Another faulty US trip to Israel

- Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal 

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During last six decades US emissaries that included presidents and foreign ministers (Secretary of state) have embarked upon regular visits to Israel ostensibly to find a reliable solution to the tricky Mideast issue wherein Israel calls all shorts endlessly and almost for ever. Firm about certain principles, President Obama has launched a new effort to finalize terms for fresh negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians through peaceful means and save the remaining Palestinians. The US hopes that the renewed impetus will lead to a meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York later this month.

President Obama rightly thinks a quick halt of illegal settlements in occupied Palestine by the Israel would usher in a new era of fruitful negotiations for a reliable resolution of the conflict. Fascist Israel on the other hand, considers the mushrooming of illegal settlements is essential for future preemptive invasions cum holocaust. The US Middle East envoy, who arrived in Israel on 12 Sept, Saturday, has been trying to secure a deal involving a halt to settlement building and Arab nations taking steps towards recognizing Israel. Mitchell has been discussing the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank - a key stumbling block. Mitchell said after talks in Jerusalem with President Shimon Peres next day that Washington shared in a "sense of urgency". He said: "It is our intention to conclude this phase of our discussions in the very near future. This will enable us to move on to the next and really the more important phase," he added. President Peres met Mitchell hours after being discharged from hospital a day after fainting on stage. Peres, 86, collapsed briefly while standing at a lectern answering questions in Tel Aviv. Mitchell also met Israel's foreign and defence ministers.

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Meanwhile, a UN report said both the Israeli army and Palestinian militants committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during fighting in January. The report called for fresh war crimes inquiries under international scrutiny. It said Israel's "Operation Cast Lead", launched in response to militant rocket fire, used disproportionate firepower against the densely populated Gaza Strip and disregarded the likelihood of civilian deaths. Israel fired cluster bombs and rockets without distinguishing between military targets and the civilian population. Israel did not co-operate with the commission and its members had to enter the Gaza Strip from the border, which is under Egyptian supervision.

Israel has strongly criticized a UN human rights report into alleged war crimes during the Gaza conflict. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said the report "was flawed from A-to-Z", the UN panel was "biased" and some of its findings "ludicrous". Regev said the panel was "born in sin" because "even the UN" considers the Human Rights Council which commissioned the report "to have a one-side anti-Israeli agenda". He had expected a clean chit from UN, but the truth has come out. He now casts doubt on the impartiality of the four-judge panel, led by South African Richard Goldstone, based on comments one of its members had made before the inquiry.

Israel has rejected the panel's recommendation that the UN Security Council should call on Israel to fully investigate possible violations by its forces, or face possible referral to the International Criminal Court. In the last six months, Israel claims, the investigations Israel has done into its troops' behavior in the Gaza Strip is 1,000 times more serious than this investigation. The Israeli military has conducted investigations into some claims of human rights violations that, obviously, have found no systematic wrongdoing. Some cases remain pending. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said a diplomatic offensive was being planned to block possible referral of Israeli commanders or officials to the ICC.

Goldstone urged "fair-minded people" to read the 574-page report and "at the end of it, point out where it failed to be objective or even-handed". Although several thousands of Palestinians have been killed in the special holocaust drive of the Zionist regime on the eve of their polls, Palestinians and human rights groups say more than 1,400 Gazans were killed in the violence between 27 December and 16 January, though Israel puts the figure at 1,166. Three Israeli civilians and 10 Israeli soldiers were also killed.  Hamas officials welcomed the Goldstone report. "The Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance were in a position of self-defence and not of attack," said senior Hamas official Ismail Haniya. "One cannot compare the simple capabilities of the resistance with the great strength of the occupation," he said.

Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. After the talks between Mubarak and Netanyahu in Cairo, the Egyptian president called on Israel "to stop all settlement activity, including 'natural growth' settlements," his spokesman said. Netanyahu said work still needs to be done to narrow differences before peace talks can resume. A statement from Netanyahu’s office said the men had "discussed the challenges facing the region and the need for all sides - Israel, the Palestinians, Arab states and the international community - to contribute their part to advancing the peace process".  Before flying to Cairo, Netanyahu said of the peace push: "There are things where there has been progress and things where there still has not been. "I hope we will be able to narrow the gaps and perhaps bridge them so we will be able to get peacemaking moving." He added it was not Israel that was "setting up obstacles" to talks.

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Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been suspended since December when fascist Israel attacked Palestine. As speculated before hand, US envoy George Mitchell's latest round of shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East, essentially Israel, has ended without agreement. Mitchell was hoping for a consensus before all sides attend the UN General Assembly in New York next week. Mitchell first met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem in a fresh attempt at getting a deal on Jewish settlement activity. He then went to the West Bank to speak with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Israel seems to have suggested that there may be a hiatus is settlement building in the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem, a little longer than previously offered. Israel says might agree to extend the freeze beyond six months - possibly nine months, but less than a year.

The US administration is seeking a moratorium on settlement building that would be acceptable to the Palestinian side. The White House has criticized the settlement decision of Israel. President Barack Obama has previously said he wants all settlement activity to stop. Israel, as a usual act of mischief, has indicated that it will be willing to consider a temporary halt to granting permission for further construction. Netanyahu had previously offered a temporary freeze, a slowdown in settlement construction, for several months, but not in East Jerusalem or in cases where homes have already been approved. He said there are 2,400 units being built, and their construction will continue.

Palestinian leader PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas insists he will not meet his Israeli counterparts until there is a freeze on new settlements in the West Bank. The settlement of occupied territory is illegal under international law but Israel just mocks at any law that stops its fascist and terror activities its neighborhoods last week said it had given permission for additional 455 new homes to be built. The move prompted Abbas to say that there was no point attending a summit with Netanyahu.

The Obama administration is zeroing in on fascist establishment in Tel-Aviv, ill-focused on innocent Palestinians. Both Abbas and Obama have been demanding a complete freeze on Israeli construction activity as the first step towards normalization and message should be clear to Israel as well.  German fascist ended decades back, but Israeli fascism has to meet similar fate. Earlier, the better, unless it changes for the better which seems to be doubtful. Israel still thinks all these American gimmicks would fade away sooner or later and fascist regime could resume genocides, destructions and expansion of illegal settlements in Palestine. A trip by US dignitary, therefore, is considered by the regime as a hint for further terror attacks on defenseless Palestinians. The usual practice of American leaders visiting Israel first before meeting the Palestinians in West bank has to be reformed quickly by asking the US Middle East envoy to visit Palestine directly so that the Obama message carries due weight in Tel Aviv, infested by mischievous, arrogant, fascist leaders.  

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Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal

Specialist on State Terrorism

Independent Researcher in International Affairs, the only Indian to have gone through entire India, a fraud and terror nation in South Asia.