More than a month after Israel launched a murderous onslaught on the Gaza Strip, with over 2,000 casualties, there’s still no clarity about when “Operation Protective Edge” might end—despite the recent extension of a ceasefire. Israel has destroyed 10,000 homes, turned a quarter of Gaza’s population into refugees, and repeatedly targeted civilian installations, including schools, hospitals and United Nations-designated shelters—in flagrant violation of international law.
Tag - Israel
Tame Israel, Normalise Iran Ties, Isolate Saudi: A new deal in W Asia?
Swiss radiation experts have confirmed the worst suspicion nurtured by independent observers of West Asia—namely, that the death of Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat in 2004 in France was not natural. Doctors were unable to specify the cause of Arafat’s death, which occurred barely a fortnight after he vomited during a meeting and then lapsed into a deepening coma. No autopsy was conducted in keeping with his widow’s request.
Isolated Israel Eases Gaza Blockade: Victory for civil society and Palestine
When Israel launched a commando attack on the Freedom Flotilla carrying humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip, its leaders could scarcely have imagined that they would have to beat a retreat on the Gaza blockade issue in less than three weeks. Yet, such was the global public revulsion at the murderous assault on the Mavi Marmara in international waters—even among Israel’s allies and supporters—that Israel had to relax the blockade. The blockade banned more than 2,000 items, including cement, glass, paper, iron, pencils, cancer medicines, toys, chocolate, fabrics and fruit juice.
Zionism’s alliance with apartheid: Secret Israel–S. Africa N-Deal Exposed
As the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference concludes in New York, there is no expectation that the world will rapidly eliminate these mass-destruction weapons. But the focus has sharply turned on West Asia because the Western powers, led by the United States, are keen that Iran freezes its nuclear activities. Yet inevitably, attention has also got riveted on Israel, the region’s sole nuclear weapons power. In the limelight too is the issue of nuclear material falling into the hands of extremist groups like al-Qaeda.
Against this backdrop comes the hugely important, sensational, but not sensationalist, disclosure that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to South Africa’s white-racist apartheid regime in 1975, and the two states coordinated their military programmes and strategic approaches. This disclosure, contained in a just-released book The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa, is based on “top secret” minutes of meetings between senior South African and Israeli officials. These were uncovered by a US-based scholar Sasha Polakow-Suransky through documents recently declassified by the South African government. The Israeli government tried hard to stop their declassification, but failed.