Past as Prologue/4500

The following is the U.N.'s map of the proposed partition. The blue areas comprising roughly 57 percent of the land were to be allotted to Jews; orange areas were to be allotted to Palestinians. Jerusalem was to be left under the governance of the international community, because of its historical and religious importance for numerous religions and cultures.

Past as prologue - A short list.

In 1948 - 68 (69) years ago yesterday, the United Nations voted to partition Palestine, with General Assembly Resolution 181. The deal was a bad one as Palestinians were 2/3rds of the population but offered 43% of land.

Seen in the attachment is the U.N.’s map of the proposed partition. The blue areas comprising roughly 57 percent of the land were to be allotted to Jews; orange areas were to be allotted to Palestinians. Jerusalem was to be left under the governance of the international community, because of its historical and religious importance for numerous religions and cultures.

The Partition Plan was never implemented, however. The very next day after it was voted on, the 1947-1948 war broke out.

In this war, Zionist militias systematically ethnically cleansed large portions of historic Palestine, sacking hundreds of Palestinian villages and expelling more than 750,000 people — around two-thirds of the indigenous Arab population. Prominent Israeli historian Ilan Pappé notes that, in Israel’s Plan Dalet (also known simply as Plan D), “veteran Zionist leaders” created “a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.” They dispatched military orders in March 1948, Pappé explains:

“The orders came with a detailed description of the methods to be employed to forcibly evict the people: large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centres; setting fire to homes, properties and goods; expulsion; demolition; and, finally, planting mines among the rubble to prevent any of the expelled inhabitants from returning.”

Plan D “spelled it out clearly and unambiguously: the Palestinians had to go,” writes Pappé. “The aim of the plan was in fact the destruction of both the rural and urban areas of Palestine,” he adds, and it “contain[ed] a repertoire of cleansing methods that one by one fit the means the U.N. describes in its definition of ethnic cleansing.” 

This ethnic cleansing initiative 2023 …

The Israeli Ministry of Intelligence is recommending the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, according to an official document revealed in full for the first time by +972’s partner site Local Call yesterday.

The 10-page document, dated Oct. 13, 2023, bears the logo of the Intelligence Ministry — a small governmental body that produces policy research and shares its proposals with intelligence agencies, the army, and other ministries. It assesses three options regarding the future of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in the framework of the current war, and recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. It also calls on Israel to enlist the international community in support of this endeavor. The document, whose authenticity was confirmed by the ministry, has been translated into English in full here on +972. 

EC continued ...

Israel has quietly tried to build international support in recent weeks for the transfer of several hundred thousand civilians from Gaza to Egypt for the duration of its war in the territory, according to six senior foreign diplomats.

Israeli leaders and diplomats have privately proposed the idea to several foreign governments, framing it as a humanitarian initiative that would allow civilians to temporarily escape the perils of Gaza for refugee camps in the Sinai Desert, just across the border in neighboring Egypt.

The proposal has been rejected by not only Palestinians but also "most of Israel's interlocutors—who include the United States and Britain—because of the risk that such a mass displacement could become permanent," the newspaper noted. 

The 6 -Day War

Fifty years ago, war transformed the Middle East. Six memorable days, known to Israelis as the Six-Day War and to Arabs and others as the 1967 War, redrew the region’s landscape in fundamental ways. In those six days, Israel defeated three Arab armies, gained territory four times its original size, and became the preeminent military power in the region. The war transformed Israel from a nation that perceived itself as fighting for survival into an occupier and regional powerhouse.

2. US as “honest “ broker …

WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - When Joe Biden met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet during his visit to Israel, the U.S. president assured them: "I don't believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist." 

Zionism …

The common denominator among all Zionists has been a claim to Palestine, a land traditionally known in Jewish writings as the Land of Israel ("Eretz Israel") as a national homeland of the Jews and as the legitimate focus for Jewish national self-determination.[34 

US Congress approves a 14.3 billion dollar aid package to Israel. 

Entangled alliance 2015

" by forming an "American character wholly free of foreign attachments."

George Washington

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none." 

Thomas Jefferson

Prescient words, particularly when applied to Israel trying to scuttle the US nuclear Iran deal in 2015 by actions carried out by Bibi and company contrary to the national interest, something Washington would not have tolerated by any stretch of the imagination nor did Eisenhower when the Suez crisis went down in 1957.

