No dia 18 de janeiro a IDF (Forças Armadas israelense) assassinou seis membros do Hezbollah. Um deles eminente, jovem talentoso e estimado. Além das vítimas libanesas, um general iraniano também muito querido por seus feitos revolucionários foi morto no ataque. A IDF levou a operação de assassinato a cabo fora de suas fronteiras. Blog do dia 18/01/15.
Foi provocação calculada para que Hassan Nasrallah, o líder do Hezbollah, revidasse à altura. E aí, Binyamin Netanyahu, contando com o silêncio da grande mídia sobre seu atentado terrorista que suscitou a retaliação, preparasse uma escalada, e quem sabe? uma nova guerra sanguinária - costumeiras em período eleitoral, pois em Israel o melhor trunfo para reeleger-se é o número de cadáveres palestinos ou libaneses expostos vitrines televisivas. Quaisquer que sejam gênero e cupação das vítimas, de combatentes da resistência a idosos, mulheres, meninos ou nenéns de colo.
E como era de se esperar, o Hezbollah respondeu presente dez dias mais tarde. Contra-atacou com comedimento. Sem infringir as leis internacionais invadindo espaço aéreo israelense como fizera a IDF no Líbano. Lançou um míssil em território nacional ocupado, nas Fazendas de Shebaa - faixa de terras libanesas fertéis cobiçada por Israel há décadas, surrupiada em guerras precedentes e atualmente sob tutela da ONU, cujas forças armadas pacificadoras agem como um biombo entre predadodres e presas.
(Israel ocupou o Líbano durante 20 anos, até o ano 2000 quando o general-primeiro ministro Ehud Barak retirou suas tropas a fim de concentrar suas forças na ocupação da Palestina. Porém os dois países nunca fizeram as pazes realmente por causa do contencioso das Fazendas de Shebaa e outros territórios que Israel ocupa ilegalmente).
No contra-ataque do dia 28 o Hezbollah matou dois soldados da IDF e deixou sete feridos.
Israel "respondeu" imediatamente e sua sede de sangue foi interrompida por um erro crasso, seu míssil sofisticado matou o cabo espanhol Francisco Javier Soria Toledo de 36 anos, que estava a serviço das Nações Unidas.
A Espanha foi informada e seu embaixador Roman Oyarzun Marchesi (antecipando a mudança dos ventos nacionais com o avanço do partido de esquerda Podemos) apontou o dedo para a IDF sem rodeios: "It was because of this escalation of violence, and it came from the Israeli side."
Mesmo tendo dado outro tiro no pé, o Prtimeiro Ministro israelense não baixou a crista. Jurou vingança: "Those behind the attack today will pay the full price!," rosnou para as inúmeras câmeras de televisões internacionais.
Quando os resistentes do Hezbollah foram mortos no dia 18, quantas delas ouviram Hassan Nasrallah e quantos noticiários divulgaram o atentado?... Pergunta retórica.
Quem realizou a operação de retaliação foi justamente o batalhão do jovem Jihad Mughniyeh, rebatizada de Mártirs de al-Quneitra. O Hezebollah reivindicou o ataque com um comunicado mais preciso do que o de Tel Aviv: "The al-Quneitra Martyr's group targeted an Israeli convoy with specialised heavy duty rockets in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa farms area.The convoy included Israeli artillery, an officer and several soldiers many of whom were injured."
O porta-voz da IDF, tenente coronel Peter Lerner, reconheceu que este ataque foi o "most severe" que sofreram desde 2006 quando invadiram o Líbano matando mais de 1.200 libaneses, a maioria deles, civis, e perdeu 160 israelenses, quase todos soldados (Blogs 04/05/14-18/05/14-01/06/14).
Mas vida de israelense é sagrada, intocável mesmo sendo a de um soldado que serve um dos exércitos menos éticos do planeta.
Então, mais uma vez, Netanyahu jogou a carta de pobre super-potência militar que caiu em uma cilada, como se a provocação não tivesse vindo dele e sim do Hezbollah - como sempre faz com o Hamas na Faixa de Gaza; enfia a espada aqui, enfia a espada acolá, e quando o ferido reage, o massacra em "legítima defesa" com o apoio dos EUA.
Só que o arsenal do Hezbollah em um país livre não tem nada a ver com o foguetório artesanal do Hamas enclausurado no presídio Gaza. O partido libanês, além de possuir parlamentares, possui exército próprio, dezenas de milhares de mísseis e foguetes estocados em bunkers e túneis cuja localização Israel ignora. Porém, está ocupado na Síria, ajudando Bashar al-Assad a combater o Isis e seu arsenal e batalhões estão dispersos.
Israel conta com a incapacidade do Hezbollah de combater em duas frentes com a mesma eficiência de 2006 em que deixou Israel pedindo arrego e batendo na retirada aos frangalhos.
Acontece que no atentado em Quneitra a IDF, como disse acima, matou o general iraniano Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, um dos comandantes da Guarda Revolucionária. Herói popular e nas Forças Armadas. Assim atingiu não apenas os aiatolás e o presidente Ruani, mas todo o povo iraniano. Allahdadi é o oficial mais graduado a retornar ao país dentro de caixão e sensibilizou o país de Teerã a Isfaã. Mais de três gerações.
