A changed agenda?
It had been a difficult month for Prime Minister Netanyahu – truly, a very hard month. A Prime Minister under siege, caught in a bind. Tent encampments and more tent encampments sprouting up all over the country, demonstrations and protests and more demonstrations. The demands for affordable housing and for Social Justice and for a Welfare State occupy the center stage, and the Free Market economics which Netanyahu had worked so hard to foster since he was Finance Minister are suddenly cast into doubt. What did he not try? He used sticks and he used carrots, he tried to entice the protesters with committees and benefits and rabbits drawn from the hat and he tried to castigate them as Leftists and pampered sushi-eaters, and they went on to protest and demonstrate and extend ever further the tent encampments and get their rallies to the peak of three hundred thousands in Tel Aviv. Just yesterday morning, the protesters arrived at the home of Eyal Gabbai, Nethanyahu’s Chef de Bureau, and he spoke forthrightly and made it clear to them that the Free Market system will not change, and there will be no taxation on the rich and there will be no Welfare State in Israel. And these cheeky youths did not accept these clear clarifications from their government, and just announced that they will increase ever more their protests and demonstrations.
How, how to change the focus and move the public agenda in a different direction? Perhaps finally September will come and the Palestinians will go to the UN and demand to have their state and thus help to distract public opinion in Israel? But the big show at the UN is only due on September 20, how to get through another month until then? Besides, would even that change the tendency of public opinion? What if the Palestinians hold mass demonstrations in late September, without any violence, and demand to have some Social Justice, to be free in their country and no longer live under occupation – would this be enough to change the agenda? It might even get a bit of sympathy among Israelis.
But not all is lost, and relief for the harassed Netanyahu came from the usual quarter, out of the deserts of Sinai came the dramatic initiative to change the Israeli public agenda. And it so happened that Israel’s fine security services had long since prepared a plan to liquidate Gazan leaders which just needed to be put into operation, and now put into operation it was forthwith, and all at once Israel’s Air Force took off for Rafah and made the hit, an instant and huge success, and immediately afterwards could the Prime Minister make a full-blooded patriotic Address to the Nation people over all channels and offer congratulations to the brave soldiers and the valiant pilots and the diligent security operatives and deliver a stern warning to the Palestinians and offer condolences to the bereaved and wish the injured a speedy recovery and how great it felt at last to make a long speech without a single word about social problems, just like in the good old days. And of course, as soon as Gaza was hit, Israelis all over the South knew that the time has come to seek shelter and expect the worst, and indeed the Qassam and Grad rockets were not slow in coming, naturally prompting the Air Force to counter-attack on more Gaza targets and bring on more missiles on Israel the escalation is mutually escalating – and who would now dare demand a cut the in the defense budget in order to promote social causes?
But what the social protest activists do now in their tent encampments? Would they quietly yield to the changed agenda and meekly disappear from the scene? If that’s what Netanyahu is counting on, he should think again.
I would like to give the floor to Social Protest activits, with a selection of messages posted in the past twenty-four hours on the Offiical Housing Protest Facebook Page.
http://www.facebook.com/j14rev
Yigal Cohen: We will not let terrorism beat us!
Ittai Hertzberg: I just read this piece of news:
Deputy Minister Ayoub Kara calls upon demonstrators to dismantle their tents and call off their protest, in solidarity with the wounded in the attack, as “it’s time to be united in the struggle against terrorism”.
Ayoub Kara, don’t you have another appointment scheduled with neo-Nazis in Austria?
Yossi Levy: This protest cannot stop, this protest will not stop. We must continue to protest, we must continue to protest. This protest will not stop! [modeled on a well-known Israeli song].
Friends, do not have to bow down low, we can prove that we can go on. Express our respect for the victims, with quiet rallies, go on going out to protest. Let the wounded heal and recover and rise up from their beds as patients in a better health system!
Let the soldiers on discharge find a better higher education system.
And a better Israel for all citizens.
Continue! Continue!
.
Tamar Aviyah: We undertake to continue the protest even if military action starts. Protests throughout the country.
Avi Hevroni: Finally, we will have to learn to go on demonstrating even after such events. There is no choice. It can not be stopped. This may sound insensitive but it’s not. There is no other way you can keep this issue alive in a country where there is no certainty of tranquility and security.
