Israel Knew Attack was Coming, Expected Kidnapping Attempt

Friday August 19, 2011 07:46 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

An initial investigation carried out by the Israeli army on the armed attack that targeting a bus loaded with Israeli soldiers, close to the border with Egypt, in the Israeli coastal city of Eilat, revealed that information regarding an attack was available before it took place, but pointed out a possible kidnapping attempt, not a shooting. Seven Palestinians, including children, and seven Egyptian officers were killed by Israeli bombardment.

The army stated that it found it difficult to deal with the information due to the large number of similar warnings, and that the military leadership estimated that the potential time for this attack would be at night, not in broad daylight.

The investigation also revealed that the attackers infiltrated into Israel through an area near an Egyptian military base, an unlikely location to infiltrate into Israel.

Israeli daily, Haaretz, reported that this attack was planned by the Popular Resistance Committee in the Gaza Strip, and that the fighters managed to infiltrate from the Gaza Strip into the Sinai desert through tunnels, before they travelled nearly 200 kilometers to an area that is only protected with tattered wire fence, 15 kilometers north of Eilat. They then opened fire at a bus carrying Israeli soldiers north of Netafim Crossing.

Haaretz further stated that the soldiers managed to kill five of the fighters while the Egyptian Security Forces killed two others. Israel believes that at least 15-20
fighters participated in the attack, and that most of them managed to escape.

According to Haaretz, the driver of the bus said that the attackers were dressed in Egyptian military uniforms, and that he thought that they were just repairing the border fence.

Haaretz added that the attack was initiated at noon on Thursday, and that approximately 15 gunmen, armed with rifles, grenades and explosives, infiltrated into Israel from Egypt and stationed themselves 200 meters away from each other at the Eilat Highway, Route 12, close to the border.

They then opened fire at the bus around 12:30 afternoon, wounding seven passengers. Minutes later, an empty bus and several cars arrived at the scene, and came under fire from the fighters while one of the gunmen ran towards the bus before activating his explosive belt killing himself and the bus driver.

The gunmen reportedly infiltrated into Sinai through a tunnel before they headed to an area that is 200 kilometers away, that is only protected by a tattered wire-fence, just 15 kilometers north of Eilat.

The Israel army shot and killed five gunmen while Egypt reported that its border police shot and killed two others. The rest apparently managed to escape unharmed.

Israel said that one of the fighters even fired an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenades) at a military helicopter that arrived at the scene, but missed it.

Following the attack, Israel carried out several air strikes targeting a number of areas in different parts of the Gaza Strip killing seven Palestinians, including a 2 year old child and a teenager, aged 13. At least 19 residents, including children, were injured.

It is worth mentioning that Cairo stated that seven Egyptian officers were killed by Israeli military fire, targeting them in Sinai, while several others were injured.
Following the attack, a senior Egyptian military officer headed to Sinai along with several soldiers of the special brigades to assess the situation, especially since the Egyptian soldiers were in Egyptian territory close to the border and did not infiltrate into Israel.

Egypt says that an Israeli military helicopter chased the fighters in Egyptian territory and opened fire at them wounding Egyptian military personnel.

A massive protest is planned in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo on Friday where hundreds are expected to attend.

Lieutenant Al-Sayyed Abdul-Wahab Mabrook, north Sinai Governor, denied the Israeli claims regarding Palestinian fighters infiltrating into Egypt through the border before they headed to Eilat, and stated that these claims are impossible to believe, as he said Egypt has a firm grip on the border through traps and extensive military deployment.

Mabrook, who headed the Egyptian Border Police until he became the governor of North Sinai, stated that Egypt has full control over the border with Gaza, and that the extensive security presence was not affected by the regime change in Egypt.

He also stated that the border from Rafah in the north to Taba in the south is very long, and that Egypt’s security presence there prevents any suspects from infiltrating through the area. 

http://www.imemc.org/article/61855

Car torched in Ramallah village

Published yesterday 22:31

 

 

 

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Dura Al-Qara residents on Friday accused settlers of setting fire to a car in the village overnight.

Locals said anti-Arab slogans were written in Hebrew near the burnt out vehicle, adding that residents of Beit Eil settlement often clashed with Palestinians in the village east of Ramallah.

