Israel?s lie machine working flat  is out
By Stuart Littlewood

While the murderous assault on Gaza continues, I notice there's a
briefing document on the website of the Israeli Embassy in London which
has a lie in every line. The West's mainstream media repeat them, and
even the most senior TV and radio interviewers don?t bother to
challenge them.

The document is a transcript of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's
statement to the Israeli press dated 27 December 2008 ? a day that will
live in infamy. It is a perfect example of the falsehoods used to dupe
not only us westerners but Israel?s own people. The statement shows how
the regime's view of itself is constructed on a web of dishonesty and
self-delusion.

For example:

? "Israeli citizens have been under the threat of daily attack from
Gaza for years."

Palestinians have been under harsh Israeli occupation for 60 years.

? "Only this week hundreds of missiles and mortars shells were fired at
Israeli civilian communities."

Only one in 500 Qassam rockets causes a fatality. How many thousands of
Israeli bombs, missiles, rockets, grenades and tank-shells have been
blasted into the crowded city and towns of the Gaza Strip by Israel?s
high-tech weaponry?

? "Until now we have shown restraint. But today there is no other
option than a military operation."

The only legitimate option for Israel is to end the occupation and
withdraw behind its 1967 border, as required under international law
and UN resolution. Israel has been killing Palestinians at the rate of
8 to 1 since 2000, and children at the rate of nearly 12 to 1 (B?Tselem
figures). This is somebody?s idea of restraint?

? "We need to protect our citizens from attack through a military
response against the terror infrastructure in Gaza."

Self defence is not a right exclusive to Israel. Palestinians have an
equal right to protect their citizens from the terror tactics of
Israel.

? "Israel left Gaza in order to create an opportunity for peace."

Israel never left Gaza. It still occupies Gaza's airspace and coastal
waters and controls all entrances and exits.

? "In return, the Hamas terror organization took control of Gaza and is
using its citizens as cover while it deliberately targets Israeli
communities and denies any chance for peace."

Hamas was voted into power as the legitimate government of Palestine.
Israel chose not to accept the people's choice, which amounted to a
denial of their human rights, and immediately set about obliterating
it.

? "We have tried everything to reach calm without using force. We
agreed to a truce through Egypt that was violated by Hamas, which
continued to target Israel, hold Gilad Shalit and build up its arms."

Try talking. The Israelis' ongoing siege and economic blockade, begun
shortly after Hamas was elected early in 2006, was never going to
generate calm. And why is Shalit considered more important than the
9,000 Palestinians abducted and held prisoner by Israel? As soon as a
Hamas government was formed Israeli troops arrested 8 Hamas ministers
and 20 other parliamentarians, making the work of government
impossible.

? "Israel continues to act to prevent humanitarian crisis and to
minimize harm to Palestinian civilians."

Every agency operating in Gaza has warned of the deepening humanitarian
crisis and protested about the starvation and suffering, especially of
children many of whom show evidence of stunted growth.

? "The responsibility for harm to civilians lies with Hamas."

Not according to the Fourth Geneva Convention.

? "Hamas is a terrorist organization, supported by Iran, that does not
represent the legitimate national interests of the Palestinian people
but a radical Islamist agenda that seeks to deny peace for the peoples
of this region."

Hamas was the popular choice of Palestinians at the last election. It
is entitled under international law to take up arms against an illegal
occupier and invader. If it is supported by Iran, so what? Israel
receives mega-support from the U.S. When it comes to terror, it is
Israel's conduct which fits the U.S. definition of terrorism so
perfectly - see Bush's Executive Order 13224, Section 3 - http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/programs/terror/terror.pdf


? "While confronting Hamas, Israel continues to believe in the two
State solution and remains committed to negotiations with the
legitimate Palestinian Authority in the context of the peace process,
launched at Annapolis."

Israel is busy establishing irreversible facts on the ground that make
a viable Palestinian state impossible. As everyone knows, the regime
has reneged on the peace process and carries on building illegal
settlements and the illegal Wall, and demolishing Palestinian homes.

Months ago Hamas accepted a Palestinian state based on internationally
recognized (pre-1967) borders, in accordance with UN resolutions, with
full sovereignty and its capital in Jerusalem, but this has been
ignored. Hamas also offered a 10-year truce, also ignored. Earlier,
Arafat and the PLO recognized the State of Israel in the Oslo agreement
but what good did it do? Today?s U.S.-backed, Fatah-controlled
Palestinian Authority is not representative of the Palestinian people.

? "Israel expects the support and understanding of the international
community, as it confronts terror, and advances the interest of all
those who wish the forces of peace and co existence to determine the
agenda of this region."

Israel, next to the U.S., the biggest purveyor of terror in the region
and only advances its own interests. It may get the support of Israel
lobby stooges in other western governments but is rapidly earning the
contempt of everybody else.

From a statement dated 22 December 2008:

? "Hamas, backed by Iran, has regularly stated its desire to see the
complete destruction of Israel."

