Indo-Israel: News and Discussion

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 13 Jan 2009 09:22

Duhh....Jihadi logic at its best..

Hamas nearing victory in Gaza

vsudhir · Post by **vsudhir** » 13 Jan 2009 09:25

Yogi_G wrote:Duhh....Jihadi logic at its best..

Hamas nearing victory in Gaza

Reminds me of the tall clams of a certain kaukji onlee...baghdad bob would be put to shame by the original maestro of ludicrity.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 13 Jan 2009 11:04

whether Israel wins the "battle of arms" is still open, but they are clearly losing the "war"...

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fo ... =uri&sid=1

renukb · Post by **renukb** » 13 Jan 2009 12:21

From UPI.com

Israel avoids India's response to terror
By M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Although both are democracies, Israel and India are polar opposites in their response to "asymmetrical" warfare – also known as terrorism. While India has until now consistently adopted a soft – some would say soggy – policy toward the Pakistan army's tactics of using jihadis to weaken India socially, militarily and economically, Israel has almost invariably responded with force to similar tactics by Hamas, Hezbollah and other jihadist organizations that seek to extinguish the world's only Jewish state.

In both Lebanon and Gaza, Hizbollah and Hamas respectively have not concealed the fact that they regard themselves as being at war with Israel. Those who voted for either must certainly have understood that the coming to office of these two military formations would mean war with Israel, a conflict in which both sides would be expected to deploy the forces available to them. The citizens of Lebanon are now discovering the likely consequences if they elect Hezbollah to power the way Gazans did Hamas in the last election.

While Shiite Hezbollah depends almost entirely on Iran for its resources and Syria for infrastructural support, Sunni Hamas gets funding from well-wishers across the world, including a number from Europe and North America who route their contributions through safe channels. Although accurate estimates are difficult, an average of four informed guesstimates puts the Iranian contribution at 35 percent of the total funds made available to Hamas.

However, more important than the money is access to weaponry, and the oxygen that full-blooded backing by an important state ensures. The mullahs in Iran, through their covert and overt support to movements actively attempting the destruction or debilitation of Israel, seek to convince Muslim populations worldwide that Shiite Islam can provide a more robust defense against perceived foes such as the Judeo-Christians than Sunni political groups have managed thus far. Since 1948, each Sunni attempt to defeat Israel militarily has ended in disaster.

However, the 2006 Lebanon ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel illustrates that a struggle – even without a perceptible defeat of the other side – can give oxygen even to foes that have been severely bloodied in combat.

An earlier example of such a premature ceasefire was the 1973 agreement that halted the Yom Kippur War with Egypt and Syria. By agreeing to a cessation of hostilities before Israel could comprehensively defeat them, Egypt and Syria gave Arab populations the illusion that Israel could be defeated militarily by its neighbors. This perception has led to the present contempt for Arab governments seen as unwilling to challenge the Jewish state by force.

Forcing Israel to accept a premature ceasefire in 1973 proved as deleterious to the security of that country as former U.S. President Bill Clinton's grandstanding did to both Pakistan and India in 1999, when he offered a face-saving withdrawal to Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif just days before Indian forces would have destroyed an invading force commanded by Pervez Musharraf.

This columnist wrote then, in Rediff.com, that the Clinton ceasefire would result in the fall of Nawaz Sharif, who would be portrayed by the army as having stabbed it in the back rather than saved it from a total rout, and to an intensification of jihadist attacks on India – both of which happened. Unhappily for the future, the Clinton cohort seems to be back in force in what hopefully will not turn out to be only a nominal Obama role in foreign policy.

In 1948, unlike Israel – which continued its offensive until the Arab armies facing it had been crushed – India's Jawaharlal Nehru succumbed to the blandishments of the United Kingdom and agreed to a Kashmir ceasefire when more than one-third of the territory remained in Pakistan's control. That single error of judgment has resulted in six decades of India-Pakistan conflict, which since 1989 has taken on a jihadist hue.

In 1965 it was pressure from Russian Premier Alexei Kosygin – who was eager to win friends for Moscow in the Muslim world at the expense of India – that led Indian Prime Minister L.B. Shastri to return to Pakistani control the Haji Pir Pass captured just weeks earlier. Since that time, over 70 percent of jihadist infiltration into India has come via this pass.

In 1972, without asking for a final settlement on Kashmir, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi returned 93,000 prisoners of war to Pakistan and made a hurried exit from Bangladesh without ensuring that the army there had been cleansed of its Pakistan connections. This mistake has made Bangladesh a nesting place for jihadis nurtured by the Pakistan army since the mid-1990s.

Among the more recent of India's life-threatening compromises was the 2001 release of several top Inter Services Intelligence/al-Qaida operatives, after an Indian airliner was hijacked by jihadists in Kathmandu. The role of the Clinton White House in persuading a hesitant India to make this damaging compromise – which ensured the release of one of the 9/11 plotters – has as yet to be made public. Yet a Cabinet-level individual has confirmed that the Clinton team was insistent that the hijacking be "peacefully resolved," and that the use of force be avoided even at the price of releasing the jihadists.

Since the 1980s,the Pakistan army has continued its policy of using jihadists to fight India, even though these days the baleful effects of this course have become obvious to most Pakistanis not addicted to money secured through the narcotics trade. The generals have done this in the belief that India's timid bureaucracy would not resort to force to punish Islamabad, paralyzed by fear of nuclear retaliation.

In reality such an escalation is inconceivable because of India's second-strike capability. The nuclear destruction of just four cities – Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Rawalpindi – would destroy Pakistan, and the planned Indian response to a first strike by Pakistan is the destruction of not four but 10 cities in that country, thus making a nuclear attack synonymous with national suicide for even the most reckless among Islamabad's brass.

The soggy – soft is too mild a term – Indian response to the Pakistan army's jihad against it has directly resulted in India being hit by more mass terror attacks than the rest of the world combined, excluding the “terror triangle” of Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. Were Israel to go soggy, it would not be long before the country would resemble a Guy Fawkes bonfire display almost every week, if not every day.

A ceasefire before a comprehensive result has been secured is usually a prescription for recurring, and often more lethal, conflict. India's sorry example may be one reason that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert no longer seems ready to accept a ceasefire that would give Hamas the "victory" that Hezbollah claimed in 2006 – a perceived outcome that has encouraged increased rocket attacks from Gaza.

--

(Professor M.D. Nalapat is vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and professor of geopolitics at Manipal University.He can be reached at mdnalapat1@gmail.com. ©Copyright M.D. Nalapat.)

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 13 Jan 2009 12:45

Unfortunately,Israel does not have any "strategic depth" and cannot escape the assymetric rocket attacks.This is why it is so loath to give up its settlements on the West Bank,where the Palestinians once lived for centuries.This is the chief item of dispute between the two.Israel cannot trust the extremist leadership of the Palestinians like Hamas,who still want to throw Israel into the sea,in any permanent guarantee of peace.This is where the international community has also failed miserably to exert pressure upon both sides to forgo war as an option for settling their dispute.The UN is a sick joke and its aptly named "Bunkum" Moon displays a touch of lunacy in his pathetic statements which Israel ignores with relish!