The owner of the vehicle, Abdul Ghani Yassin, filed a report on the incident with the Israeli military but villagers said they doubted the army would investigate the case.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=414474

Does AIPAC Have Only Two Major Donors?

by Guest Post on August 16, 2011

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By Grant Smith * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

John Boehner and Eric Cantor

A large congressional delegation is heading for Israel. During three weeks of recess, 55 Republicans and 26 Democrats will enjoy "educational" trips funded by the American Israel Education Foundation, a tax-exempt nonprofit located in the same Washington, D.C., building as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Absent AIPAC's influence on pro-Israel campaign contributors, members of Congress would probably skip international travel this year to meet the pressing needs of their districts or to venture to places of actual importance to the U.S., such as Europe, China, or Latin America. Instead, because AIPAC is always watching members of Congress, our representatives go to Israel. But this raises an important question: Who is really behind AIPAC?

AIPAC's last IRS list of contributors claims the organization now has only two major donors [.pdf]. As a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organization (a category intended for civic leagues, social welfare organizations, and local associations of employees) AIPAC files an IRS Form 990. AIPAC has long structured its fiscal year end in such a way that it languidly files 2-year-old data while other nonprofits are rushing to report their previous year. Therefore, the AIPAC Form 990 listed as "year 2010″ at Guidestar.org, the officially designated website to consult such data, is actually year 2009 data [.pdf]. It also lacks the most important data in Form 990 - donor contributions.

Unlike the far more numerous nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations, which have to continually "means test" that they have a wide public funding base in order for contributor donations to be tax-deductible, contributions to 501(c)(4) organizations such as AIPAC (which actively lobbies Congress, the executive, and numerous government agencies) are not tax-deductible. There are no contribution limits to 501 (c)(4) nonprofit groups. Individuals, foreign nationals, partnerships, associations, and other organizations may contribute whatever amount they like to a 501(c)(4).

Given AIPAC's oversize clout in U.S. Middle East policy, it's always informative to see just how many people are giving - and how much. When AIPAC's founder, Isaiah Kenen, was dispatched in the early 1950s from his job at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs with orders to lobby the U.S. Congress for guns and diplomatic support as an American (rather than the U.S. State Department as an Israeli foreign agent), it was supposed to be only a six-month gig. As that operation morphed into a semi-permanent Washington institution run outside the normal purview of the Foreign Agents Registration Act office, AIPAC was forced to tap a very small base of wealthy donors (some with criminal records) while simultaneously receiving covert support from the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency in Jerusalem.

After that "conduit" foreign- funding ruse was uncovered by a Justice Department investigation, Kenen emerged from the crisis and slowly built back up AIPAC's donor base, whipping up post-1967 Six-Day War donor fears and anxieties that Israel was in danger of being overrun (it wasn't) if people didn't send in their checks. Now, AIPAC is pushing largely the same "Israel in danger" emotional buttons, with Iran as the flashing red light.

AIPAC's schedule of donors doesn't appear on Guidestar. The IRS won't release it for any organization except by special request. Only then will the IRS send a "Schedule B" of contributors with all $5,000-plus contributors' names - but not their donations - censored. If the breadth of AIPAC's funding base is a "leading indicator" of AIPAC's popular support, it is America that should now be deeply worried that AIPAC is catering to drastically fewer - and possibly much more extreme - voices.
For fiscal year 2006, AIPAC's top contributor gave $650,000. The rest of AIPAC's "Schedule B" donors gave on average $16,772 each. The list of $5,000-plus donors numbered just over 1,700 individuals, so numerous that AIPAC had to attach a separate spreadsheet to its return [.pdf]. This large group of donors represented the majority (56 percent) of AIPAC's total claimed direct public support. If we assume AIPAC had approximately 50,000 paying members that year, the rest gave $464 each for a total of $50,920,792 in public support.

According to the special IRS release of AIPAC's 2009 Schedule B [.pdf] there were only two $5,000-plus donors. Donor number one gave $48,842,187. Donor number two chipped in $13,503,472. This means small donors contributed only $2,261,755 for total year 2009 public support of $64,607,414. The IRS confirms that there is no additional 2009 spreadsheet attachment of $5,000-plus donors as in 2006. AIPAC is now telling the IRS that it has only two meaningful donors.
There have been many reasons for smaller givers to bail out on AIPAC, leaving a pair of committed donors to carry all the weight. AIPAC, like any corporation, wants to chart a steadily increasing line of total revenues because any crisis-driven decline could weaken its brand and perceived power. But the years since 2006 have been rocky. Two former AIPAC officials narrowly escaped a long-awaited espionage prosecution, which was mysteriously tossed out by the Obama administration in 2009 after years of pre-trial escalation. Many AIPAC donors probably didn't have the stomach or risk-tolerance to donate to an organization that nurtured and then threw overboard top employees in order to save itself from an espionage indictment.

