The withdrawal of Israeli ground forces and Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip in August 2005 was a reconfiguration of control from outwith the Strip.

It was an Israeli Public Relations stunt to display to the International Community Israel's purported 'Genuine Peace Credentials'. In fact, the real agenda is the much coveted East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The Strip represents a mere 1 % of Mandate Palestine. It is heavily populated to the tune of perhaps, now, 1.6 million Palestinians. It has always been the deep desire of Israel to detach the Strip from Israel's legal and moral obligations for its welfare. The riddance of its inhabitants has been deeply longed for. It has a whole background in itself! It is actively isolating it from the rest of the Occupied Territories, trying to create two separate entities. It wants to 'cancel out' the existence of 1.6 million Palestinians as not being part of Israel/Palestine, so that it can claim the latter do not count, falsely asserting that it is ahead in demographics.

It is the largest prison on earth. Israel controls everything! It decides everything. Israel wields unconscionable power of life and death. It has veritably been a slow death. Everything has collapsed: social services, the fishing industry, the economy, factories and industry, the devastation of agriculture, the health system.

If the words of Dov Weissglass, advisor to the Israel prime minister, on February 16th, 2006, are anything to go by, then the siege and blockade are barbaric and inhumane:

'It’s like a diet –
the Palestinians will
lose lots of weight,
but they won’t die.'

The War on Iraq was an outrage! We all knew that Bush & co. were a bunch of dangerous demented neo-cons. Blair became wayward and way of course and out of touch. Bush and Blair buddies? Was that a factor? We all know about AIPAC and the pro-Israel Lobby distorting U.S. foreign policies for their own strategic self-interests. Is there some near equivalent in the U.K.?

How was it that the ludicrous hype about Saddam Hussein being able to launch missiles at British bases in Cyprus so readily 'swallowed' by gullible recipients of media reportage?

In the aftermath of the invasion, Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General stated that the war on Iraq was illegal. Surely that is sufficient grounds based on a non-partial credible source at the very pinnacle of the UN system to indict those who were involved.

The World Order, on that fateful day of the invasion, was overturned. It reverted back to the Suez Canal Tripartite aggression against Egypt. Are we to suffer the insuferable? Attacking and invading a sovereign state that was not attacking or invading anyone is unprecedented. It demolishes the Nuremburg-formed laws of war, after WWII, that deem this type of aggression of pre-emptive wars as unlawful. The Nazis had indulged in this on similar pretexts. The Nuremburgh Trials outlawed it as baseless.

Hope for Palestinian emancipation, restitution and recovery of the Occupied Territories is in vain. The Peace Process has been killed off many times by the Israelis. They have never sought peace. It would be a major obstacle to expansionism. We have seen it before over decades. It has been at the heart of the many wars in the Middle East. They are in a vice literally. Between the anvil and the hammer! The Israeli colonization process is dragging down the Palestinians to even deeper levels of straightened circumstances and dire socio-economic depravtion, all in the vein of heaping intolerable, unviable and deteriorating living conditions in order to drive out the Palestinians in dribs and drabs. Any Palestinian homeland, or an Archipelago of townships, cantons, shruken ghettos, walled up towns and villages, mega territorial prisons, and bits and pieces of remaining Palestinian territories is the frightening outcome for them and all that it entails in more suffocating and strangulating siege. Bit by bit, in no uncertain terms, the Israeli State and its organs are in unison and should-to-shoulder that every effort is expended in furthering tactics and methods of gradual dispossession, displacement and unbearable pressures.

Just to cite one example: an incident, little reported, overlooked as insignificant and hardly likely to elicit media glare was the final and permanent closure of the only gate through which tens of thousands of East Jerusalemite Palestinians would have to pass through to reach inside the core part of East Jerusalem. By this means, some 70,000 Palestinians of the City will actually, through time, be excluded entirely from the central hub of their socio-economic existence on which they depend on for everything – livelihoods, social services, religious places of worship, friends and family. Once again, through this one means, greater hardship and suffering is engendered, through colonialist engineering, to ethncally cleanse by sly and surruptitious methods hardly likely to attract unwelcome attention from the International Media.