A agência de informação oficial iraniana, IRNA, comunicou que seu governo mandou um recado a Israel através de Washington: "We told the Americans that the leaders of the Zionist regime should await the consequences of their act,'' IRNA acrescentou que o ministro das Relações Exteriores Hossein Amirabdollahian disse que Israel "crossed our red lines''.
No funeral de Allahdadi, o chefe interino da Guarda, general Hossein Salami, avisou: "We tell them [Israelis to] await retaliation but we will decide about its timing, place and the strength.''
E a Casa Branca respondeu? Deu pelo menos um tapinha na mão de Netanyahu e tentou diminuir a tensão em Teerã pedindo "calma aí" para Ruani?
O porta-voz do State Department Jen Psaki preferiu tomar o partido dos dois pesos e duas medidas: "We absolutely condemn any such threats that come in any form."
Pronto, quem está errado é o agredido, que tem de receber o golpe, baixar a cabeça e esperar o próximo míssil.
Só para lembrar, Teerã e Washinton, os dois países não têm relações diplomáticas desde que estudantes iranianos invadiram a embaixada dos Estados Unidos em 1979 mantendo os funcionários estadunidenses reféns durante 444 dias (blog de 03/02/13). Os dois países trocam recados através da embaixada da Suiça, que trata dos interesses do Irã nos EUA. Diplomatas de ambos países só se encontram em negociações sobre o programa nuclear iraniano em troca de diminuição das sansões internacionais impostas ao país por demanda estadunidense.
"Israel can not just kill our people and then go to sleep... their farmes can't stay in their fields and their soldiers can't stoll up and down the border as if they merely killed mosquitoes".
Israel não pode simplesmente matar nosso povo e ir dormir... seus agricultores não podem ficar em seus campos e seus soldados passearam para cima e para baixo na fronteira como se tivessem matado meros mosquitos." Nasrallah: The Rules of Engagement with Israel Are Over
Só que o arsenal do Hezbollah em um país livre não tem nada a ver com o foguetório artesanal do Hamas enclausurado no presídio Gaza. O partido libanês, além de possuir parlamentares, possui exército próprio, dezenas de milhares de mísseis e foguetes estocados em bunkers e túneis cuja localização Israel ignora. Porém, está ocupado na Síria, ajudando Bashar al-Assad a combater o Isis e seu arsenal e batalhões estão dispersos.
Israel conta com a incapacidade do Hezbollah de combater em duas frentes com a mesma eficiência de 2006 em que deixou Israel pedindo arrego e batendo na retirada aos frangalhos.
Acontece que no atentado em Quneitra a IDF, como disse acima, matou o general iraniano Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, um dos comandantes da Guarda Revolucionária. Herói popular e nas Forças Armadas. Assim atingiu não apenas os aiatolás e o presidente Ruani, mas todo o povo iraniano. Allahdadi é o oficial mais graduado a retornar ao país dentro de caixão e sensibilizou o país de Teerã a Isfaã. Mais de três gerações.
A agência de informação oficial iraniana, IRNA, comunicou que seu governo mandou um recado a Israel através de Washington: "We told the Americans that the leaders of the Zionist regime should await the consequences of their act,'' IRNA acrescentou que o ministro das Relações Exteriores Hossein Amirabdollahian disse que Israel "crossed our red lines''.
No funeral de Allahdadi, o chefe interino da Guarda, general Hossein Salami, avisou: "We tell them [Israelis to] await retaliation but we will decide about its timing, place and the strength.''
E a Casa Branca respondeu? Deu pelo menos um tapinha na mão de Netanyahu e tentou diminuir a tensão em Teerã pedindo "calma aí" para Ruani?
O porta-voz do State Department Jen Psaki preferiu tomar o partido dos dois pesos e duas medidas: "We absolutely condemn any such threats that come in any form."
Pronto, quem está errado é o agredido, que tem de receber o golpe, baixar a cabeça e esperar o próximo míssil.
Só para lembrar, Teerã e Washinton, os dois países não têm relações diplomáticas desde que estudantes iranianos invadiram a embaixada dos Estados Unidos em 1979 mantendo os funcionários estadunidenses reféns durante 444 dias (blog de 03/02/13). Os dois países trocam recados através da embaixada da Suiça, que trata dos interesses do Irã nos EUA. Diplomatas de ambos países só se encontram em negociações sobre o programa nuclear iraniano em troca de diminuição das sansões internacionais impostas ao país por demanda estadunidense.
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| "Time for retribution" "Hora de retribuição" |
E como era de se esperar, o Hezbollah respondeu presente dez dias mais tarde. Contra-atacou com comedimento. Sem infringir as leis internacionais invadindo espaço aéreo israelense como fizera a IDF no Líbano. Lançou um míssil em território nacional ocupado, nas Fazendas de Shebaa - faixa de terras libanesas fertéis cobiçada por Israel há décadas, surrupiada em guerras precedentes e atualmente sob tutela da ONU, cujas forças armadas pacificadoras agem como um biombo entre predadodres e presas.
(Israel ocupou o Líbano durante 20 anos, até o ano 2000 quando o general-primeiro ministro Ehud Barak retirou suas tropas a fim de concentrar suas forças na ocupação da Palestina. Porém os dois países nunca fizeram as pazes realmente por causa do contencioso das Fazendas de Shebaa e outros territórios que Israel ocupa ilegalmente).