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In 2009, former AIPAC official Steven J. Rosen noisily filed a $20 million defamation lawsuit against AIPAC and its board of directors. 2009 marked the year an ongoing campaign was launched to have AIPAC return to its roots by re-registering as an agent of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, rather than continue to operate as a domestic American lobby and "social welfare" organization. In 2010, AIPAC's tax exempt status was also challenged. These concerns could have been sufficient to drive away scores of AIPAC's key base of $5,000-plus donors. AIPAC's signature Washington gathering in May 2011 had a Potemkin village feel to it. Many attendees interviewed by Max Blumenthal seemed woefully uninformed about the issues. Many hundreds of others, including student leaders, attended only after receiving heavy travel subsidies.

If the threat of Rosen walking away with $20 million was enough to keep small donors at bay in the recent past, it will likely remain that way for a few more years. On June 20, 2011, Rosen filed a brief [.pdf] and a 629-page addendum in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Rosen explains why within the AIPAC corporate culture it was defamatory for his former employers to characterize his attempts to gather and use classified intelligence on Iran as not comporting with "standards that AIPAC expects of its employees." Rosen has even filed a "smoking gun" [.pdf] July 21, 2004, email updating AIPAC director Howard Kohr on U.S. intelligence obtained about Iran and details of Rosen's early use of classified U.S. secrets to derail Jesse Jackson's political career. Rosen's lawsuit will not only elevate insider concerns that AIPAC donor funds may soon be paid out as damage awards, but also raise the larger and more public governance questions about why AIPAC has never been indicted for espionage or theft of government property as a corporation, given what has now been so thoroughly documented in court.

As Americans nervously ponder their representatives' travel plans and AIPAC's nonstop lobbying for American economic and clandestine warfare on Israel's enemies, they must ask other serious questions. Who are the two people now providing the lion's share of AIPAC's funding? As long-time Washington Report on Middle East Affairs editor Janet McMahon revealed during the May 2011 Move Over AIPAC conference, it's not clear what percentage of AIPAC's donations come from American contributors and sources. Given AIPAC's influential leadership role at the head of a network of stealth political action committees it helped establish in the 1980s, will AIPAC's concentrated pool of core donors channel ever more extreme candidate guidance [.pdf] to the people who really count come election day, i.e., single-issue pro-Israel campaign contributors? What do the big AIPAC donors dispatching 20 percent of Congress to Israel think about trip-wiring the U.S. into an unwarranted military conflict with Iran? Americans should ask themselves whether any two people should have so much influence on U.S. Middle East policy.

* Grant F. Smith is the author of the Spy Trade: How Israel's Lobby Undermines America's Economy. He is a frequent contributor to Radio France Internationale and Voice of America's Foro Interamericano. Smith has also appeared on BBC News, CNN, and C-SPAN. He is currently director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C.

http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2011/08/16/aipac-two-donors/

Debate on Israeli crimes grow in West

Fri Aug 19, 2011 6:27PM GMT

Interview with Sarah Colborne, Director of Palestinian Solidarity Campaign

The debate over the Israeli occupation of Palestine is growing across Britain and some other Western countries. 

 

Moreover, some British officials are also divided on the official relationship with Israel. That is brought upon by a growing awareness among the general population of Israel’s brutality towards Palestine.

Press TV talks with Sarah Colborne, Director of Palestinian Solidarity Campaign in London in a discussion that centers on a book entitled ‘Gaza in Crisis’ written jointly by Professor’s Noam Chomsky and Israeli historian Ilan Pappe. Following is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: Reviewing the book by Noam Chomsky, ‘Gaza in Crisis’, what did you make of it and did you find it informative?

Sarah Colborne: It was very interesting and for me some of the most interesting material was the historic material around 2006-2007 because we tend to forget – we remember the major issues like Operation Cast Lead, but – we forget the build up to it and because the Israeli media have so much of a free reign you forget about facts.

