Gaza’s Last Stand?

My article on the unfolding disaster was published at Byline Times: The Chinese word for “crisis” may not, in fact, comprise the characters for “danger” and “opportunity”. But previous Israeli leaders have well understood the importance of seizing the moment. In the late 1930s, David Ben-Gurion—Zionist leader and later Israel’s first prime minister — considered…

Europe’s Israel-Palestine Policy – In Diplomats’ Own Words

European diplomats interviewed by the International Crisis Group frankly summarised Europe's Israel-Palestine policy as comprising five main planks: 1. Pretend to support a two-state solution while consciously making it impossible ‘European officials do realise that their policy is tantamount to accepting the further decline of the two-state solution’s feasibility ... A senior diplomat explained, “The settlements are expanding regardless of what government…

WHEN ‘TROPES’ ARE TRUE

How Mossad agent Michael Harrari fabricated a massacre of Jews to help Panamanian General Noriega keep power: The material cleared for publication in the last few months describes the means Harari used to help Noriega retain power. It emerges that the Tel Aviv-born agent was a leading player in a political scheme aimed at tilting…

Israel’s BDS Octopus

Yossi Melman is a veteran Israeli military and intelligence correspondent. In a July 2019 article for Ma'ariv, he correctly analysed the 'war on BDS' being waged by Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs (MSA) as follows: The main justification and reason for its [i.e., the MSA's] existence is the fight against the BDS movement and attempts…

ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE

'Israel could halt intelligence cooperation with UK if Jeremy Corbyn wins election, Benjamin Netanyahu suggests'. How ever will we cope?

RIGHT TO INNOCENCE

Former Israel Defence Forces (IDF) deputy chief of staff Uzi Dayan, testifying this morning in the trial of 'Hebron shooter' Elor Azaria: Asked by the prosecutor, Gen. (res.) Nadav Weisman, if the rules of engagement don’t prohibit killing a terrorist just for being a terrorist, Dayan answered, 'That's certainly not true. . . . I've ordered to…

BEFORE THE ‘DAHIYEH DOCTRINE’

A 1978 interview with General Mordechai Gur, then-chief of staff of the Israel Defence Forces: Q- Is it true [during the March 1978 Israeli invasion of Lebanon] that you bombarded agglomerations [of people] without distinction? A- I am not one of these people who have a selective memory. Do you think that I pretend not…

WHY ISRAEL’S RIGHT TRIUMPHS

B. Michael: For 50 years (at least), Israel has been experiencing the existence of occupation, a brutal, wicked, unrestrained existence. The number of people exposed to the abominations of occupation – through their eyes, hands, feet, weapons and children – is growing. Even the best-honed skills of denial, and all the media’s huffing and puffing,…

THE POLITICS OF ISRAEL’S ‘EXISTENTIAL THREATS’

Moshe Ya'alon, then-Israeli defence minister (February 2016): Israeli defense minister Moshe Ya'alon told defense officials attending the Munich global security conference this weekend that Iran is the 'biggest generator of terrorism in the world', and saying that the recently implemented nuclear deal with Iran posed an 'existential threat' to Israel. Moshe Ya'alon, now out of…

TEL AVIV MAYOR: TEL AVIV ATTACK A SYMPTOM OF THE OCCUPATION

A sober statement from Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai, when asked to comment on reports of Palestinians celebrating yesterday's shootings in Tel Aviv: We might be the only country in the world where another nation is under occupation without civil rights. The problem is that when there is no terrorism, no one talks about [the occupation] .…