Israel is itself a leading destroyer and currently engaged in trying to
wipe out Hamas and the Gazans. Iran?s Ahmadinajad quoted the late
Ayatollah Khomeini as saying that "this regime occupying Jerusalem must
vanish from the page of time" - fair comment considering Jerusalem,
with Bethlehem, was designated an 'international city' under the UN
Partition Plan.

Israeli propaganda twisted the Iranian?s words to read ?Israel must be
wiped off the map?. Zionist sources and the manifestos of Israeli
political parties have made it clear for a long time that Israel plans
to wipe Palestine off the map, and every act and lie is directed
towards that end.

? "Our fight is not with the people of Gaza; it is with the extremists
of Hamas."

Then why does the Israeli navy harass and fire on peaceable Gazan
fishermen who are well within their own territorial waters? Why does
Israel prevent Palestinian students from taking up places at foreign
universities and block hospital spares, medicines, foodstuffs and
foreign medics from entering Gaza?

Why has the Israeli navy just rammed a mercy vessel in international
waters taking doctors and medicines to Gaza? Latest air-strikes have
hit the Islamic University and the ministry of education. These are
direct attacks on Gazan civil society and its infrastructure.

? "Hamas started this conflict, and it bears responsibility for any
harm to civilians on either side."

The conflict, started by Jewish terrorists, has been going on for 60
years, decades before Hamas came into being.

? "Israel?s only responsibility is to protect Israeli citizens."

As the occupying power Israel has a duty to see that the people of the
occupied territories come to no harm.

? "Just as Israel seeks to defend its civilian population, Hamas seeks
to kill them."

This reads far better the other way round: ?Just as Hamas seeks to
defend its civilian population, Israel seeks to kill them.?

? "Rocket attacks have continued for years and are now a daily
occurrence. How long does the international community expect Israel
will wait before defending itself against them?"

The rocket attacks will end when Israel ends the occupation and stops
terrorizing its neighbours.

? "In the south of Israel, Israeli citizens live with air raid sirens
sounding every day - sometimes every hour. Their situation is
intolerable."

Not half as intolerable as it is for the Gazans, who live in constant
fear of air raids and re-invasion and are constantly under surveillance
by armed drones which can fire missiles under computer control from an
armchair in Israeli headquarters.

? "For years, the international community has turned a blind eye to
this onslaught. Only when Israel seeks to stop the rockets do they take
notice."

For years the international community has turned a blind eye to
Israel's violations of international law and human rights, which is why
the problem remains unsolved.

? "Hamas is not only the enemy of Israel - it is the enemy of every
Palestinian who believes in peace."

Israelis just can?t come to terms with the Palestinians' democratic
choice and are bent on obliterating it.

? "It is Hamas' attacks - not Israel's reactions - that destroy every
opportunity we have for peace."

The world has managed to work out by now that Israel doesn't want peace
until it has stolen all the land and water it needs to expand its
racist state into a ?Greater Israel?. It is well on the way to
achieving this and won?t be thwarted.

? "Palestinian militants targeted by Israel are not just the enemies of
the Israeli people; they are criminals under international law, and
enemies of peace."

Israel is in no position to preach international law.

? "What is collective punishment? 'Collective punishment' is a city -
schools, hospitals, homes - civilians being bombarded every single day
by rockets and mortars."

Collective punishment is keeping a whole population bottled up under
siege and blocking supplies and exports, smashing their infrastructure,
wrecking their economy and starving their children. Trying to equate
Sderot with what?s happening in the Gaza Strip is idiotic.

? "Today's Middle East is divided between extremists and pragmatists.
Hamas, backed by Iran, belongs to the extremists, who must be defeated
for the sake of the future of the Middle East.... Israel?s primary goal
is peace."

Israel's primary goal is the expansion of Israel by making the
occupation of the West Bank permanent and bringing the Gazans to their
knees.

The core issue in this struggle is the illegality of Israel?s brutal
occupation. Israel goes to great lengths to avoid and suppress all
mention of it and play-acts the pathetic victim. As the official
statements (above) show, the strategy is to frame and define the
situation in Israel?s own terms regardless of the truth.

It uses advanced propaganda skills, and the elaborate Israel lobby
network, to persuade western politicians and media to accept Israel?s
version of events (and even use Israel?s biased language) and not
question its motives.

In political PR terms it works wonderfully well. The loony leaders of
my own government happily spread the poison and don?t seem interested
in halting Israeli aggression and the vaporizing, dismembering and
crushing of Gaza?s population. In human PR terms it is a disaster.

I have been listening to the BBC?s senior interviewers these last few
days. None has had the gumption to ask Israeli spokesmen the only
question that matters ? the ?killer? question on which hangs the key to
peace: WHEN IS ISRAEL GOING TO END ITS OCCUPATION AND RETURN TO THE
PALESTINIANS THEIR LANDS AND FREEDOM?

-- Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which
tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation.

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