US tacitly backs Israel offensive

[dipsydoodle]

The White House has given its tacit backing to Israel's military operation against Hamas and the Gaza Strip, a flare-up that is threatening to seriously complicate any peace efforts envisaged by the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama.
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It is an attitude that is very similar to the one adopted by the Bush administration during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon - calling for a sustainable cease-fire and a lasting peace rather than pressuring Israel to immediately halt a military operation that was killing civilians.
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This is also in line with the approach taken by the Bush administration during its second term, according to Dan Senor, a former Bush administration official now working with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) - with the White House making strong statements in support of Israel while Condoleezza Rice leans a bit more strongly on Israel.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7804001.stm

[Double T]

1. Only 22 days of insanity left; there is still plenty of time for further WH destruction.

[JohnyCanuck]

2. Well that's a shame, but not unexpected.

Shock, Awe and Lies: The Truth Behind the Israeli Attack on Gaza
Written by Chris Floyd

Here is a simple, stone cold fact. You cannot read or hear the truth about what is happening in Gaza from any corporate media in the United States. The only thing you will find there are regurgitations of Israeli spin, which are themselves only regurgitations of the kind of spin that American militarists have put on their own depredations -- for centuries now. Up and down the American media and political establishments, you will find nothing but bleatings about Israel being "forced" to launch its vicious blunderbuss attacks against heavily populated Gaza because of the "recent spate of Hamas bombings" since the end of a six-month ceasefire.

This is of course a damnable and deliberate lie. Papers in Israel -- in Israel, but not the United States -- are reporting the truth: the murderous assault on Gaza was planned not only before the six-month ceasefire ended -- it was planned before the cease-fire even took effect. Indeed, the cease-fire was part of the military plan to decimate the civilian areas of Gaza; it was a hoax, a scam, a deliberate feint to buy time for military preparations -- precisely the same strategy followed by the Bush Regime (and its bipartisan Establishment supporters) in "going to the UN" to seek a "peaceful solution" to the "Iraqi crisis" -- when the invasion was already in the works.

SNIP


As Glenn Greenwald notes, Israel's massive bombing of civilian areas -- even if couched in terms of "retaliation" for scattershot strikes on Israeli territory by a political faction -- constitutes "a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions." Greenwald also adroitly turns Barack Obama's campaign kowtowing to Israeli militarism on its head:

(Obama on the campaign trail): "The first job of any nation state is to protect its citizens. And so I can assure you that if -- I don't even care if I was a politician -- if somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."

Can't the exact same mentality be deployed to justify everything Hamas has done and is doing, to wit: "if a foreign power were brutally occupying my country for four decades -- or blockading my country and denying my children medical needs and nutrition and the ability even to exit -- I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Palestinians to do the same thing"? But the last thing that our political class ever extends is reciprocal, two-sided analysis to this dispute.

http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1666-shock-awe-and-lies-the-truth-behind-the-israeli-attack-on-gaza.html

[JohnyCanuck]

3. kick n/t