Shlomo Ohana: Friends, let’s have a moment of silence for the Housing Protest. It was nice while it lasted, but now it’s over.
Bikosh Bik: Well, Shlomo, speak for yourself. If you feel OK with the situation as it is, good for you… But you can’t decide for others what is good for them and what they will do or not do.
*
Eshkar Eldan Cohen: Continue the protest, full steam ahead!
What happened today is a tragedy for the families of those killed and wounded. But it also a tragedy when men and women die from illness because of difficulty in purchasing drugs, or when people’s health is damaged because they could not buy proper food, and when disabled people lack what they urgently need, and when people are discharged from hospital prematurely due to shortage of beds in rehabilitation, and when children go to school when their parents could not afford to buy textbooks, when people die because there were no beds free in Intensive Care – all these are tragedies. The military and government failure in their role to defend the border leads to tragedy. Also their failure to take care of daily needs. So the protest must go on, for those who manage to survive and want to go on living.
Meir Ben-Or: Mr. Prime Minister:
After the attack in the south, probably you will probably send out call-up orders also to the leftists who live in tents and eat sushi, just as you will send them the rightists and the settlers. You will sent us into action in Gaza which would probably be followed by overall war, and who knows where it would end. I just ask you, Mr. Netanyahu, for one small favor. Just remember us who will go away to fight for you and for Sarah and for all your distinguished colleagues, and to eat dust (instead of sushi). Of course, if we do not come back from this war, then all bets are off and you are exempt from all obligations…
Ashkar Alden Cohen: Do not go to this delirious war. You do not have to!
Neora Barak: Do not stop the protest in any situation. We are not indifferent. We are consistent and determined, we have patience and we will see who blinks!
Human pain and identification with the families of the victims does not mean giving up the momentum already created. We must not create a dangerous precedent of stopping the demand for social justice. Like it did not contradict the demand for release of Gilead Shalit. Suddenly the government sent a negotiator to Egypt to get him. That was only because the protests put some pepper up their ass.
We should not give up, there is a silent majority looking up with hope at this protest. Do not forget this!
Elad Shechter: The government wants protest forgotten. They asked the Jerusalem encampment to cancel the demonstrations (which shows how much the government thinks only of its own interests ). So it is important to manifest our presence and show that with all the sorrow and the pain, citizens are struggling also to live in a better country!
Not only does the protest not divide the people – it unites them for the first time in decades. The tents strengthen us against enemies from outside as well as inside. There is no contradiction between defending the country and improving it: before ’48 we were able to struggle to formulate an ideology and therefore there is no reason we can’t do it today. This is our War of Independence.
If the protest organizers cancel the scheduled actions, we would go on without them!
Sivan Wolchinsky: That’s right! In Kiryat Shmona there will be a march ending with a rally. Certainly one thing does not come at the expense of the other. You have to remember that in the aftermath of such terrorist attacks the state often defaults on its responsibility to provide aid to the wounded, to give them benefits for disability (physical and mental…). Social Security payments could be very hard for them to get, for no justified reason! This is the real test – now more than ever, get to the streets!
Charles Arthur James: I would like to propose a “middle of the road” solution. Both mourning and a protest. On Saturday night we will not hold mass demonstrations. Events will take place in tents, circles of study, lighting candles in memory of those killed and writing letters of support to the wounded, holding hands and creating a human chain along Rothschild Boulevard, and more activities like this. In this we will show that we are united in pain, but do not let terrorism destroy our struggle for a better quality of life here.
Eyal Ap: The occupation and the settlements are part of what creates such situations, in which we cannot just go on with “a normal protest” that does not touch upon the conflict. That’s why we must demand an end to conflict, demand true security which only peace can give.
Bikosh Bik: Eyal, this is not necessarily .. It is also possible to adopt a protest policy that says that the social and economic situation is no less important than the security situation … without going into the unresolved debate about the conflict.
The protest organizers announce:
We march in silence – the pain of all, the protest of all
On Saturday, August 20 at 9:00 pm, we all march together with the entire Israeli people, from Habima Square to the Charles Clore Garden. It would be a peaceful march with torches and candles, designed to remind the Prime Minister that even in these difficult times, he is still responsible for welfare and health just as he is responsible for security. When the march gets to its destination in the Charles Clore Garden on the Tel Aviv coast, we will all sit on the grass in wide circles or intimate discussion, talk, discuss, argue and sing – everything quietly, in silent respect for and solidarity with the victims of the criminal terrorist attacks.
