Infinite Unknown

From the interview:

“Well, I suspect the timing in this case was dictated by the Israeli election. It’s very popular in Israel to kill lots of Palestinians in Gaza. And Hamas is seen as a monster, and so a war against Hamas… it wins votes.”

­Charles W. (“Chas”) Freeman, Jr. (born 1943) is an American diplomat, politician and writer. His major political career began as the principal American interpreter for President Richard Nixon’s first visit to China in 1972. From 1989 to 1992 Freeman served as the US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, where he dealt with issues related to the Persian Gulf War. Then Freeman was appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense, International Security Affairs (1993-94). Later he became the president of the Middle East Council and other institutions. In February 2009, a leaked media report indicated Freeman might soon chair the National Intelligence Council in the Obama administration. This triggered a wave of criticism from prominent pro-Israel figures, and after several weeks, Freeman withdrew his name from consideration.

- ‘Killing Palestinians is popular in Israel around election time’ (RT, Dec 9, 2012):

Was Israel’s Pillar of Cloud self defense, or state terrorism? What is the Israeli lobby in the US, and what does the Arab lobby have to counter it with? To get some answers, RT sat down with former US Assistant Secretary of Defense Chas Freeman.

On November 14, Ahmed Jabari, Hamas’ military leader in Gaza Strip, was killed in an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) airstrike. It signaled the beginning of the IDF’s Operation Pillar of Cloud, which Tel Aviv said was aimed at halting indiscriminate rocket fire into Israeli territory from the strip.

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Tags: Chas Freeman, Gaza, Global News, Government, Hamas, Israel, Palestine, Palestinians, Politics, Society, U.S.

YouTube Added:21.11.2012

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Tags: Benjamin Netanyahu, Gaza, Gerald Celente, Global News, Government, Hamas, Iran, Israel, Jerusalem, Military, Palestine, Palestinians, Politics, Russia, Tel Aviv, U.S., War, WW III

- Leveling Gaza: Israel airstrikes to cost Gaza over $300 million – report (RT, Nov 25, 2012):

The eight-day Israeli assault on Gaza has resulted in $300 million in economic damage, a Palestinian Chamber of Commerce report concludes. The document also calls for the Gaza Strip to be recognized as an economic disaster area.

­The report covered damages to the agricultural, health and social sectors. The occupied territory’s agrarian segment suffered $120 million in damage. The eight-day halt to economic activities resulted in $40 million lost. The rest of the sum comes from destroyed buildings and infrastructure that was impaired by Israeli airstrikes, Xinhua reported.

To deal with the disastrous economic consequences of the raid, the report calls for a lift of Israeli restrictions on Gaza in accordance with the truce that ended the operation on Wednesday.

Besides economic damage, the Israeli response to Hamas’ rocket attacks killed 168 Palestinians, most them civilians.

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Tags: Economy, Gaza, Global News, Government, Hamas, Israel, Palestinians, Politics

The Israeli military launch a missile from the Iron Dome missile shield in the southern city of Beer Sheva into the Gaza Strip on November 15, 2012.

- Israel to test-fire new missile system after Iron Dome failure (PressTV, Nov 24, 2012):

The Israeli regime is set to test-fire a new missile shield developed by US company Raytheon after its Iron Dome missile system failed to intercept hundreds of rockets and missiles fired from Gaza.
Israel has turned to engineers from the American company to help the regime develop the next-generation missile shield called the Stunner.

According to Boston Globe newspaper, the new missile interceptor is scheduled to be test-fired in “Negev Desert in coming days.”

If the system proves viable, Tel Aviv will add the system to its missile shield, known as David’s Sling, which is designed to complement Iron Dome.

“They are working hard to get David’s Sling operational. The hope is it will be able to knock out a variety of targets,” said Theodore A. Postol, professor of science, technology, and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former adviser to the US Navy.

Israel developed the Iron Dome with a 200-million-dollar fund from the United States. The US plans to give Tel Aviv another $600 million for additional batteries and replacement missiles.

