war obligate countries responsible for violations to make full reparations for the loss or injury caused. This would involve at a minimum providing materials and assistance to permit the prompt restoration of the power plant to its pre-war capacity. Even while fighting continues, Israel should ensure humanitarian agencies have access to restore destroyed power lines, given their crucial humanitarian impact on the civilian population.

Lessons of the conflict in Gaza

Israel claims that its offensive on Gaza is a war on terror; in fact, it is an act of state terrorism.

By Avi Shlaim

The cycle of violence that has engulfed the Gaza Strip since Israel's unilateral disengagement in 2005 is repetitive, predictable, and profoundly depressing. In the last six years Israel has launched three major military offensives on this tiny, isolated, desperately poor, and densely-populated Palestinian enclave.

Invariably, Israel presents itself as the victim, claiming to be exercising its right to self-defence, while denying the equivalent right to the Palestinians. Yet all these wars were instigated by Israel, all were directed against civilians, and all involved war crimes. They are a direct product of Israeli colonialism, of the most prolonged and brutal military occupation of modern times.

Israeli brutality against civilians scaled new heights in the current war which Israel fraudulently calls "Operation Protective Edge." In this war the Israeli army, which in their Orwellian language Israel's propagandists like to call "the most moral army in the world", has been raining death and destruction on the captive population of the Gaza Strip with little attempt to distinguish between civilian and military targets.

While pursuing the fight against Hamas, the Israeli army has bombed private homes, mosques, hospitals, health clinics, ambulances, the Islamic University of Gaza, and UN schools and shelters. It also targeted and destroyed the only power plant, as well as water and sewage systems, driving Gaza to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. An estimated $5bn worth of damage has been caused. Over 475,000 people have been displaced. The Israeli death toll stands at 67 - 64 soldiers and 3 civilians. The Israeli army has killed some 1,900 people, mostly civilians of whom 450 are children, and injured 9,500. 

Self-defence against who? 

As usual, Israel pretends that its quarrel is with Hamas, not with the people of Gaza. The ostensible reason for the war is to protect Israeli civilians against rocket and mortar attacks by Hamas militants. In effect Israel claims that this is a war on terror. In truth this is an act of state terrorism. Terrorism is the use of force against civilians for political ends.

The political end in this instance is to maintain Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories; to prevent unity between Gaza and the West Bank; and to deny the Palestinian people their natural right to independence and statehood on their land, on the 22 percent they have left of historic Palestine. 

The Israeli narrative about the war, in a nutshell, is that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, it is a mistake to negotiate with terrorists, and the only way to deal with them is by military force. The reality is more complex.

In the first place, the official narrative omits the crucial fact that although Israel disengaged unilaterally from Gaza in 2005, under international law it remains an occupying power because it controls the land crossings into Gaza, its airspace, and territorial waters. Moreover, after withdrawing from Gaza Israel continued to expand its illegal colonies on the West Bank and these colonies constitute the main obstacle to peace.

Secondly, Hamas is not a terror organisation though it does resort to terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians in its otherwise legitimate resistance to Israeli occupation. Nor is it a jihadist movement as its critics claim. Far from being a messianic movement, it is a local organisation with a local rather than a global agenda.

In the eyes of ordinary Arabs and Muslims worldwide, it is a patriotic group which fights with commendable courage against overwhelming odds. Undoubtedly, Hamas subscribes to a violent anti-Israeli ideology and it does have a military wing, but it is also a political party with a massive popular following and this makes it a legitimate political actor.

Hamas won a fair and free election in 2006 and formed a government that offered to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with Israel. Israel refused to recognise the democratically-elected Palestinian government and rejected negotiations. The following year Hamas and Fatah formed a national unity government and renewed the offer to negotiate.

The Palestine Papers, a cache of 1,600 diplomatic documents leaked to Al Jazeera, reveal that Israel conspired with Fatah, Egypt, and the US to overthrow this government, forcing Hamas to abandon the West Bank and seize power in Gaza. Israel's next step was to impose a blockade of Gaza in breach of many of the humanitarian provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This savage siege of the 1.8 million inhabitants, mostly refugees from previous Arab-Israeli wars, is still enforced by Israel with the help of the military regime which recently suppressed democracy in Egypt.

Finally, there is the Israeli refusal to talk to Hamas on the grounds that it is a terrorist organisation. The historical record shows that despite its terrible Charter, Hamas is led by pragmatic political leaders who have settled for a two-state solution along the 1967 lines, and who have made every effort to end the conflict by diplomatic means.