"But this is not Israel's deal. It is our deal, and our decision. And Israel is massively interfering in our internal affairs to scuttle a deal the president believes is in the vital interests of the United States.

When the U.S. and Israel disagree over U.S. policy in the Mideast, who decides for America? Them or us?

Why does Barack Obama take this? Why does John Kerry take this?

One can only imagine what President Eisenhower would have done had he seen Bibi at the rostrum of the U.S. House of Representatives, ripping apart his Middle East policy. Or had Ike learned that an Israeli ambassador was working the halls of Congress to kill an arms deal he and John Foster Dulles had just negotiated.

Lest we forget, Ike told his wartime colleague, Prime Minister Anthony Eden, to get his army out of Suez or he would sink the British pound. Ike then told Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to get his army out of Sinai or face U.S. economic reprisals.

Eden and Ben-Gurion did as they were told.

That was an America respected by friend and foe alike.

When Harry Truman felt that Gen. Douglas MacArthur had been insubordinate in resisting presidential restrictions on his actions in Korea, Truman fired the general and astounded the nation.

Yet this president and John Kerry have been wimpishly seeking for weeks to placate Netanyahu. And Bibi is no Douglas MacArthur.

Time to stop acting like wusses. 

Entangled alliance rev II and Unit 8200

Among his most shocking discoveries, he told me, was the fact that the N.S.A. was routinely passing along the private communications of Americans to a large and very secretive Israeli military organization known as Unit 8200. This transfer of intercepts, he said, included the contents of the communications as well as metadata such as who was calling whom.

Typically, when such sensitive information is transferred to another country, it would first be “minimized,” meaning that names and other personally identifiable information would be removed. But when sharing with Israel, the N.S.A. evidently did not ensure that the data was modified in this way.

Mr. Snowden stressed that the transfer of intercepts to Israel contained the communications — email as well as phone calls — of countless Arab- and Palestinian-Americans whose relatives in Israel and the Palestinian territories could become targets based on the communications. “I think that’s amazing,” he told me. “It’s one of the biggest abuses we’ve seen.

It appears that Mr. Snowden’s fears were warranted. Last week, 43 veterans of Unit 8200 — many still serving in the reserves — accused the organization of startling abuses. In a letter to their commanders, to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to the head of the Israeli army, they charged that Israel used information collected against innocent Palestinians for “political persecution.” In testimonies and interviews given to the media, they specified that data were gathered on Palestinians’ sexual orientations, infidelities, money problems, family medical conditions and other private matters that could be used to coerce Palestinians into becoming collaborators or create divisions in their society.

Government advisor whose job entailed sending weapons to Israel resigns.

On October 17th, ten days after Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel, a State Department official named Josh Paul quit his job and posted the resignation letter on LinkedIn. In Washington, sympathy with Israel was near-ubiquitous, and President Joe Biden’s vigorous support for the Israeli government had few public dissenters within the national-security state. This had the effect of drawing extra attention to Paul, who said he was resigning both because he disagreed with what the U.S. had already done to back Israel and because he feared what would likely come next. “I believe to the core of my soul,” Paul wrote, “that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support for both that response, and for the status quo of the occupation will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and Palestinian people—and is not in the long-term American interest.”

AIRPAC

A foreign entity is any corporation, business association, partnership, trust, society or any other entity or group that is not incorporated or organized to do business in the United States, as well as international organizations, foreign governments and any agency or subdivision of foreign governments. A person (even a U.S. citizen) is considered a foreign person if they work for or represent a foreign entity. 

AIRPAC The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC /ˈeɪpæk/ AY-pak) is a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the legislative and executive branches of the United States.[4] One of several pro-Israel lobbying organizations in the United States,[5] AIPAC states that it has over 100,000 members,[6] 17 regional offices, and "a vast pool of donors".[7] Representative Brad Sherman (D-California) has called AIPAC "the single most important organization in promoting the U.S.-Israel alliance".[8] In addition, the organization has been called one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the United States.[7] 

The West Bank

The West Bank Settlers are Israeli citizens who live on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The vast majority of the settlements have been built either entirely or partially on private Palestinian land.

More than 700,000 settlers – 10 percent of Israel’s nearly 7 million population – now live in 150 settlements and 128 outposts dotting the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

A settlement is authorised by the Israeli government while an outpost is built without government authorisation. Outposts can range from a small shanty of a few people to a community of up to 400 people.

