Norman G. Finkelstein

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Israel has just suffered a historic defeat.

One only had to watch the international news coverage. BBC persisted in its typically awful reportage on the Israel-Palestine conflict during Israel’s latest rampage. But tonight it had to acknowledge that the people of Gaza were out in the streets celebrating. It desperately sought some “balance” by positing that “some people in Israel are probably also celebrating.”

Fat chance.

CNN aired Christiane Amanpour’s “exclusive” interview with Khaled Meshal. Despite, or perhaps because of, her silly histrionics (“What do you want?” she tearfully pleaded), Meshal came across as remarkably articulate. Meshal also explicitly endorsed a settlement on the June 1967 border, which won’t please the BDS/One-State cultists.

It could not have failed to register even on the terrifyingly stupid Abu Mazen that the PA Comedy Hour will soon be cancelled.

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Stephen Lendman

Tuesday night, Israel and Hamas agreed to halt hostilities. Midnight local time was chosen. Hamas didn't want conflict in the first place. Israel is a rogue state. It's a serial provocateur. Multiple attacks were launched. Hamas responded defensively. It's their right and responsibility under international law. It had no other choice. It was wrongly accused of terrorism.

Israel planned Operation Pillar of Cloud months ago. Choosing target sites, overall tactics, and strategic aims require extensive planning. Killing Qassam Brigades leader Ahmed Jabari enraged Gazans justifiably. Israel did it to subvert a peace agreement he helped negotiate. Hamas responded.

Conflict rages into day 8. Israel has lots of killing and destruction left to do. It bears full responsibility for hostilities. It's guilty of grievous crimes of war and against humanity. Who knows when conflict will subside. Truce or not truce, it won't end. Israel won't let it. Israeli ceasefires and other agreements aren't worth the paper they're written on. Duplicity, state terror, institutionalized racism, and belligerence as a way of life define Israel. It menaces the region and humanity. It's worse than ever under Netanyahu. He can't wait to kill again. Children and other civilians are his favorite targets.

A previous article expressed doubts about an announced truce. Netanyahu gave it away saying Israel "will not hesitate to do what is necessary to defend our people." In other words, Israel will enforce occupation harshness, continue targeted assassinations after agreeing not to, bomb and shell at will, accost fishermen at sea, kill farmers in their fields, shoot children for target practice, and maintain Gaza's siege.

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Stuart Littlewood

…before world leaders deliver law and justice? The international community must finally confront the problem it has created.

Despite the piles of dead in Gaza and – for the second time in four years – the row upon row of charred and broken little bodies of children, Western leaders still shirk their duty and call on the two parties to restart the squalid, lopsided peace process that had led nowhere and only serves to give the Israelis more time to consolidate their territorial gains.

Instead of carrying out their responsibilities, they shamelessly shovel their foul mess onto the Palestinians to clean up. What are the Palestinians supposed to negotiate? Why should they have to bargain for their freedom and property with the thugs that stole it?

For decades the Israelis have played for time, whining that they have “no partner for peace” while continuing to seize and colonize all the Palestinian land and water resources needed to fulfil the Zionist dream of a Greater Israel from the Jordan to the Mediterranean – or, some say, the Euphrates to the Nile.

To that end the Zionist regime has continually violated UN resolutions, international law and the norms of human decency while rushing to establish irreversible facts on the ground, like the monstrous settlements and their supporting infrastructure, and to press ahead with further demolition of Arab homes and more ethnic cleansing.

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