A major move in this direction was the reconciliation accord between Hamas and Fatah and the formation, on 2 June, of a national unity government. This Ramallah-based government consists of Fatah leaders, independent political figures, and technocrats; it does not include a single Hamas-affiliated minister. And it fully meets the three principal Quartet criteria to qualify as a negotiating partner: recognise Israel; respect past agreements; and renounce violence. Yet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced this quintessentially moderate government as a vote for terror, not for peace.

A fictitious narrative

The terms in which Netanyahu and his right-wing colleagues frame the conflict with Hamas is a mixture of half-truths, outright lies, deliberate deception, and mind-boggling double-standards. Their narrative offers no decent way out of the conundrum. It is the problem, not the solution. It makes it impossible to tackle the real roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is a political conflict for which, as the historical record conclusively demonstrates, there is no military solution.

INTERACTIVE: Gaza Under Attack

It follows that if Israel adheres to its current policy, the result would be more of the same: more violence, more bloodshed, more terror, more wanton destruction, more human suffering, more wars, and more war crimes. In short, the Israeli narrative revolves round the demonisation of Hamas and demonisation leads directly to diplomatic deadlock.

The international community has both a moral and a legal obligation to protect the Palestinian civilians living under Israel's military occupation and to hold Israel to account for its persistent violations of the laws of war and of international humanitarian law.

The Western policy of refusing to engage with Hamas, of supporting Israel's perverse interpretation of the right to self-defence, and of supplying it with weapons that are repeatedly used to bomb a defenceless people is morally indefensible and therefore ultimately unsustainable.

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon called the Israeli attack on Rafah in which a large number of civilians sheltering in UN schools were killed, "a moral outrage and a criminal act". This description aptly sums up Israel's entire policy in the conflict with Gaza.

By its own actions Israel has undermined any claim it might have had to dictate the terms in which the world should view its confrontation with Hamas. A new narrative is urgently needed, one based on the real facts of this tragic conflict, international law, and human decency. 

Avi Shlaim is an Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Oxford University and the author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World and Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations. He is donating the fee for this article to Medical Aid for Palestinians.   

Gaza conflict: The hundreds who lost their lives

A Palestinian man, in clothes stained with his father's blood, mourns at a hospital in Khan Younis

Almost 1,900 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed since the launch of Israel's Operation Protective Edge at the beginning of July.

Some 66 Israelis - all but two of them soldiers - have also died in the mission to destroy rockets and tunnels used by the militant Islamist group Hamas.

What do we know about who died and where they were killed?

According to figures from the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), up to 6 August, 1,890 Palestinians had lost their lives in the conflict.

The men, women and children who died

Note: Figures up to 6 August

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

If the Israeli attacks have been 'indiscriminate', as the UN Human Rights Council says, it is hard to work out why they have killed so many more civilian men than women”

Anthony ReubenBBC Head of Statistics

Read more

Among the dead were 414 children and 87 men and women over the age of 60.

The youngest to be killed was 10 days old, while the oldest was 100.

While the UN puts the number of militant dead below 200, Israel claims about 900 Palestinian militants were killed in the fighting.

Palestinians were killed right across Gaza - a strip of land 40km (25 miles) long and 10km wide. The highest numbers lost their lives in Khan Younis, in the south of Gaza, and Gaza City in the north.

Many took refuge in shelters run by the United Nations, including schools. However, these UN schools also came under fire, including in North Gaza, Jabaliya and Rafah.

Meanwhile, two Israeli civilians died in Haifa and near the Erez border crossing into northern Gaza; and a Thai farm worker was killed in Ashkelon.

Where people were killedFigures to 6 August

From Azmi Bishara's Facebook Page

يصمت من يصمت على التدخل العسكري الأميركي ضد داعش، بل يؤيده، ويملأ الدينا ضجيجا حين ينشأ احتمال نظري للتدخل في أماكن أخرى. يهمني هنا أمر واحد، وهو أن هذا الصمت دليل على أن الموقف من التدخل الأميركي ليس مطلقا، وأنه يتعلق بهوية الطرف المستهدف من التدخل والأطراف المستفيدة منه. حسنا، لن نناقش الآن صواب أو خطأ الموقف من التدخل الأميركي ضد داعش. ولكن أضعف الإيمان أن يتذكر الجميع هذه الحقيقة حين يناقشون التدخل الأميركي في أماكن أخرى. ليس الحديث إذا عن شر مطلق كما يزعم البعض، بل عن الجواب على سؤال لصالح من؟ فالتدخل العسكري الأجنبي ضد العدو، أو الخصم مقبول دائما، وضد الحليف مرفوض أبدا. هكذا كان الحال 
دائما في هذا الإقليم الذي تتشدق معسكراته بمقولات أيديولوجية مطلقة، وتفرغها من مضمونها في الممارسة.

