Kudos to the human rights groups, within Israel and outside, which focused the light of international public scrutiny on what Israel was attempting to do here.

Israel's legal advisor halts Gaza power cuts
Monday October 29, 2007

Israel's state prosecutor said Monday that planned punitive cuts in the electricity supply to the Gaza Strip cannot go ahead without taking full account of the possible humanitarian consequences.

(And, no doubt, the negative PR this would entail ...)

Menahem Mazouz said in a statement that "security chiefs must carry out supplementary examinations to take account of the humanitarian obligations before ordering electricity cuts."

A spokesman for Mazouz's office, Moshe Cohen, told AFP there was a need to "evaluate the risks that such measures could have on the civilian population."

Mazouz published his advice following close consultations with officials from the justice, defence and foreign ministries as well as the prime minister's office and the supreme court.

The supreme court has meanwhile given the government until Friday to justify the economic sanctions it is seeking to impose on the Palestinian territory, following legal action taken by 10 human rights groups.

Israel on Sunday began reducing the amount of fuel it supplies to the beleaguered Hamas-run coastal strip, just weeks after it declared the territory a "hostile entity" in response to frequent but rarely lethal rocket attacks.

(However, Israeli officials have since stated that this is not about the rockets - as defense analysts predict these measures would most likely increase their frequency - but about distancing Israel from Gaza's infrastructure. Considering Israel's long-held plans for a massive military assault on the Strip, this is most likely about softening up the region for reoccupation.)

Amid international criticism of the move as "collective punishment", it said it intended to impose electricity cuts within the next few days.

rawstory.com/news/afp/Israel_s_legal_advisor_halts_Gaza_p_10292007.html


One has to see the other side of this, and how Israel is playing the game.

if Gazan Palestinians retaliate in a big way, it gives Israel the excuse to launch a major military operation into Gaza, exterminating its people and claiming as their defense to the international community, "they MADE us do it!"

That would be exactly the scenario which many of the hard-liners in the current Israeli government would absolutely love to see happen.


'Gaza power cuts could lead to escalation'

Senior security source expresses fear that defense minister's decision to limit power supplies to Strip will boost terror organization's motivation to fire rockets.

'In the long run they will understand that Israel is not a partner,' another official says

Hanan Greenberg

Israel is entering a complex situation which could yield a large number of discouraging scenarios, including an escalation in the near future, security sources told Ynet on Thursday evening on the backdrop of Defense Minister Ehud Barak's decision to reduce power supplies to the Gaza Strip.

Defense establishment officials explained that in light of the increase in the number of Qassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip by the Hamas organization and other terror cells, Israel must weigh its options – launching a wide-scale operation or significantly reducing the Hamas-led government's dependency on Israel.

Palestinian Response

'Limiting Gaza power supply a crime' / Ali Waked
Defense minister's decision to reduce power supplies to Strip angers Palestinians. 'Decision is a severe escalation which may lead to a humanitarian crisis in the Strip,' says spokesman for Democratic Front for Liberation of Palestinian

"Choosing the second option raises difficult questions regarding the implementation," the sources admitted.

In terms of the transfer of goods into the Strip, the number of trucks arriving at the crossings will be limited in the near future. Israel will provide entry passes to only 70 trucks a day, as opposed to 120 today, and they will transfer mostly food and medications. All things considered unessential will remain outside.

How will it work?

The defense minister's decision does not only imply a reduction in the in the supplies transferred into Gaza, but also initiated electrical blackouts. The process will be implemented by the National Infrastructures Ministry following a request by the Defense Ministry.

"The electrical blackouts will usually be limited in time and in area, and are aimed at making it clear to the Palestinians that they should take care of themselves rather than depend on Israel," a defense establishment source explained.

About 70% of the power supplies to the Strip come from Israel, 25% are manufactured by the Palestinians, and the rest, about 5%, come from Egypt. Israel will not reduce the supplies of diesel fuel into Gaza, as it used by essential institutions such as hospitals.

The Gaza power stations will continue to receive fuel oil, but the supply of petrol used for domestic purposes will be limited.

"The Palestinian civilian will have to decide whether to drive his car four times a week or only three. This does not constitute humanitarian damage," a security source said.

In spite of various reports and implications, defense establishment officials insist that there is no "punishment scale" according to which power supplies will be cut in accordance to the number of rockets fired.

They admit, however, the Israeli move may increase the pressure on terror organizations to fire a larger number of Qassams and even use rockets with longer ranges.

"This could lead to a situation in which Israel will take harsher steps and cause a 'ping-pong' game between us and the Palestinians. In the long run, however, they will understand that Israel is not a partner and that in order to live their lives normally they must deal with what is happening there inside and not with firing rockets," a security source said.

"This disengagement bears a price for the Palestinians, an economic and social price. They will eventually have to self-examine themselves."

www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3464242,00.html

This has been the plan all along, since Israel pulled its illegal settlements from the strip and surrounded it with artillery emplacements, in an operation ominously called "First Rain".

Under this operation, the IDF shelled and killed an entire Palestinian family, picknicking on a beach which, only weeks before, had been segregated to Jewish settlers only. No doubt this angered the soldier who fired the shell.

Israel then LIED to the International Community, and its own citizenry, about the incident, but international observers and weapons experts analyzing the damage stated that there was no doubt the family was intentionally targeted.

