Israel stages war games

[hyethga]

Here we go again:

 

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief warned in comments aired Saturday that any military strike on Iran could turn the Mideast into a "ball of fire" and lead the country to a more aggressive stance on its controversial nuclear program.

 

The comments by Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, came in an interview with an Arab television station aired a day after U.S. officials said they believed recent large Israeli military exercises may have been meant to show Israel's ability to hit Iran's nuclear sites.

 

"In my opinion, a military strike will be the worst ... it will turn the Middle East to a ball of fire," ElBaradei said on Al-Arabiya television. It also could prompt Iran to press even harder to seek a nuclear program, and force him to resign, he said.

 

Iran on Saturday also criticized the Israeli exercises. The official IRNA news agency quoted a government spokesman as saying that the exercises demonstrate Israel "jeopardizes global peace and security."

 

Israel sent warplanes and other aircraft on a major exercise in the eastern Mediterranean earlier this month, U.S. military officials said Friday. Israel's military refused to confirm or deny that the maneuvers were practice for a strike in Iran, saying only that it regularly trains for various missions to counter threats to the country.

 

But the exercise the first week of June may have been meant as a show of force as well as a practice on skills needed to execute a long-range strike mission, one U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record on the matter.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he prefers that Iran's nuclear ambitions be halted by diplomatic means, but has pointedly declined to rule out military action.

 

The U.S. says it is seeking a diplomatic resolution to the threat the West sees from Iran's nuclear program, although U.S. officials also have refused to take the threat of military action off the table.

 

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused to comment on the Israeli maneuvers in an interview with National Public Radio aired Saturday but said: "We are committed to a diplomatic course."

 

One Israeli lawmaker on Saturday urged caution, saying that the world should first do more to toughen and broaden the sanctions against Iran to persuade its leaders to halt the nuclear program.

 

Tzahi Hanegbi, chairman of the powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in Israel's parliament, suggested steps including banning Iranian planes, ships and sports delegations from entering Western countries.

 

"There's a long way to go before diplomatic efforts are exhausted," Hanegbi said. "The sanctions aren't very strong, they are very shallow, there's a lot of room for enhancing them."

 

Meanwhile, reaction to the Israeli exercises rippled across other parts of the Gulf.

 

In Dubai, the government-owned Khaleej Times newspaper warned in an editorial Saturday that an attack on Iran by Israel or the United States would have "disastrous consequences for the region."

 

"A nuclear Iran is in nobody's interest, but military action and armed rehearsals will also not be tolerated," the paper said.

 

The U.S. and many Western nations accuse Iran of seeking a nuclear bomb. Iran has rejected the charges saying its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity not a weapon.

 

A U.S. intelligence report released late last year concluded that Iran has suspended its nuclear weapons program, but Israeli intelligence believes that is incorrect and that work is continuing.

 

There is precedent for unilateral Israeli action.

 

In 1981, Israeli jets bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear facility to end dictator Saddam Hussein's nuclear program. Last September, Israel bombed a facility in Syria that U.S. officials have said was a nuclear reactor being constructed with North Korean assistance.

[Aratta-Kingdom]

 

Are they tasting their weapons on Palestininans first?

 

 

 

Watch a video from Gaza:

 

http://halturnershow.blogspot.com/2009/01/...gaza-strip.html

[MosJan]

karevor che te ov e meghavor te ov e anmegh - karevor yerexanen en

 

 

de ari et yerexu tsnoghin hamuzzi or zenq channi paterazm g@na. kam mi 2 izraeltsy ch@spani

[Aratta-Kingdom]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/world/mi...mideast.html?em

 

Israeli Strike Hits Refugees Near a U.N. School in Gaza

 

 

The New York Times

 

 

 

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military struck near a United Nations school in Gaza on Tuesday, killing at least 30 people among hundreds who had sought refuge at the school from the fighting in the beleaguered territory, the United Nations and hospital officials in Gaza said.

 

The officials said those killed included men, women and children. The Israeli military, in a statement, confirmed it had carried out a mortar attack on the school, saying an initial investigation suggested its forces had responded to mortar fire coming from the school.

 

The United Nations has opened its schools in Gaza to provide shelter and gave the Israelis the coordinates of those locations. John Ging of the United Nations relief agency said.

 

Barack Obama, the United States president-elect, broke his silence about the Israeli assault on Gaza on Tuesday, saying “the loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern for me." He did not comment more, repeating his statement that the United States has only one president at a time.

 

The number of those killed at the United Nations school could not be immediately independently confirmed.

 

According to Mr. Ging, 30 people had been killed in the strike near the school, where 350 people were taking shelter and which is in Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza. Another 55 were injured, five of them critically, he said. Most of the casualties occurred outside the school rather than in the building itself, Mr. Ging said, describing the neighborhood as a built-up area.

 

But in Gaza, three hospital officials at Shifa hospital, where some of the wounded from the school were taken, said at least 42 people were killed and that the number of dead was likely to rise. Despite mounting diplomatic pressure to end its offensive in Gaza, Israel’s military onslaught unfolded for an 11th day on Tuesday. Since launching its ground offensive, Israel has killed 130 Hamas fighters, Israeli officials say. Hamas has killed five Israelis by rocket fire and in combat. Palestinian medical officials on Tuesday estimated that the death toll during the 11-day war exceeded 560, and the United Nations said that about a quarter of those killed were civilians.

 

Israel has been criticized in the past for the inaccuracy of its shelling. The Israeli Army has repeatedly emphasized that its operation is not aimed at Gaza’s residents, amid sensitivity to deep opposition worldwide to the toll on civilians in Gaza.

 

But parts of Gaza, a narrow coastal strip with a population of 1.5 million, are among the most densely crowded areas in the world, and artillery and tank fire can easily cause collateral damage. In November 2006, Israel all but stopped firing tank and artillery shells into Gaza after 18 Palestinian civilians, most from one family, were killed by Israeli shells that missed their target and hit a row of houses in Beit Hanoun.

 

 

[Arpa]

karevor che te ov e meghavor te ov e anmegh - karevor yerexanen en

 

 

de ari et yerexu tsnoghin hamuzzi or zenq channi paterazm g@na. kam mi 2 izraeltsy ch@spani

To understand what is going on one has to read their “book of lies”

In the King James version those 4 books are divided in two , Kings 1 and 2, and Samuel 1 and 2, while in the Armenian version they are Tagavorats 1,2, 3 and 4

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth? Ակ ընդ ական, ատամ ընդ ատամ?