The great danger is that the war will spread out of Gaza and later on bring about another round of fighting between the Hiz in Lebanon too,as the Hiz might fear a Hamas defeat on the ground as the first step in later action against them .Israel will try and end its operations before Obama takes over,as from his statements so far,he will exercise the maximum effort on both sides for a ceasefire and end to the conflict.The massive human civilian casualties and Israel's apparent disregard for them,despite its pronouncements,has unfortunately lost it the propaganda war.As they say a picture speaks a thousand words and the pictures of wounded and killed Palestinian children cannot stop a massive sympathy for the affected,particularly as the Israeli casualties are far less than the Palestinian ones.Outside players supporting Hamas will be most happy to see the region in trumoil,bringing about more extremist attitudes against Israel,as the anti-Semitism movement keeps growing even in Europe.

Chandragupta · Post by **Chandragupta** » 13 Jan 2009 13:53

asprinzl wrote:We have to understand that Islamist forces have no second thoughts about killing. They never tire off killing or trying to kill. For them there is only one solution to the "Kaffir" problem. That is the military solution.

The seem to be a major problem in the west especially in the democratic/secular west, Israel and even in India. In these places with progression of time people are having less and less stomach for killing. I mean killing even the most depraved monsters. People give up too easily in the face of resistance. Thus even the most decorated soldier gives up his hand and cry "there is no military solution to this problem" while the Jihadi in his war against the Kaffir finds only the military solution and is willing to wage war even if that takes a thousand years. While the westerners, Israelis and the Indians give up after a decade or two and cry "there is no military solution".

Look at India. With a billion people, there should be almost endless supply of manpower to wage war against the Jihadi especially in kashmir. But how often have we heard from generals to politicians to bureauc-Rats to journalists who keep weeping that there is no military solution. Hypotetically if every day for one soldier dies for every jihadi killed- in the long run the Jihadi factory would run out of manpower long before India runs out. What is seriously lacking is the will to endure and will to kill that is equal to the fervor of the Jihadi to endure and kill. Otherwise, there was, is and forever will be military solution to any conflict.

And the outcry coming from the international watch dogs and other assorted groups of rich and spoilt brats who dont want to find a job but depend on public and other types of fundings or grants to be professional protestors.....ignore them long enough and as much as they may shout and scream....they would eventually get tired once money runs out, give up and go away silently if nobody paid them attention. Yet it is these same small fringe groups with disporpotionately loud mouths are the ones everyone wants to pay attention. These groups dont have significant constituencies. They usually want to exagerate their influence and power by their noise making. Politicians get intimidated by these nonsense.

I believe there is only one solution to get rid of those who want to kill you. That is to kill them before they kill you. They may keep sending soldiers to kill you. As you keep killing them sooner or later they would have to give up and cry "uncle". Trick is you must have the stomach to endure and persevere longer than them. Right now America does not have such a stomach. Nor Britain nor the French nor the Israelis nor the Indians. Everyone wants to get off early Friday and party till Sunday. While the Jihadi is willing to forgo the partying until his goal is reached. This is a battle of wills and the secularists are fast giving up by telling each other mind boggling scary stories of bad consequences while the Islamists are telling each other to keep fighting because victory is within sight because Allah wills it.

MacArthur once said, "Only those who are fit to live are brave enough to die". This seems to be the case of the Jihadis. If you are not brave enough to kill then you don't deserve to live. That is the only constant parameter in the entire history of mankind from the dawn of the caveman to present time. Every other happy happy philosophy and other feel good mumbo jumbos are just that of those wimppies. I am not saying that everyone should become a bullheaded violent moron but if your tribe wants to survive in a hostile environment they better be ready to kill before being killed.
Avram

Agree 100%.

You can't talk sense to a person who is hell bent on killing you. Your only chance of survival is to kill him before he kills you.- Deleted - Civilized people will never have a stomach to kill, but our threat comes from men who are still living in the stone age & follow the same old instructions to kill as they did a thousand years back.

I quite like what Israel is doing, that's the only way of solving the problem. Not an eye for an eye, but for an eye, two eyes & a limb. The only way to beat a Jehadi is to be like him.

pradeepe · Post by **pradeepe** » 13 Jan 2009 15:07

Purush wrote:The dhimmification of Oirope sems to be right on schedule...

From Denmarkistan..
Schools caught up in Palestinian conflict

Barbed-wire fences and security guards are a regular part of many Jewish childrens' school day

A number of school administrators have come forth in recent days to confirm that they recommend Jewish children should not enrol at their schools.

According to school administrators, law enforcement officials and social workers, the on-going conflict in Gaza has led to heightened tensions between Jews and Arabs - particularly Palestinians - here in Denmark.

And although few headmasters of schools have faced the situation, most of those at schools with a high percentage of children of Arab descent say they try to prevent Jewish parents from enrolling their children there.

On Monday, headmaster Olav Nielsen of Humlehave School in Odense publicly admitted he would refuse Jewish parents' wish to place their child at his school.

The comments were made following an incident last week in which two Israeli citizen's were shot and wounded at a city shopping centre. Police believe the incident was a reaction to the Gaza conflict.

Other headmasters have now come forth to support Nielsen's position, adding that they are putting the child's safety first.

At Caroline Skole in Copenhagen's Østerbro district, video cameras watch over the playground and entrances of the school, which is surrounded by a 2.5 metre-high barbed-wire fence.

One parent whose child goes to the Jewish school said thinking about the extra security can be disturbing at times, but she felt it was necessary.

Rabbi Bent Lexner called the headmasters' concern 'theoretical. In reality, Jewish parents would never try to enrol their child in those schools.'

Now why am I not surprised. Oirope at its very best and in touch with its glorious past!!

joshvajohn · Post by **joshvajohn** » 13 Jan 2009 16:29

Israelis should stop attacking and ask the Palestinians to take control of Gaza and reinforce against disarming Hamas. it is essential that Gaza is brought under the power of moderate muslim leaders and they keep hamas under control.
meanwhile bbc and other western media are campaiging against Israel just a they did againt India. When it comes to a problem for them they speak loudly all those things against Muslims and Islamic countrie but in the case of Israel and India muslims become victims. I think Israel should have a campaign manager for media against such wrong information about their raids.

India too has to learn to win the war in the media. strategically india govt has not done this.

It is interesting to note that the Israelis make sure that the rocket attacks are stopped from Gaza

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 15 Jan 2009 08:25

I'm back. What, there's no Gaza thread?

Anyway, here was an impressive tactic by an Israeli officer, which was captured thru aerial footage:

http://dotsub.com/view/80f72f12-a701-45 ... 6e2d9d4808

There was a battle going on between 2 terrorists and 3 Israeli officers. The first terrorist was killed immediately, but the second terrorist threw a grenade at an Israeli officer. That officer dashed forward and grabbed the terrorist, and then used the terrorist's own body as a shield from the grenade's explosion. The terrorist was killed, but the officer survived. I thought that's something that only happens in an action movie.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 15 Jan 2009 11:12

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home

India's Israel envy is bound to remain unfulfilled
By Shashi Tharoor

Israel can dictate the terms of its military incursion and end it at will, whereas an Indian military action would immediately spark a war with a well-armed neighbor that neither side could win.

