January
20 - No. 15
Israel-U.S. Memorandum
of Understanding
U.S. Preparing
African Military Interventions
under Obama
• U.S.
Preparing African
Military Interventions under Obama
• Field
Update on Gaza
from
Humanitarian Coordinator - UN Office for
Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs
• International
Outrage Against Israeli War Crimes and Impunity
For Your Information
• Text of Israel-U.S. Memorandum
of Understanding - January 16, 2009
Israel-U.S. Memorandum of
Understanding
U.S. Preparing African Military
Interventions
under Obama
On January 16, Israeli Foreign Minister of Israel
Tzipi Livni signed a
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) concerning the "ending of Gaza
arms-smuggling" with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. This
was Ms. Rice's last working day in office but her signature on behalf
of the U.S. government binds
the incoming administration. It should be noted that as a member of
NATO, Canada is also bound to be dragooned into future U.S.-led
aggression undertaken in the name of "stopping weapons flows to Hamas
in Gaza."
According to the second specific undertaking of
this MOU:
"2. The United States will work with regional and
NATO partners to
address the problem of the supply of arms and related materiel and
weapons transfers and shipments to Hamas and other terrorist
organizations in Gaza, including through the Mediterranean, Gulf of
Aden, Red Sea and eastern Africa,
through improvements in existing arrangements or the launching of new
initiatives to increase the effectiveness of those arrangements as they
relate to the prevention of weapons smuggling to Gaza. Among
the tools that will be pursued are:
"Enhanced U.S. security and intelligence
cooperation with regional
governments on actions to prevent weapons and explosives flows to Gaza
that originate in or transit their territories; including through the
involvement of relevant components of the U.S. Government, such as U.S.
Central Command,
U.S. European Command, U.S. Africa Command, and U.S. Special Operations
Command.
"* Enhanced intelligence fusion with key
international and coalition
naval forces and other appropriate entities to address weapons supply
to Gaza;
"* Enhancement of the existing international
sanctions and
enforcement mechanisms against provision of material support to Hamas
and other terrorist organizations, including through an international
response to those states, such as Iran, who are determined to be
sources of weapons and explosives supply
to Gaza."
Any "enhancement" of these above-mentioned
operations must envision
full-scale military intervention. In effect, the U.S. is prepared to
undertake a war of intervention in East Africa in the name of what
Washington and Tel Aviv think of as "securing Israel's future survival
from the threat of Islamic
terrorism." The effective meaning of the content of this proviso of the
MOU is that an attack on Sudan, possibly based from Kenya, would be one
of the wars into which the U.S. would be plunged under the presidency
of Barack Obama. The incoming president is the first person of African
background, from Kenya,
to serve in that office. This would confirm the suspicions of those
who, from observing the entire direction of the Obama candidacy since
2007 and its eventual embrace by the ruling establishment during 2008,
concluded that his role would be to provide what the Bush presidency
failed to achieve and that is legitimacy
for the U.S. bid to control the affairs of the world in its interests.
The MOU signed with Israel signals a new period of expanded and/or
accelerated U.S. military interventions on the African continent. It
must not pass!
Field Update on Gaza from Humanitarian
Coordinator
- UN Office for
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs,
January 18, 2009 -
January
17, 2009: Palestinian civilians and medics run to safety during an
Israeli bombardment of a UN school in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza
where civilians were sheltering. Two people were
killed.
"Where
you have a direct hit on an
UNRWA school where about
1,600 people had taken refuge, where the Israeli army knows the
coordinates and knows who's there, where this comes as the latest in a
catalogue of direct and indirect attacks on UNRWA facilities, there
have to be investigations to establish
whether war crimes have been committed."
- Christopher Guinness, UN Relief Works Agency
(UNRWA) spokesperson
Following a meeting of the Israeli security
cabinet on 17 January,
Prime Minister Olmert announced a unilateral cease-fire in Gaza, which
came into effect at 0200 hours local time 18 January, and stated that
Israeli forces will remain in the Gaza Strip 'for the time being' and
respond to fire from militants.
For its part, Hamas initially declared it would continue hostilities
until Israel withdrew its forces, opened the border crossings and ended
its restrictions on the entry of goods to Gaza. On the afternoon of 18
January, Hamas declared its own cease-fire, announcing that Israeli
forces had one week to leave the Gaza
Strip.