Exod.21

[24] Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

----

եԼԻՑ21

23Իսկ եթէ պտուղը ձեւաւորուած լինի, ապա թող հատուցի ըստ այս կարգի. կեանքի դիմաց՝ կեանք, աչքի դիմաց՝ 24աչք, ատամի դիմաց՝ ատամ, ձեռքի դիմաց՝ ձեռք, ոտքի դիմաց՝ ոտք, 25խարանի դիմաց՝ խարան, վէրքի դիմաց՝ վէրք, հարուածի դիմաց՝ հարուած։ 26Եթէ մէկը հարուածի իր ստրկի կամ իր ստրկուհու աչքին ու կուրացնի նրան, ապա իր կուրացրած աչքի համար նրանց ազատ թող արձակի։ 27

1 Samuel

3] Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

1 Թագաւորաց

 

15 Սամուէլն ասաց Սաւուղին. «Ինձ Տէրն է առաքել, որ քեզ թագաւոր օծեմ իմ ժողովրդի՝ իսրայէլացիների վրայ։ 2Արդ, լսի՛ր Տիրոջ պատգամները։ Այսպէս է ասում զօրութիւնների Տէրը. «Հիմա Իսրայէլի դէմ Ամաղէկի արածների համար վրէժ եմ լուծելու։ Նա փակեց իսրայէլացիների ճանապարհը, երբ նրանք Եգիպտոսից դուրս էին գալիս։ 3Արդ, գնա՛ եւ կոտորի՛ր ամաղէկացիներին ու յարիմացիներին եւ ոչնչացրո՛ւ այն ամէնը, ինչ նրանց է պատկանում։ Նրանցից ոչ ոք չպէտք է փրկուի։ Կը կոտորես նրանց ու կ՚ոչնչացնես բոլորին՝ տղամարդ լինի թէ կին, երեխայ լինի թէ կաթնակեր մանուկ, արջառ ու ոչխար, ուղտ ու աւանակ»

։ Edited January 6, 2009 by Arpa

[Aratta-Kingdom]

 

 

Despite the fact they hold elections in Israel, just like in Iran, the religious leaders have the final say in everthing. Israel is not a secular country, and the religious leaders don't tolerate the non jews.

 

"Every Jew who spills the blood of the godless, is doing the same as making a sacrifice to God." Talmud: Bammidber Raba c21 & Jalkut 772.

 

Women, children, elderly, what difference does it make? In the eyes of the Talmudists, all non-Jews are godless and are seen as animals.

[MosJan]

it can be a start of something much bigger

 

Astavts Charastse

[ED]

patahakan e te tsrragrvats?

 

I;m sick and tired of these chosen ones, "above and beyond everyone" most UN resolution raped nation is israel when UN was the body who granted them homeland,

 

man, chilndren and women are being bombarded as I type, its a ranigate country armed with nuclear wepons and acording to them if they go down they will take the world with them.

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

ED: patahakan e te tsrragrvats?

 

In politics, nothing happens by accident. What's worse is, they try to deprive people from knowing the truth.

 

 

 

Int'l Red Cross Decries Gaza Humanitarian Crisis

 

 

http://voanews.com/english/2009-01-06-voa37.cfm

 

 

 

 

By Lisa Schlein

Geneva

06 January 2009

 

 

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Gaza is suffering what it calls a full-blown humanitarian crisis. It said the death toll and number of injured is rising, the infrastructure of the Palestinian territory is shattered and civilians lack essential supplies.

 

The International Committee of the Red Cross said up to 600 people have been killed and about 3,000 injured since Israel began its military offensive in Gaza.

 

The Head of ICRC Operations, Pierre Kraehenbuehl, called it a full blown humanitarian crisis. He said the situation for civilians has become intolerable.

 

"The main message coming out of Gaza this morning is one of fear and frustration. People are scared, parents for the safety of their children and the population at large being caught up in fighting. This past night was described to us over the phone this morning as being the most frightening of all to date," he said.

 

The ICRC said people are trapped and unable to flee to areas of safety. The Swiss humanitarian organization is appealing to Israel and Hamas fighters to refrain from targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. It said it is critical that civilians are kept out of the line of fire.

 

Kraehenbuehl said a distinction must be made between civilians and combatants. He said direct and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, such as homes, hospitals and water-power supplies, are prohibited under international humanitarian law.

 

He said the Red Cross is gravely concerned by the growing number of civilian deaths and injuries. He said the growing number of civilian infrastructure that is being damaged and destroyed, including hospitals, also is alarming.

 

"In every situation of armed conflict, the issue of access to medical care is a crucial one. In Gaza, this access has been worsening by the day. Many people in Gaza currently do not get the emergency medical care that they need. Some are even dying because ambulances cannot reach them in time, which is frankly appalling," he said.

 

Kraehenbuehl said the Israeli authorities are allowing the Red Cross to bring medical supplies, including blood, into Gaza. He said the agency also has brought in tetanus vaccines, which are potentially life saving for wounded patients.

 

He said a team of Red Cross war surgeons has been allowed to enter Gaza to assist doctors treating the wounded at the main Shifa hospital.

[Aratta-Kingdom]

 

Venezuela expels Israel envoy over Gaza attacks

 

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/middleeastC...s/idUSN06444577

 

 

CARACAS, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Venezuela expelled the ambassador to Israel on Tuesday in protest over the offensive in Gaza only hours after leftist President Hugo Chavez called the attacks a Palestinian "holocaust."

 

The socialist Chavez, a harsh critic of Israel and the United States, in recent years has frequently withdrawn Venezuela's diplomatic envoys amid bilateral disputes and last year kicked out the U.S. ambassador over a conflict involving allied Bolivia.

 

The OPEC nation's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Israel's campaign constituted "flagrant violations of International Law" and the use of "state terrorism."

 

"For the reasons mentioned above, the government of Venezuela has decided to expel the Ambassador of Israel and part of the personnel of the Embassy of Israel," the statement said.

 

The Israeli embassy did not respond to phone calls requesting comment.

 

Chavez in 2006 threatened to break ties with Israel over its military campaign in Lebanon in a war of words that led both nations to withdraw their envoys.

 

On Monday he accused Washington of poisoning the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to destabilize the Middle East and justify U.S.-backed Israeli incursions into Arab countries.

 

Israel is under international pressure to reach a ceasefire with Hamas militants and halt an offensive that has killed nearly 600 Palestinians, including more than 40 in a U.N. school sheltering civilians.

 

"The Holocaust, that is what is happening right now in Gaza," Chavez said in televised comments earlier on Tuesday.

 

"The president of Israel at this moment should be taken to the International Criminal Court together with the President of the United States."

 

The United States, which Chavez describes as a decadent empire, firmly backs Israel -- its principal ally in the region.