انحياز مصري "فاضح" لإسرائيل يعرقل مفاوضات الهدنة

AN IMPORTANT POST

صالح النعامي

9 أغسطس 2014

كشف عدد من المعلقين الإسرائيليين عن ضغوط تمارسها إدارة الرئيس المصري، عبد الفتاح السيسي، على الوفد الفلسطيني، أدت إلى إفشال التهدئة طويل الأمد. واستهجنوا حرص القاهرة على إطالة أمد العدوان الإسرائيلي على قطاع غزة "بكل ثمن".

وتساءلت الصحافية كيرين نويبخ، التي تقدم برنامج "سيدر يوم" في شبكة "الإذاعة الثانية" العبرية، بعفوية، "نحن نعرف أن السيسي، يكره (حماس) أكثر مما نكرهها، لكن ماذا نستفيد نحن من ذلك؟ نحن نريد وقف إطلاق النار، وهذه مصلحتنا، وهو يريد غير ذلك".

وأضافت نويبخ في مقدمة البرنامج، أمس الجمعة "نريد وقف إطلاق النار كي يعود سكان المستوطنات في الجنوب الى بيوتهم. نريد العودة الى الأوضاع الطبيعية، في حين لدى السيسي، اعتبارات أخرى". وفيما يدلل على أنّ المشكلة تكمن في نوايا وتوجهات الطرف المصري، رأى معلق الشؤون الخارجية في القناة "العاشرة"، نداف إيال، أن كل طرف معني بالتوصل إلى اتفاق بين إسرائيل وحركة "حماس" يتوجب عليه الضغط على مصر من أجل تحقيق هذا الهدف.

وقال إيال خلال مشاركته في برنامج مساء أمس الجمعة، إن "الأميركيين أدركوا الحاجة للضغط على مصر من أجل تسهيل مهمة إنجاز وقف إطلاق النار"، منوهاً إلى أن "الوفد الأميركي الذي وصل القاهرة سيركز على محاولة إقناع الإدارة المصرية بتغيير نمط سلوكها".
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ممثلو جهاز الاستخبارات المصري يحرصون في كل جلسة مفاوضات على "توبيخ" ممثلي حركة "حماس" لأنهم "تجرأوا" على رفض المبادرة المصرية

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من جهته، قال مراسل الشؤون الفلسطينية في الإذاعة الإسرائيلية، يغآل بيرغير، إن "المصريين لا يحملون عصا في غرفة المباحثات مع (حماس)، بل مدفعاً، ويمارسون كل الضغوط عليهم من أجل إجبارهم على قبول وقف إطلاق النار من دون أي مقابل".

وخلال تحليل قدمه، صباح الخميس الماضي، أشار بيرغير، إلى أن إصرار مصر على عدم مناقشة مسألة معبر "رفح"، وتدشين ميناء أو مطار في غزة، يهدف بشكل أساسي الى تقليص هامش المناورة المتاح للحركة، في الوقت الذي تواصل فيه إسرائيل توجيه الضربات الى القطاع".

وأشارت القناة الإسرائيلية الثانية إلى "ماكينزمات التفاوض" المصري مع الوفد الفلسطيني، الهادفة إلى التحايل، وقالت: إن الطرف المصري يعرض "صيغاً فضفاضة" تسمح لإسرائيل بعدم احترامها في المستقبل. وزعمت القناة أن ممثلي جهاز الاستخبارات المصري يحرصون في كل جلسة مفاوضات على "لوم" ممثلي حركة "حماس" لأنهم "تجرأوا" على رفض المبادرة المصرية، ويتهمونهم بالمسؤولية عن الدماء الفلسطينية التي سالت خلال العدوان.

