Last Friday, the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald took on Bill Maher over the supposedly ‘unique’ danger of Islam on Maher’s show ‘Real Time’ on HBO. Maher has long contended that Islam is an inherently violent religion that poses a greater threat than all other religions.

Greenwald took it to Maher on Friday, and to be frank, made Maher look pretty silly. Maher argued that whenever Muslims are given political freedom, they choose theocracy and extremism. Greenwald pointed out that US involvement in the Middle East is the driving force behind extremism, and that other religions are equally ‘dangerous’ when it comes to promoting violent and oppressive policies (Israel’s occupation of Gaza being a good example).

Greenwald posted this clip blog with the major exchanges:

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The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From TPM:

Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal on Wednesday praised Egypt for its role in brokering a cease-fire with Israel and thanked Iran for supplying his organization’s militants with arms during the eight-day conflict.

Meshaal asserted emphatically that Israel failed to reach its goals during the aerial bombardment of Gaza — an assessment diametrically opposed to the response from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), which declared its military operation a success shortly after the cease-fire agreement was reached.

“After eight days, God stayed their hand from the people of Gaza, and they were compelled to submit to the conditions of the resistance,” Meshaal told reporters in a Cairo hotel. “Israel has failed in all its goals.”

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The Huff Post’s Ahmed Shihab-Eldin decries the framing of the Israeli assault on Gaza that paints Palestinians as aggressors:

To ignore the role of Israel’s occupation of Gaza is to ignore the fundamental fact needed to frame the latest escalation in reality rather than rhetoric and propaganda.

To do otherwise flagrantly falsifies the reality of the ongoing humanitarian crisis on the ground in Gaza.

The reality is complicated; mired in corruption, haunted by division, but ultimately a product of obscene oppression. So obscene that many, namely Israel and the U.S., would rather pretend it simply was not true — not real — but it is.

It remains mystifying to me that anyone could expect Palestinians to live in cantonized ghettos, be subjected to racial profiling, have their land routinely stolen and invaded and expect them not to retaliate. Yet much of the media seems to tow the Israeli line that they are somehow the victims of Palestinian aggression.

Of course the targeting of civilians by Hamas is despicable – innocent Israelis are killed and this can never be justified. The Palestinians have also done much to undermine their own cause, resorting to violence and terror that has yielded nothing in return. But the history is clear – one side is occupying another and subjecting it to conditions it would never accept itself, and it is reaping acts of terror as a result of it. To ignore this is not only to ignore reality but morality.

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Gilad Sharon: "Flatten Gaza"

Gilad Sharon, son of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, has written a sickening op-ed in  the  Jerusalem Post expressing a desire to ‘flatten’ Gaza, and even, it seems, suggest using nuclear weapons against the impoverished refugees:

We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.

There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. Then they’d really call for a ceasefire.

According to Sharon, there it no such thing as an innocent Gazan – they elected Hamas, so must be collectively punished for the actions of their government:

The desire to prevent harm to innocent civilians in Gaza will ultimately lead to harming the truly innocent: the residents of southern Israel. The residents of Gaza are not innocent, they elected Hamas. The Gazans aren’t hostages; they chose this freely, and must live with the consequences.

I try to keep personal emotion out of my analysis, particularly when it comes to the situation in Israel. I am of Jewish heritage, so was initially blindly pro Israel before I understood the complex history of the region. I decided to keep ethnic pride out of the equation when assessing the conflict, and now understand the situation to be a tragic example of colonialism and occupation – sadly on behalf of my own people. While I am able to distance myself from the tribal emotion of it all, I can’t help but feel utterly depressed when reading dehumanizing hate mongering by figures like Gilad Sharon  – a Jew who should be ashamed of himself given the history of his own people.

Surely Sharon has read about ‘Kristallnacht’, the ‘Night of the broken glass’ – a horrific campaign of collective Jewish punishment lead by Dr. Goebbels after a lone Jew shot a German diplomat in Paris in 1938. If he hasn’t, he should, and compare the German mentality of dehumanization to his own.