[Aratta-Kingdom]

 

 

Witnesses: Resumed airstrikes on Gaza kill 3 children

 

 

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/...nt_10620858.htm

 

 

GAZA, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian medical sources said that right after the three-hour ceasefire was over on Wednesday afternoon, Israeli warplanes struck three different targets in northern and central Gaza Strip, adding that three children were killed.

 

Residents in eastern Jabalia refugee camp said that an Israeli tank fired a shell at a house, where three children from the Abed Rabbo family were killed, adding they are aged 2, 4 and 6 years old.

 

Witnesses said after a short unilateral ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, Israeli warplanes and tanks resumed airstrikes and shelling targets, which Israel says belong to Hamas movement, all-over Gaza Strip.

 

They told local radio stations that even during the alleged three-hour unilateral Israeli ceasefire, Israeli warplanes and tanks hit several targets in northern and southern Gaza Strip.

 

Israel has earlier announced that it would stop air and ground offensives on the Gaza Strip for three hours to enable the residents to store food, water and medicines. However, citizens said that Israel kept firing at Gaza targets.

 

Meanwhile, during the short calm that dominated the Gaza Strip, an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) crew managed to take the bodies of two Palestinians from al-Samouni family.

 

An Israeli airstrike on the family's house in Zeitoon neighborhood on Monday killed seven members of the family, said the residents, adding that dozens were alive under the rubbles and were taken to the hospitals.

 

Medical sources said that the death toll since the beginning of the Israeli military air and ground offensives on the Gaza Strip in Dec. 27, is around 700 and 3000 were injured.

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

 

 

 

Fresh airstrike on Gaza car kills four people: paramedics

 

 

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/...nt_10620871.htm

 

 

GAZA, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Israeli warplanes struck with a missile on Wednesday evening a car that drove near the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia, leaving four people killed, paramedics and witnesses said.

 

The medics said that four dead Palestinians were brought to Kamal Odwan Hospital in Jabalia in northern Gaza Strip after their car was struck by an air-to-ground missile.

 

The death toll of Palestinians killed over the past 12 days of Israeli air and ground offensives has hit to more than 700 people killed and 3,000 wounded.

 

Israel has for the first time unilaterally ceased fire in the Gaza Strip to allow residents to get their needs of food and medicine, where Palestinians said in spite of the ceasefire, Israel hasn't stopped striking on the enclave.

 

Hamas movement has also said in a statement sent to reporters cellular phones that the Israeli unilateral three-hour ceasefire "was to cover its crimes and its aggression on the Palestinian people."

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

 

 

Arab television stations accused of fuelling Gaza crisis

 

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...aza-crisis.html

 

 

 

Viewers in the Arab world have been witnessing non-stop coverage of the conflict on satellite networks such as Al-Jazeera which show footage considered too graphic for broadcast in the UK.

 

While the Western media reported from outside Gaza, Arab television crews have been inside and many of the correspondents are themselves Gazans.

 

The grizzly images they have captured on film include mangled corpses, pools of blood in the streets and dead children held up for the camera by their grieving parents.

 

The images have been broadcast, often apparently uncensored, into the homes of millions of people across the region.

 

Al-Jazeera repeatedly showed an image of two dead children at a morgue as newsreaders read the hourly bulletin and interviewed guests.

 

Hamas has also given the station its own video footage of explosions and what appeared to be film of a sniper shooting an Israeli soldier in a tank.

 

Al-Jazeera, the most watched news channel in the Middle East, has long defended its objectivity and carries out interviews with Israeli spokespeople as part of its coverage of the crisis.

 

Many people in the Middle East watch it to get independent news they might not otherwise receive from channels influenced by national governments.

 

But Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Ofir Gendelman said: "They don't differentiate between citizens and militants. They disregard the fact that Hamas has been bombarding Israel with thousands of rockets in the last few years."

 

The Palestinian Authority's own television station has been broadcasting footage of Israeli bombs landing in Gaza, while Hamas's station has been showing interviews with people pulled from wreckage.

 

Israel has interrupted broadcasts from Hamas's television and radio stations on several occasions during the offensive.

 

Thousands of gruesome images from Gaza have also been circulated around the Arab world on the internet.

 

Israel responded by posting footage of its air strikes on YouTube to show that they were properly targeted.

 

Israeli Army spokeswoman Avital Leibovitch said: "The new media and the blogosphere form a whole new battlefield in the war for world opinion. It is vital Israel fights on this front as well."

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

 

 

Why Israel is no better than the African wife-beater

 

 

 

http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/-/440...806/-/426syd/-/

 

 

Watching the might of the Israeli army pounding hapless Gaza into the Stone Age in retaliation for the radical Hamas group’s rocket attacks on civilians inside Israel, reminded me of the contradictions of life in the village donkey’s years ago.

 

When we were little, whenever we visited our grandparents, we were struck by how widespread and public wife-beating in the village was. A “real man” in Africa was the one who put his woman in her place with a jolly good whacking whenever she “stepped out of line”.

 

Something puzzled us, though. Some of the wives seemed fearless, because sometimes they would publicly provoke and goad their husbands into a temper. The sight of someone “looking for a beating” was incomprehensible to us.

 

When we grew older and wiser in the ways of the world, it all made sense. For while wife-beating was tolerated as a legitimate tool for disciplining an errant spouse, at the same time, there was no man more despised than a wife-beater.

 

At the beer pot, a man who was dismissed as a “weakling who can only beat his poor wife” would be so humiliated, he would have to walk away.

 

We understood that, in a bizarre way, in societies where women were powerless, provoking men into beating them was a strategy. They suffered, but the husband lost more by having his standing in society diminish, because he was seen as a bully who preyed on the weak.

 

In this way, the women could be “helpless” victims of domestic abuse, provocateurs, and heroic casualties of war all wrapped in one.

 

Which brings us back to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. My own view of Israel is a messy bundle of mixed feelings. When I was much younger, I was pro-Israel. Then I grew older, more knowledgeable, and became an idealist, hoping to make a small contribution to save the world. Then what Israel was doing to the Palestinians became unpalatable.

 

The genocide by the Nazis in which more than six million Jews were killed, remains one of the most difficult bouts of hate and murderousness to come to terms with. It therefore hasn’t been easy to be critical of Israel, a State founded partly to give Jews a sanctuary in which they could defend themselves.

 

So here we are, after 12 days of air strikes and a ground offensive, Israel has killed more than 600 Palestinians in the Gaza, many of them women, and children blown up while they were in their school building. On the Israel side, Hamas’ rockets have killed five people.