في هذه الأثناء، يواصل كبار المسؤولين الإسرائيليين رهانهم على الدور المصري في خنق المقاومة الفلسطينية في قطاع غزة وتصفيتها. وكشفت وزيرة العدل تسيفي ليفني، عن خطة قدّمتها لرئيس الوزراء بنيامين نتنياهو، وتناولت آليات التحرك الهادفة للتخلص من حكم "حماس" والقضاء على بنية المقاومة في قطاع غزة، مشددة على دور مصر المركزي في مساعدة إسرائيل على تحقيق هذا الهدف.
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ليفني: عندما أقول نحن، فأنا أعني: إسرائيل، مصر، السعودية، الأردن، والسلطة الفلسطينية

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وخلال مقابلة أجرتها معها القناة "الثانية" مساء الجمعة، أكدت ليفني، أن هناك توافقاً مع مصر على "خنق حماس". ورغم أن ليفني، توقعت أن توافق كل من الأردن والسعودية والسلطة الفلسطينية على الإسهام في إنجاح هذه الخطة، إلا أنها شددت على أهمية دور القاهرة في إنجاح هذه الخطة الهادفة الى تغيير الواقع السياسي في غزة، عبر تهيئة الظروف أمام عودة السلطة الفلسطينية برئاسة الرئيس الفلسطيني محمود عباس. ومنذ أن شرعت إسرائيل في عدوانها على قطاع غزة، دأبت ليفني، على القول لمحاوريها من الإعلاميين؛ "عندما أقول نحن، فأنا أعني: إسرائيل، مصر، السعودية، الأردن، والسلطة الفلسطينية".

أما وزير الدفاع الأسبق، شاؤول موفاز، فواصل الترويج لخطته الهادفة إلى نزع سلاح المقاومة في قطاع غزّة بالتعاون مع الأنظمة العربية، وعلى وجه الخصوص مصر. وقال خلال مقابلة أجرتها معه إذاعة "الجيش الإسرائيلي" أمس الجمعة: ما فشلت الحرب في تحقيقه، يجب السعي الى بلوغه عبر تحرك دبلوماسي كبير. نحن محظوظون بسبب التحولات التي يشهدها العالم العربي لأنها تكرس حلف المعتدلين، الذي يضم مصر، الأردن، ودول الخليج، ولنا مصلحة مشتركة تتمثل في القضاء على الإسلام السني المتطرف.

ويذهب الرئيس السابق لـ"شعبة الاستخبارات العسكرية الإسرائيلية" (أمان) الجنرال عاموس يادلين، إلى حد القول: إن بإمكان إسرائيل أن تعتمد على الدعم العربي الرسمي وأن تواصل الحرب حتى إسقاط حكم "حماس" في القطاع.

ورفض خلال مشاركته في برنامج حواري بثته القناة "العاشرة" أمس الجمعة، التقديرات الصادرة عن هيئة أركان الجيش الإسرائيلي، والتي تجنبت على أساسها حكومة نتنياهو، اتخاذ قرار بإعادة احتلال قطاع غزة وإسقاط حكم "حماس". واعتبر أن التحولات في البيئة الإقليمية تمنح إسرائيل هامش مرونة كبيراً لاستنفاد كل الخيارات العسكرية في مواجهة المقاومة في قطاع غزة.

Weapons to Israel

Real News Video: Aftermath of Assault on Gaza Worse than Operation Cast Lead

Journalist Samer Badawi describes the scene in Gaza as "apocalyptic" as the 72-hour ceasefire comes to an end 

تحريض مصري إسرائيلي في مفاوضات القاهرة على عزمي بشارة

العربي الجديد

8 أغسطس 2014

أكد مسؤولون فلسطينيون أن جهاز المخابرات المصري الذي يقود مفاوضات غير مباشرة بين الفلسطينيين والإسرائيليين، يعمل على تهديد الوفد الفلسطيني بوسائل الحرب النفسية، وأنه يحاول من دون جدوى تحريض الفصائل على بعضها. وقد حرّض أحد وفود المقاومة الفلسطينية على حركة "حماس"، بشكل مباشر وذلك لإرباك الوفد.

وقال المسؤولون، في تصريحات خاصة، إنه من ضمن التحريض أبلغ رئيس جهاز المخابرات المصري، اللواء محمد التهامي، قيادياً فلسطينياً أن حركة "حماس" تتعنت في مطالبها للوصول إلى وقف إطلاق نار دائم. وذكر مسؤول فلسطيني لزملائه أن التهامي أبلغه أن "حماس تسير وراء مخطط للتهدئة رسمه عزمي بشارة، وأن الأخير ديّته صاروخ"، في تهديد مباشر وفظ لبشارة، في محاولة مكشوفة للإيقاع بين هذا الفصيل وحركة "حماس". وهي محاولات لم تتوقف منذ بدء العدوان، ولكنها باءت بالفشل.