No contra-ataque do dia 28 o Hezbollah matou dois soldados da IDF e deixou sete feridos.
Israel "respondeu" imediatamente e sua sede de sangue foi interrompida por um erro crasso, seu míssil sofisticado matou o cabo espanhol Francisco Javier Soria Toledo de 36 anos, que estava a serviço das Nações Unidas.
A Espanha foi informada e seu embaixador Roman Oyarzun Marchesi (antecipando a mudança dos ventos nacionais com o avanço do partido de esquerda Podemos) apontou o dedo para a IDF sem rodeios: "It was because of this escalation of violence, and it came from the Israeli side."
Mesmo tendo dado outro tiro no pé, o Prtimeiro Ministro israelense não baixou a crista. Jurou vingança: "Those behind the attack today will pay the full price!," rosnou para as inúmeras câmeras de televisões internacionais.
Quando os resistentes do Hezbollah foram mortos no dia 18, quantas delas ouviram Hassan Nasrallah e quantos noticiários divulgaram o atentado?... Pergunta retórica.
Quem realizou a operação de retaliação foi justamente o batalhão do jovem Jihad Mughniyeh, rebatizada de Mártirs de al-Quneitra. O Hezebollah reivindicou o ataque com um comunicado mais preciso do que o de Tel Aviv: "The al-Quneitra Martyr's group targeted an Israeli convoy with specialised heavy duty rockets in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa farms area.The convoy included Israeli artillery, an officer and several soldiers many of whom were injured."
O porta-voz da IDF, tenente coronel Peter Lerner, reconheceu que este ataque foi o "most severe" que sofreram desde 2006 quando invadiram o Líbano matando mais de 1.200 libaneses, a maioria deles, civis, e perdeu 160 israelenses, quase todos soldados (Blogs 04/05/14-18/05/14-01/06/14).
Mas vida de israelense é sagrada, intocável mesmo sendo a de um soldado que serve um dos exércitos menos éticos do planeta.
Então, mais uma vez, Netanyahu jogou a carta de pobre super-potência militar que caiu em uma cilada, como se a provocação não tivesse vindo dele e sim do Hezbollah - como sempre faz com o Hamas na Faixa de Gaza; enfia a espada aqui, enfia a espada acolá, e quando o ferido reage, o massacra em "legítima defesa" com o apoio dos EUA.
Israel conta com a incapacidade do Hezbollah de combater em duas frentes com a mesma eficiência de 2006 em que deixou Israel pedindo arrego e batendo na retirada aos frangalhos.
Acontece que no atentado em Quneitra a IDF, como disse acima, matou o general iraniano Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, um dos comandantes da Guarda Revolucionária. Herói popular e nas Forças Armadas. Assim atingiu não apenas os aiatolás e o presidente Ruani, mas todo o povo iraniano. Allahdadi é o oficial mais graduado a retornar ao país dentro de caixão e sensibilizou o país de Teerã a Isfaã. Mais de três gerações.
A agência de informação oficial iraniana, IRNA, comunicou que seu governo mandou um recado a Israel através de Washington: "We told the Americans that the leaders of the Zionist regime should await the consequences of their act,'' IRNA acrescentou que o ministro das Relações Exteriores Hossein Amirabdollahian disse que Israel "crossed our red lines''.
No funeral de Allahdadi, o chefe interino da Guarda, general Hossein Salami, avisou: "We tell them [Israelis to] await retaliation but we will decide about its timing, place and the strength.''
E a Casa Branca respondeu? Deu pelo menos um tapinha na mão de Netanyahu e tentou diminuir a tensão em Teerã pedindo "calma aí" para Ruani?
O porta-voz do State Department Jen Psaki preferiu tomar o partido dos dois pesos e duas medidas: "We absolutely condemn any such threats that come in any form."
Pronto, quem está errado é o agredido, que tem de receber o golpe, baixar a cabeça e esperar o próximo míssil.
Só para lembrar, Teerã e Washinton, os dois países não têm relações diplomáticas desde que estudantes iranianos invadiram a embaixada dos Estados Unidos em 1979 mantendo os funcionários estadunidenses reféns durante 444 dias (blog de 03/02/13). Os dois países trocam recados através da embaixada da Suiça, que trata dos interesses do Irã nos EUA. Diplomatas de ambos países só se encontram em negociações sobre o programa nuclear iraniano em troca de diminuição das sansões internacionais impostas ao país por demanda estadunidense.
O funeral do jovem Jihad Mughniyeh no Líbano
Israel não pode simplesmente matar nosso povo e ir dormir... seus agricultores não podem ficar em seus campos e seus soldados passearam para cima e para baixo na fronteira como se tivessem matado meros mosquitos." Nasrallah: The Rules of Engagement with Israel Are Over
Women of Hizbollah
O funeral do general Allahdadi aos olhos da agência iraniana de notícias FARS
Israel conta com a incapacidade do Hezbollah de combater em duas frentes com a mesma eficiência de 2006 em que deixou Israel pedindo arrego e batendo na retirada aos frangalhos.