This is the pain of all, this is the protest of all of us.
Quietly, but firmly. Because the people which demonstrates is the same people which is hit by the fire of our enemies. And their determined demand for a deep change in the order of economic priorities and for comprehensive social justice does not at all come at the expense of fighting terrorism – on the contrary. A people whose members are responsible for each other, struggle together for the future and strength of the State of Israel, are a strong people who can stand up to all their enemies.
Together with in the circles, honoring us with their presence, will be the best of Israel’s artists, their voice devoid of the help of microphones, their guitars not connected to any amplifier. They will sing with us in pain and hope, for all of us have no other country – except the State of Israel.
Millie Duluoz: There is no such thing as a silent protest.
Ori Milstein: That’s exactly what they want. Be quiet. We’re good kids. God forbid that we should demand defense budget cuts. A silent protest is an oxymoron. Like was said here before, there is no need to apologize, no need to reduce our force.
I’m personally going to cry out when I get there. Otherwise it will simply be a surrender, a nail in the protest’s coffin. If they manage to silence us now, what would happen if riots break out in September?
Hila V Goldstein: Dear firebrands! People were killed today. In the South there is a kind of war. A silent protest is the best now.
Bar Hefetz: It should not be silent and not be in Tel Aviv, it’s time to express social solidarity, go the Gaza border communities and cry out that we’re not afraid, not afraid of Hamas, and also not afraid of this evil government which is just trying to scare us and silence us. No, don’t be silent!
*
David Bochris: We undertake to continue the protest even if military operations begin. Protest all over the country!
Ido Daniel: TV stopped talking about the incident and broadcast a miserable program on cooking ….. And the football games have a moment of silence and the players put on a black band to honor the dead, and then go on playing… Power is in the continuity, must show that we are continuing!
Gil Orlev: I understand all who are angry that it is to be a silent rally (why quiet? One terrorist attack. Life goes on, including all the junk programs on TV). I want to say on record that I much more sympathize with you than with the other side to the debate. Yet we must not ignore all the people who feel uncomfortable with a shouting rally when such things happen. Do not argue with feelings. There are situations where it is impossible to please everybody. I think the organizers deserve credit for trying to think of everybody and find a creative solution. There is room for two voices. We have a silent action, demanding peace and social justice.
Einat Doz’ovni: I have the experience of a quiet walk with only 200 people, which had a mesmerizing intensity. There is no need to shout in order to be heard.
Star Rajuan: I live in Gan Yavne, I was woken up twice this night by the sound of sirens. I they to keep optimistic also under air raid alarms, I hope you do too. We will continue to cry out – loudly or silently, each in their own way. To demand both justice and peace.
Source:
Anyone can join.
Anyone can contribute.
Anyone can become informed about their world.
"United We Stand" Click Here To Create Your Personal Citizen Journalist Account Today, Be Sure To Invite Your Friends.
Please Help Support BeforeitsNews by trying our Natural Health Products below!
Order by Phone at 888-809-8385 or online at https://mitocopper.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST
Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomic.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST
Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomics.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST
Humic & Fulvic Trace Minerals Complex - Nature's most important supplement! Vivid Dreams again!
HNEX HydroNano EXtracellular Water - Improve immune system health and reduce inflammation.
Ultimate Clinical Potency Curcumin - Natural pain relief, reduce inflammation and so much more.
MitoCopper - Bioavailable Copper destroys pathogens and gives you more energy. (See Blood Video)
Oxy Powder - Natural Colon Cleanser! Cleans out toxic buildup with oxygen!
Nascent Iodine - Promotes detoxification, mental focus and thyroid health.