This, and the ensuing military incursions, caused Hamas to end a unilateral two-year cease-fire, which of course allowed Israel to pursue its premeditated course of aggression and collective punishment.

Stage two was Israeli and American arming and supporting corrupt elements within Fatah, in a coup attempt which failed miserably, and has led to the current situation - which Israeli politicians are now saying is the reason they cannot Negotiate for Peace.

UN condemns massive human rights abuses in Gaza Strip
www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1953015,00.html

UN Condemns Israel's Escalation of Gaza Crisis
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/381432.html

ANALYSIS: Israel's real intention behind sanctions on Gaza Strip
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/917385.html


Note that the Brown Government has done nothing to oppose or condemn these War Crimes.


The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine
Round Two
Terrell E. Arnold
10-28-7

Having sent up numerous trial balloons over the past several weeks, Israel now will work on shutting down the Gaza Strip. Having kept it virtually sealed off from the outside world ever since Hamas beat Fatah for control of it, Israel now plans to use creeping electric power outages to make life in that open-air prison totally intolerable. Since no major power appears to have objected loudly enough to the trial balloons, Israel seems confident it can shut Gaza down without significant political repercussions.

Gaza, indeed Palestine as a whole, now poses a unique case of global insensitivity, and we should ask why. Is it because everybody else considers the Palestinian people less than human? Is it because the Israelis still keep control of the moral high ground after six decades of unremitting ethnic cleansing? Is it because the killing and displacement of Palestinians has become so common a feature of the Middle East human scene that nobody cares? Is it because objections to the usually pointless lobbing of mortar shells across the Israeli boundary are so mind numbing that people stop looking at or listening to what is actually happening to the Palestinian people?

No. All of those probably figure in some degree in the mindless global reactions to the human tragedy that is Palestine, but the hammer is fear of the charge of anti-Semitism. In addition, the hammer most artfully pairs with the universal negative: "Terrorism." It simply does not matter what the Palestinians try to do in their own defense, so long as the Israelis and international media can lump any actions to fight back under the label "terrorism." Thus, the Israelis can surround Gaza with troops, barbed wire, checkpoints and a neighbor such as Egypt that, if anything, helps the Israelis; Israel's Defense Force can bomb and strafe Gaza targets indiscriminately; and because Gaza happens to be under the elected political leadership of a US-designated terrorist group, the outside world considers those actions all right.

The Zionists built the propaganda war around Palestine and promoted it through mainstream media, particularly American. The Zionists always have won it, no matter how repressively they deal with the Palestinians. Thus, humanity at large appears to have bought into the systematic theft of the Palestinian homeland by Zionists. It is therefore not surprising that, particularly in the Western view, even though the Israelis have taken all of Palestine up the 1967 truce-line by force, the Palestinians simply should recognize Israel's right to the land and move on. People would treat no other scrap of land on the planet with such casual disregard for ownership.

Perhaps stranger still is the way Gaza plays in the run-up to pending Annapolis talks on a Middle East peace. It simply does not. The US host, Israel, and at least Fatah leader Abbas seem content with excluding a third of the Palestinian people from any role in the talks. That includes ignoring the Hamas supporters in the West Bank. However, the exclusion is more important than that. The US and Israeli players exclude Hamas and its supporters, in Gaza as well as the West Bank, because they stand for the only settlement that the Palestinian people-given any choice-would approve.

That choice-all of the West Bank and Gaza, with a capital in Jerusalem and a communications corridor-entails a colossal concession by the Palestinians: Acceptance, in perpetuity, of Israeli theft of their homeland. However, the way the Israelis and US promoters play the upcoming negotiations, the Palestinians have further major concessions to make, not least being acceptance of land trades to permit intrusive Israeli settlements in the West Bank, as well as concessions on the right of return and compensation for confiscated or destroyed property. Beyond that point, the Palestinians face hard trading on access to water, because at present they now get about 10% of the water per person that Israelis enjoy.

Because of such complications, most Middle East hands see dim prospects for the Annapolis talks. To be fair, Mahmoud Abbas seems fully aware of his inability to concede any of the main Palestinian demands. However, the Israeli delegation will insist on making no immediate concessions. Not only will the talks proceed without a full Palestinian delegation, it is simply unlikely that the Israelis will permit any substance to emerge from them. If that is the outcome, the gates will remain open to the steady Israeli encroachment on remaining Palestinian land until all of Palestine is absorbed into Israel.

The hang-up is that the Zionists can achieve the outcome they have so persistently sought only by driving the Palestinians out. Right now, because they simply refuse to give up, the Palestinians play into Zionist hands. Outsiders seem incapable of recognizing that, in similar circumstances, they would fight the Zionists tooth and nail. Thus, even if the Zionists have to lob the mortar shells over the fence into Israeli territory themselves, they will proceed to dismantle the remainder of Palestine without interference. Peace talks, such as they might be, will have value only as means to divert public attention from the final rounds of ethnic cleansing.

**********

The writer is the author of the recently published work, A World Less Safe, now available on Amazon, and he is a regular columnist on rense.com. He is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer of the US Department of State whose immediate pre-retirement positions were as Chairman of the Department of International Studies of the National War College and as Deputy Director of the State Office of Counter Terrorism and Emergency Planning. He will welcome comment at
 wecanstopit@charter.net