 

Hamas is just one of many radical Palestinian organisations. That Israel needed to lay siege to Gaza for 18 months and starve its population into submission, and now deploy its vast army to deal with this threat, is actually a failure. It is a war that, in the end, Israel cannot win.

 

Many supporters of Israel partly side with it because radical groups in the Middle East are determined to wipe it off the face of the Earth. That would mean a repeat of the Nazi-type genocide against Jews, and that is unacceptable.

 

Hamas probably understands that, and its success has been in provoking Israel to act with disproportionate and raging vengefulness. Over the years, Israel’s treatment of Palestinians has sometimes had uncanny parallels with the Nazi’s treatment of Jews.

 

The result is that Israel is close to establishing some kind of equivalence of evil, in which its excesses against Palestinians assume the level of abomination of that of the Nazis against Jews.

 

Israel’s right to exist is based on a powerful moral imperative that derives, in large part, from the Holocaust. If it loses that through its severity against the Palestinians, it loses the argument about its existence. If that happens, even if it had the strongest army in the world, it would no longer be able to defend something that no longer exists.

 

Increasingly, there are many thoughtful Jews to whom Israel’s militarism has become unbearable. Writing in the Christian Science Monitor a few days ago, Sara Roy, a senior research scholar at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, and the author, of Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, said: “In nearly 25 years of involvement with Gaza and Palestinians, I have not had to confront the horrific image of burned children — until today”, she wrote.

 

“Why have we been unable to accept the fundamental humanity of Palestinians and include them within our moral boundaries?… Ultimately, our goal is to tribalise pain, narrowing the scope of human suffering to ourselves alone.

 

“Our rejection of “the other” will undo us. Israel’s victories are pyrrhic and reveal the limits of Israeli power and our own limitations as a people: our inability to live a life without barriers… As Jews in a post-Holocaust world empowered by a Jewish state, how do we as a people emerge from atrocity and abjection, empowered and also humane?”

 

[DominO123]

That's a great article.

 

Why Israel is no better than the African wife-beater

 

 

 

http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/-/440...806/-/426syd/-/

 

 

Watching the might of the Israeli army pounding hapless Gaza into the Stone Age in retaliation for the radical Hamas group’s rocket attacks on civilians inside Israel, reminded me of the contradictions of life in the village donkey’s years ago.

 

When we were little, whenever we visited our grandparents, we were struck by how widespread and public wife-beating in the village was. A “real man” in Africa was the one who put his woman in her place with a jolly good whacking whenever she “stepped out of line”.

 

Something puzzled us, though. Some of the wives seemed fearless, because sometimes they would publicly provoke and goad their husbands into a temper. The sight of someone “looking for a beating” was incomprehensible to us.

 

When we grew older and wiser in the ways of the world, it all made sense. For while wife-beating was tolerated as a legitimate tool for disciplining an errant spouse, at the same time, there was no man more despised than a wife-beater.

 

At the beer pot, a man who was dismissed as a “weakling who can only beat his poor wife” would be so humiliated, he would have to walk away.

 

We understood that, in a bizarre way, in societies where women were powerless, provoking men into beating them was a strategy. They suffered, but the husband lost more by having his standing in society diminish, because he was seen as a bully who preyed on the weak.

 

In this way, the women could be “helpless” victims of domestic abuse, provocateurs, and heroic casualties of war all wrapped in one.

 

Which brings us back to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. My own view of Israel is a messy bundle of mixed feelings. When I was much younger, I was pro-Israel. Then I grew older, more knowledgeable, and became an idealist, hoping to make a small contribution to save the world. Then what Israel was doing to the Palestinians became unpalatable.

 

The genocide by the Nazis in which more than six million Jews were killed, remains one of the most difficult bouts of hate and murderousness to come to terms with. It therefore hasn’t been easy to be critical of Israel, a State founded partly to give Jews a sanctuary in which they could defend themselves.

 

So here we are, after 12 days of air strikes and a ground offensive, Israel has killed more than 600 Palestinians in the Gaza, many of them women, and children blown up while they were in their school building. On the Israel side, Hamas’ rockets have killed five people.

 

Hamas is just one of many radical Palestinian organisations. That Israel needed to lay siege to Gaza for 18 months and starve its population into submission, and now deploy its vast army to deal with this threat, is actually a failure. It is a war that, in the end, Israel cannot win.

 

Many supporters of Israel partly side with it because radical groups in the Middle East are determined to wipe it off the face of the Earth. That would mean a repeat of the Nazi-type genocide against Jews, and that is unacceptable.

 

Hamas probably understands that, and its success has been in provoking Israel to act with disproportionate and raging vengefulness. Over the years, Israel’s treatment of Palestinians has sometimes had uncanny parallels with the Nazi’s treatment of Jews.

 

The result is that Israel is close to establishing some kind of equivalence of evil, in which its excesses against Palestinians assume the level of abomination of that of the Nazis against Jews.

 

Israel’s right to exist is based on a powerful moral imperative that derives, in large part, from the Holocaust. If it loses that through its severity against the Palestinians, it loses the argument about its existence. If that happens, even if it had the strongest army in the world, it would no longer be able to defend something that no longer exists.

 

Increasingly, there are many thoughtful Jews to whom Israel’s militarism has become unbearable. Writing in the Christian Science Monitor a few days ago, Sara Roy, a senior research scholar at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, and the author, of Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, said: “In nearly 25 years of involvement with Gaza and Palestinians, I have not had to confront the horrific image of burned children — until today”, she wrote.

 

“Why have we been unable to accept the fundamental humanity of Palestinians and include them within our moral boundaries?… Ultimately, our goal is to tribalise pain, narrowing the scope of human suffering to ourselves alone.

 

“Our rejection of “the other” will undo us. Israel’s victories are pyrrhic and reveal the limits of Israeli power and our own limitations as a people: our inability to live a life without barriers… As Jews in a post-Holocaust world empowered by a Jewish state, how do we as a people emerge from atrocity and abjection, empowered and also humane?”

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

ISRAEL'S ALLIANCE WITH TURKEY IS A TRAP

 

theTrumpet.com

http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=5855.4215.0.0

Jan 14 2009

OK

 

The Gaza war has shown that Turkey is no friend. Will Israel realize

it?

 

Joel Hilliker Among the many truths the war in Gaza has exposed,

here is one: Israel's alliance with Turkey is a trap.

 

Israel inked a mutual defense agreement with Turkey in 1996. Among

its benefits, the deal linked the two countries' militaries in joint

training, provided Israeli arms to Turkey ($2 billion worth as of 2007)

and granted Israel's air force overflight privileges.