Acontece que no atentado em Quneitra a IDF, como disse acima, matou o general iraniano Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, um dos comandantes da Guarda Revolucionária. Herói popular e nas Forças Armadas. Assim atingiu não apenas os aiatolás e o presidente Ruani, mas todo o povo iraniano. Allahdadi é o oficial mais graduado a retornar ao país dentro de caixão e sensibilizou o país de Teerã a Isfaã. Mais de três gerações.
A agência de informação oficial iraniana, IRNA, comunicou que seu governo mandou um recado a Israel através de Washington: "We told the Americans that the leaders of the Zionist regime should await the consequences of their act,'' IRNA acrescentou que o ministro das Relações Exteriores Hossein Amirabdollahian disse que Israel "crossed our red lines''.
No funeral de Allahdadi, o chefe interino da Guarda, general Hossein Salami, avisou: "We tell them [Israelis to] await retaliation but we will decide about its timing, place and the strength.''
E a Casa Branca respondeu? Deu pelo menos um tapinha na mão de Netanyahu e tentou diminuir a tensão em Teerã pedindo "calma aí" para Ruani?
O porta-voz do State Department Jen Psaki preferiu tomar o partido dos dois pesos e duas medidas: "We absolutely condemn any such threats that come in any form."
Pronto, quem está errado é o agredido, que tem de receber o golpe, baixar a cabeça e esperar o próximo míssil.
Só para lembrar, Teerã e Washinton, os dois países não têm relações diplomáticas desde que estudantes iranianos invadiram a embaixada dos Estados Unidos em 1979 mantendo os funcionários estadunidenses reféns durante 444 dias (blog de 03/02/13). Os dois países trocam recados através da embaixada da Suiça, que trata dos interesses do Irã nos EUA. Diplomatas de ambos países só se encontram em negociações sobre o programa nuclear iraniano em troca de diminuição das sansões internacionais impostas ao país por demanda estadunidense.
Inside Story: Will the latest tensions serve Hezbollah?
Pesquisa recente revelou que, no detestar dos britânicos, Israel só perde para a Coréia do Norte.
PS1. Palestina/Gaza/Egito
"Two days after large-scale, coordinated militant attacks in the Sinai killed at least 30 Egyptian soldiers and police officers last week, a Cairo court listed Hamas' armed wing as a terrorist group. Given that the Palestinian faction has served as a convenient scapegoat in Egypt since the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, the timing of the court ruling is unlikely to be coincidental.
Rather, it seems in line with blaming Hamas and the Gaza Strip, which it governs, for violence in the Sinai Peninsula. Indeed, Cairo's response to militant attacks that killed 33 security personnel in the peninsula in October was to build a buffer zone along the border with Gaza.
Never mind that these and other attacks have been claimed by Egyptian group Sinai Province (formerly Ansar Beit al-Maqdis), which pledged allegiance last year to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
War of words
It is far more convenient, though totally baseless, for Cairo to blame Sinai violence - as well as a host of other domestic issues - on Hamas rather than acknowledge that it is a home-grown problem. This allows the government to garner public support against foreign interference.
Never mind too, that Hamas vehemently denies military involvement in Egypt taht a war of words whas benn brewing between the Palestinian faction and ISIL, that Hamas has fundamental ideological and strategic differences with jihadists, and taht there is speculation that the latter may be starting to pose a threat to its rule in Gaza.
It also enables it to deflect attention away from its own policy failures, its broken security promises, and its culpability in encouraging domestic militancy, particularly with regard to widespread human rights abuses, and in the case of the Sinai, the huge toll that the buffer zone is having on its residents. Sinai militants have cited such abuses as justification for their actions.
It also enables it to deflect attention away from its own policy failures, its broken security promises, and its culpability in encouraging domestic militancy, particularly with regard to widespread human rights abuses, and in the case of the Sinai, the huge toll that the buffer zone is having on its residents. Sinai militants have cited such abuses as justification for their actions.
Last week's attacks are proof that Gaza is not the problem, and that the zone is not the solution. The concern used to be that the Sinai was a source of weapons and fighters for Gaza, but since Morsi's ouster we are told that actually the Palestinian territory is supplying the Sinai militants. This defies evidence and logic. The least practical source for Sinai militants is Gaza, which has been under strict blockade by its only two neighbours, Egypt and Israel, for several years.
Successive Egyptian administrations have stressed the effectiveness of their crackdowns on smuggling tunnels. According to officials and smugglers on both sides of the border, by last summer some 95 percent of tunnels were no longer operational. The remainder are reportedly small, unstable, and have to supply Gaza's 1.8 million impoverished people with basic necessities - hardly conducive to reliable military supplies.
Why would Gaza militants, who find it hard enough getting weapons themselves, hand them over when they face Israeli aggression? Their stocks are already depleted by Israel's most recent invasion, and there are warnings from all sides that another war is likely.
In this context, opening up another front, against Egypt's army, makes no sense as this would result in Hamas' increased isolation. The group also has to enforce the ceasefire with Israel and govern Gaza - it needs military strength to do both.
Other supply routes are far more plentiful, lucrative and accessible. Egypt has long and porous borders with war-torn Libya and Sudan, and extensive Mediterranean and Red Sea coastlines. At just 13km, Gaza represents a minuscule 0.2 percent of the total of length of Egypt's borders.
