Links from my del.icio.us account for March 17th through March 19th:
- Guest Post by Lawrence Wilkerson: Some Truths About Guantanamo Bay – The Washington Note – "Iraq, GITMO, Abu Ghraib, heavily-biased U.S. support for Israel, and a host of other strategic errors have insured al-Qa'ida's resilience, staying power and motivation. How we deal with the future attacks of this organization and its cohorts could well seal our fate, for good or bad. Osama bin Laden and his brain trust, Aman al-Zawahiri, are counting on us to produce the bad."
- IDF in Gaza: Killing civilians, vandalism, and lax rules of engagement – Haaretz – Israel News – On Israeli soldiers routinely killing civilians: "The lives of Palestinians, let's say, is something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers. So as far as they are concerned they can justify it that way," he said. "
- Le Figaro – International : Une veuve syrienne divise l’Arabie saoudite – "Moderate" Saudi Arabia: 75-year-old Syrian widow sentenced to four months prison, 40 lashes and exile from Saudi for having received two young men in her house. They were doing her shopping for her.
- Egypt may boycott peace treaty anniversary over Lieberman pick – Haaretz – Israel News – The appointment of Lieberman as FM is a tough one to handle for Egypt: he's insulted Mubarak and once threatened to nuke the Aswan dam. This could mean future Egypt-Israel relations will mostly go through PM Netanyahu and the Ministry of Defense (as in Amos Gilad) in the future. Can't imagine Hosni Mubarak wants a photo-op with Lieberman in Sharm al-Sheikh.
- globeandmail.com: Mubarak on diplomatic offensive to promote Mideast peace – Article has some great analysis at the bottom.
An important point which came out of the full transcript of Israeli soldiers testimonies (in Hebrew) is the abuse "international law" discourse by the military. The whole operational logic was dictated by the need to "incriminate" – with incrimination leading to a license to kill.
This is a very troubling development. Not only the military is preparing itself for possible war-crime tribunals, it also uses the terms and language of international law to extended the level of destruction and killing. Once certain tactics become "legal", they are applied wholesale in a systematic way and the consequences are horrendous.
War always involves killing civilians but what is new here is the legal process by which civilians are made into combatants (for example: civilians are warned over the phone. They choose to stay in their homes => they are "willing human shields" -> they are Hamas combatants, fair target QED).
Mink, this is not new. See here for an argument for how Israel has used the 'dialectics of legal repression': http://www.jstor.org/pss/3097130“ target=”_blank”>http://www.jstor.org/pss/3097130