 

Far more, the deal gave Israel a much-needed, highly respected ally

in a neighborhood full of enemies. Those itching to pick a fight

with Israel simply haven't been eager to contend with Turkey's

million-man army, the second-largest force in nato after the United

States. This reality helped stabilize the volatile Middle East for

years. The Islamic Affairs Analyst went so far as to say that Israel's

foes--mostly notably Iran--respected Turkey enough that the Jewish

state's survival was all but assured as long as the pact held up.

 

But there's the rub. Just a glance at events in the past couple of

years shows that this deterrent effect has weakened. Israel's enemies

have started to turn loose.

 

Not coincidentally, over that same period, Turkey has shifted from

being a hedge against those enemies to actually supporting them. This

is a grave loss for Israel.

 

Nothing makes this clearer than does the Gaza conflict.

 

There is a clarion warning in recent events about what to expect from

Turkey in the future, if only the Jews would heed it.

 

"We will kill you"--thus read a sign posted on one of the largest

synagogues in the Turkish city of Izmir. Public graffiti screams

messages like "Kill Jews" and "Israel should no longer exist in

the Middle East." Large, angry protests fill the streets of cities

across the country, including a rally last Sunday of 200,000 in

Istanbul square. Near Istanbul University, a Jewish shop owner found

a sign on his door warning customers not to patronize the place,

"since this shop is owned by a Jew"; other posters went up saying,

"Jews and Armenians are not allowed but dogs are allowed."

 

As Israeli forces pound Gaza, this is how the people of Turkey are

responding.

 

"There haven't been such widespread and spontaneous anti-Israel

sentiments before," says columnist Sami Kohen of the Turkish daily

Milliyet. "It's not just the Islamic circles. It's also the secularists

and the nationalists. The protests have been representative of the

whole of Turkish society. I don't remember seeing such a public

reaction on any other issue before."

 

Can Israel afford to ignore such realities?

 

After years of walking a line in allying with the West, Turkey is

increasingly embracing its Muslim identity. An early sign of just

how much came in 2006, when Hamas won Palestinian elections. Where

most of the world turned its back on the terrorist group, Turkey

not only recognized it as a legitimate government, it accepted

a Hamas delegation in Ankara led by the group's leader in exile,

Khaled Mashaal.

 

In the summer of 2007, the Turks elected a former Islamist, Abdullah

Gul, as their president. Under Gul's leadership, Turkey became

one of the few governments in the Middle East to recognize Hamas's

administration when it seized the Gaza Strip. Later that year, Turkey

became an almost lone voice protesting Israel's attack on a Syrian

nuclear facility. And in 2008, the Gul government hosted Iranian

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Istanbul and established political

and economic ties with Tehran.

 

Remarkably, none of this alarming behavior raised much concern within

the Israeli government. When Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided he

wanted to secretly pursue a peace deal with Syria last year, he used

Turkey as the mediator, as if Turkey's respect for Israel's interests

had remained just as it was in 1996.

 

Olmert's blind pursuit of a peace pact with an avowed enemy of

Israel--Syria--drawing on the help of a country that is supporting

and cooperating with more avowed enemies--Hamas and Iran--is deeply

revealing, and prophetically relevant.

 

The entire peace process, actively pursued since Oslo in 1993, is

predicated on Israel's wish, unfounded in reality, that its enemies

sincerely want peace. This tendency to invest faith in sources

that warrant no faith is a grievous wound in Israel's national

character. As devastating as it has been for Israel to this point,

it will yet prove to be far more so.

 

If the Israeli government still felt it could trust Turkey, that

nation's response to Israel's counterattack on Hamas should have

corrected the misconception. Despite its supposedly being the Jews'

strongest ally in the region, Turkey's reaction--not just in the

street but also by the government--was on par with Iran's.

 

"What Israel has done is nothing but atrocity," President Gul

said. "Allah will sooner or later punish those who transgress the

rights of innocents," said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, amid

volley after volley of reproach. Of Olmert, with whom he had been

working on the Syria peace deal, he said, "He betrayed me and harmed

the honor of Turkey." To Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni,

he said, "History will judge you with what you have done as having

painted a black stain on the history of humanity."

 

The prime minister has been speaking with leaders all over the Middle

East and Europe pushing for an end to the fighting--and 100 percent

of his demands fall on Israel. In Ankara's view, Israel bears all

the blame for the Gaza war. "Hamas abided by the truce. But Israel

failed to lift embargoes," Erdogan said--a ridiculous lie. He has

refused to take calls from Olmert unless Israel stops the war. When

Livni offered to visit Ankara, the official response she received was,

"If she doesn't want to talk about a ceasefire, she shouldn't come."

 

Meanwhile, Turkey is more than happy to meet with Hamas and its

terrorist sponsors. The president and prime minister met with Iranian

envoy Saeed Jalili a week ago. Turkish and Hamas officials, including

Khaled Mashaal, have directly met in Damascus at least twice since the

start of the Gaza war. Having just joined the UN Security Council as

a non-permanent member, Turkey has pledged to be Hamas's mouthpiece in

the United Nations. "Hamas officials have full confidence in Turkey,"

Erdogan said on Al Jazeera television last Sunday. This week Turkey

called on the UN to impose sanctions on Israel.

 

Hold these actions up against what I wrote last week: the fact that

many Arab leaders are siding more with Israel than with Hamas. They are

more concerned about Iran's ascendancy than they are about angering

their own people by failing to condemn Israel. By stunning contrast,

Turkish leaders clearly feel they have more to gain from attacking

Israel than they have to lose in allowing Iran a victory in Gaza.

 

This is no friend of Israel! That is the patent truth.

 

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Olmert's office has dismissed questions

about whether the Turkish-Israeli alliance is fracturing. "Our

relations won't be hurt," his staff have said, "they will remain

strategic." They explain that the leaders are simply posturing for

the people in order to position themselves for coming elections.

 

Even if that were true--and it's almost laughable to assume

so--shouldn't the fact that the Turks hate Israel and that their

leaders must denounce the Jews in order to retain popular legitimacy

be of supreme concern to Israel regarding the value of this alliance?

 

What is it about Israel that causes it to brush aside such reality? To

continue searching for and believing and seeing only good intentions

in its most stubborn enemies? Under circumstances such as Israel is

in today, this is no virtue. It contains the seeds of the death of

the state!

 

Israel's ambassador to Turkey, Gaby Levy, requested an urgent

appointment with Prime Minister Erdogan last week. He was

rebuffed--told that a meeting was impossible as long as attacks

on Gaza continued. So what did Israel do? Ehud Olmert asked German

Chancellor Angela Merkel and Middle East envoy Tony Blair to mediate

between Israel and Turkey!