The cease-fire follows twenty-two days of
bombardment by land, sea
and air which have left 1,300 Palestinians dead according to the
Palestinian Ministry of Health and caused extensive destruction to
homes and to public infrastructure throughout the Gaza Strip. Supplies
of basic foodstuffs and fuel,
and the provision of medical, water and sanitation services remain
critical. In a press release on 18 January, UN Development Programme
(UNDP) warned that 'the
long-term implications of this most recent conflict in terms of
recovery and development are mounting. [T]he livelihoods and assets of
tens of thousands of civilians are being systematically
undermined through the destruction of productive resources such as
fruit orchards, fisheries, and basic industries.'
Protection of Civilians
The Israeli army remains in
the north, east and Rafah border areas although there are reports that
ground forces are withdrawing from some areas in Gaza City and Rafah
following the cease-fire. Prior to the Hamas ceasefire, Palestinian
militants continued to fire rockets and
mortars into Israel and Israeli fire resulted in a number of
Palestinian casualties. On the evening of 16 January, an Israeli air
strike struck a residential house in Bureij Refugee Camp, killing a
mother and five of her children. Seven people attending a funeral wake
house in Gaza City were killed on the same day when
a shell struck the house, including three brothers of the deceased. The
same evening, an Israeli shell struck the Abu al-Aish family home in
Jabalia killing three daughters and a niece. Palestinian Ministry of
Health (MoH) figures as of 1600 hours 18 January are 1,300 Palestinians
dead, of whom 410 are children and
104 are women. The number of injured stands at 5,300, of whom 1,855 are
children and 795 are women. The danger to medical staff and the
difficulty of extracting the injured from collapsed buildings makes
proper evacuation and estimation of casualties difficult, including the
determination of the number of Palestinian
male civilian casualties. Approximately 100 bodies have been recovered
today 18 January from areas from which the Israeli army has withdrawn.
More are expected once the Israeli army completes its withdrawal from
Gaza. Nine Israeli soldiers have been killed since 27 December.
According to the Magen David
Adom national society, Israeli civilian casualties stand at four dead
and 84 injured since 27 December. OCHA's casualty figures do not
include the number of Palestinians or Israelis treated for shock.
UN Facilities
On 17 January, a number of white
phosphorous shells struck the yard of an UNRWA school in Beit Lahia,
causing panic among the 1,600 civilians who had taken refuge there.
While evacuating the shelter, an explosive shell struck the third floor
of the school, killing two brothers,
aged five and seven, and injuring 14 others including the boys' mother.
UNRWA has demanded an independent investigation into this incident. A
total of more than 50 UN facilities have sustained damaged since 27
December. There are no bomb shelters in the Gaza Strip, and no alarm
systems to warn of impending
bombardment.
Shelter
UNRWA is now operating 50 emergency shelters
for 50,896 displaced people in Gaza. The shelters, many of them
schools, are overcrowded. Prior to the military operation, UNRWA had
procured and pre-positioned non-food items for 5,000 people. Due to the
unprecedented number of people
seeking refuge, UNRWA has been able to provide only basic levels of
support, including food and water. The emergency shelters, especially
those in the north, are in urgent need of non-food items. Altogether,
the 50 shelters have a shortage of more than 23,000 blankets and
mattresses. Construction materials also
need to be brought into Gaza. Thousands of families whose houses have
been damaged are struggling to stay warm as they have no materials to
repair the damage.
Palestinians
return to
their destroyed homes after the withdrawal of Israeli Occupation
Forces. Left: Jabaliya; right: Rafah.
Health
The ability of hospitals and intensive care
units to cope with the constant influx of war injured is stretched to
the limit, and medical personnel are under severe strain following
twenty-two days of crisis.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO),
the administrative building,
emergency and
ambulance station at the Al-Quds Palestinian Red Crescent Society
Hospital were entirely destroyed when it was shelled on 15 January. The
hospital's roof, top floor and a corridor were also damaged. The
hospital is no longer able to
function. In a separate attack on the same day, the Al Wafa
Rehabilitation Hospital in east Gaza City sustained damage to the
eastern wall of the geriatric ward. Despite the damage, the hospital
continues to provide health care.