Egypt is surrounded by countries that are awash with weapons. Abundant supply and choice makes them considerably cheaper than getting them from Gaza. Libya, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran are among the countries cited as sources and supply routes for Sinai militants.
The continued expansion of the Sinai buffer zone, entailing the displacement of thousands of civilians and the destruction of the entire city of Rafah, is certain to bolster militant ranks. In December, it was announced that the zone's width would be increased 10-fold from its original 500m.
"The scale of the forced has been astonishing," Amnesty International said in November. The human rights group accused the authorities of "completely ignoring key safeguards required under international law including consultation with residents, adequate prior notice, sufficient compensation for losses and granting alternative housing to those who cannot provide for themselves, rendering the evictions unlawful".
Misdiagnosing the problem
"The scale of the forced has been astonishing," Amnesty International said in November. The human rights group accused the authorities of "completely ignoring key safeguards required under international law including consultation with residents, adequate prior notice, sufficient compensation for losses and granting alternative housing to those who cannot provide for themselves, rendering the evictions unlawful".
Misdiagnosing the problem
Egypt's increasingly strict blockade of Gaza is also causing resentment among Sinai residents, who have economic and social ties to the Palestinian territory. This has considerably restricted trade revenues among an already impoverished population.
Instead of encouraging foreign conspiracy theories, Cairo would do well to recognise that the Sinai unrest is largely rooted in long-running grievances, including demands for greater autonomy, state repression, and economic, political, and social marginalisation.
As such, a purely military approach will only aggravate matters - a mistake made not just by the current government - which on Saturday established a new, Sinai-focused counterterrorism unit - but by its predecessors.
Simplistically and inaccurately viewing the situation as one of radical religious militancy stoked by Hamas in Gaza, rather than long-standing local grievances against the state, gravely misdiagnoses the problem. The public will eventually see, sadly with deadly effect, that the Sinai buffer zone has not enhanced security. What will be the government's excuse when it can no longer scapegoat Hamas and Gaza?"
Sharif Nashashibi is an award-winning journalist and analyst on Arab affairs.
Contra a vontade de Israel e dos EUA, Hamas vai abrir porto de Gaza ao tráfego internacional com ajuda da União Européia, Grécia, Turquia e Qatar.
PS sobre a campanha eleitoral em Israel, que mudará (ou não) de Primeiro Ministro no dia 03 de março, e as pequenezas de seus governantes.
"Everybody knows what the Israeli elections are about.
The choice is stark: on the one side, the dream of a Greater Israel "from the sea to the river", which would in practice be an apartheid state; on the other side, an end to the occupation and peace.
Some would add a social choice: on the one side, the existing neoliberal state with the widest inequality in the industrialized world; on the other side, a social-democratic state of social solidarity.
So is the country plastered with posters about war and peace, occupation and settlements, wages and the cost of living? Are TV programs full of them? Are they occupying the front pages of the newspapers?
Far from it. Five weeks to election day, and all these subjects have practically disappeared.
War, peace, social justice – they just raise a collective yawn. There are far more interesting matters which electrify the public mind.
Bottles, for example.
Bottles, for God's sake? Elections about bottles?
Yes, indeed. Bottles.
The entire country is preoccupied by what Sherlock Holmes would have called the Mystery of the Bottles.
Israel is an ecology-minded society. It felt threatened by discarded plastic and glass bottles. So a law was enacted that obliges supermarkets and other retail businesses to demand a small deposit - a few cents – about 13 for a plastic bottle, about 30 for a wine bottle – to be returned in exchange for the empty bottle. Many people, like myself, don't bother.
But small sums can become large sums. Many poor elderly people earn a kind of living by collecting empty bottles from the dustbins in the streets, mostly for organized crime families.
All the returned bottles are treated for reuse. The environment is saved. Everybody is satisfied. So how did this become a hot election issue, pushing everything else from the national agenda?
Enter the first Family: Binyamin Netanyahu, wife Sarah and the two just adult sons.
The family is housed by the state in the official Prime Minister's residence in the center of Jerusalem. It also owns two private dwellings – an apartment in a well to-do Jerusalem neighborhood and a sumptuous villa in Ceasarea, a neighborhood of the very rich.
By law, all these residences are kept by the state. The public purse pays all living expenses, such as food and drinks, as well as the staff that mans (and womans) them.
Since the beginning of the Netanyahu terms, news and rumors about the goings-on in the three residences abound. It seems that Sarah Netanyahu, the would-be-queen, is a difficult person to deal with, especially for domestic employees. Several of them have sued her in court for mistreatment. Human turnover is frequent. Dismissed personnel complain.
One disclosure was that Sarah'le (as everybody calls her, not always out of love) has removed garden furniture from the government-owned residence to her private villa. Another was that the chief of the domestic staff was woken in the middle of the night at his home and ordered to bring some hot soup at once to his mistress' bedroom. It seems that she frequently yells at the staff for small omissions. All this was brought up in various court cases, to the great delight of the masses.
For example, it became public that the Prime Minister's residence has ordered ice cream for hundreds of thousands of dollars during the year. Always pistachio.