For example, the same day that Shalit (Gilad Shalit, a French Israeli soldier taken by Hamas) was taken there were two Palestinian civilians kidnapped from Gaza and dragged into Israel, which was a far greater crime under international law and those sorts of detail you forget and so those details were very important for me to get out of this book.

Press TV: The Western news media doesn’t follow much of what happens in Palestine perhaps as so much is happening with other wars in the Middle East. You experienced this with the peace convoy in terms of how the media report things. It is difficult to get a balanced sense of reporting, isn’t it?

Sarah Colborne: Yes it is and there are stories in this book that are not widely known because of this, for example, why the Palestinian fishermen can’t fish further than three miles outside Gaza. And it links very clearly to the decision to reduce the space they have for fishing to the discovery of the oil field and Israel’s need to control those natural resources.

And so there are stories behind the immediate headlines and the problem is that we get immediate headlines like a few rockets coming from Gaza; what we don’t get – and that we get in this book – is that during the months prior to the taking of Gilad Shalit there were 7,700 rockets that had been fired from Israel into Gaza.

We often don’t get the entire story and this is why this book is very useful as we don’t normally get to read between the lines or behind history. Even people who are sympathetic to the Palestinians, you do need to understand what’s going on.

Press TV: The professors authors highlight in the book that it’s not just about the economic pressures, but it’s almost an attitude by Israel as well – that phrase of ‘exterminate the brutes’ which sort of jumps out at you from this book, this attitude that the Arabs in that part of the world are a lesser race, they’re not humans. And you’d think the Israelis of any race on the earth shouldn’t have that attitude; it’s horrifying when you see it expressed by very intelligent people…

Sarah Colborne: Absolutely, and this is becoming increasingly openly said with the drift even further to the right in Israeli society. But it is not something limited to the experience of Israel; this is something that has happened during all previous occupations.

For instance, the way that Britain always occupied countries to do it because they said the population were incapable of governing themselves – that’s always the arguments that’s used… and I think what is important to encourage now is the way that that lie is being completely exposed – with the Arab spring- because the populations of the region are rising up and declaring they want to have their right to determine their own society and their own futures and this is all impacting into the Palestinian struggle as well.

Press TV: There are certain views projected in the many who are pro-Israel and I find it slightly scary that this attitude decries international law completely about the effect on civilians. I mean, if there is somebody holding a gun OK it’s a fair target, but the vast areas of children and women and residential areas that have been attacked by Israeli forces and according to some with entire justification – it’s quite scary…

Sarah Colborne: It is scary, but I think also what is important in the book is the justification by Israeli military generals and politicians of the targeting of civilians and it explicitly says in the book that this is because you terrorize the civilian population into submission – that is the way that Israel believes it should handle the conflict rather than abiding by international law, ending the occupation, giving refugees the right of return and those sort of issues. And so the targeting and killing of civilians is not an accidental issue it’s a deliberate strategy.

But I think the future doesn’t need to be as bleak because although the situation on the ground in Palestine is horrific, there is far more awareness and far more activity to support the Palestinian cause and combined with the steadfastness of the Palestinians themselves, that is what gives me hope for the future.

Press TV: In this book the two professors don’t always agree – what’s your idea about the academic boycott?

Sarah Colborne: We are very clearly in support for the Palestinian boycott and divestment and sanctions and that includes academic boycott. And I think the tide is very clearly turning in favor of boycott. One of the issues that Chomsky raises in his book is he doesn’t believe there is support for it, but I think given what we have seen in support of boycott of Israeli goods and campaigns against complicit firms that are cooperating with Israel’s crimes… we’re seeing mass support for those campaigns now…

It’s a bit like in the situation of apartheid in South Africa, one of the key issues there was they took particular pride in their sporting prowess. With Israel, one of the key issues they take particular pride in is their academic prowess and so for them the academic boycott is a very key issue that they are campaigning against.

And I think it is obviously working when the Knesset are passing laws that ban Israelis from supporting a boycott. That is a bizarre attack on the freedom of speech and that reaction must indicate it is having some effect.

The point that Ilan Pappe makes at the end is that the movement for justice and for freedom for Palestinians is massively increasing worldwide, but the problem is that our governments do not reflect those views reasons and therefore the issue of what civil society can do by methods such as boycotting Israeli goods are very important and that’s the reason why the movement has grown so much because it is something everybody can do and they can act together to make a change.