Following these incidents, 60 patients were
evacuated from the Al
Quds and Al Wafa hospitals to Shifa Hospital, adding additional strain
to its already overloaded capacity.
On 16 January, the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC) coordinated the trucking
of more than 25,000
litres of fuel to ten hospitals and clinics in Gaza City. Fuel is badly
needed for hospital generators as well as for ambulances to move and
collect the injured and sick. During the past 48 hours, Shifa Hospital
has been powered exclusively
by generators to avoid unexpected power cuts, especially for patients
in the intensive care unit.
International Outrage Against
Israeli War Crimes and Impunity
Millions around the world took to the streets this
past week to
demand an end to Israel's war crimes in Palestine and U.S. support
for these crimes. For demonstrations in Canada see TML
Daily, January 19 -
No. 14 - Afternoon Edition.
Palestine
Nablus;
Hebron
Israel
Jerusalem
Shuafat
Refugee Camp, northeastern Jerusalem
January 16,
2009: More than 3000 people protest in the Bedouin village of Arara Ba
Negev.
Israelis
and Arabs shout slogans during a protest in
Jaffa near Tel Aviv January 17,
2009. More than 3000 Arabs and Jews marched from Tel Aviv to Jaffa.
An
Arab Israeli girl leads a group of demonstrators while holding a
placard reading "Olmert, Barak and Livni, we will try
you" near the Arab Israeli town of Nazareth, January 18, 2009.
Lahore
China
Hong Kong
Indonesia
Jakarta; Kuala Lumpur, sign reads: "Free
Palestine."
Philippines
Manila
Korea
Seoul
France
Paris
Marseille:
"Stop the massacare of the Palestinian people"; Nantes: "Liberty,
Peace, Justice for the Palestinian people."
Germany
Hamburg:
"Freedom for Palestine, stop the massacre"; Duisburg
Switzerland; Belgium
Bern;
Brussels: demonstration outside buildings of the European Commission.
Greece; Bosnia
Astakos;
Sarajevo: sign reads, "Stop Israeli massacre."
Turkey
Ankara;
bottom right: "Down with America"
United States
New
York City
On January 16, a banner drop over New York City's
West Side Highway near the USS
Intrepid was carried out by
members of Jews Against the Occupation/NYC (JATO/NYC) to
highlight the role of U.S.
aid to Israel in the current war and massacres. This action by
Jewish New Yorkers continued
the wave of increasingly public Jewish solidarity with the Palestinians
targeted by the Israeli government's ongoing attack on the Gaza Strip.
"We are standing up for justice, which is a Jewish
tradition that many Jewish organizations seem to have
abandoned," said
Niuta Teitelboim, one of the JATO/NYC activists.
Los Angeles
In
Los Angeles on January 15, Jewish activists
chained themselves
to the entrance of the Israeli consulate and blocked the driveway to
the parking structure. The activists were joined by 50 other supporters
who chanted "LA Jews say: End the Siege of Gaza! " and "Not in Our
Name! We will Not be Silent!" In San Francisco, protesters also blocked
the entrance to the Israeli consulate and held up signs
reading
"Caution: Israeli War Criminals."
San Francisco
Latin America
Argentina
Buenos
Aires; left: "Murderers"; right: "I'm a Jew. Don't kill in my name."