Surely Sharon must understand that if Gazans are to be collectively punished for electing a particular government, then so too must Israelis. If Israel is allowed to  ‘flatten’ Gaza, then surely the Palestinians can return the favor for the election of Benjamin Netanyahu.

But of course he doesn’t, because Sharon is a bully versed only in the language of violence and intimidation. To call Sharon a racist would be an understatement – just look at an article he wrote for ‘Arutz Sheva’ comparing Palestinians to wild animals:

Let us not forget with whom we are dealing here. You can take the wild Palestinian beast and put a mask on it, in the form of some fluent English-speaking spokesman. You can also dress it in a three-piece suit and silk tie.

But every once in a while – during a new moon, or when a crow’s droppings hit a howling jackal, or when its pita with hyssop doesn’t come out just right – the wild beast senses that this is its night, and out of primeval instincts, it sets off to stalk its prey.

Comparisons to Nazis should not be made lightly, but in the case of Gilad Sharon, it’s entirely justified.

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The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From AP:

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel and the Hamas militant group edged closer to a cease-fire Tuesday to end a weeklong Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, but after a day of furious diplomatic efforts involving the U.S. secretary of state, U.N. chief and Egypt’s president, a deal remained elusive and fighting raged on both sides of the border.

Israeli tanks and gunboats pummeled targets in Gaza in what appeared to be a last-minute burst of fire, while at least 200 rockets were fired into Israel. As talks dragged on near midnight, Israeli and Hamas officials, communicating through Egyptian mediators, expressed hope that a deal would soon be reached, but cautioned that it was far from certain.

“If there is a possibility of achieving a long-term solution to this problem by diplomatic means, we prefer that. But if not, then I am sure you will understand that Israel will have to take whatever actions are necessary to defend its people,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a late-night meeting with visiting Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton was hastily dispatched to the region by President Barack Obama to join a high-profile group of world leaders working to halt the violence. Standing alongside the Israeli leader, Clinton indicated it could take some time to iron out an agreement.

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(AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From AP:

JERUSALEM (AP) — A diplomatic push to end Israel’s nearly weeklong offensive in the Gaza Strip gained momentum Tuesday, with Egypt’s president predicting that airstrikes would end within hours and Israel’s prime minister saying his country would be a “willing partner” to a cease-fire with the Islamic militant group Hamas.

As international diplomats raced across the region to cement a deal, a senior Hamas official said an agreement was close even as relentless airstrikes and rocket attacks between the two sides continued. President Barack Obama dispatched Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Mideast from Cambodia, where she had accompanied him on a visit.

“We haven’t struck the deal yet, but we are progressing and it will most likely be tonight,” Moussa Abu Marzouk said Tuesday from Cairo, where cease-fire talks were being held.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, perhaps the most important interlocutor between Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory, and the Israelis, said the negotiations between the two sides will yield “positive results” during the coming hours.

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Gaza: Close to breaking point

By Ben Cohen

“The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages. Only then will Israel be calm for forty years,” – Eli Yishai, Israel’s Interior Minister

The continued Israeli assault on the Gaza strip that now counts 96 Palestinians dead, 50 of them civilians, is being backed explicitly by President Obama who told reporters at a press gathering in Thailand:

“Let’s understand what the precipitating event here that’s causing the current crisis and that was an ever-escalating number of missiles that were landing not just in Israeli territory but in areas that are populated, and there’s no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.”

Jay Carney, the White House spokesman made the following statement to the press on the official US line:

We strongly condemn the barrage of rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, and we regret the death and injury of innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians caused by the ensuing violence. There is no justification for the violence that Hamas and other terrorist organizations are employing against the people of Israel. We call on those responsible to stop these cowardly acts immediately in order to allow the situation to de-escalate.

So much for a balanced approach.

The US retelling of the conflict really is astonishing if you look at what actually happened, and given only 3 Israelis have died during the latest episode of violence, it borders on the grotesque. Obama’s argument that Israel has the right to attack Gaza because ‘no country would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens’ is patently absurd when you look at what Gazans deal with on a daily basis. The minute land strip that houses roughly 1.7 million, most of them refugees, is a virtual prison suppressed by continuous economic and military blockades, routine incursions and attacks from its Israeli neighbors. It cedes control of its borders, sea and airspace to Israel, and is almost completely reliant on foreign aid to exist. Would any other country on earth tolerate that? Would the US allow Canada or Mexico to do the same to them without retaliation or resistance?