Press TV: The UN can’t do anything because America will blocking everything so the UN is fairly toothless when it comes to the people in Palestine and Gaza…

Sarah Colborne: Yes it is. But I think there is also a discussion and debate happening not only in the US, but in Britain about whether it is in the US government’s or British government’s strategic interest to tie themselves so closely to Israel.

For example, you’ve had a number of reports from the British governments, from the Foreign Affairs committee and other bodies that really are questioning why Britain is not prepared to act in accordance with international law.

So I do think that the more pressure that we can put in civil society to change government’s policies, the more fertile ground we’ve got. And that’s the reason why by approaching each individual MP we have a great advantage here as we do have constituencies; we can elect or deselect our MP and bringing in the issue of Palestine as a key issue can make the big difference.

SC/JR

Click here to watch the video

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194742.html

Eretz Yisrael: Lawless, Corrupt and Dysfunctional ~ by Stephen Lendman

by Stephen Lendman on August 19, 2011

What do you call a country that persecutes occupied people and one-fifth of its own population for not being Jewish? An illegal occupier for over 44 years, suffocating over 1.6 million Gazans under siege! A nation practicing torture, persecution, and racism as official policies! A modern day Sparta, glorifying wars and violence!

A country spurning rule of law principles! An unparalleled regional state terrorist! A nuclear armed global threat! A society of extreme social inequality! A nation with no legitimacy for all of the above reasons, besides having stolen another people’s nation violently!

It’s called Eretz Yisrael – Israel, a nation where thousands of fed up Jews vote with their feet and leave regularly. Like America, Israel isn’t fit to live in. One day perhaps that will be its epitaph.

Many Jews and analysts believe Zionism is destroying Judaism. In his book “Overcoming Zionism,” Joel Kovel explained how it fosters “imperialist expansion and militarism (with) signs of the fascist malignancy,” adding that it turned Israel “into a machine for the manufacture of human rights abuses.”
Author Alan Hart calls Zionism “the real enemy of the Jews,” an ideology contemptuous of moral and ethical principles. Others call it corrosive, destructive, racist, extremist, undemocratic and hateful, espousing violence, not peaceful coexistence.

Nations living by the sword in the end die by it. Israel and America aren’t exceptions. They’ve, in fact, partnered on a self-destructive mission, perhaps taking planet earth with them before they’re through.
Daily snapshots make the case. Multiple US wars rage, spending trillions of badly needed dollars waging them, besides diverting billions more annually to support Israel’s out-of-control militarism. They endanger every other nation and their own, at the same time sacrificing homeland needs.
Lawless, corrupt and dysfunctional barely describe what some call a blight on humanity, threatening it by its presence with its Washington paymaster/partner.

In mid-August, one of its prominent rabbis, Yosef Elitzur, co-author of the controversial book “The King’s Torah,” was denied UK entry for advocating discrimination against gentiles and killing them. The book states:

“Anywhere where the presence of a gentile poses a threat to Israel, it is permissible to kill him, even if it a righteous gentile who is not responsible for the threatening situation.”

In January 2010, co-author Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, head of a prominent yeshiva in the West Bank Yitzhar settlement, was arrested for torching a Palestinian Yasuf village mosque. Later, however, he was released uncharged.

In August 2010, Elitzur was also arrested for his advocacy of violence, though he, too, was released and charges against him quietly dropped.

However, their extremism isn’t unique. On August 19, 2010, Ynet News said “(d)ozens of rabbis, educators, public figures and right-wing activists attended” a rally for Rabbis Dov Lior and Yaakov Yosef “who refused to report for police questioning over their endorsement of” Elitzur and Shapira’s book.

Senior rabbis support them, believing it’s OK to kill non-Jews, a shocking indictment of what too many in Israel believe, including top officials.

It plays out daily in real time, including on August 16 when Israeli soldiers shot and killed a mentally disabled child, 400 meters inside the border separating Israel from Gaza, east of Deir al-Balah. In fact, 10 bullets struck his head and chest. He never had a chance.

Israeli radio merely said soldiers observed someone approaching the security fence, opened fire and shot him.

The same day, other shelling and shooting incidents occurred, killing one man and seriously wounding two others in Gaza City. In addition, another man and a child were wounded in Khan Yunis and Rafah in southern Gaza.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) called these incidents “part of a series of war crimes (regularly) committed by” Israeli forces in Occupied Palestine, reflecting the “total disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians.”