Jayram · Post by **Jayram** » 15 Jan 2009 13:56

For a light hearted interlude.
Ok this has nothing to do with India (wish it did) but it is the next best thing. A SNL type show on Israli TV on BBC reporting on the Hamas war and it is hilarous.
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/14/v ... gaza-bias/

" Have a nice War"

--Jayram

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 15 Jan 2009 14:14

With a godfather like the US,especially under Bush,Israel enjoyed virtual immunity to its actions.However,it can't be denied that it gave Hamas a chance for a long time.If Hamas cannot get out its head that israel must be dstroyed,then Israel will resort to any tactic of choice.The first was an economic blockade hoping that the civilians would pressurise Hamas.This has been a major failure of the Israeli's tactics,because,as we've seen with the LTTE,the outfit with guns in its hands dictates terms.Any civilian going against Hamas will be eliminated as the LTTE have done with their own kind in Lanka.If anyone thinks that the remaining civilians being used by the LTTE as shields are doing so and staying out of love for their fuhrer,then they are deluding themselves.So it is with Hamas.

The Israelis should've instead asked the Egyptians to open the border crossings and screen those coming across,only genuine refugees.It should've then had an empty Gaza to go after Hamas without fear of killing innocent civilians.It is too late now.1000+ have been killed and if reports are accurate,1/3rd of these have been children.This is really tragic.No justification from the Israelis of Hamas using civilians as human shields will be able to wipe out this sad and tragic loss of innocent life and few around the globe support such a war.Had Gaza been emptied of a majority of its population and Israel had then attacked in full strength,the territory from where rocket attacks were launched into Israel would've been sanitised.Once the civilians were caught in a trap where they could not cross the border into Egypt,the casualties were bound to occur.Hopefully a ceasefire will arrive sooner than later,but one fears that this round will not be the last and only international intervention with peace talks,leading to a lasting overall peace settlement involving all parties to the dispute will help reduce the tension and resolve the never ending war.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ja ... ptian-plan

Hopes of ceasefire as Hamas replies to Egyptian plan
Israeli leadership split after Islamist movement submits conditions on proposal to halt fighting for 10 days

Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem, Ian Black
The Guardian, Thursday 15 January 2009

Link to this video The first indications emerged last night that an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire to halt Israel's 19-day offensive in Gaza might be close, despite signs of disagreement among Israel's leaders.

A Hamas official said that the movement had given its response to an Egyptian proposal for an initial ceasefire that might last 10 days, but it appeared the Islamist movement had attached its own conditions. Israel's top defence ministry official, Amos Gilad, was due in Cairo today to give his country's response.

Last night the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, met his defence minister, Ehud Barak, and foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, to discuss whether to accept a ceasefire. Afterwards, Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, said that Israel would not accept a temporary ceasefire if it allowed Hamas to "rearm and regroup". "Israel seeks a durable quiet that contains a total absence of hostile fire from Gaza into Israel and a working mechanism to prevent Hamas from rearming," he added.

Olmert has been keen to escalate the Gaza offensive in the hope of damaging Hamas even further, while Barak was reported yesterday to favour a ceasefire now along the lines set out by Egypt.

A Hamas official in Cairo refused to say outright whether the group had accepted the ceasefire. "We have given the Egyptian leadership all the details. They are looking into them," Salah al-Bardawil told a news conference. "There is no disagreement with the Egyptian leadership. The issue is differences over how to deal with the Zionist enemy through the clauses of this initiative."

The Egyptian proposal, which has been discussed for several days, appears to begin with a ceasefire of a week or 10 days during which all fighting would stop but Israeli troops would remain on the ground in Gaza. Talks would then be held on the more difficult questions of stopping the smuggling of weapons to Hamas and lifting Israel's long economic blockade of the Gaza Strip.

However, it is thought that Hamas's conditions for any deal would probably include an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces at the moment a ceasefire begins. That may prove too much for Israel to accept. Hamas also wants an Israeli commitment to lift the blockade on crossings into Israel and to open the Rafah crossing into Egypt.

The Arabic television station al-Arabiya said that Hamas had agreed to implement a 2005 agreement to open the Rafah crossing on Gaza's southern border with Egypt, with the crossing manned by forces from the Palestinian Authority, run by Hamas's bitter rival Fatah, and with European observers.

Anticipating big disagreements about crucial details, a senior Arab diplomat warned that there were conflicting signals from Hamas, apparently reflecting differences between the movement's leadership in Damascus and on the ground in Gaza, where communications and conditions are difficult because of the hostilities.

"Hamas is hydra-headed," said the diplomat. "Ismail Haniyeh [the de facto Hamas prime minister in Gaza] is ready to fine-tune the Egyptian initiative but [exiled Hamas leader] Khaled Meshal and Islamic Jihad say it means surrender." Israel is insisting that all Palestinian factions in Gaza must sign up to any agreement.

The deputy chairman of the Hamas political bureau, Moussa Abu Marzouk, suggested the Hamas demands would be precise.

"Israel did not abide by any of the previous truce's conditions, and therefore there must be a short and pre-defined period between each stage that would allow us to evaluate the situation and agree to move on to the next stage," he told al-Arabiya.

Osama Hamdan, Hamas's representative in Lebanon, told al-Jazeera there were "still points of difference" that had not yet been resolved. But he added: "We believe there is no initiative which cannot be modified or changed."

The Israeli defence minister was pressing for a one-week halt to the fighting to allow in humanitarian aid, according to a report in the Haaretz newspaper. It said Barak believed the 19-day offensive had bolstered Israel's deterrent power and that pressing on would bring "only operational complications and casualties".

He wanted the military to "cease its fire, hold its positions and keep the reservists under arms, and thus negotiate with Egypt and the United States on an arrangement that would prevent arms smuggling into the Strip", it said.

It said the defence minister feared that when Barack Obama takes office on Tuesday as US president he would demand an immediate Israeli ceasefire.

Later, Haaretz reported on its website that "senior defence establishment figures" now favoured an immediate ceasefire, rather than an expansion of the conflict, and that the military had achieved all it could.

Syria, the Arab state most supportive of Hamas, warned meanwhile that the Israeli offensive was fuelling radicalism across the Middle East. "The effect of war is more dangerous than war ... sowing seeds of extremism and terror around the region," Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, said in a BBC interview. Syria is supporting calls for an emergency Arab summit conference in Qatar tomorrow, but Egypt and Saudi Arabia have both said they will not attend.

The al-Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden, called for solidarity with the people of Gaza. "Our brothers in Palestine, you have suffered a lot ... the Muslims sympathise with you in what they see and hear. We, the mujahideen, sympathise with you also," Bin Laden said on a new audio tape.

"We are with you and we will not let you down. Our fate is tied to yours in fighting the crusader-Zionist coalition, in fighting until victory or martyrdom."

Mahendra · Post by **Mahendra** » 17 Jan 2009 22:00

One question that needs to be asked to the liberal angrezi Indian media is why isnt Isreali action in Gaza understandable considering that Israeli citizens were one of the many targets of the islamic terrorists behind 26/11. Isreal chose to hit back at islamic terrorists at a place of their choice..fair game. Go Israel, most of India is firmly behind you and hopes that one day the GOI will develop the clarity of thought and actions that the Israeli leadership seems to possess.