 

That's right: Israel asked Germany for help to try to preserve an

alliance with a country actively working with Israel's enemies against

Israel's interests.

 

The problem with Turkey is not simply a matter of Turkish leaders

needing to appear to snub Israel in order to appease their people. The

problem is far deeper and is ignored at Israel's peril.

 

And Israel's problem is not a lack of enough mediation and diplomacy!

 

Israel's problem is that it continues to seek help from nations that

do not have its interests at heart.

 

If Israel would look honestly at the situation, it would recognize

that about Turkey.

 

And it would also recognize it about Germany.

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

 

 

Robert Fisk's World: When it comes to Gaza, leave the Second World War

out of it

 

How do Holocaust survivors in Israel feel about being called Nazis?

 

 

 

 

Saturday, 17 January 2009

Independent.co.uk Web

 

Exaggeration always gets my goat. I started to hate it back in the

1970s when the Provisional IRA claimed that Long Kesh internment camp

was "worse than Belsen". It wasn't as if there was anything nice about

Long Kesh ` or the Maze prison as it was later politely dubbed ` but it

simply wasn't as bad as Belsen. And now we're off again. Passing

through Paris this week, I found pro-Palestinian demonstrators carrying

signs which read "Gaza, it's Guernica" and "Gaza-sur-Glane".

 

 

Guernica, as we all know, was the Basque city razed by the Luftwaffe in

1937 and Oradour-sur-Glane the French village whose occupants were

murdered by the SS in 1944. Israel's savagery in Gaza has also been

compared to a "genocide" and ` of course ` a "holocaust". The French

Union of Islamic Organisations called it "a genocide without precedent"

` which does take the biscuit when even the Pope's "minister for peace

and justice" has compared Gaza to "a big concentration camp".

 

Before I state the obvious, I only wish the French Union of Islamic

Organisations would call the Armenian genocide a genocide ` it doesn't

have the courage to do so, does it, because that would be offensive to

the Turks and, well, the million and a half Armenians massacred in 1915

happened to be, er, Christians.

 

Mind you, that didn't stop George Bush from dropping the word from his

vocabulary lest he, too, should offend the Turkish generals whose

airbases America needs for its continuing campaign in Iraq. And even

Israel doesn't use the word "genocide" about the Armenians lest it

loses its only Muslim ally in the Middle East. Strange, isn't it? When

there's a real genocide ` of Armenians ` we don't like to use the word.

But when there is no genocide, everyone wants to get in on the act.

 

Yes, I know what all these people are trying to do: make a direct

connection between Israel and Hitler's Germany. And in several radio

interviews this past week, I've heard a good deal of condemnation about

such comparisons. How do Holocaust survivors in Israel feel about being

called Nazis? How can anyone compare the Israeli army to the Wehrmacht?

Merely to make such a parallel is an act of anti-Semitism.

 

Having come under fire from the Israeli army on many occasions, I'm not

sure that's necessarily true. I've never understood why strafing the

roads of northern France in 1940 was a war crime while strafing the

roads of southern Lebanon is not a war crime. The massacre of up to

1,700 Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatila camps ` perpetrated by

Israel's Lebanese Phalangist allies while Israeli soldiers watched and

did nothing ` falls pretty much into the Second World War bracket.

Israel's own estimate of the dead ` a paltry 460 ` was only nine fewer

than the Nazi massacre at the Czech village of Lidice in 1942 when

almost 300 women and children were also sent to Ravensbrück (a real

concentration camp). Lidice was destroyed in revenge for the murder by

Allied agents of Reinhard Heydrich. The Palestinians were slaughtered

after Ariel Sharon told the world ` untruthfully ` that a Palestinian

had murdered the Lebanese Phalangist leader Bashir Gemayel.

 

Indeed, it was the courageous Professor Yeshayahu Leibovitz of the

Hebrew University (and editor of the Encyclopaedia Hebraica) who wrote

that the Sabra and Chatila massacre "was done by us. The Phalangists

are our mercenaries, exactly as the Ukrainians and the Croatians and

the Slovakians were the mercenaries of Hitler, who organised them as

soldiers to do the work for him. Even so have we organised the

assassins of Lebanon in order to murder the Palestinians". Remarks like

these were greeted by Israel's then minister of interior and religious

affairs, Yosef Burg, with the imperishable words: "Christians killed

Muslims ` how are the Jews guilty?"

 

I have long raged against any comparisons with the Second World War `

whether of the Arafat-is-Hitler variety once deployed by Menachem Begin

or of the anti-war-demonstrators-are-1930s-appeasers,

most recently

used by George Bush and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara. And pro-Palestinian

marchers should think twice before they start waffling about genocide

when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem once shook Hitler's hand and said `

in Berlin on 2 November 1943, to be precise ` "The Germans know how to

get rid of the Jews... They have definitely solved the Jewish problem."

The Grand Mufti, it need hardly be added, was a Palestinian. He lies

today in a shabby grave about two miles from my Beirut home.

 

No, the real reason why "Gaza-Genocide" is a dangerous parallel is

because it is not true. Gaza's one and a half million refugees are

treated outrageously enough, but they are not being herded into gas

chambers or forced on death marches. That the Israeli army is a rabble

is not in question ` though I was amused to read one of Newsweek's

regular correspondents calling it "splendid" last week ` but that does

not mean they are all war criminals. The issue, surely, is that war

crimes do appear to have been committed in Gaza. Firing at UN schools

is a criminal act. It breaks every International Red Cross protocol.

There is no excuse for the killing of so many women and children.

 

I should add that I had a sneaking sympathy for the Syrian foreign

minister who this week asked why a whole international tribunal has

been set up in the Hague to investigate the murder of one man `=2

0

Lebanese ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri ` while no such tribunal is set

up to investigate the deaths of more than 1,000 Palestinians.

 

I should add, however, that the Hague tribunal may well be pointing the

finger at Syria and I would still like to see a tribunal set up into

the Syrian massacre at Hama in 1982 when thousands of civilians were

shot at the hands of Rifaat al-Assad's special forces. The aforesaid

Rifaat, I should add, today lives safely within the European Union. And

how about a trial for the Israeli artillerymen who massacred 106

civilians ` more than half of them children ` at the UN base at Qana in

1996?

 

What this is really about is international law. It's about

accountability. It's about justice ` something the Palestinians have

never received ` and it's about bringing criminals to trial. Arab war

criminals, Israeli war criminals ` the whole lot. And don't say it

cannot be done. Wasn't that the message behind the Yugoslav tribunal?