When state-sponsored violence is institutionalized, is it surprising that perhaps many prominent Israelis (including influential rabbis) endorse racism and killing non-Jews!

What better example of a sick society, deserving universal condemnation, especially by righteously indignant Jews wanting no part of what’s so lawlessly repugnant. In fact, growing numbers of Jews and others understand what’s happening and reject it.

Numerous daily examples highlight the problem. On August 18, Haaretz covered several, including Netanyahu again refusing to apologize to Turkey for murdering nine of its citizens during the infamous May 2010 Mavi Marmara attack in international waters.

At the time, universal outrage condemned it. In contrast, Israeli officials, like their Washington counterparts, believe they never have to say they’re sorry, even when caught red-handed and denounced.

A second Haaretz article quoted Netanyahu’s outgoing director general, Eyal Gabai, saying “(t)he current government will not deliver Israelis a welfare state,” despite weeks of mass protests across Israel demanding it, wanting years of social injustice reversed.

Combined, neoliberalism and Zionism are suffocating Israel, a topic an August 18 Gideon Levy commentary addressed titled, “Israel’s swinish Zionism ought to be stopped,” saying:

As an MK, Shimon Peres coined the term “swinish capitalism,” referring to then finance minister Netanyahu. “It’s worth remembering that there is also swinish Zionism,” Levy added.

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“Swine are insatiable….gorg(ing) themselves until they die.” Capitalism and Zionism are no different. What began as a national movement to establish a Jewish homeland ended up “caus(ing) grave injustice to the previous inhabitants of the land….” And for years, it’s neoliberal version has been harming Jews.

Perhaps if Zionism “stop(ped)….reined in its lust and greed, atoned for the original injustices in 1948 and changed direction, it would have become an admired movement.” Because it didn’t, “Israel is only beginning to pay the price.”

Many of Israel’s wealthy “also started out well….But here too,” their appetite proved insatiable. The time of reckoning has arrived. People want redress. “The word ‘tycoon’ has become a curse and ‘wealthy’ has nearly become despicable.”

Today a new awakening is emerging. Israel’s wealthy are “beginning to pay the price.” Zionism so far escaped. Calling it swinish is heretical.

“But when the time for the reckoning comes we’ll ask: Why didn’t we stop (it) in time,” especially its reliance on violence, occupation, racism, social injustice, and lawlessness.

Policies that extreme can’t go on forever, and won’t! Not in Israel, America or anywhere!

A Final Comment

On August 18, Maan News reported two shooting attacks on buses near Eilat, Israel, killing at least seven and injuring dozens more. Israel’s Channel 10 said three militants armed with Kalashnikovs opened fire on one bus from a car.

A second incident occurred near Netafim, Israel, injuring others. In addition, an explosive device wounded more.

“Assailants also attacked a second bus and a car soon after,” according to Al-Arabiya, killing five.
“In a third incident, mortars were reportedly fired at Israeli forces near the southern border causing injuries, although initial reports were ambiguous about” their origin.

Israel’s knee-jerk reaction came as expected, Defense Minister Ehud Barak blaming Hamas, saying “(w)e will exhaust all measures against the terrorists.”

Senior Hamas official Salah Bardawil rejected Barak’s accusation, saying Israel, ahead of another Gaza attack, blamed Hamas and other Gaza groups to deflect attention from its own internal problems.
Since mid-July, unprecedented numbers of Israelis have rallied for social justice so far denied. It thus begs the question whether these attacks may have been a false flag diversions, to focus attention on “terrorist” threats, not economic hardship.

So far, the identity of attackers is unknown. Nonetheless, Haaretz said “Israeli Defense Forces struck targets in (Gaza) Thursday evening, hours after the earlier incidents.”

Reports indicate at least six killed, others injured. Giving no details, Israel confirmed the strikes, saying operations were underway in southern Gaza.

Explaining nothing about daily atrocities US forces commit against innocent civilians in multiple wars, Hillary Clinton “condemn(ed) today’s attacks in southern Israel and all acts of terrorism in the strongest terms,” calling them “brutal” and “cowardly.”

As expected, she added that America “stand(s) by Israel as our friend, partner, and ally – now and always,” omitting mention of their state-sponsored terrorism against victims unable to fight back.
What better description of two global bullies, rogue state sponsors of intimidation, terror and torment as standard operations. Calling them democracies is ludicrous and offensive.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon

http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2011/08/19/eretz-yisrael-lawless/