Smart Meter Cover - Reduces Smart Meter radiation by 96%! (See Video).
| Online: | |
| Visits: | 1,605,518,859 |
| Stories: | 8,156,524 |
Whistler Blowers, Insiders
Photo of Ehud Barak with police sniper (center) who was killed during Eilat terror attack 30 minutes after photo was taken. (Posted at Tikun Olam Blog )
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/
Shabak Blames IDF for Eilat Terror Attack
August 20th, 2011
Until yesterday night, I thought I knew or understood most of the facts of the Eilat terror attack. That changed with Anshel Pfeffer’s article in Haaretz (Hebrew) which reveals a huge fissure developing between Shabak and the IDF over the terror incident. Israel’s intelligence service claims that it offered a very specific warning which named the date and place of the expected attack. Pfeffer’s article, apparently based mostly on Shabak sources, says that the IDF upgraded its security presence on the southern border. But that in significant ways it downplayed the warning and specifically refused to believe the terrorists would mount a daylight attack, and do so near an Egyptian military post on the Israel-Egypt border.
It never ceases to amaze me that in situations like this security forces which have failed miserably in preventing a terror attack have the chutzpah to make a claim like this:
A military source denied Shabak’s claims that the warning had great specificity. He said that forces were increased in the area to the appropriate level considering the nature of the warning. The IDF says that while Shabak does “excellent work” the level and quantity of threats emanating from the south in the aftermath of the fall of Hosni Mubarak has vastly increased.
Translation: we did the best we could and the fact that there was an attack wasn’t our fault. If not their fault then whose? The plain fact is that if the IDF had taken the warning more seriously and flooded the area with personnel there may not have been an attack.
Ehud Barak with police sniper (center) who was killed during Eilat terror attack 30 minutes after photo was taken
But another important issue needs to be considered. If Shabak did warn the IDF and the army did expect an attack, then that would explain why a special ops veteran/junkie like Ehud Barak raced to the scene of the attack with Chief of Staff Benny Gantz. In fact, the photo that accompanies this post shows Barak laughing along with the police special forces sniper who died during the second phase of the attack only 30 minutes after the picture was taken (thanks to an Israeli reader for supplying it from the Israeli police Facebook account). Isn’t it odd that they are laughing after five or six Israelis have been murdered by terrorists?
So the question becomes: did the Israeli army behave with great hubris expecting they knew everything about the terror attack and precisely how to sabotage it and liquidate the terrorists? And did something go very wrong with the IDF’s prescription? Certainly the IDF made a grave error bringing Barak and Gantz to the site of the attack before they knew all the terrorists had been removed. Because the army was surprised when a second attack began shortly after the big cheeses arrived. This too indicates a major IDF f(#k-up.
Further, it is unprecedented in Israeli counter-terror operations that over one-half the attacking force would actually escape and evaporate into the landscape. Of course, there were issues involving the Egyptian border and Israel’s unwillingness to violate Egyptian sovereignty. But the fact that Israel could not prevent so many getting away by sealing the border indicates yet another failure.
Two questions remain: some pro-Palestinian readers here have made the offensive claim that the attack was an Israeli “black op.” This reminds me of the 9/11 conspiracy theories, which I find wacky and beyond the Pale. Of course, there is no argument with the fact that the tragedy is a godsend for Netanyahu. It all but destroys the viability of the J14 social justice movement, which had become a threat to his government. It diverts attention from Israel’s refusal to offer Hamas what it wants to release Gilad Shalit. And it deflects from Israel’s refusal to apologize for the Mavi Marmara assault. It also deflates the PA bid for Palestinian statehood via the UN in September. Any one of these could be a serious threat to Netanyahu. But with a distraction of this magnitude, he’s sittin’ pretty. But that is a far cry from Israel actually collaborating in some way or deliberately allowing its own citizens to be killed.
That being said, what may be possible is that the IDF knew the attack would take place and wanted it to take place, but believed it could find and destroy the operation before it took place. This obviously turned out to be a horrible miscalculation.
Another strange disjunction I reported last night is that while Bibi Netanyahu almost immediately claimed that the Popular Resistance Committee orchestrated the assault and used this claim to justify killing the group’s top leadership in an Israeli counter-terror attack; Avital Leibowitz, the IDF’s foreign media spokesperson told Lia Tarachansky that the army was NOT claiming the PRC was responsible. She would only claim that the attack emanated from Gaza.
All of which means that Netanyahu used the Eilat attack as a pretext to gun down the PRC commanders. In fact, it seems unlikely to me they were responsible because, as I posted a few days ago, if your terror organization is about to mount a major terror operation the one thing you do NOT do is gather your top commanders in the same place at the same time. It only makes you a sitting duck for a revenge attack. So I don’t believe these militants were responsible.
