aftermath
"In Israel, officials said that on Sunday, the cabinet is expected to discuss a proposal that the government defend the military if there are any international attempts to accuse it of improper activity or war crimes. The proposal is expected to assert that soldiers and officers operated in accordance with international law, the military’s values and moral principles."
NYTimes
3 comments:
Yet more Chomsky, on Obama's response. In part, "Obama's talk emphasized his commitment to a peaceful settlement. He left its contours vague, apart from one specific proposal: 'the Arab peace initiative,' Obama said, 'contains constructive elements that could help advance these efforts. Now is the time for Arab states to act on the initiative's promise by supporting the Palestinian government under President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, taking steps towards normalizing relations with Israel, and by standing up to extremism that threatens us all.'
"Obama is not directly falsifying the Arab League proposal, but the carefully framed deceit is instructive.
"The Arab League peace proposal does indeed call for normalization of relations with Israel - in the context - repeat, in the context of a two-state settlement in terms of the longstanding international consensus, which the US and Israel have blocked for over 30 years, in international isolation, and still do. The core of the Arab League proposal, as Obama and his Mideast advisers know very well, is its call for a peaceful political settlement in these terms, which are well-known, and recognized to be the only basis for the peaceful settlement to which Obama professes to be committed. The omission of that crucial fact can hardly be accidental, and signals clearly that Obama envisions no departure from US rejectionism. His call for the Arab states to act on a corollary to their proposal, while the US ignores even the existence of its central content, which is the precondition for the corollary, surpasses cynicism."
Full article:
www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20364
I found the talk that I went to last week:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=30X2tYUGK_8
Some of the language in the NYTimes article pisses me off.
Example in which the reporter is an apologist for Israeli destruction: "the impression left from the worst-hit areas was that Israeli troops entered expecting a horrific battle."
Example in which the reporter ignores context and the glaring proof evidenced in his own quote above: "each pupil described what had happened to him and to his friends and family in Israel’s 23-day war aimed at stopping Hamas’s rockets."
In which the reporter cites numbers but omits the number of dead and injured: "There are numbers, of course, to describe its misery — 4,000 homes destroyed, 21,000 badly damaged, 100,000 people homeless, according to several aid agencies — but they do not tell the full story."
In which the reporter immediately mollifies the previous quote: "Most of Gaza, especially the capital, Gaza City, remains largely intact. This is not Grozny after the Chechen war or Dresden after World War II. The hospitals are coping; shops are reopening; traffic is becoming a problem once again. Israel has tripled the amount of goods flowing in here since before the war."
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