A few bramos up the LeT HQ in muridke will send the Pakis the Hamas way, begging for help and flooding the internet with photoshopped images. Israel may be a pariah state for many but it most certainly is safer than India and has made sure that Hamas or its ilk are always living under the fear of a Predator up their Musharaff.

Israeli actions are 100 times better than abject surrender as shown by the GOI , we will forgive you until next time is the message that the GOI is relaying, that certainly hasnt made us any safer

kidoman · Post by **kidoman** » 19 Jan 2009 23:34

Can someone please tell me what are these bombs Israel has been using frequently during the recent Gaza invasion.??
They will burst and scatter over a wide area.
The scences of this kind of bombs exploding were all over the news .

These are not cluster bombs..right?

kidoman · Post by **kidoman** » 19 Jan 2009 23:59

ramana wrote:First learn to type properly. No SMS type short cuts.
Thanks,

ramana

Sorry..Will take that into consideration next time, edited the previous post.

Div · Post by **Div** » 20 Jan 2009 07:20

kidoman wrote:Can someone please tell me what are these bombs Israel has been using frequently during the recent Gaza invasion.??
They will burst and scatter over a wide area.
The scences of this kind of bombs exploding were all over the news .

These are not cluster bombs..right?

If fired by artillery, they could just be air burst rounds.

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 20 Jan 2009 08:24

Per a TV report I saw, I believe these are not bombs but phosphorus flares, for the purpose of creating a smoke cover to obfuscate troop movements in urban settings. You can see these things exploding in air and sprinkling, what look like, flares all over the area. It looked more incendiary rather than explosive, and of course, there was a lot of smoke seen in the video. (There was some comment about the legality of using white Phosphorus in battle. White phosphorus will burn even under water).

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 23 Jan 2009 22:30

I have no doubt that the following is going to offend a lot of Israel supporters here.
Source:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semp ... egman.html

The owner of the website writes: "Henry Siegman is a friend. His family fled from Europe to America. He is a rabbi. He was a chaplain in the US Army during and in the Korean War. He was a "freedom rider" in Mississippi in the 1960s. He has long sought a just peace for Israel and the Palestinians. That is not surprising for he is one of the just."

----

Henry Siegman, director of the US Middle East Project in New York, is a visiting research professor at SOAS, University of London. He is a former national director of the American Jewish Congress and of the Synagogue Council of America.

LRB • 29 January 2009 • Henry Siegman

Gaza: The Lies of War
Henry Siegman

Western governments and most of the Western media have accepted a number of Israeli claims justifying the military assault on Gaza: that Hamas consistently violated the six-month truce that Israel observed and then refused to extend it; that Israel therefore had no choice but to destroy Hamas’s capacity to launch missiles into Israeli towns; that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a global jihadi network; and that Israel has acted not only in its own defence but on behalf of an international struggle by Western democracies against this network.

I am not aware of a single major American newspaper, radio station or TV channel whose coverage of the assault on Gaza questions this version of events. Criticism of Israel’s actions, if any (and there has been none from the Bush administration), has focused instead on whether the IDF’s carnage is proportional to the threat it sought to counter, and whether it is taking adequate measures to prevent civilian casualties.

Middle East peacemaking has been smothered in deceptive euphemisms, so let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a lie. Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce: Hamas undertook to stop firing rockets into Israel; in return, Israel was to ease its throttlehold on Gaza. In fact, during the truce, it tightened it further. This was confirmed not only by every neutral international observer and NGO on the scene but by Brigadier General (Res.) Shmuel Zakai, a former commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division. In an interview in Ha’aretz on 22 December, he accused Israel’s government of having made a ‘central error’ during the tahdiyeh, the six-month period of relative truce, by failing ‘to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians of the Strip . . . When you create a tahdiyeh, and the economic pressure on the Strip continues,’ General Zakai said, ‘it is obvious that Hamas will try to reach an improved tahdiyeh, and that their way to achieve this is resumed Qassam fire . . . You cannot just land blows, leave the Palestinians in Gaza in the economic distress they’re in, and expect that Hamas will just sit around and do nothing.’

The truce, which began in June last year and was due for renewal in December, required both parties to refrain from violent action against the other. Hamas had to cease its rocket assaults and prevent the firing of rockets by other groups such as Islamic Jihad (even Israel’s intelligence agencies acknowledged this had been implemented with surprising effectiveness), and Israel had to put a stop to its targeted assassinations and military incursions. This understanding was seriously violated on 4 November, when the IDF entered Gaza and killed six members of Hamas. Hamas responded by launching Qassam rockets and Grad missiles. Even so, it offered to extend the truce, but only on condition that Israel ended its blockade. Israel refused. It could have met its obligation to protect its citizens by agreeing to ease the blockade, but it didn’t even try. It cannot be said that Israel launched its assault to protect its citizens from rockets. It did so to protect its right to continue the strangulation of Gaza’s population.

Everyone seems to have forgotten that Hamas declared an end to suicide bombings and rocket fire when it decided to join the Palestinian political process, and largely stuck to it for more than a year. Bush publicly welcomed that decision, citing it as an example of the success of his campaign for democracy in the Middle East. (He had no other success to point to.) When Hamas unexpectedly won the election, Israel and the US immediately sought to delegitimise the result and embraced Mahmoud Abbas, the head of Fatah, who until then had been dismissed by Israel’s leaders as a ‘plucked chicken’. They armed and trained his security forces to overthrow Hamas; and when Hamas – brutally, to be sure – pre-empted this violent attempt to reverse the result of the first honest democratic election in the modern Middle East, Israel and the Bush administration imposed the blockade.

Israel seeks to counter these indisputable facts by maintaining that in withdrawing Israeli settlements from Gaza in 2005, Ariel Sharon gave Hamas the chance to set out on the path to statehood, a chance it refused to take; instead, it transformed Gaza into a launching-pad for firing missiles at Israel’s civilian population. The charge is a lie twice over. First, for all its failings, Hamas brought to Gaza a level of law and order unknown in recent years, and did so without the large sums of money that donors showered on the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority. It eliminated the violent gangs and warlords who terrorised Gaza under Fatah’s rule. Non-observant Muslims, Christians and other minorities have more religious freedom under Hamas rule than they would have in Saudi Arabia, for example, or under many other Arab regimes.

The greater lie is that Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza was intended as a prelude to further withdrawals and a peace agreement. This is how Sharon’s senior adviser Dov Weisglass, who was also his chief negotiator with the Americans, described the withdrawal from Gaza, in an interview with Ha’aretz in August 2004:
What I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements [i.e. the major settlement blocks on the West Bank] would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns . . . The significance [of the agreement with the US] is the freezing of the political process. And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely. And all this with [President Bush’s] authority and permission . . . and the ratification of both houses of Congress.
Do the Israelis and Americans think that Palestinians don’t read the Israeli papers, or that when they saw what was happening on the West Bank they couldn’t figure out for themselves what Sharon was up to?