For Your Information
Memorandum of Understanding Between Israel and
the United States
Regarding Prevention of the Supply of Arms and Related Materiel to
Terrorist Groups Israel and the United States (the "Parties")
- January 16, 2009 -
Recalling the steadfast commitment of the United
States to Israel's
security, including secure, defensible borders, and to preserve and
strengthen Israel's capability to deter and defend itself, by itself,
against any threat or possible combination of threats;
Reaffirming that such commitment is reflected in
the security,
military and intelligence cooperation between the United States and
Israel, the Strategic Dialogue between them, and the level and kind of
assistance provided by the United States to Israel;
Taking note of the efforts of Egyptian President
Mubarak,
particularly the recognition that securing Gaza's border is
indispensable to realizing a durable and sustainable end to fighting in
Gaza;
Unequivocally condemning all acts, methods, and
practices of
terrorism as unjustifiable, wherever and by whomever committed and
whatever the motivation, in particular, the recent rocket and mortar
attacks and other hostile activity perpetrated against Israel from Gaza
by terrorist organizations;
Recognizing that suppression of acts of
international terrorism,
including denying the provision of arms and related materiel to
terrorist organizations, is an essential element for the maintenance of
international peace and security;
Recognizing that the acquisition and use of arms
and related
materiel by terrorists against Israel were the direct causes of recent
hostilities;
Recognizing the threat to Israel of hostile and
terrorist activity
from Gaza, including weapons smuggling and the build-up of terrorist
capabilities, weapons and infrastructure; and understanding that
Israel, like all nations, enjoys the inherent right of self defense,
including the right to defend itself against
terrorism through appropriate action;
Desiring to improve bilateral, regional and
multilateral efforts to
prevent the provision of arms and related materiel to terrorist
organizations, particularly those currently operating in the Gaza
Strip, such as Hamas;
Recognizing that achieving and maintaining a
durable and sustainable
cessation of hostilities is dependent upon prevention of smuggling and
re-supply of weapons into Gaza for Hamas, a terrorist organization, and
other terrorist groups, and affirming that Gaza should not be used as a
base from which
Israel may be attacked;
Recognizing also that combating weapons and
explosives supply to
Gaza is a multi-dimensional, results-oriented effort with a regional
focus and international components working in parallel, and that this
is a priority of the United States' and Israel's efforts, independently
and with each other, to ensure
a durable and sustainable end to hostilities;
Recognizing further the crucial need for the
unimpeded, safe and
secure provision of humanitarian assistance to the residents of Gaza;
Intending to work with international partners to
ensure the
enforcement of relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions on
counterterrorism in relation to terrorist activity in Gaza;
Have reached the following understandings:
1. The Parties will work cooperatively with
neighbors and in
parallel with others in the international community to prevent the
supply of arms and related materiel to terrorist organizations that
threaten either party, with a particular focus on the supply of arms,
related materiel and explosives into Gaza
to Hamas and other terrorist organizations.
2. The United States will work with regional and
NATO partners to
address the problem of the supply of arms and related materiel and
weapons transfers and shipments to Hamas and other terrorist
organizations in Gaza, including through the Mediterranean, Gulf of
Aden, Red Sea and eastern Africa,
through improvements in existing arrangements or the launching of new
initiatives to increase the effectiveness of those arrangements as they
relate to the prevention of weapons smuggling to Gaza. Among the tools
that will be pursued are:
* Enhanced U.S. security and intelligence
cooperation with regional
governments on actions to prevent weapons and explosives flows to Gaza
that originate in or transit their territories; including through the
involvement of relevant components of the U.S. Government, such as U.S.
Central Command,
U.S. European Command, U.S. Africa Command, and U.S. Special Operations
Command.
* Enhanced intelligence fusion with key
international and coalition
naval forces and other appropriate entities to address weapons supply
to Gaza;
* Enhancement of the existing international
sanctions and
enforcement mechanisms against provision of material support to Hamas
and other terrorist organizations, including through an international
response to those states, such as Iran, who are determined to be
sources of weapons and explosives
supply to Gaza.
3. The United States and Israel will assist each
other in these
efforts through enhanced sharing of information and intelligence that
would assist in identifying the origin and routing of weapons being
supplied to terrorist organizations in Gaza.
4. The United States will accelerate its efforts
to provide
logistical and technical assistance and to train and equip regional
security forces in counter-smuggling tactics, working towards
augmenting its existing assistance programs.
5. The United States will consult and work with
its regional
partners on expanding international assistance programs to affected
communities in order to provide an alternative income/employment to
those formerly involved in smuggling.
6. The Parties will establish mechanisms as
appropriate for military
and intelligence cooperation to share intelligence information and to
monitor implementation of the steps undertaken in the context of this
Memorandum of Understanding and to recommend additional measures to
advance the goals
of this Memorandum of Understanding. In so far as military cooperation
is concerned, the relevant mechanism will be the United States-Israel
Joint Counterterrorism Group, the annual Military to Military
discussion, and the Joint Political Military Group.
7. This Memorandum of Understanding of ongoing
political commitments
between the Parties will be subject to the laws and regulations of the
respective parties, as applicable, including those governing the
availability of funds and the sharing of information and intelligence.
This Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 16
January, 2009 at Washington, in duplicate, in the English language.
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