Of course they wouldn’t. But because Palestinians are dark skinned Arabs, apparently they must.

It is important for people to understand that while politicians and the media paint Arabs as uncivilized barbarians incapable of human feeling and committed to frenzied Jihad, Arabs do not of course view themselves this way. Arabs are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters who feel emotion, pain and love the same way everybody else does. They love their countries and have pride in autonomy and self reliance the same way Americans do and want peace and prosperity for their children the same way Israelis do.

It’s easy to pretend that Palestinians don’t feel loss of life like Israelis. It makes the incredibly disproportionate violence unleashed upon them that we see on live television a more palatable process. It’s ok, because Arabs don’t respect human life, so killing more of them is fine. And given Arabs only understand force, the only way to deal with them is through force. If they are continually subjected to humiliation and violence, they will cease wanting the same things Israelies do. Or so goes the logic.

The problem with this narrative is that the Palestinians will not comply with it. They are resisting the slow colonization of their land by any means necessary, and they are paying a huge price in human lives.

The US could put a halt to the occupation quite easily. It bankrolls the Israeli military to the tune of $3.1 billion a year, and could threaten to cut funding as long as it illegally occupies Palestinian land.

But it won’t, and it is highly unlikely Obama will deviate from what is now fairly entrenched US policy towards the conflict.

What Obama can do, however, is to use Egypt to prevent the violence from escalating. With its new government, Egypt is now a far more important player in the Israeli-Palestinian crisis as it will not cede as easily to US demands as was the case under Hosni Mubarak. Egypt’s new President, Mohamed Mursi has openly supported the Palestinians and condemned Israel’s assault on Gaza, giving him far more credence in the Arab world than Mubarak did, who did little to stop Israel’s continual attacks on Gaza in the past. Since coming to power though, Mursi has made efforts to keep good relations with Israel, understanding the impact of jeopardizing important trading relations. Israel does not want to put those relationships at risk either, and will listen to Egypt if it intervenes in its action in Gaza.

According to Reuters, the Egyptian government believes a truce between the two sides is imminent, having spent days pressing both sides to pull back. While publicly backing Israel, President Obama is clearly aware that another war on Gaza is not good for US interests in the region and has been urging Egypt (and Turkey) to negotiate a truce.

It isn’t much to get excited about – given the leverage the US has over Israel, the conflict needn’t have occurred in the first place – but putting a stop to the violence is an absolute necessity. Because Gaza is close to breaking point and can’t take much more.

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Benjamin Netanyahu: War, war and more war

By Ben Cohen: The world watches as the deteriorating situation in Gaza unfolds, unable to prevent either side from pulling back from the brink of war. With Israel gearing up for a full out assault on the impoverished area it has been occupying for decades, the chances for a peaceful resolution to the conflict that dates back to 1948 becomes ever more a distant dream.

There is a lot of noise surrounding the latest chapter in the violent conflict, and it is drowning out fact and context.  The situation is fast turning into a cheering game with supporters of both sides hurling inaccuracies and racial epithets at each other. If you are friends with Jews and Muslims, just log onto your Facebook account and look at the photos and quotes distributed across their newsfeeds. I’ve already had to delete obnoxious arguments on my own wall that descended into slanging matches rather than civilized debate.

While people are entitled to their own opinions, they are not entitled to their own facts. So here are some:

The latest outburst of violence began when Israeli tanks made an incursion into the Gaza strip and killed a 12 year old boy playing football. The two sides then engaged in back and forth attacks that was followed by a brief ceasefire.

Israel then broke the cease fire by assassinating Ahmed Jaabari, the commander of Ezedin al Qassam, the military wing of Hamas.