Israel’s government would like the world to believe that Hamas launched its Qassam rockets because that is what terrorists do and Hamas is a generic terrorist group. In fact, Hamas is no more a ‘terror organisation’ (Israel’s preferred term) than the Zionist movement was during its struggle for a Jewish homeland. In the late 1930s and 1940s, parties within the Zionist movement resorted to terrorist activities for strategic reasons. According to Benny Morris, it was the Irgun that first targeted civilians. He writes in Righteous Victims that an upsurge of Arab terrorism in 1937 ‘triggered a wave of Irgun bombings against Arab crowds and buses, introducing a new dimension to the conflict’. He also documents atrocities committed during the 1948-49 war by the IDF, admitting in a 2004 interview, published in Ha’aretz, that material released by Israel’s Ministry of Defence showed that ‘there were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had previously thought . . . In the months of April-May 1948, units of the Haganah were given operational orders that stated explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them, and destroy the villages themselves.’ In a number of Palestinian villages and towns the IDF carried out organised executions of civilians. Asked by Ha’aretz whether he condemned the ethnic cleansing, Morris replied that he did not:
A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on.
In other words, when Jews target and kill innocent civilians to advance their national struggle, they are patriots. When their adversaries do so, they are terrorists.

It is too easy to describe Hamas simply as a ‘terror organisation’. It is a religious nationalist movement that resorts to terrorism, as the Zionist movement did during its struggle for statehood, in the mistaken belief that it is the only way to end an oppressive occupation and bring about a Palestinian state. While Hamas’s ideology formally calls for that state to be established on the ruins of the state of Israel, this doesn’t determine Hamas’s actual policies today any more than the same declaration in the PLO charter determined Fatah’s actions.
These are not the conclusions of an apologist for Hamas but the opinions of the former head of Mossad and Sharon’s national security adviser, Ephraim Halevy. The Hamas leadership has undergone a change ‘right under our very noses’, Halevy wrote recently in Yedioth Ahronoth, by recognising that ‘its ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future.’ It is now ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state within the temporary borders of 1967. Halevy noted that while Hamas has not said how ‘temporary’ those borders would be, ‘they know that the moment a Palestinian state is established with their co-operation, they will be obligated to change the rules of the game: they will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original ideological goals.’ In an earlier article, Halevy also pointed out the absurdity of linking Hamas to al-Qaida.

In the eyes of al-Qaida, the members of Hamas are perceived as heretics due to their stated desire to participate, even indirectly, in processes of any understandings or agreements with Israel. [The Hamas political bureau chief, Khaled] Mashal’s declaration diametrically contradicts al-Qaida’s approach, and provides Israel with an opportunity, perhaps a historic one, to leverage it for the better.

Why then are Israel’s leaders so determined to destroy Hamas? Because they believe that its leadership, unlike that of Fatah, cannot be intimidated into accepting a peace accord that establishes a Palestinian ‘state’ made up of territorially disconnected entities over which Israel would be able to retain permanent control. Control of the West Bank has been the unwavering objective of Israel’s military, intelligence and political elites since the end of the Six-Day War.[*] They believe that Hamas would not permit such a cantonisation of Palestinian territory, no matter how long the occupation continues. They may be wrong about Abbas and his superannuated cohorts, but they are entirely right about Hamas.

Middle East observers wonder whether Israel’s assault on Hamas will succeed in destroying the organisation or expelling it from Gaza. This is an irrelevant question. If Israel plans to keep control over any future Palestinian entity, it will never find a Palestinian partner, and even if it succeeds in dismantling Hamas, the movement will in time be replaced by a far more radical Palestinian opposition.

If Barack Obama picks a seasoned Middle East envoy who clings to the idea that outsiders should not present their own proposals for a just and sustainable peace agreement, much less press the parties to accept it, but instead leave them to work out their differences, he will assure a future Palestinian resistance far more extreme than Hamas – one likely to be allied with al-Qaida. For the US, Europe and most of the rest of the world, this would be the worst possible outcome. Perhaps some Israelis, including the settler leadership, believe it would serve their purposes, since it would provide the government with a compelling pretext to hold on to all of Palestine. But this is a delusion that would bring about the end of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

Anthony Cordesman, one of the most reliable military analysts of the Middle East, and a friend of Israel, argued in a 9 January report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies that the tactical advantages of continuing the operation in Gaza were outweighed by the strategic cost – and were probably no greater than any gains Israel may have made early in the war in selective strikes on key Hamas facilities. ‘Has Israel somehow blundered into a steadily escalating war without a clear strategic goal, or at least one it can credibly achieve?’ he asks. ‘Will Israel end in empowering an enemy in political terms that it defeated in tactical terms? Will Israel’s actions seriously damage the US position in the region, any hope of peace, as well as moderate Arab regimes and voices in the process? To be blunt, the answer so far seems to be yes.’ Cordesman concludes that ‘any leader can take a tough stand and claim that tactical gains are a meaningful victory. If this is all that Olmert, Livni and Barak have for an answer, then they have disgraced themselves and damaged their country and their friends.’
15 January
Note
[*] See my piece in the LRB, 16 August 2007.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 23 Jan 2009 22:38

I nursed this thought of just one state shared by all the parties involved in the fighting going on in Israel-Palestine. Qaddafi (of all the people? ) comes up with "Peace can only be achieved if each accepts the other." Will the World powers allow this? Will the aam admi accept this?

http://www.thehoya.com/node/17527

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 23 Jan 2009 23:27

Sorry A_Gupta

There are leftist candle kissers everywhere

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 23 Jan 2009 23:29

So if one voices an opinion against Israel or its actions, s/he becomes a leftist, eh? Great.

Keshav · Post by **Keshav** » 24 Jan 2009 02:49

SwamyG wrote:So if one voices an opinion against Israel or its actions, s/he becomes a leftist, eh? Great.

That shouldn't make you stop from criticizing Israel. I honestly don't understand the Zionism that some people on this board project. I don't believe Israel should be dissolved, but there's a difference between that and wanting to oppress Palestinians. What happened to moderation in India, which is supposed to be leading the way in this type of thinking?

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 24 Jan 2009 07:06

SwamyG

Not all but many or most

most Israeli critics are leftist, liberals. The whole outlook mob is that type. The Haaretz lot is also leftist.

Of course you also have the "self loathing Jew" but I will let avram explain that.

sum · Post by **sum** » 24 Jan 2009 11:59

A JNU professor's realist take on the Israel issue:

Conflict in the Middle East: Indias tightrope walk
By P R Kumaraswamy

India expressed its willingness to recognise the complex Middle East realities by refusing to join the anti-Israeli chorus.

Pin-pricks! That was how a colleague described the barrage of rockets from the Gaza Strip that were pounding Israel. While having no qualms about depicting the Israeli response as ‘disproportionate and brutal’, the academic carefully skirted any reference to the Qassam rockets which precipitated the recent round of violence. Those who are unfamiliar with the Middle East realities might be wondering why Israel was using such a massive force against unarmed Palestinians especially when it was at the receiving end of international criticism and condemnations.