The US will also help finance the Stunner project if it proves viable. The Israeli firm Rafael has spent a total of $130 million over the past three years to complete the system. Continue reading »

Tags: Gaza, Government, Hamas, Iron Dome, Israel, Military, Missile Defense Systems, Missiles, Politics, Raytheon, Technology, War

- Russia Sends Warships To Gaza Coast (ZeroHedge, Nov 24, 2012):

For the entire 8 day duration of Operation Pillar of Defense, there was one major geopolitical player who had been largely quiet and certainly absent from the scene: the same player whose unflinching position over the Syria conflict has so far prevented any intervention in the civil war torn country: Russia. The same Russia which has a military base in the Syrian port city of Tarsus, and thus in its own eyes, a very substantial “national interest” role to play in the middle east, one that is certainly opposing that of the US and the pro-NATO forces, a tension that will surely boil to the surface now that war between Iran and Israel is always at most “hours away” depending on who is asked, and which one day will be more than just a war of words. Today, Russia decided that it had kept quiet for too long over the Gaza conflict, with Voice of Russia reporting, courtesy of Al Arabiya, that Russian warships anchored off the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea will be put on military alertness should the conflict in Gaza escalate and brought in proximity, according Russian Navy Command source on Friday.

Sure enough, there is a diplomatic reason for the escalation: evacuation preparedness. To wit: “The detachment of combat ships of the Black Sea Fleet, including the Guards missile cruiser Moskva, the patrol ship Smetliviy, large landing ships Novocherkassk and Saratov, the sea tug MB-304 and the big sea tanker Ivan Bubnov, got the order to remain in the designated area of the Eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea for a possible evacuation of Russian citizens from the area of the Gaza strip in case of escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict”, the spokesperson said. He added that ship crew members will continue routine combat training, maintenance of equipment and weapons along with other military services.

A missile cruiser, which just happens to be the flag ship of the Russian Black Sea naval fleet, and whose purpose is “to destroy hostile surface ships” in order to aid evacuation? Odd…

Naturally, only very naive people would buy this “explanation”, which does nothing to mitigate the factor that Russia, too, is now implicitly involved in the Gaza conflict. How soon until China sends a few of its own warships to the region. Just in case China nationals needs evaluation too.

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Tags: Gaza, Global News, Government, Hamas, Israel, Military, NATO, Palestinians, Politics, Russia, U.S., War

See also:

- Interview With John Pilger: Israel’s Gaza Rampage: It’s Not Just War

Gordon Duff is a Marine Vietnam veteran, a combat infantryman, and Senior Editor at Veterans Today. His career has included extensive experience in international banking along with such diverse areas as consulting on counter insurgency, defense technologies or acting as diplomatic representative for UN humanitarian and economic development efforts. Gordon Duff has traveled to over 80 nations. His articles are published around the world and translated into a number of languages. He is regularly on TV and radio, a popular and sometimes controversial guest.

- Darkness of Western media over Gaza (PressTV, Nov 24, 2012):

The fighting in Gaza, for now at least, is over. Both sides are claiming a victory, for the press. What escapes the media is truth and reality. If this were only incompetence and not complicity.

Some say the conflict started when Israel used military force in assassinating a top Hamas leader inside Gaza.

A more realistic view would also include this minor sub note, that Gaza has been bombed nearly continually. I was “live” (Skype) with Ken O’Keefe, not so long ago; when Israel bombed, what they claimed was a “rocket factory” in a residential neighborhood.

O’Keefe, a Veterans Today correspondent and US Marine, walked into the burning rubble, his camera operator filming it all. Before the ceiling collapsed, with me yelling at him to “get out of there, Ken,” he picked through what had actually been destroyed.

It was a pharmaceutical and medical supply warehouse. The debris made it clear, pill bottles, medicines, bandages, items Israel has typically considered the tools of terrorism.

These bombings had been nightly. Maybe they will stop for a while; if so, rockets will have bought the respite, not Israeli “good will.”

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Tags: Gaza, Global News, Government, Hamas, Israel, Military, Palestinians, Politics, U.S., War

- Interview With John Pilger: Israel’s Gaza Rampage: It’s Not Just War (CounterPunch, Nov 21, 2012):

by DENNIS BERNSTEIN

Dennis Bernstein:  Noted Documentary Filmmaker, John Pilger,  is somebody who knows a great deal about  the Gaza Strip, and about the extreme conditions Palestinians there have been forced to endure under a Brutal Israeli Occupation. Pilger has actually made two films about it with the same name, twenty-five years apart: “Palestine is Still the Issue.”  Pilger, a London based Australian journalist, is a widely respected, Emmy award winning documentarian. His articles regularly appear world-wide in newspapers such as the Guardian of London, the Independent, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times.

JP:  Thank you Dennis.

DB:  You know a great deal about the situation.  You’ve made not one film, Palestine is the Issue, but two.  Let me get your initial response to we’re continuing to hear reports of massive bombing and injury, and death to civilian life, to children.