Complaints about the Prime Minister's love for luxury are not new. For years now, the Attorney General has been making inquiries about "Bibitours", the habit of Netanyahu and his family to fly first-class and stay in luxury hotels all over the world without paying a shekel – all expenses paid by foreign billionaires. Since he was Minister of Finance at the time, this was against the law.
And now come the bottles.
One dismissed employee disclosed to the media that Sarah'le habitually sends two government employees in an official car to the bottle collection station to return empty bottles and get the deposits back. Instead of returning the money to the government, as the law demands, she pockets it for her private use.
Big deal? Seems so. When first caught, the family returned to the government 4000 shekels, almost a thousand Euros. Now it appears that the sums are much larger, and that Sarah'le has continued with the practice since.
This may be a criminal offence. The Attorney General and the State Comptroller, both Netanyahu appointees, threw the file at each other. Now the may be compelled to do something before the elections.
How many bottles? It has become known that the family consumes an average of one bottle of expensive wine every day. In a country like Israel where many people don't drink alcohol at all, that is quite a lot. When asked about it, the family lawyer astonished the country by asserting on TV that "wine is not alcohol".
The idea that our Prime Minister may be drunk when fateful decisions have to be taken at once – ordering a military action, for example - is not very appealing....
For weeks now, this is the hottest topic in Israel.
Bibi-haters, with which the country abounds, are happy. This will surely hurt Netanyahu and the Likud grievously. Does it?
As of now, not at all. On the contrary, after several days in which the "Zionist Camp" (a.k.a. Labor Party) overtook the Likud in the polls by one or two seats, the Likud has rebounded and taken the lead by two or three seats. No Labor djinn has emerged from the bottles.
The country was amused. The bottles provided the stuff of unlimited quantities of gossip, cartoons and satire, but did not change the political attitudes of the voters.
And, of course, something has gone wrong with the "Zionist Camp".
In military terms, when a general succeeds in breaking the lines of the enemy, the last thing he should do is stop and congratulate himself. He should throw all his forces into the breach and conquer the opponent's rear.
Yitzhak Herzog is no general, and did not learn this lesson.
He started his election campaign well enough. His political marriage with Tzipi Livni was a master stroke. Livni did not bring a dowry – her party was more virtual than real. But the union created a sense of novelty, of movement, of momentum. The more so as Herzog agreed to a rotation between himself and Livni if he becomes prime minister – a gesture that was perceived as a generous act of modesty and selflessness, unusual for a politician in Israel (or elsewhere, I suspect). Usually, politicians are egomaniacs.
Results were immediate. The Labor party, seen until then as almost moribund, jumped to life in the polls. It overtook Likud. Suddenly people could imagine the defeat of the Right. Herzog, an unassuming and physically small person, suddenly appeared as a plausible candidate for leadership.
And there it stopped. Something happened to the new Camp: nothing happened. In internal primary elections, an impressive slate of candidates emerged, a list of new, fresh and competent people who are far more attractive than the lists of all the other parties.
But that was it. The party fell quiet. It did not react at all to Netanyahu's blatant act of provocation on the northern border, It did not bring up new and revolutionary ideas, it started no real propaganda campaign. Until now, the party campaign is like Herzog himself: unassuming, decent and quiet. Very quiet.
Likud, on the other hand, is rampant. They throw every ounce of dirt they can lay their hands on. They are shrill, unscrupulous and vulgar.
But the main thing is that there was no more momentum. In vain I proposed, in two articles in Haaretz, a joint election list of all center and left parties, thus giving the impression that all anti-Netanyahu forces are uniting to put an end to Likud domination and build a new governing majority, with a new agenda.
The idea evoked no reaction. Herzog did not want Meretz, for fear that his list would be contaminated by leftists. Neither was he ready to woo Yair Lapid's center party. (My proposal was to include both, so that they would balance each other in the public mind.) Herzog apparently did not feel, like me, that a large new alliance would create enthusiasm and arouse the leftist public from its fatal apathy.
Lapid's egomania prevented him from promoting such a union, in which he would not be No. 1, though polls predicted that his party would shrink to half its first-time strength. Meretz was not ready to give up its cozy isolation, more a social club than a political force. The learned professors, devoid of any political intuition, with which the Left abounds, adamantly advised against it.
When the final day for submitting the election lists came and passed, I was sad. Not angry, just sad. I felt in my bones that a unique opportunity to overcome the right-wing domination, with all that it entails for the future of Israel, had been missed.
It may still happen. The public may still decide that enough is enough. But the chances for that are much diminished.
A friend of mine, who has a conspiratorial turn of mind, has suggested that the whole bottle affair was really brought up by Netanyahu himself as a ploy to take the public mind off the fateful problems facing Israel, for which he has no solutions.
For better or for worse, the bottles have centered public attention on him. His pictures fill the TV screen, his name features in the news. Herzog, without bottles or pistachio ice cream, remains discreetly in the background. Even Tzipi cannot compete with Sarah'le's colorful personality.
Those of us who feared that Netanyahu might provoke a war on the eve of the election, might say: better bottles than battles.
Uri Avnery, 07/02/15.
Contra a vontade de Israel e dos EUA, Hamas vai abrir porto de Gaza ao tráfego internacional com ajuda da União Européia, Grécia, Turquia e Qatar.PS sobre a campanha eleitoral em Israel, que mudará (ou não) de Primeiro Ministro no dia 03 de março, e as pequenezas de seus governantes.
