Mahmoud Abbas

What is Israel’s endgame in Gaza? It is a question that has been puzzling analysts and observers for some time. But belatedly, there are indications of the future Israel and Washington may have in mind for Gaza.
Desperately overcrowded, short on basic resources like fresh water, blockaded for eight years by Israel, with its infrastructure intermittently destroyed by Israeli bombing campaigns, Gaza looks like a giant pressure cooker waiting to explode.

Image: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in New York on 24 September (AFP)
 
 

 Abbas denies mounting claims that Egypt has offered territory for a Palestinian state. Should we believe him? 

Is this not the ultimate betrayal?

My compatriots, Mr. Abbas has just withdrawn the dagger from deep in the heart of Palestine and placed it firmly unsheathed and ready to cross the jugular. Please don’t allow him to administer the final and fatal cut to our hopes and aspirations.

The taste of betrayal is most bitter because it never comes from your enemies.

 

Treason: The betraying of one’s country… Oxford English Dictionary
 

Image: Shmuley Boteach image for his New York Times ad, which he says thye paper insisted he change

Netanyahu’s depiction of Hamas and ISIS, or Islamic State, as “branches of the same poisonous tree” is a travesty of the truth.

Netanyahu’s war-turned-genocide in Gaza has backfired badly – his strategy has helped resurrect Hamas, the very movement he tried desperately to crush
Aside from being a major military setback, Israel’s war on Gaza has also disoriented the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu like never before. Since the announcement of a ceasefire on 26 August, his statements appear erratic and particularly uncertain, an expected outcome of the Gaza war.

In the rush to analyze the outcome of Israel’s 51-day war in Gaza, dubbed Operation Protective Edge, some may have neglected an important factor: this was not a war by traditional definitions of warfare, thus the conventional analyses of victory and defeat is simply not applicable.

Ask any Arab ruler, and they will tell you of the great sacrifices their countries have made for Palestine and the Palestinians. However, both history and present reality are testaments, not only to Arab failure to live up to the role expected of them and stand in solidarity with their own oppressed brethren, but also to the official Arab betrayal of the Palestinian cause. The current war on Gaza, and the dubious role played by Egypt in the ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel are cases in point.

After every bloody episode of violence perpetrated by Israel, media spin doctors are often deployed with one grand mission: to absolve Israel of any responsibility in their acts of carnage.

My old family house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza was recently rebuilt by its new owner, into a beautiful three-story building with large windows adorned by red frames. In Israel’s most recent and deadliest war on Gaza, the house sustained significant damage. A large hole caused by Israeli missiles can be seen from afar, in a part of the house where our kitchen once stood.

Image above: Palestinian Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, left, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during their meeting in Cairo, Egypt, November 2011 (photo credit: AP/Office of Khaled Mashaal)