JP:  Well, the first thing is the….we should be disgusted.  That is a normal, human response, to this.  And the second is that we ought not to be surprised, but we should understand this has nothing to do with Hamas, or rockets.  It is an ongoing assault on the Palestinian people.  And especially the people of Gaza, which began a very long time ago and the plan is to effectively get rid of them as an entity.   And I’m not exaggerating, it’s often difficult to reach back to the history in times like this, but it’s very important that we contextualize it.

The infamous Plan D that was executed in the late 1940s  just before Israel came into being was to expel the population of Palestine; to get rid of them.  And 369 villages were attacked, the people thrown out, the record is there.  Historical record is very clear, Israeli historians, Benny Morris through, have documented this, the Hebrew archives have thrown it up.

The sum of it is that we see a form of genocide under way in Palestine.   And this is the later stage.  And what your listeners should be in no doubt about is that although Israelis  are doing the bombing, it’s really the United States that is really pushing the buttons.  Because it’s only Israelis who are flying, the American planes.  Those are American planes supplied for this very exercise, and if you look at the response of President Obama you understand that this is, in effect, an American/Israeli assault on a people who live in effectively in an open prison.

The United Nations special reporter, Richard Falk has likened their situation to the Warsaw Ghetto.  When in Warsaw and Poland the Jewish Ghetto there rose up against the Nazis, who were crushed.  These days fascism is not a word easily used, nor should it be.  But we have as close to a fascist state in Israel, and those historic parallels that Faulk draws, actually to be correct.  So we’re seeing an historical process at work here, and it is up to the rest of the world to recognize that, and do something about it. Continue reading »

Tags: Barack Obama, Dictatorship, Fascism, Gaza, Genocide, Global News, Government, Hamas, Health, Israel, John Pilger, Journalism, Military, New World Order, Obama administration, Palestine, Palestinians, Politics, propaganda, Richard Falk, Society, Technology, U.S., War, Weapons

YouTube Added: 20.11.2012

See also:

- Veterans Today’s Gordon Duff: Darkness Of Western Media Over Gaza

- Interview With John Pilger: Israel’s Gaza Rampage: It’s Not Just War

Tags: Gaza, Global News, Government, Hamas, Israel, Military, Politics, Twitter

- The US-Israeli Attack on Gaza (Global Rearch, Nov 20, 2012):

The Western media in chorus has described the Israeli attack on Gaza as an ad hoc IDF-led counterterrorism operation, launched on the grounds of “self defense” in response to Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel.

While reports acknowledge that president Obama, in the wake of the November 6 elections, had granted a “Green Light” to Tel Aviv, the central issue does not pertain to Washington’s support but rather to the direct involvement of the US government and military in the planning and implementation of the attack on Gaza.

There is evidence that Operation “Pillar of Cloud” was implemented in close liaison with Washington in the context of the broader process of allied military planning. Senior US military officials were on location in Israel working with their IDF counterparts in the days leading up to the attack.

Operation “Pillar of Cloud” was launched on the 14th of November, exactly one week after the US presidential elections. It was slated to be launched irrespective of  the outcome of the US elections. The first action was the targeted assassination of the leader of Hamas’ military wing Ahmed Jabari. The operation has since evolved towards a generalized bombing campaign and ground invasion involving the announced deployment of some 75,000 Israeli troops.

US- Israeli War Games

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Tags: Barack Obama, Byron Dorgan, Ehud Barak, Global News, Government, Hamas, Israel, Leon Panetta, Michel Chossudovsky, Middle East, Military, Obama administration, U.S., War, War Crimes

- Iran confirms military aid to Hamas, sending long-range missile technology (RT, Nov 21, 2012):

Iran has supplied military assistance to Hamas in Gaza, including technology needed to build long-range Fajr-5 rockets used to target Tel Aviv, a military leader from the Islamic republic said.

“Gaza is under siege, so we cannot help them. The Fajr-5 missiles have not been shipped from Iran. Its technology has been transferred and (the missiles are) being produced quickly,” the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari was quoted as saying by the semiofficial ISNA news agency on Wednesday.

Israel has long accused Iran of supplying Hamas with its Fajr 5 missile, which has been used to target Tel Aviv and Jerusalem since the Israeli Defense Force’s (IDF) ongoing military operation in Gaza was launched one week ago.

Iranian lawmaker Ali Larijani said on Wednesday his country was “proud” to defend the people of Palestine and Hamas according to remarks published on the Islamic Republic’s parliamentary website.

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Tags: Fajr 5, Gaza, Global News, Government, Hamas, Iran, Israel, Military, Missiles, Politics, Technology