The Israeli government has gone to great lengths to explain why Jaabari was assassinated, with the IDF releasing the following ‘kill ad’ to be distributed across social networks:

What they did not explain is that Ahmed Jaabri was critical to ongoing long term cease fire talks between Hamas and Israel. Jaabri held enormous sway in negotiations because he had the power to keep militants in line at home, and make meaningful concessions to the Israelis. He was instrumental in the negotiated release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, even personally escorting him to the Rafah crossing with Egypt. According to Gershon Baskin, the Co-Chairman of IPCRI, the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information, Jaabri was key to a sustained ceasefire agreement with the Israelis. He writes in The Daily Beast:

Repeated rounds of rocket fire over the following year [after the release of Shalit] yielded the same results with both sides seeking a ladder to step down and avoid full escalation, which would not bring any political or military gains. Since that time, with the exception of the last round of violence two weeks ago, the rocket fire from Gaza was launched after a pre-emptive Israeli strike against terror cells. Based on Israeli intelligence information, pre-emptive strikes were conducted primarily against cells from the Islamic Jihad and the popular resistance committees. Hamas almost always sat on the sidelines and allowed the other factions in Gaza to shoot their rockets until the price in human life became too high. At that point, Hamas urged the Egyptians to intervene to secure a return to calm. In the last rounds, Hamas, under pressure from its public, joined in the shooting of rockets—but it almost always aimed its rockets at open spaces in Israel and their damage was minimal. It was clear to all involved that Hamas was not interested in escalating the situation and for its own reasons and agreed to impose the ceasefire on all of the other factions, and on itself.

The key actor on the Hamas side was Ahmed Jaabari, the commander of Ezedin al Qassam, the military wing of Hamas. When he was convinced that Israel was ready to stand down as well, Jaabari was always ready to take the orders to force the ceasefire on all of the other factions and on Hamas.

Baskin, who himself is deeply involved with back channel negotiations between the two sides, writes that a new proposal with his input was being drafted for a ceasefire, and Jaabri was tasked with checking reactions from Gaza.

Then, he was assassinated.

Why would Israel kill someone so crucial to what was left of the fragile ceasefire negotiations? The answer is simple, and you only have to go back to the last invasion of Gaza to see why it happened. ‘Operation Cast Lead’, the assault on Gaza in 2008 that left over 1,400 Palestinians dead occurred two months before Israeli elections. The latest assault on Gaza is again happening two months before the 2013 elections – enough time for Benjamin Netanyahu to get the public behind him in a time of war.

Politicians waging war to gain popularity is nothing new, and Netanyahu is reviving the age old tactic to entrench his leadership over Israel that is defined mostly by militaristic opposition to the Palestinians and Iran. Politicians like Netanyahu do not exist in peace time, so they need war to make them relevant. Sadly, innocent Israelis and Palestinians are paying the price of his vanity.

Regardless of who you believe is responsible for starting this particular round of violence, one thing is abundantly clear: That Israel has, and will kill many, many more Palestinians than Palestinians will kill Israelis. As Yousef Manayyer, Executive Director of The Jerusalem Fund writes:

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The distortions flooding the internet and airwaves regarding the latest Israeli assault on Gaza are familiar and depressing. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has managed to frame the latest episode in the conflict as Israel ‘defending itself’ from incessant rocket attacks from the Gaza strip. The truth of course is far more nuanced and complicated. Predictably, the mainstream media in the US has run with the official Israeli narrative of events towing the line that Israel is merely defending itself from Arab terrorism. The truth is that the latest outburst of violence began when Israeli tanks made an incursion into Palestinian territory, and killed a 12 year old Palestinian boy playing football. Hamas then responded by sending rockets into Israel, and the violence has spiraled since.

My friend Ahmed Shihab-Edlin hosted a discussion on the Huff Post Live this morning discussing the increasingly brutal attack on Gaza, putting the conflict into perspective and looking at both sides of the story. I have to give a huge amount of credit to the Huffington Post for giving Ahmed a prominent platform to air views from a Palestinian perspective – historically a mortal sin in the American mainstream media. I highly recommend watching the very civilized discussion that doesn’t demonize either side:

I’ll be posting a more in-depth analysis about the conflict tomorrow, so stay tuned.

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