Didn't some of the murderers get their just deserts? Just leave the

Second World War out of it.

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

PanARMENIAN.Net

 

Israel should be barred from UN, Erdogan says

16.01.2009 16:33 GMT+04:00

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkey's Prime Minister on Friday said Israel should

be barred from the United Nations while it ignores the body's calls to

stop fighting in Gaza.

 

"How is such a country, which totally ignores and does not implement

resolutions of the UN Security Council, allowed to enter through the

gates of the UN (headquarters)?" Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

 

Erdogan spoke before UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was due to

arrive in Ankara to discuss the conflict. Erdogan's comments reflected

a growing anger in Turkey, Israel's best friend in the Muslim world,

over Israel's Gaza operation. Ban is on a weeklong trip to the region

to promote a truce after both sides ignored a UN resolution demanding

an immediate cease-fire.

 

"The U.N. building in Gaza was hit while the UN secretary-general was

in Israel," Erdogan said. "This is an open challenge to the world,

teasing the world."

 

Israel infuriated the U.N. Thursday when it shelled the world body's

headquarters in Gaza City, where hundreds of Gazans were seeking cover

from the fighting among food and supplies meant for refugees. The

destruction added to what aid groups say is a humanitarian crisis in

Gaza and increased tensions between Israel and the international

community even as diplomats engaged in cease-fire talks, the AP

reports.

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

 

Robert Fisk’s World: How can anyone believe there is 'progress' in the Middle East?

 

A test of Obama’s gumption will come scarcely three months after his inauguration

 

 

If reporting is, as I suspect, a record of mankind's folly, then the end of 2008 is proving my point.

 

 

Let's kick off with the man who is not going to change the Middle East, Barack Obama, who last week, with infinite predictability, became Time's "person of the year". But buried in a long and immensely tedious interview inside the magazine, Obama devotes just one sentence to the Arab-Israeli conflict: "And seeing if we can build on some of the progress, at least in conversation, that's been made around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be a priority."

 

What is this man talking about? "Building on progress?" What progress? On the verge of another civil war between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, with Benjamin Netanyahu a contender for Israeli prime minister, with Israel's monstrous wall and its Jewish colonies still taking more Arab land, and Palestinians still firing rockets at Sderot, and Obama thinks there's "progress" to build on?

 

I suspect this nonsensical language comes from the mental mists of his future Secretary of State. "At least in conversation" is pure Hillary Clinton – its meaning totally eludes me – and the giveaway phrase about progress being made "around" the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is even weirder. Of course if Obama had talked about an end to Jewish settlement building on Arab land – the only actual "building" that is going on in the conflict – relations with Hamas as well as the Palestinian Authority, justice for both sides in the conflict, along with security for Palestinians as well as Israelis, then he might actually effect a little change.

 

An interesting test of Obama's gumption is going to come scarcely three months after his inauguration when he will have a little promise to honour. Yup, it's that dratted 24 April commemoration of the Armenian genocide when Armenians remember the 1.5 million of their countrymen – citizens of the Ottoman empire slaughtered by the Turks – on the anniversary of the day in 1915 when the first Armenian professors, artists and others were taken off to execution by the Ottoman authorities.

 

Bill Clinton promised Armenians he'd call it a "genocide" if they helped to elect him to office. George Bush did the same. So did Obama. The first two broke their word and resorted to "tragedy" rather than "genocide" once they'd got the votes, because they were frightened of all those bellowing Turkish generals, not to mention – in Bush's case – the US military supply routes through Turkey, the "roads and so on" as Robert Gates called them in one of history's more gripping ironies, these being the same "roads and so on" upon which the Armenians were sent on their death marches in 1915. And Mr Gates will be there to remind Obama of this. So I bet you – I absolutely bet on the family cat – that Obama is going to find that "genocide" is "tragedy" by 24 April.

 

By chance, I browsed through Turkish Airlines' in-flight magazine while cruising into Istanbul earlier this month and found an article on the historical Turkish region of Harput. "Asia's natural garden", "a popular holiday resort", the article calls Harput, "where churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary rise next to tombs of the ancestors of Mehmet the Conqueror".

 

Odd, all those churches, isn't it? And you have to shake your head to remember that Harput was the centre of the Christian Armenian genocide, the city from which Leslie Davis, the brave American consul in Harput, sent back his devastating eyewitness dispatches of the thousands of butchered Armenian men and women whose corpses he saw with his own eyes. But I guess that all would spoil the "natural garden" effect. It's a bit like inviting tourists to the Polish town of Oswiecim – without mentioning that its German name is Auschwitz.

 

But these days, we can all rewrite history. Take Nicolas Sarkozy, France's cuddliest ever president, who not only toadies up to Bashar al-Assad of Syria but is now buttering up the sick and awful Algerian head of state Abdelaziz Bouteflika who's just been "modifying" the Algerian constitution to give himself a third term in office.

 

There was no parliamentary debate, just a show of hands – 500 out of 529 – and what was Sarko's response? "Better Bouteflika than the Taliban!" I always thought the Taliban operated a bit more to the east – in Afghanistan, where Sarko's lads are busy fighting them – but you never can tell. Not least when exiled former Algerian army officers revealed that undercover soldiers as well as the Algerian Islamists (Sarko's "Taliban") were involved in the brutal village massacres of the 1990s.

 

Talking of "undercover", I was amazed to learn of the training system adopted by the Met lads who put Jean Charles de Menezes to death on the Tube. According to former police commander Brian Paddick, the Met's secret rules for "dealing" with suicide bombers were drawn up "with the help of Israeli experts". What? Who were these so-called "experts" advising British policemen how to shoot civilians on the streets of London? The same men who assassinate wanted Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and brazenly kill Palestinian civilians at the same time? The same people who outrageously talk about "targeted killings" when they murder their opponents? Were these the thugs who were advising Lady Cressida Dick and her boys?

 

Not that our brave peace envoy, Lord Blair, would have much to say about it. He's the man, remember, whose only proposed trip to Gaza was called off when yet more "Israeli experts" advised him that his life might be in danger. Anyway, he'd still rather be president of Europe, something Sarko wants to award him. That, I suppose, is why Blair wrote such a fawning article in the same issue of Time which made Obama "person" of the year. "There are times when Nicolas Sarkozy resembles a force of nature," Blair grovels. It's all first names, of course. "Nicolas has the hallmark of any true leader"; "Nicolas has adopted..."; "Nicolas recognises"; "Nicolas reaching out...". In all, 15 "Nicolases". Is that the price of the Euro presidency? Or will Blair now tell us he's going to be involved in those "conversations" with Obama to "build on some of the progress" in the Middle East?

