via Lobe Log
The current Israeli onslaught against Gaza contains many echoes of the assault four years ago. In one regard, however, it is clear that Israel learned some lessons from its experience with “Operation Cast Lead” and is applying it to “Operation Pillar of Defense.” Those lessons are reflected in Israel’s use of [...]
via Lobe Log
The House of Representatives, the State Department, and various pro-Israel organizations in Washington have all issued statements expressing support for Israel’s recent actions in the Gaza Strip and reaffirmed Israel’s right to act in “self-defense.”
Indeed, Israel’s right to self-defense is important to remember and [...]
via Lobe Log
If current diplomacy fails, pent up rage on both sides, a cycle of tit-for tat-retaliation, Hamas’ hopes for greater Arab assistance, and a yearning to emerge from this latest round of heavy fighting on better footing than either side did from the last face-off in 2008-2009 could sustain Israeli-Hamas violence for quite a while. Without [...]
via Lobe Log
What a difference four years can make! Almost a week into Operation Pillar of Defense and the Israelis have yet to make the case for the necessity of continuing the attacks on Gaza in order to prevent Iran’s expansion of its influence in the region. No more President Shimon Peres [...]
via Lobe Log
It’s a most unwelcome feeling of déjà vu which must settle over any observer of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the US role in it. An escalation is seen in the woefully asymmetric exchange of fire between Israel and the Gaza Strip, Israel claims the escalation was entirely initiated by Hamas, when [...]
Mitchell Plitnick notes the recent release of a Wikileaks cable that sheds new light on the run-up to Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s Gaza offensive of 2008-9. I’ve written before about the breakdown of the truce (Tahdiya) between Israel and Hamas that had all but eliminated rocket attacks against Israel in the months leading [...]
On Monday, the Electronic Intifada (EI) website published a report on a speech that right-wing Middle East scholar Martin Kramer gave at Israel’s Herzliya security conference earlier this month. In the speech, Kramer called for a cut-off of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees, and endorsed Israel’s ongoing [...]
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The Goldstone Report and the Gaza Truce
In a recent interview [PDF] with the Middle East Monitor, Colonel (ret.) Desmond Travers of the Irish Army — best known as one of the members of the U.N. commission that produced the Goldstone report — attracted attention for his statement that “the number of rockets that had been fired into Israel in the [...]