"Everybody knows what the Israeli elections are about.
The choice is stark: on the one side, the dream of a Greater Israel "from the sea to the river", which would in practice be an apartheid state; on the other side, an end to the occupation and peace.
Some would add a social choice: on the one side, the existing neoliberal state with the widest inequality in the industrialized world; on the other side, a social-democratic state of social solidarity.
So is the country plastered with posters about war and peace, occupation and settlements, wages and the cost of living? Are TV programs full of them? Are they occupying the front pages of the newspapers?
Far from it. Five weeks to election day, and all these subjects have practically disappeared.
War, peace, social justice – they just raise a collective yawn. There are far more interesting matters which electrify the public mind.
Bottles, for example.
Bottles, for God's sake? Elections about bottles?
Yes, indeed. Bottles.
The entire country is preoccupied by what Sherlock Holmes would have called the Mystery of the Bottles.
Israel is an ecology-minded society. It felt threatened by discarded plastic and glass bottles. So a law was enacted that obliges supermarkets and other retail businesses to demand a small deposit - a few cents – about 13 for a plastic bottle, about 30 for a wine bottle – to be returned in exchange for the empty bottle. Many people, like myself, don't bother.
But small sums can become large sums. Many poor elderly people earn a kind of living by collecting empty bottles from the dustbins in the streets, mostly for organized crime families.
All the returned bottles are treated for reuse. The environment is saved. Everybody is satisfied. So how did this become a hot election issue, pushing everything else from the national agenda?
Enter the first Family: Binyamin Netanyahu, wife Sarah and the two just adult sons.
The family is housed by the state in the official Prime Minister's residence in the center of Jerusalem. It also owns two private dwellings – an apartment in a well to-do Jerusalem neighborhood and a sumptuous villa in Ceasarea, a neighborhood of the very rich.
By law, all these residences are kept by the state. The public purse pays all living expenses, such as food and drinks, as well as the staff that mans (and womans) them.
Since the beginning of the Netanyahu terms, news and rumors about the goings-on in the three residences abound. It seems that Sarah Netanyahu, the would-be-queen, is a difficult person to deal with, especially for domestic employees. Several of them have sued her in court for mistreatment. Human turnover is frequent. Dismissed personnel complain.
One disclosure was that Sarah'le (as everybody calls her, not always out of love) has removed garden furniture from the government-owned residence to her private villa. Another was that the chief of the domestic staff was woken in the middle of the night at his home and ordered to bring some hot soup at once to his mistress' bedroom. It seems that she frequently yells at the staff for small omissions. All this was brought up in various court cases, to the great delight of the masses.
For example, it became public that the Prime Minister's residence has ordered ice cream for hundreds of thousands of dollars during the year. Always pistachio.
Complaints about the Prime Minister's love for luxury are not new. For years now, the Attorney General has been making inquiries about "Bibitours", the habit of Netanyahu and his family to fly first-class and stay in luxury hotels all over the world without paying a shekel – all expenses paid by foreign billionaires. Since he was Minister of Finance at the time, this was against the law.
And now come the bottles.
One dismissed employee disclosed to the media that Sarah'le habitually sends two government employees in an official car to the bottle collection station to return empty bottles and get the deposits back. Instead of returning the money to the government, as the law demands, she pockets it for her private use.
Big deal? Seems so. When first caught, the family returned to the government 4000 shekels, almost a thousand Euros. Now it appears that the sums are much larger, and that Sarah'le has continued with the practice since.
This may be a criminal offence. The Attorney General and the State Comptroller, both Netanyahu appointees, threw the file at each other. Now the may be compelled to do something before the elections.
How many bottles? It has become known that the family consumes an average of one bottle of expensive wine every day. In a country like Israel where many people don't drink alcohol at all, that is quite a lot. When asked about it, the family lawyer astonished the country by asserting on TV that "wine is not alcohol".
The idea that our Prime Minister may be drunk when fateful decisions have to be taken at once – ordering a military action, for example - is not very appealing....
For weeks now, this is the hottest topic in Israel.
Bibi-haters, with which the country abounds, are happy. This will surely hurt Netanyahu and the Likud grievously. Does it?
As of now, not at all. On the contrary, after several days in which the "Zionist Camp" (a.k.a. Labor Party) overtook the Likud in the polls by one or two seats, the Likud has rebounded and taken the lead by two or three seats. No Labor djinn has emerged from the bottles.
The country was amused. The bottles provided the stuff of unlimited quantities of gossip, cartoons and satire, but did not change the political attitudes of the voters.
And, of course, something has gone wrong with the "Zionist Camp".
In military terms, when a general succeeds in breaking the lines of the enemy, the last thing he should do is stop and congratulate himself. He should throw all his forces into the breach and conquer the opponent's rear.
Yitzhak Herzog is no general, and did not learn this lesson.
He started his election campaign well enough. His political marriage with Tzipi Livni was a master stroke. Livni did not bring a dowry – her party was more virtual than real. But the union created a sense of novelty, of movement, of momentum. The more so as Herzog agreed to a rotation between himself and Livni if he becomes prime minister – a gesture that was perceived as a generous act of modesty and selflessness, unusual for a politician in Israel (or elsewhere, I suspect). Usually, politicians are egomaniacs.