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

 

Turkey may accuse Israel of Palestinian genocide

 

06.02.2009

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A Turkish prosecutor has launched an investigation into whether Israel committed genocide and crimes against humanity in its offensive in Gaza, his office said.

 

The investigation follows a complaint lodged by the Islamist-leaning human rights association Mazlum-Der against several Israeli officials, including President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Defence Minister Ehud Barak and army chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

 

"Every complaint merits an investigation," the spokesman said when asked whether a probe had been launched into Mazlum-Der's complaint.

 

Under Turkish law, prosecutors are obliged to look into all complaints to determine whether there are grounds to initiate a full-scale investigation that could lead to formal charges. If the prosecutor decides the complaint does not merit a case, it will be dismissed.

 

In its petition, Mazlum-Der accused Israel of carrying out "direct attacks on civilians with the aim of annihilating them" and employing internationally-banned weapons in the process.

 

"The suspects, who wanted to wipe out the Palestinian people through systematic attacks, have committed genocide and crimes against humanity," it said, demanding that the suspects be detained if they enter Turkey.

 

Turkish law allows for the trial of people accused of genocide or crimes against humanity even if the crimes were committed abroad, the AFP reports.

 

Israel’s 22-day offensive last month on Islamist Hamas-controlled Gaza left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead and injured 5,300 others. Thirteen Israelis were killed during the operation which was launched with the declared aim of stopping rocket attacks on southern Israel by Palestinian militants.

 

Turkey, one of the few Muslim allies of Israel, harshly criticized the Jewish State over the war in Gaza amid almost daily anti-Israel demonstrations across the country.

 

 

[Aratta-Kingdom]

 

 

 

War crimes accusations rattle Israel

 

 

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0204/p06s01-wome.html

 

 

In the wake of the Gaza war, Israel is preparing to defend itself and its soldiers against possible criminal charges in European courts that claim 'universal jurisdiction.'

 

 

Tel Aviv - Three-and-a-half years ago, Israeli reserve Gen. Doron Almog was forced to flee Britain just after landing in London. He had been tipped off about a surprise warrant for his arrest issued by a British magistrates court. The charge: war crimes.

 

Now, as the recent Gaza war stirs up more accusations of offenses, the Jewish state and international human rights advocates are gearing up for more potential criminal cases against military officers and political leaders in Europe and possibly elsewhere.

 

But instead of international tribunals or the Israeli justice system, the main venue for the cases is expected to be European domestic courts that cite a legal approach known as "universal jurisdiction" that allows for the trial of cases of heinous acts, torture, or war crimes that allegedly occur outside their own borders.

 

Israelis consider the threats part of an ongoing political witch hunt. Palestinians and humanitarian activists, on the other hand, see the domestic courts as the only forum to argue whether war crimes were committed.

 

"The systems in place across a number of countries will be tested.... We have legal teams working across and beyond European countries" on behalf of Palestinian plaintiffs claiming war crimes, says Daniel Machover, an Israeli-born British lawyer who works in coordination with the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights and pushed for Mr. Almog's arrest in 2005. "There's no other way a country under occupation or a land under occupation can seek justice."

 

Mr. Machover also helped bring before a Spanish national court the case of the Israeli assasination of a Hamas military chief in 2002.

 

That bombing allegedly killed more than a dozen civilians in a Gaza neighborhood.

 

Just last week, a Spanish judge announced an investigation, sparking tension between Israel and Spain, and spurring more speculation in Israel of war crimes efforts.

 

Dogged by a series of allegations ranging from targeting civilian locations to preventing the evacuation of noncombatants, Israel's government in recent weeks reaffirmed a commitment to offer legal defense to soldiers and politicians implicated in the cases. It has also decided to keep the identities of soldiers secret to protect as many as possible from prosecution.

 

According to Palestinian officials, more than 1,300 Gazans were killed and thousands wounded during the three-week Israeli offensive against Hamas last month. The number of noncombatants included in those figures is disputed. Only 13 Israelis were killed, most of them were soldiers.

 

In her debut address as the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice called on Israel to investigate the behavior of its military in the recent Gaza war and accused Hamas of its own violations for firing rockets at Israeli towns and working out of civilian areas.

 

An Israeli investigation is unlikely given the conviction by most Israelis that the Israel military did its best to limit injury to civilians. Israel and the US say Hamas has broken international law by shooting rockets at towns and cities and using Palestinian civilian areas as a base.

 

Ironically, Israel was one of the first countries to invoke the principle of universal jurisdiction when its court system asserted its right to try Nazi chief Adolf Eichmann for crimes against humanity and war crimes during World War II.

 

Neither Israel nor the Palestinians, however, are parties to the treaty that set up The Hague-based International Criminal Court, making it difficult to mount a war crimes trial in that venue. Instead, legal challenges to Israeli behavior have been made in domestic courts in Europe rather than international tribunals.

 

One Israeli legal expert dismissed the effort to try the war crimes abroad as an extension of a "media war" against the Jewish state for the Gaza operation. Daniel Reisner, the former head of the Israeli military's international division, says universal jurisdiction is being used to pursue allegations against Israel only and not Hamas.

 

"The danger to Israel now are those countries that have extra territorial jurisdiction that don't have a nationality requirement," says Mr. Reisner. "The question is whether that is a major danger or a minor danger."

 

A Belgian court considered in 2001 an indictment of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for his role in alleged massacres during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

 

But broad application of universal jurisdiction by third-party national courts without links to the alleged perpetrator or victims of the war crimes is a relatively recent development, and some European legal experts say it hasn't gained traction.

 

Belgian lawyer Michael Verhaeghe filed charges against Mr. Sharon – a legal effort that awakened Israelis to the threat of war crimes prosecution in local European courts. He finally convinced the Belgian Supreme Court to give his case jurisdiction and standing on a 1993 national statute, but the legislation was later revoked by the Belgian parliament.

 

The number of states in Europe and elsewhere that have the kind of universal jurisdiction needed to try war crimes by combatants of other wars in their own courts is in decline, he said. Still, Mr. Verhaeghe believes the Israeli soldiers, if they have committed war crimes, "can't consider themselves as untouchable and safe as before."

 

Neither of the cases ever went to trial.

 

On Jan. 29, however, a National Court of Spain judge ordered an investigation into Israeli actions in the 2002 bombing of Hamas operative Salah Shehadeh that killed 14 others, including nine children.

 

Israeli National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, who was defense minister at the time of the attack and was one of seven suspects named in the probe, said the court's decision was "outrageous."

 

"Terrorist organizations ... use the systems put in place by democratic states to sue a country fighting terrorism," he said.