Middle Eastern news

Israel 'may launch ground invasion into Gaza'

Israel may launch a ground invasion into Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated, after a weekend of escalating cross border violence.

The Telegraph,

11 November, 2012

By lunchtime on Sunday, more than 70 rockets and mortars had landed in Israel from Gaza within 24 hours, leaving six Palestinians killed and eight Israelis injured.

At a cabinet meeting on Sunday morning, Mr Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said: "The world needs to understand that Israel will not sit idly by in the face of attempts to attack us. We are prepared to intensify the response."

One unnamed senior Israeli government official, said: "A ground incursion is certainly not out of the question although we hope it won't come to that."

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) has confirmed that it is expecting, at the very least, instruction to intensify its campaign of air strikes on Hamas targets.

Commentators have pointed out similarities between this weekend's violence and the last incursion into Gaza in 2008, when Ehud Olmert was drawn into an operation three months before losing elections to Mr Netanyahu. Israel again goes to the polls next January.

This latest escalation in the intractable conflict between Israel and Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip began on Thursday when a booby-trapped tunnel dug by Palestinians underneath the border fence from Gaza into Israel exploded, injuring an Israeli soldier. The Israeli military believes Hamas had planned to use this tunnel for a kidnapping similar to that of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006 or to launch a terror attack inside Israel.

In a separate incident on the same day, a 12 year-old Palestinian boy playing football was killed by fire from an Israeli tank, having been caught in an exchange of fire with Palestinian militants.

In an act of retribution, an anti-tank missile fired from the northern Gaza Strip blew up an IDF jeep patrolling the border fence. Four Israeli soldiers were injured in the blast.

Israel responded by targeting several militant munition stores and rocket launch sites, while a funeral tent outside Gaza City was also hit, killing four Palestinian civilians including two teenage boys.

Violent exchanges consistently erupt along the Israel-Gaza border every few months but usually abate within days. In recent weeks, however, Hamas has shifted its focused to Israeli targets inside Israeli territory.

"Sometimes it looks as if they are trying to shake the status quo, pushing us to check our response. Every time, they push a little further," a senior Israeli military official said

"Several Israeli soldiers have now been badly injured. I don't think the government or the Israeli people are prepared to accept this."

The Hamas leadership in Gaza, meanwhile, has issued a unified called to arms.

"The occupation's targeting of civilians was a grave escalation that must not pass in silence. Resistance must be reinforced in order to block [Israeli] aggression," said Fawzi Barhoum, the party's spokesman.

Separately, Israeli troops fire warning shots into Syria on Sunday in response to mortar fire, the first Israeli fire directed at the Syrian military in the Golan Heights area since the 1973 war.

Israeli FM Threatens to Withhold PA Tax Revenue

The Palestinians backed down from last year's statehood bid once Israel blocked tax income to the PA

Anti-war,

11 November, 2012

Israel will withhold Palestinian tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority if President Mahmoud Abbas presses forward with a United Nations statehood bid, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz warned on Saturday.

As the occupying power in Palestine, Israel has control of tax revenues of the Palestinian Authority, and as punishment for seeking peaceful independence from that occupation, Steinitz said Israel would not collect taxes on the PA’s behalf, nor delivery any money to the PA, nor assist in economic matters.

Steinitz noted that the Palestinians backed down from a previous statehood bid at the UN last year right after Israel blocked the transfer of Palestinian tax funds to the PA.

Israel is desperate to block a peaceful, internationally observed Palestinian independence through the United Nations because it ruins Israeli plans to take over all of historic Palestine – the rest of the West Bank and Gaza.

US, Israel Cancel Mid East Talks on Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone

A NWFZ has been repeatedly proposed, only to have Israel, the region's only nuclear-armed state, reject it

Anti-war,

11 November, 2012

High-level talks between Israel and its Muslim neighbors regarding a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East have been canceled by the US and Israel.

A nuclear weapons-free zone has been repeatedly proposed, only to have Israel – the only state in the region with nuclear weapons – reject it in favor of maintaining this nuclear monopoly, further destabilizing the region, and keeping the threat of others’ nukes as a primary excuse for its militarism.

Diplomats tell the Associated Press that the US, one of the organizers of the meeting on this latest NWFZ proposal, would likely make a formal announcement of its cancelation soon, claiming that “the time was not opportune.”

While Iran is a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has publicly pledged its opposition to nuclear weapons development, has subjected itself to thorough international inspections, and in fact has exactly zero nuclear weapons, Israel has done none of the above and has approximately 200 nuclear warheads. Iran is being severely punished and threatened with attack, Israel is supported with unparalleled economic, military, and diplomatic support.

If Israel agreed to dismantling its vast stockpiles of nuclear weapons and to a deal enforcing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East – a deal Iran and Israel’s Arab neighbors have repeatedly proposed – the supposed threats Israel faces in the region would disappear.

But Israel refuses to give up its nuclear monopoly, insistent on maintaining its excuse to build up its military and distract from the Palestinian issue.

As former CIA Middle East analyst Paul Pillar has written, “the Iran issue” provides a “distraction” from international “attention to the Palestinians’ lack of popular sovereignty.”

To see what some members of the zionist government of Israel think look no futher than this.

Minister: Prepare for Large Scale Gaza Op

Min. Uzi Landau says it is time to hit the heads of Hamas and prepare a ground assault.

Arutz Sheva,

11 November, 2012

Minister of Water and Infrastructure, Uzi Landau (Yisrael Beytenu), said Sunday that the IDF needs to prepare a ground assault into Gaza, and to begin targeting the heads of Hamas.

"We must not just go after those firing at Israel, but the true sources of the fire," Landau said, and explained that he was referring to Hamas's leaders, who control Gaza.

Landau said that he is reminded now of the interview by Mahmoud Abbas ("Abu Mazen") last week that had leftist proponents of the Oslo Accords gloating. "The 'Osloids' who called him a partner received their answer in the form of missile fire from Gaza," he asserted.

"It is important to remember," he added, "that if our security forces were not operating in Judea and Samaria, the 'partner' would not have survived for one minute there. Can Abu Mazen even stop the fire there?"

"Unfortunately, the situation is such that besides hitting the heads of Hamas, we must prepare to operate in Gaza and launch a large scale operation in order to bring back quiet and security. The planning of the operation should begin today and it should be executed at the most appropriate time, when the fire begins again."