وسبق أن التقى التهامي، في الإمارات، القيادي المفصول من حركة "فتح"، محمد دحلان، وسمع الأول من دحلان كلاماً مشابهاً، عن تنسيق "حماس" مع قطر وتركيا من أجل التوصل إلى اتفاق لوقف إطلاق النار. وأن التنسيق مع البلدين هو سبب صلابة موقف حماس، مع أن جميع الفصائل تشترك في الموقف التفاوضي نفسه. ومن المعروف أن الوفد الفلسطيني يواجه ضغوطاً مكثفة في القاهرة للتنازل عن شروط وقف إطلاق النار، ولا سيما رفع الحصار عن قطاع غزة، وهو المطلب الذي أصبح يحظى بإجماع دولي.

وكانت وسائل إعلام إسرائيلية قد تحدثت في الأيام الماضية بشكل تحريضي كعادتها عن دور للدكتور عزمي بشارة في صياغة ورقة المطالب الفلسطينية التي سلمتها حركة "حماس" نيابة عن الفصائل، في الأيام الأولى للعدوان، إلى قطر وتركيا، وهي الورقة التي لا تزال معتمدة فلسطينياً في مفاوضات القاهرة. وقبل ذلك، بثت إسرائيل رسائل صوتية مسجلة على الهواتف الأرضية لسكان قطاع غزة في 20 يوليو/تموز المنصرم، نصها "خالد مشعل المقيم في قطر، بإيعاز من كبير مستشاري أمير قطر عزمي بشارة، يرفع سقف المطالب غير آبهين بحياتكم.. قوموا عن صمتكم، عزمي بشارة يريد قتلكم". مع العلم أن "حماس" تحظى باستقلالية قرار، حافظت عليها حتى في ظروف أصعب من ظروف إقامة خالد مشعل في دولة قطر، التي تحترم قرار الحركة ولا تتدخل في شؤونها. وسبق أن دفعت حماس ثمن هذه الاستقلالية غالياً.

وعلق الدكتور عزمي بشارة، الذي سبق أن نفى أن يكون مستشاراً أو كبير مستشاري أمير دولة قطر، على الرسائل الصوتية الإسرائيلية لأهالي غزة، أن الدعاية الإسرائيلية في زمن الحرب لها أهداف سياسية وأخرى متعلقة بالحرب النفسية، ولا تستحق التعقيب. أما بالنسبة للادعاءات المصرية، فقد رفض بشارة التعقيب أو التعليق أيضاً على ما 
سماه "تهديدات فظة وافتراءات دموية ضد من يقف مع شعبه ومع الشعوب العربية ضد الظلم الذي تتعرض له".

برامج متفرقة.. غزة تنتصر

A GOOD VIDEO

غزة تنتصر.. أداء إعلام المقاومة أثناء العدوان

Video: Palestinian resistance in Gaza is “fighting for all of us,” says Dr. Mads Gilbert

Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Fri, 08/08/2014 - 01:20

Dr. Mads Gilbert: Solidarity with Gaza! If no siege, no tunnels! - If no occupation, no rockets!

“The heart of the Earth beats in Gaza now. It bleeds, but it beats,” says Dr. Mads Gilbert.

The Norwegian emergency surgeon returned to his home city of Tromsø on 31 July, after spending several weeks treating the wounded from Israel’s assault at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital.

He went straight from the airport to give a spontaneous speech at a large solidarity demonstration for Gaza held at the same time.

Tromsø is twinned with Gaza City.

The newspaper Nordlys made this video, above, of his speech. It is subtitled in English.

“The Palestinian people’s resistance in Gaza today is admirable, it is fair and it is a struggle for all of us. We do not want a world where raw power can be abused, to kill those who struggle for justice.”

Gilbert asks why after all the massacres, all of Israel’s violations of the laws protecting civilians, there are no sanctions on Israel.

He demands to know why the government of Norway is so “quiet” as Palestinians face “one of the most brutal occupation forces of modern history.”

“Solidarity is a powerful weapon,” Gilbert says, ending his address with a call for everyone to get involved in the movement for Palestinian rights.