These ‘pin-pricks’ did not cause much human casualties. Not that their launchers did not want to kill but they did. Effective early warning systems and organised safety mechanism saved scores of lives in Israel.

But why dismiss the Qassam rockets as pin-pricks? Admitting that rockets were launched against Israeli civilians would weaken the case against Israel. Such a one-sided understanding of the Middle East is not unusual to mainstream Indian intellectuals. They choose to ignore the relative quiet of the West Bank. How come over two million residents of the West Bank remain mute spectators? Are they all collaborators?

India’s response to the latest battle was curious, to say the least. There were political pressures. President of the Indian Union Muslim League Panakkad Muhammedali Shihab Thangal demanded the resignation of his party’s representative E Ahamed from the Union cabinet. For his part, the Minister of State for External Affairs maintained that he would follow “the government’s view” which he felt strongly condemned Israel for its action.

This intellectual one-sidedness is in contrast to the tightrope walk done by the Indian government. This time around it had been more nuanced than the second Lebanon war that broke out 2006. In its first statement issued within hours after the hostilities began, the Indian government ‘condemned’ the Hezbollah whose abduction of two Israeli soldiers precipitated the crisis. This balance quickly disappeared thanks to domestic pressures from the Left and widespread support within the Arab street for the Islamic militants.

In its first statement, the Indian government admitted that it was “aware of the immediate cross-border provocations resulting from rocket attacks particularly against targets in southern Israel.” In later pronouncements, however, it accused Israel of using “disproportionate force” and “indiscriminate force” which were “unwarranted and condemnable”. Since the conflict erupted on December 27, the Indian government came out with as many as five official statements on the Gaza crisis.

In a statement issued following Israel’s ground offensive, it demanded “an immediate end to military action by all concerned,” an indirect reference to Hamas. A few days later it described the Israeli offer of a three-hour cease fire as ineffective because “nearly three-fourths of the Gaza population” was without electricity and food. Welcoming the peace initiatives of Egypt and France, it hoped for an early end to the plight of the people of Gaza Strip and an early resumption of the peace process.

Through these statements, India expressed its willingness to recognise the complex Middle East realities than in the past. One could fathom a few possible explanations for the Indian refusal to join the anti-Israeli chorus.
The crisis over the Gaza Strip highlighted the internal schism within the Palestinian society. The West Bank was relatively quiet and tranquil when the Gaza Strip was literally on fire. Obviously, the Fatah and Hamas are not in sync over the Gaza crisis. This naturally calls for a measure of caution and balance. Going overboard may garner media headlines but is disastrous as a national policy.

As far as India is concerned there is only one Palestinian Authority, the one that is headed by President Mahmoud Abbas. Without saying it in so many words, it has not recognised the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Due to security concerns in August 2003, more than a year before Arafat’s death, the office of the Indian mission representative was shifted from the Gaza city to Ramallah. Thus, New Delhi cannot ignore the implications of Abbas’ not so subtle criticisms of Hamas for the current round of violence.

Furthermore, the Left is weaker than in the post. Their withdrawal of support to UPA government has considerably undermined their influence. Ever since the formation of the UPA government, the Left had been demanding a ‘course correction’ in India’s Israel policy. Recognising that the termination of relations was impossible, the Left parties had been calling for an end to military-security ties with the Jewish State. Much to their consternation and disappointment, the UPA enhanced the level of security ties with Israel. The launching of an Israeli spy satellite in January 2008 was a case in point.

Echoing the calls by Hamas leaders for the Palestinians to rise against Israel, some Indian media pundits talked of the third Palestinian intifada. In their eagerness to condemn Israel, they conveniently ignored the situation in the West Bank. How to square up the violence in Gaza Strip with total indifference of the West Bank Palestinians? Were the latter merely collaborators or have fundamental differences with Hamas over Palestinian destiny? Why get into uncomfortable intricacies. So is the Indian government’s nuanced approach.

(The writer teaches at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.)

asprinzl · Post by **asprinzl** » 24 Jan 2009 15:04

I find it strange that there is more sympathy for the Palestinians here than for fellow Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka who have and continue to suffer more brutal violence in the hands of the SL military. More human rights are being violated, more summary executions are taking place, more aerial bombing of civillian structures and institutions had happened and continue to happen (thanks to Hindu hating Paki pilots), more people have been killed and in general the daily lives of the people are worse than that of dogs in Gaza.

In mean time the Palestinians continue to get generous supply of three course meal (including meat, milk and fruit juices) without fail from nice people of the world even in the worse of times. They have warm blankets, Nike shoes, Levi jeans, tv sets, electric washing machines, satelite tvs and hot water supply and great medical care for free in their so called refugee camps. Any one noticed how healthy, well fed and well clothed the poor starving and opressed Palestinian looks like? On top of it he is jobless and get paid to throw rocks at Israelis.

Compare that to the situation of the folks in the war zone in SL. Heck, the lot of the Palestinian in war zone is many times better off than that of 400 million Indians in peace time. So what gives?
Avram

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 24 Jan 2009 16:32

asprinzl

Compare that to the situation of the folks in the war zone in SL. Heck, the lot of the Palestinian in war zone is many times better off than that of 400 million Indians in peace time. So what gives?
Avram

Simple, the refusal to belive what people see in the Indian media/Western Media are in many cases a half truths, lies and Psy-ops. The same with Chechanya and Georgian conflicts. Indian media just Cuts and pastes what the BBC says. Also, when anyone questions the main stream media labelled a fundamentalist, he/she automatically wants to get rid of the Guilt feeling by saying Hey, I am not a fundamentalist- see my opinion on so and so issue... For Indians they do this by condeming Isreal, Russian actions in Chechanya (no Indian ever asks himself this questions, what the hell were the Chechan warlords thinking attacking Dagastan in 1999 when they had the whole of Chechanya to themselves), condeming the Serbs without any idea of history of that conflict. For Brits, it is condeming Isreal, Condemning India in Kashmir etc... Conflicts which they do not follow daily and have little effect on thier lives.

Nobody asks elementary questions like
1) the palestinians probably get more aid per person than any other in the world and have Merc taxis, yet they cant use the same type of Farms which Isreal does. If ever worked in the Gulf you will Know, that 90% of Palestenians are as lazy and arrogant as any Arab and blame all problems on the nearest Kafir, in this case Isreal.
2) Why do Muslims want Secularism only when in Minority, if Saudi - the home of Islam bans every other religion , then why can't India -home of Hinduism ban every other religion- we are all on one planet and part of the same species arent we?

P.S For peace to prevail in Sri Lanka, LTTE must be first eliminated and then human rights of tamils should then take place. Off course Britain US and thier chamcas the MK, Indian Communists, Congress will not like that and will try to stall it

Arya Sumantra · Post by **Arya Sumantra** » 24 Jan 2009 21:48

SwamyG wrote:So if one voices an opinion against Israel or its actions, s/he becomes a leftist, eh? Great.