The NY Times is reporting that Israel made the “unprecedented” (this language emanates from the Ethan Bronner School of Pro-Israel reporting though the words were penned by Isabel Kershner, who works under his supervision) concession of expressing “regret” to Egypt for Israel’s killing of three (Haaretz reports, five) Egyptian policemen during the Israel operation in pursuit of the Eilat terrorists. Egypt has replied that the Israeli admission is insufficient. So that puts Israel in the same position regarding Egypt it is in regarding Turkey, where it is refusing to apologize for the murder of nine Turkish citizens on the Mavi Marmara.
But what is especially interesting is this passage from the Times report:
By removing Mr. Mubarak’s…dependably loyal government, the revolution has stripped away a bulwark of Israel’s position in the region, unleashing the Egyptian public’s pent-up anger at Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians at a time when a transitional government is scrambling to maintain its own legitimacy in the streets.
Mohamed Bassiouni, a former Egyptian ambassador to Israel, called the episode a lesson to Israel about the new politics of a more democratic Egypt, where the ruling military council and aspiring political candidates are eager to stay in step.
“It is very important, because you see public opinion in Egypt,” Mr. Bassiouni said.
He added: “The Egyptians do not accept what has happened, and it means that Israel should take care. If they continue their behavior toward the Palestinians and the peace process, it means that the situation will escalate more.”
What this means is that Israel now faces a formidable foe to its north, Turkey, and a potentially formidable foe to its south. The days of Israeli impunity, when it could act as it wished in putting down threats to its power or hegemony are rapidly coming to an end. This doesn’t mean that Israel will end the Occupation any time soon. But it does mean that Israel’s field of operations is now more restricted than it has been for many years. There is a populous Muslim democracy to the north whose government and citizens are demanding that Israel respect its interests, especially when they involve murdering their citizens. And there is a nascent Muslim democracy to the south whose citizens are deeply connected to the fate of the Palestinians especially those of Gaza which it borders. The times they are a changin’.
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/08/nurit-peled-elhanan-on-israeli-textbooks-i-didnt-know-i-would-fall-on-so-much-racism.html
Nurit Peled-Elhanan discussing her new book Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t91McXHxiXY
Peled-Elhanan: I didn’t know I would fall on so much racism…..
Palestinians are, if they are represented, usually they’re are not represented at all……….they don’t exists, nothing of their culture/customs nothing only as problems..and to represent people as problems is racism. Visually you don’t see even in all Israel books….in none of them can you find a photograph of a Palestinian person..a teacher a doctor whatever nothing you only find racists icons of Ali Baba
Clark: Cartoons?
Peled-Elhanan: Cartoons with the camel and the primitive farmer. All these icons when you look at the literature of racist representation they are there….the most racist icon or the representation of the 3rd world. It exists in other countries too regarding the 3rd world but in Israel it is crucial to understand that becasue this is all the children know about their Arab neighbors.
Clark: Because they don’t meet them?
Peled-Elhanan: They never meet them they are drafted into the army right after school. ..they know they are a problem that should be solved, eliminated, that they are intruders, that they are deviant, criminal, primitive, shouldn’t be here.
Clark: Enemy?
Peled-Elhanan: And of course enemy…whole..industry, and a very sophisticated one that, really make them disappear. Because if you see graphs or diagrams you don’t suspect they are not objective. You don’t expect scientific representations not to be scientific so you always have this little asterix saying that the graph represents only the Jewish population which is unscientific not only racist. Or maps…..none of the maps in Israel, if you go to post offices and hospitals and banks and schools and school books, show the children the real borders of the state..they don’t know the real borders of the state, they don’t know there is occupation. People here think the whole, what is called ‘greater land of Israel’ is ours and if it is not it should be and they present it as a geographic entity with the use of the bible and archeology and all these tricks and I really think the whole discourse in Israel..is very racist..but children are initiated and then they are educated in discourse to an extent they don’t even know it’s racist. They are not equipped to distinguish between racism and tolerant kind of speech, they don’t know anything is wrong with that.
Racism doesn’t stop with the Arabs it goes into Jewish ethnicities too like Jews who came from Arab countries are discriminated in the state but also in education, they are not represented anywhere. They never see anything wrong with it , integration means they must loose themselves to commit cultural suicide.