Results were immediate. The Labor party, seen until then as almost moribund, jumped to life in the polls. It overtook Likud. Suddenly people could imagine the defeat of the Right. Herzog, an unassuming and physically small person, suddenly appeared as a plausible candidate for leadership.
And there it stopped. Something happened to the new Camp: nothing happened. In internal primary elections, an impressive slate of candidates emerged, a list of new, fresh and competent people who are far more attractive than the lists of all the other parties.
But that was it. The party fell quiet. It did not react at all to Netanyahu's blatant act of provocation on the northern border, It did not bring up new and revolutionary ideas, it started no real propaganda campaign. Until now, the party campaign is like Herzog himself: unassuming, decent and quiet. Very quiet.
Likud, on the other hand, is rampant. They throw every ounce of dirt they can lay their hands on. They are shrill, unscrupulous and vulgar.
But the main thing is that there was no more momentum. In vain I proposed, in two articles in Haaretz, a joint election list of all center and left parties, thus giving the impression that all anti-Netanyahu forces are uniting to put an end to Likud domination and build a new governing majority, with a new agenda.
The idea evoked no reaction. Herzog did not want Meretz, for fear that his list would be contaminated by leftists. Neither was he ready to woo Yair Lapid's center party. (My proposal was to include both, so that they would balance each other in the public mind.) Herzog apparently did not feel, like me, that a large new alliance would create enthusiasm and arouse the leftist public from its fatal apathy.
Lapid's egomania prevented him from promoting such a union, in which he would not be No. 1, though polls predicted that his party would shrink to half its first-time strength. Meretz was not ready to give up its cozy isolation, more a social club than a political force. The learned professors, devoid of any political intuition, with which the Left abounds, adamantly advised against it.
When the final day for submitting the election lists came and passed, I was sad. Not angry, just sad. I felt in my bones that a unique opportunity to overcome the right-wing domination, with all that it entails for the future of Israel, had been missed.
It may still happen. The public may still decide that enough is enough. But the chances for that are much diminished.
A friend of mine, who has a conspiratorial turn of mind, has suggested that the whole bottle affair was really brought up by Netanyahu himself as a ploy to take the public mind off the fateful problems facing Israel, for which he has no solutions.
For better or for worse, the bottles have centered public attention on him. His pictures fill the TV screen, his name features in the news. Herzog, without bottles or pistachio ice cream, remains discreetly in the background. Even Tzipi cannot compete with Sarah'le's colorful personality.
Those of us who feared that Netanyahu might provoke a war on the eve of the election, might say: better bottles than battles.
Uri Avnery, 07/02/15.
Inside Story: Has president Sisi's approach in Sinai failed?
http://youtu.be/kaKfxHG2jyg
PS2. Cuba/USA
Por outro lado, no nosso continente americano, o presidente de Cuba Raul Castroa, antes de reatar relações diplomáticas com os Estados Unidos, resolveu fazer a demanda unânime de todos os cubanos. Que os EUA lhes devolva a Baía de Guantânamo.Raul, atendendo aos últimos pedidos do irmão que está nas últimas, mas ainda lúcido, não se deixou envolver pelas artimanhas de Barack Obama, que quer deixar o governo com este legado, já que não consegue peitar Israel.
Mas a medida é pragmática, é claro, e não de boa vizinhança ou de tolerância. Os EUA estão vendo que a América do Sul irreleva o bloqueio e está ocupando um espaço que eles querem ocupar com negócios de toda índole, inclusive imobiliário, antecipando a morte de Fidel Castro.
Recapitulando, os dois presidentes anunciaram o reatamento de relações diplomáticas no dia 17 de dezembro de 2014. Encontraram-se em meados de janeiro de 2015 em Havana a fim de discutir a reabertura de embaixadas.
Washington já está relaxando o embargo para abertura de mercado à exportação e a viagem.
Mas Raul e Fidel não morderam a isca e estão impondo condições, além da Baís de Guantânamo, que um ditador cubano alugou aos EUA por uma ninharia no século XX (blog de 19/05/13).
Entre as demandas de Cuba, há a de os EUA pararem as transmissões radiofônicas e televisivas anti-castristas e dar "just compensation to our people for the human and economic damage that they're suffered," pedindo centenas de milhões pelas perdas e danos causadas pelo embargo de mais de 50 anos. Além disso, que os EUA parem de apoiar os dissidentes cubanos naturalizados estadunidenses e que remova Cuba da lista de "state sponsors of terrorism". Estigma injusto que os prejudica em relações internacionais.
Raul concluiu dizendo que "The re-establishment of diplomatic relations is the start of a process of normalizing bilateral relations, but this will not be possible while the blockade still exists, while they don't give back the territory illegally occupied by the Guantanamo naval base."
A demanda cubana foi apoiada pelo Brasil, Ecuardor, El Salvador, Nicaragua e Venezuela.
Democracy Now - Inside the U.S. Torture chambers
Prisoner's Guantánamo Diary details 12 Years of Abuse and terror
E uma palavrinha de Mikhail Gorbatchev sobre a Ucrânia e os patrocinadores da desordem
The making of Norman Finkelstein: Reality asserts itself
Real News IV