Atleast the group you share your opinion with has only them(leftists) or IM or hindu anomalies. Post 26/11 that is largely the case.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 24 Jan 2009 22:12

The One-State Solution

Uri_T · Post by **Uri_T** » 25 Jan 2009 02:02

Hello
My name is Uri I am 50 live in Israel
I served in the IDF in the armor tanks corps
I hope I will add to your amazing forum

Chinmayanand · Post by **Chinmayanand** » 25 Jan 2009 02:32

I have a few suggestions for my Israeli friends, never give voting rights to the believers in your country and never make a second strike policy with your nukes.As long as these two are taken care of, Israel will be safe, sound,up and running.
You must learn from others' mistakes...

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 25 Jan 2009 02:39

asprinzl wrote:I find it strange that there is more sympathy for the Palestinians here than for fellow Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka who have and continue to suffer more brutal violence in the hands of the SL military. what gives?

Ah, why go so south ? Sri Lanka is so far away from Dilli....

What is the population of Gaza ? 400,000 ? You see the 400,000 "unarmed palestinians who are refugees in their own country", tug at the Indian heart. We are very bothered about 400,000. Any lower number or non believers would have been acceptable to the Indians.

Like say the Kashmiri pundits, driven out of Kashmir by targeted violence, rape and murder and intimidation from Mosque loudspeakers - victims of genocide, 200,000 of them in squalid slums and tents in Jammu*. But thats okay, its only 200,000 of them and Indian government pays each family a handsome sum of 3000 Rs (about 70$) every month, apart from the tent they live in. We are coming around to doing something about their problem, its been only 18 years since they moved into those tents. These good quality tents last for fifty years. So they don't tug at Indian hearts**. There are so few of them...also they are Hindus. How can you become a good Hindu if you are not tolerant of a bit of ethnic cleansing of the unbelievers ? You see, we subscribe by "athithi devo bhava" (means: Think of your invaders as a god. Preferably a non Kafir god of the kind that they insist) - or in other words, discomfort to the believers should be avoided at all costs - it hurts their tender hearts.

So yes, Palestinians tug at our guvrmand's hearts. Israelis coming under rocket attacks ? not so much. We will make a statement about that, after probing police excesses of this extremist Dilli police chief guy who got shot and died by the hands of a muslim terrorist. We want to make sure that he did not use excessive force and obtained proper clearances before disturbing the faithful. After that we have a "Hindu conspiracy angle" to probe about the Mumbai massacres perpetrated by poor, innocent Pakistanis led astray by mischievous elements. After that I am sure some junio babu will call for "restraint" about rocket firing against Israel, after clearing the statement from our respectable minority affairs minister - who might insist that its the Hindus who are launching rockets against the Israelis from Gaza to give muslims a bad name: we will probe that angle first.

We are like this onlee. Doubts cleared Avram ?

*I didnt mention the Kashmiri pundits in slums near Delhi and Haryana. There are only a few tens of thousands of them. 10,000-20,000 Hindus are too less a number to be of any consequence.
**It also helps that these wimpy Hindus didn't threaten to blow stuff up yet, or demand their own state, or their own country.

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 25 Jan 2009 04:24

Gerard wrote:The One-State Solution

Muammar Qaddafi writes:

This successful assimilation can be a model for Isratine.

Isratine??????

Sounds like a dietary supplement.

"Are you feeling constipation or other irregularity? Try new Isratine, now improved with 40% more fiber! Your toilet paper will feel the difference!"

Uri_T · Post by **Uri_T** » 03 Feb 2009 02:45

Was there any publication to the terorist investigation (the one captured alive)
and if so any indication that Israeli/Jewish targets were chosen in advance?

http://idf-armor.blogspot.com/

andy B · Post by **andy B** » 03 Feb 2009 06:12

Div wrote:
kidoman wrote:Can someone please tell me what are these bombs Israel has been using frequently during the recent Gaza invasion.??
They will burst and scatter over a wide area.
The scences of this kind of bombs exploding were all over the news .

These are not cluster bombs..right?
If fired by artillery, they could just be air burst rounds.

Those are white phosphorous rounds, it caused a bit of outrage in the international community about their use against targerts as they affect not only the immediate target area but a wide circle around the target itself. White phosphorous rounds are used by artillery for smoke screens and to mark targets. FAC (Forward air controller) aircraft such as the now incumbent OA-10 Warthog used them to mark targets from the air and co-ordinate strikes. I am not sure whether this a new weapnonised iteriation of the normal marker rounds. It also could be that they are being timed differently now so as to maximise the area of effect of the round.

I watched a few clips on the teevee and you tube and it appears that once the shell disintegrates in mid air and lands the stuff keeps burning causing toxic fumes and white smoke. Very effective against a civilian populace or even infantry without gas masks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorous

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 03 Feb 2009 06:28

The 3-State Solution:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite? ... 2FShowFull

Makes some good points about Egypt and Jordan.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 05 Feb 2009 14:53

Some good news,as well as that posted in the M-East thread (Cardinal condemns the Pope for readmitting a cleric who denies the Holocaust),is that of the confirmed death of one of the Nazi's most notorious killers.

Last big Nazi hunt ends as Aribert Heim, ‘Dr Death’, is declared dead

The last great Nazi hunt, the search for an infamous SS officer Aribert Heim, has ended with the discovery that he died in Cairo in 1992
( Aribert Heim)
Aribert Heim became known as 'Dr Death' for performing grotesque experiments
Image :1 of 2
James Bone in New York

The last great Nazi hunt, the search for an infamous SS officer known as Dr Death, has ended with the discovery that he died in Cairo in 1992, after converting to Islam.

Aribert Heim, a concentration camp doctor who killed hundreds of inmates by injecting petrol or poison into their hearts, was number two on the “most wanted Nazi” list, after Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann’s main assistant, who is thought to be dead.

Efraim Zuroff, a leading Nazi-hunter from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles, said last July that he believed Heim was still alive and hiding in Patagonia, near where his daughter Waltraud lives in the Chilean town of Puerto Montt. He would be 94.

However, the German television channel ZDF and The New York Times reported last night that Heim died of rectal cancer in Cairo on August 10, 1992, after converting to Islam and living under a false identity as Tarek Farid Hussein.

'Wanted Nazi' at Euro 2008 will not be extradited

Nazi hunters launched a search for Heim in southern Chile and Argentina, offering a ¤315,000 (£280,000) reward for his capture. Heim’s sadistic experiments have been compared to those of Josef Mengele, the Auschwitz “Angel of Death”, who died in Brazil in 1979.

However, the German TV channel said its investigators found a briefcase containing Heim’s Egyptian passport, an application for a residence permit, bank slips, personal letters and medical documents, which were left behind in the hotel room where he lived. An application for Egyptian residency in the name of Farid had the same birthday, June 28, 1914, and the same place of birth, Radkersburg, Austria, as Heim.

His son, Rüdiger Heim, who has long wanted his father declared dead so that he could inherit his ¤1.2 million German bank account, said his father had fled to Egypt via France, Spain and Morocco.

He said he first visited his father in Cairo in the mid-1970s and cared for him as he recovered from an operation in 1990. “Tarek Hussein Farid is the name my father took when he converted to Islam,” Rüdiger told The New York Times.

Heim was a paying guest on the seventh floor of a hotel in a middle-class district of the Egyptian capital, but was treated as a member of the family, and known as “Ammou Tarek”, Uncle Tarek. The Doma family, who run the hotel, were unaware of his true identity.