Some of the settlers move to the occupied territories for religious reasons while others are drawn by a relatively lower cost of living and financial incentives offered by the government.

Ultraorthodox Jews form one-third of all settlers.

Unicef

About 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza are ‘locked in’, the vast majority unable to access the remainder of the oPt and the outside world, limiting access to medical treatment unavailable in Gaza, to higher education, to family and social life, and to employment and economic opportunities. Movement restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities since the early 1990s and which were intensified after the Hamas takeover of June 2007, citing security justifications, have had a profound impact on living conditions in Gaza and have fragmented the territorial unity and the economic and social fabric of the oPt. Those eligible for exit permits constitute a small minority, primarily day labourers, businesspeople, medical patients and staff of international organizations. While the isolation of Gaza has been eased to some degree by Egypt’s reopening of the Rafah crossing since 2018, movement through Rafah remains restricted and the selection criteria for travelers uncertain. 

The UN Relief and Works Agency analysis

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said that by Sunday the 29th, 1.4 million Palestinians out of 2.3 million were internally displaced, with 671,000 taking shelter in 150 UNRWA facilities. Most of the dead by Israeli bombs and tank shells have been civilians. The ratio of dead between combatants (few) and civilians (many) is startling, far beyond what takes place in a war (in contrast, of the 1,400 Israelis killed on October 7 by Hamas and other factions, 48.4 percent were soldiers). By saying that they have killed “dozens” of Hamas militants—the purported target—and having at the same time killed thousands of Palestinians, the Israeli authorities have admitted to the world that their war has resulted in far more civilian deaths than combatant deaths.

The military has sent its bulldozers to destroy homes and businesses in northern Gaza as well as in the West Bank city of Jenin. Little in this maneuver looks like a military operation since these homes and businesses are not military institutions. 

Question, Who wants to live in Gaza?

Netanyahu says Israel could hold a security role in Gaza after the war.

What does this mean in terms of a possible expansion of the conflict in question? 

The soaring death toll from Israel’s bombardment includes more than 4,100 children, according to the ministry, which operates under the political arm of Hamas. The ministry’s figures could not be independently verified, but a Pentagon spokesman, Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, acknowledged on Monday that “we know the numbers are in the thousands.”

Hezbollah and The Art of War

“The Lebanese front has lessened a large part of the forces that were going to escalate the attack on Gaza,” Mr. Nasrallah said. “Some in Lebanon say that we are taking a risk, it’s true. But this risk is part of a beneficial, correct calculation.”

But he added that he was keeping Hezbollah’s forces prepared should hostilities with Israel escalate. “All the possibilities on our Lebanese front are open,” he said. “All the choices are available and we could resort to them at any time.”

Demands for a cease fire increases

Hundreds of protesters boarded ferries to the Statue of Liberty on Monday, carrying banners calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war that they unfurled from the statue’s pedestal.

The protest, led by the activist group Jewish Voice for Peace, was the latest in a series of protests, vigils and other events that Americans on opposing sides of the conflict have organized almost daily in cities across the country since the beginning of the war. Over the weekend, thousands marched in pro-Palestinian demonstrations in cities ranging from Cincinnati to Provo, Utah, as the death toll in Gaza continued to mount. 

How will this disaster ends, No one knows, do one?  - Fats Waller

Lest we forget, It's also all about the money ... yet again.

Everybody Wants Gaza's Gas

The $500 billion windfall shoring up EU supplies

But while bombs rain down, business continues as usual, with Israel granting 12 licences to six companies to explore for natural gas off the country's Mediterranean coast on October 30th. This is the latest venture to exploit one of several gas fields discovered on the Mediterranean coast over recent decades, aiming to solve Israel’s energy dependency and, crucially, Europe’s supplies.

The total oil and gas reserves were valued at a staggering $524 billion in 2019. But Israel does not have sole legal entitlement to the $524 billion, according to a UN report published in the same year. Not only is some of the $524 billion sourced from within the Occupied Territory of Palestine, much of the rest sits outside national borders in the deep sea, and thus should be shared with all relevant parties. The report questions the national right to these resources given they took millions of years to form—and that Palestinians occupied the whole territory until Israel’s recent formal creation.