“Israel is more isolated than ever and they deserve to be,” Gilbert says, endorsing theboycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

It is a powerful 25-minute speech.

We have transcribed the first few minutes, in which Gilbert asks his fellow Norwegians to imagine what their country would be like today if they had not struggled for its liberation from German occupation:

I know you applaud for Gaza. I know you applaud for those who are there, the heroes of Gaza.

This will be no easy appeal to make, because I am now overcome by the mildness, the warmth, the safety, the absence of bombs, jets, blood and death. And then all that we’ve had to keep inside comes to the surface – so forgive me if sometimes I break.

I thought when I got home and met my daughters Siri and Torbjørn, my son-in-law and my grandkids Jenny and Torje, that it is such a mild country we live in.

It so good, with a kind of humanity in all relationships, because we actually built this country on respect for diversity, respect for the individual, respect for human dignity.

And imagine being back in 1945. And I beg to be understood when I say that I am not comparing the German Nazi regime with Israel. I do not.

But I compare occupation with occupation. Imagine that we in 1945 did not win the liberation struggle, did not throw out the occupier, could not see a bright future or believe our kids had a future. Imagine the occupier remaining in our country, taking it piece by piece, for decades upon decades. And banished us to the leanest areas. Took the fish in the sea, took the land, took the water, and we became more and more confined.

And here in Tromsø we were actually imprisoned, because here there was so much resistance to the occupation. So we are imprisoned for seven years, because in an election we had chosen the most resilient, those who would not accept the occupation.

Then after seven years of confinement in our city, Tromsø, the occupier began to bomb us. And they began to bomb us the day we made a political alliance with those in the other confined parts of occupied Norway, to say that we Norwegians would stand together against the occupier. Then they began to bomb us.

They bombed our university hospital, then the medical center, then killed our ambulance workers, they bombed schools where those who had lost their homes were trying to seek shelter. Then they cut the power and bombed our power plant. Then they shut off the water supply. What would we have done?

Would we have given up, waved the white flag? No. No, we would not. And this is the situation in Gaza.

This is not a battle between terrorism and democracy. Hamas is not the enemy Israel is fighting. Israel is waging a war against the Palestinian people’s will to resist. The unbending determination not to submit to the occupation!

It is the Palestinian people’s dignity and humanity that will not accept that they are treated as third, fourth, fifth-ranking people.

In 1938, the Nazis called the Jews “Untermenschen,” subhuman. Today, Palestinians in the West Bank, in Gaza, in the Diaspora are treated as Untermensch, as subhumans who can be bombed, killed, slaughtered by their thousands, without any of those in power reacting.

So I returned home to my free country – and this country is free because we had a resistance movement, because we said that occupied nations have the right to resist, even with weapons. It’s stated in international law.

You are permitted to fight the occupier even with weapons. One should of course respect international law …

Nobody wants to be occupied!

Attack on Gaza by Saudi Royal Appointment

A BOMBSHELL ARTICLE!
By David Hearst

(SCROLL DOWN FOR MORE UP-TO-DATE POSTS)

There are many hands behind the Israeli army's onslaught on Gaza. America is not unhappy that Hamas is getting such a beating. As footage of the scenes of carnage on the streets of Shejaiya was coming through, John Kerry said on NBC's Meet the Presson Sunday that Israel had every right to defend itself and the US ambassador Dan Shapiro told Israel's Channel 2 news that the US would seek to help moderate forces become stronger in Gaza, meaning the Palestinian Authority.

Nor is Egypt overcome with grief. Its foreign minister Sameh Shoukry held Hamas responsible for civilian deaths after their rejection of the ceasefire.

Neither matter to Netanyahu as much as the third undeclared partner in this unholy alliance, for neither on their own could give him the cover he needs for a military operation of this ferocity. And that can come not from a hand wringing but impotent parent like the US. Such permission can only come from a brother Arab.

The attack on Gaza comes by Saudi Royal Appointment. This royal warrant is nothing less than an open secret in Israel, and both former and serving defense officials are relaxed when they talk about it. Former Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz surprised the presenter on Channel 10 by saying Israel had to specify a role for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the demilitarization of Hamas. Asked what he meant by that, he added that Saudi and Emirati funds should be used to rebuild Gaza after Hamas had been defanged.