Heim became concerned in the 1980s, when Egypt and Israel established diplomatic ties, that he might be exposed, but nothing happened, the television network said.

Rüdiger Heim, who is 53, admitted for the first time that he was with his father in Egypt at the time of his death. “It was during the Olympics. There was a television in the room, and he was watching the Olympics. It distracted him. He must have been suffering from serious pain,” he said.

Heim was buried in a cemetery for the poor in Cairo, where graves are reused after several years, so that the chance of finding remains is unlikely, ZDF said.

The first independent confirmation of his identity was from a hotel porter who, when shown a photo of Heim, said: “Yes, that’s Mr Hussein, I’m 100 per cent sure. That is the German who converted to Islam.”

Mr Zuroff, the Nazi-hunter, said if true, the news of Heim's death would be earth-shattering. “I don't want to comment just yet. The reports seem to be serious but I’m still waiting for confirmation from my own sources and there are various questions that need to be answered,” he said.

He said that Rüdiger Heim had previously claimed that the only contact he had since his father went into hiding in 1962 were two notes that appeared in his family’s mailbox.

“Rüdiger has been lying,” Mr Zuroff said from Jerusalem. “Either he is lying now or he was lying before, and he has a vested interest in this so anything he says has to be taken with a certain amount of scepticism and suspicion — and the most important thing is missing: the body. There’s no grave, there’s no corpse, there’s no DNA tests.”

Heim joined the Waffen SS and was assigned to the Mauthausen concentration camp near Linz in October and November 1941.

He became known as “Dr Death” for performing grotesque experiments such as amputating organs without anaesthetic and injecting different solutions into prisoners’ hearts and then using a stopwatch to see which killed them fastest.

He kept a log of his experiments.

Unsuccessfully applying for Heim’s indictment in 1950, Karl Lotter, a non-Jewish political prisoner who worked at the hospital at Mauthausen, told a court that Heim had murdered a young man in an operation and had then kept the skull.

At the end of the Second World War, Heim was held for more than two years by the US military before being released without being tried.

After moving to Frankfurt, he married and worked as a gynaecologist. In 1958, he even bought a 42-unit apartment building in Berlin under his own name. He fled in 1962 after an apparent tip-off that the German authorities planned to arrest him.

Investigators say Heim lived off rents from the apartment block until it was confiscated in 1979.

The ones that got away

Heinrich Müller was chief of the Gestapo. Last seen in the Fuhrer’s bunker on May 1, 1945. Believed to have fled to Brazil and Argentina. Death never confirmed

Dr Josef Mengele became notorious for experiments at Auschwitz. Lived in home town of Günzburg, Bavaria, until 1953, when hints of his crimes began to surface. Fled to Argentina, practising medicine in Buenos Aires. Died in Brazil in 1979

Walter Rauff was a former SS colonel who prefigured the gas chambers by channelling exhaust fumes into trucks filled with victims. Blamed for 97,000 deaths in the Soviet Union, Poland and Yugoslavia. Unrepentant to the end, he died peacefully in Santiago, Chile, in May 14, 1984, of lung cancer, aged 77

Alois Brunner was deputy to Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Final Solution. Fled Germany in 1954, first to Egypt and then to Syria. Believed to have died there in 1992. Death never confirmed .

PS:Martin Bormann.Allegedly scaped with British help in exchange for most of the Nazi loot under his control secreted in Switzerland.Lived in style in Argentina and died there,the body allegedly brought back to Germany to be "discovered" near a spot where last allegedly seen.

darshhan · Post by **darshhan** » 05 Feb 2009 17:20

Hi Uri

Was there any publication to the terorist investigation (the one captured alive)
and if so any indication that Israeli/Jewish targets were chosen in advance?

Yes it is obvious that nariman house/chabad house(jewish targets) were chosen in advance.Mumbai consists of about 20 million people and no. of jews there would be less than 10000.

Furthermore it cannot be a coincidence that terrorists just stumbled over Chabad house in such a large city.They must have had information about this target in advance..

By the way whats the status on gaza.Hope you guys clean up the jihadi scum from that part of the world.Majority of Indian people are with you in your struggle notwithstanding what our govt. says.

Keshav · Post by **Keshav** » 06 Feb 2009 06:28

By the way whats the status on gaza.Hope you guys clean up the jihadi scum from that part of the world.Majority of Indian people are with you in your struggle notwithstanding what our govt. says

I can understand, how, in an emotional frenzy (26/11) we might feel that vast amounts of killing are going to solve the problem, but I don't get how sane people, especially those who consider themselves "strategists" could honestly suggest this.

India itself is not wiping out people.

Why would an Indian suggest this is a good solution?

darshhan · Post by **darshhan** » 06 Feb 2009 10:06

I can understand, how, in an emotional frenzy (26/11) we might feel that vast amounts of killing are going to solve the problem, but I don't get how sane people, especially those who consider themselves "strategists" could honestly suggest this.

India itself is not wiping out people.

Why would an Indian suggest this is a good solution?

First of all Israel is not wiping out any people.They are just targeting terrorists belonging to Hamas.It is the Hamas which shelters among the innocents thereby increasing the risk to some civilians.In the past couple of years Hamas has launched thousands of qassam rockets leaving israel with no choice but to respond appropriately.

Some will accuse Israel of using disproportionate force.Well it would have been better if Israel would also have launched thousands of rockets into gaza as part of proportionate response.Many more civilians would have been killed.

But Israel did the right thing and this is not tolerable to "leftist/socialist/liberal/jihadist/islamist mindset".

Secondly it is the govt. which goes to war and in my opinion and most of other indians that I have talked to Indian govt. consists of WIMPs and IMPOTENT politicians.It is India's government which consists of cowards.It is not the fault of Israeli govt.Just because terrorists come and spread mayhem in India with impunity, it does not mean that Israelis should suffer same violence.Their govt. has guts and our govt. does not have it.Period.

Also how did you come to the conclusion that I was suffering from emotional frenzy post 26/11.Infact the truth is totally opposite.I am completely objective when I state that the jihadis have to be eliminated to the last man and this has nothing to do with 26/11.I was always aware of the dangers posed by jihadists/Islamists.

The above reasons are why an Indian would give such a suggestion.

P.S. I have taken a solemn oath that I will never submit to Islam and Sharia law.I will never live as a Dhimmi.Never shall I pay jiziya or be relegated to second class citizenship.To maintain my freedom I will die if I have to but more importantly I will also kill if I have to.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 06 Feb 2009 15:17

darshhan wrote: >>Hope you guys clean up the jihadi scum from that part of the world.

Keshav wrote: >>Why would an Indian suggest this is a good solution?

Maybe he's not Indian.

But that's beside the point, even if he was not Indian it is an excellent and well articulated solution. More to the point, it may in fact be the only solution.

What exactly do you propose to do with the "jihadi scum" as darshhan put it? Their negotiating position is pretty much limited to "convert or die" (OK, or live in submission)... And they are prepared to kill vast number of people to propagate that message. And they have demonstrated a capability and willingness to do so...

Not much of a choice there, methinks.