Amos Gilad, the Israeli defense establishment's point man with Mubarak's Egypt and now director of the Israeli defense ministry's policy and political-military relations department told the academic James Dorsey recently : "Everything is underground, nothing is public. But our security cooperation with Egypt and the Gulf states is unique. This is the best period of security and diplomatic relations with the Arab."

The celebration is mutual. King Abdullah let it be known that he had phoned President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to approve of an Egyptian ceasefire initiative which had not been put to Hamas, and had the Jerusalem Post quoting analysts about whether a ceasefire was ever seriously intended.

Mossad and Saudi intelligence officials meet regularly: The two sides conferred when the former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi was about to be deposed in Egypt and they are hand in glove on Iran, both in preparing for an Israel strike over Saudi airspace and in sabotaging the existing nuclear program. There has even been a well sourced claim that the Saudis are financing most of Israel's very expensive campaign against Iran.

Why do Saudi Arabia and Israel make such comfortable bedfellows? For decades each country has had a similar feeling in their gut when they look around them: fear. Their reaction was similar. Each felt they could only insure themselves against their neighbors by invading them (Lebanon, Yemen) or by funding proxy wars and coups (Syria, Egypt, Libya).They have enemies or rivals in common - Iran, Turkey, Qatar, Hamas in Gaza, and the Muslim Brotherhood. And they have common allies, too - the US and British military industrial establishments, Fatah strongman and US asset Mohammed Dahlan who tried to take over Gaza once, and will probably be at hand when next required.

The difference today is that for the first time in their two countries' history, there is open co-ordination between the two military powers. Abdullah's nephew Prince Turki has been the public face of this rapprochement, which was first signaled by the Saudi publication of a book by an Israeli academic. The prince flew to Brussels in May to meet General Amos Yadlin, the former intelligence chief who has been indicted by a court in Turkey for his role in the storming of the Mavi Marmara.

It could be argued that there is nothing sinister about Prince Turki's wish to overcome ancient taboos that his motives are both peaceful and laudable. The prince is a staunch supporter of a laudable peace initiative proposed by the Saudi King Abdullah. The Arab Peace Initiative supported by 22 Arab States and 56 Muslim countries would indeed have been a basis for peace had Israel not ignored it some 12 years ago.

Prince Turki waxed lyrical about the prospect of peace in an article published by Haaretz. In it he wrote:

And what a pleasure it would be to be able to invite not just the Palestinians but also the Israelis I would meet to come and visit me in Riyadh, where they can visit my ancestral home in Dir'iyyah, which suffered at the hands of Ibrahim Pasha the same fate as Jerusalem did at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and the Romans.

Its the means, not the end, which expose the true cost of this alliance. Prince Turki's promotion of the Arab Peace Initiative comes at the cost of abandoning the kingdom's historical support of Palestinian resistance.

The well connected Saudi analyst Jamal Khashogji made this very point when he talked in coded language about the number of intellectuals who attack the notion of resistance:

Regrettably, the number of such intellectuals here in Saudi Arabia is higher than average. If such a trend continues it will destroy the kingdom's honorable claim to support and defend the Palestinian cause since the time of its founder, King Abd Al-Aziz Al-Saud.

Peace would indeed be welcome to everyone, not least Gaza at the moment. The means by which Israel's allies in Saudi Arabia and Egypt are going about achieving it, by encouraging Israel to deal Hamas a crippling blow, calls into question what is really going on here. Turki's father King Faisal bin Abdulaziz would be turning in his grave at what the son is putting his name to.

This Saudi Israeli alliance is forged in blood, Palestinian blood, the blood on Sunday of over 100 souls in Shejaiya.

Also, by David Hearst:

Saudi Crocodile Tears Over Gaza

It is tough work being the Saudi ambassador to the UK. First, you have to stir yourself into action to deny the undeniable: The Israeli attack on Gaza comes with Saudi backing. That, in itself, is demeaning. But no sooner has your wrath been righteously expressed, than a colleague contradicts you. Worse still, he's the boss's brother. What is a prince to do?

In his reply to my column, Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf Al Saud wrote: "To think that Saudi Arabia, which has committed itself to supporting and protecting the rights of all Palestinians to self-determination and sovereignty would knowingly support the Israeli action is quite frankly a grotesque insult." He then admits "dealings" between the Kingdom and Israel but claims those "limited to bring about a plan for peace." Then he says:

"The Palestinian people are our brothers and sisters -whether they are Muslim Arabs or Christian Arabs. Be assured we, the people and Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, will never ever give up on them, we will never do anything to harm them, we will do all we can to help them in their rightful claim to their own homeland and return of lands taken illegally from them."

Hardly was the ink dry on this official news release, when Prince Turki al-Faisal, Bin Nawaf's predecessor as UK ambassador, former intelligence chief and the brother of the current foreign minister wrote in al-Sharq al-Awast that Hamas was to blame for firing rockets and for refusing to accept Egypt's ceasefire plan (which would have disarmed them). This is Israel's and Egypt's view too.

So which is it? Does the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia support Palestinians in their resistance to the occupation? Or does it support the siege manned by Israel and Egypt, until Gaza is demilitarized? These are two clear policies -- support for the Palestinian resistance to the occupation and ending the siege of Gaza, or keeping the siege in place until all factions in Gaza are disarmed. Either Israel is engaging in genocide (strong words, Mr. Ambassador) or the resisters are terrorists who must be disarmed. Decide what it is you want the Kingdom to say. You can't say both. You can't swear allegiance to the Palestinians and give a nod and a wink to their killers.

And are the kingdom's dealings with Israel really "limited to bring about a plan for peace"? You are privy to the cables, Mr. Ambassador. Tell us what passed between Prince Bandar and the Mossad director Tamir Pardo at that hotel in Aqaba in November last year. The Jordanians leaked it to an Israeli newspaper in Eilat. Were Bandar and Pardo: 1. soaking up the winter sun, 2. talking about the Arab Peace Initiative, or 3. plotting how to bomb Iran?

And why are your new friends the Israelis being so loquacious? Why, to take the latest example, did Dan Gillerman, Israeli ambassador to the UN 2003-08, say at the weekend that "representatives from the Gulf states told us to finish the job in Gaza time and again." Finish the job? Killing over 1,000 Palestinians, most of them civilian. Is that what you meant when you said "we will never do anything to harm them"?

The carnage in Gaza at least gives the world clear sight of the protagonists. The wonder of it is that all are American allies, three have US bases on their soil and a fourth is a member of Nato. America's problems in the Middle East are more to do with their sworn allies than their sworn enemies.

On one side, stands Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Jordan. They consider themselves the voice of reason and moderation, but their methods are violent -- the military coup in Egypt and the attack on Gaza have all happened in the space of 12 months. On the other, stands Turkey, Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood and its affliate Hamas.

We should, however, talk of governments rather people, because one reason why the government of Saudi Arabia has such an extreme position on Hamas and the Brotherhood in general, is that it knows full well that its own people don't share their view.

Saudi Arabia's leading pollster Rakeen found that 95 percent out of a representative sample of 2,000 Saudis supported the continuation of the Palestinian resistance factions. Only three per cent did not. Eighty-two percent supported the firing of rockets into Israel and 14 percent opposed it. The kingdom's hatred of Islamism stems not from the fact that it presents a rival interpretation of Islam. It is that it presents to a believer, a democratic alternative. That is what really scares the monarchy.

The proof of all those secret Saudi-Israeli meetings is to be seen in the behavior of Egypt. It is impossible to believe that its new president Abdel Fattah al Sisi could act towards Hamas in Gaza independently of his paymasters in Riyadh. He who pays the piper -- $5 billion after the coup, $20 billion now -- calls the tune.

Sisi sees Hamas entirely through the prism of the Muslim Brotherhood he deposed last year. Hamas is villified in the lickspittle Egyptian press as the enemy of Egypt. A trickle of aid has been allowed through the border crossing at Rafah, and it is sporadically opened to a few thousand wounded Palestinians. The Israeli Army is not alone in blowing up Hamas' tunnels. The Egyptian army announced recently they had blown up 13 more, a deed which earned them the title of being "a sincere neighbor" of Israel. Sisi is content to let Hamas and Gaza take a hammering, and make no efforts to get a ceasefire. The last initiative was not even negotiated with Hamas.

Mubarak made a similar miscalculation during the 2006 incursion into Lebanon, supporting an operation which he believed would cripple Hezbollah. In the end he was forced to send his son Gamal to Beirut to express Egypt's support for the Lebanese people. Both the kingdom and Sisi know that dropping the Palestinian card is a risky business.

Saudi Arabia is treading a fine line. According to my sources, Netanyahu's rejection of Kerry's peace initiative over the weekend was due in part to the full support of its Arab allies. Saudi Arabia's active support is keeping this brutal war going.