Netanyahu's speech was peppered with the word 'peace' this last Sunday June 14th, 2009. But 'peace' in reality means 'pacification'. De facto entrenched colonization is inherent to that word. Emancipation for the Palestinians is in vain and a remote propect. Subjugation and repression has become a masterful Israeli skill and feeds a large security and high tech industry. Restitution of that 22 % of their remaining homeland will be a remote prospect if Israel is allowed to continue with its 'ways'.
A sheer distortion in his speech saying that Israel 'withdrew' from the Gaza Strip and all it got in return were 'suicide bombers' and 'thousands of missiles'. Palestinians were disturbingly aware what lay behind that policy of 'withdrawal'. It was part of a devious game at isolating them not only from the rest of the world but from the rest of the Occupied Territories. It was to proceed with the really important agenda of further entrenchment in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The Peace Process has been killed off many times by the Israelis. They have never sought peace. It would be a major obstacle to expansionism. We have seen it before over decades. It has been at the heart of the many wars in the Middle East. They are in a vice literally. Between the anvil and the hammer! The Israeli colonization process is dragging down the Palestinians to even deeper levels of straightened circumstances and dire socio-economic depravation, all in the vein of heaping intolerable, unviable and deteriorating living conditions in order to drive out the Palestinians in dribs and drabs.
Any Palestinian homeland, or an Archipelago of townships, cantons, shrunken ghettos, walled up towns and villages, mega territorial prisons, and bits and pieces of remaining Palestinian territories is the frightening outcome for them and all that it entails in more suffocating and strangulating siege. Bit by bit, in no uncertain terms, the Israeli State and its organs are in unison and should-to-shoulder that every effort is expended in furthering tactics and methods of gradual dispossession, displacement and unbearable pressures.
Just to cite one example: an incident, little reported, overlooked as insignificant and hardly likely to elicit media glare was the final and permanent closure of the only gate through which tens of thousands of East Jerusalemite Palestinians would have to pass through to reach inside the core part of East Jerusalem. By this means, some 70,000 Palestinians of the City will actually, through time, be excluded entirely from the central hub of their socio-economic existence on which they depend on for everything – livelihoods, social services, religious places of worship, friends and family.
Once again, through this one means, greater hardship and suffering is engendered, through colonialist engineering, to ethncally cleanse by sly and surruptitious methods hardly likely to attract unwelcome attention from the International Media.

It is mind-boggling what's happening in Iran. There are a lot of contradictions such as Musavi having been instrumental in the U.S. embassy hostage taking and being a leading founder of the Islamic Revolution and a protege of Imam Khomeini. All indications are that a mixture of factors are at play here. There seems to be rivalry among the Old Guard and Ruling Elite which themselves are broken up into power groups. Rafsanjani, a powerful figure and economic baron is at odds and in rivalry with Ahmadinjad and the Revolutionary guards, who are vying over control of Iran's economy and vastly lucrative oil industry.

Then, we have the huge frustrations and passions of the Iranian people so evidently obvious with the mass demonstrations. There seems to be deep unpopular feeling against Ahmadinejad which indicates deep divisions and alienation in society. It could be the class system coming to the fore and the glaring disparity between the 'haves' and 'have nots'.

The politics of Iran are complex to say the least. Ahmadinejad may very well have won the elections according to surveys carried out by researchers from the West. On the other hand, we are being led to believe that there is more than a whiff of corruption and vote-rigging. We, as laypeople have little idea of what is presently unfolding. However, we have to bear in mind that, with the U.S. and Israel looming in the background, then it might be more than pertinent to note some of the comments of Paul Craig Roberts who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration, who wrote on June 16th, 2009 that:

As a person who has seen it all from inside the U.S. government, I believe that the purpose of the U.S. government’s manipulation of the American and puppet government media is to discredit the Iranian government by portraying the Iranian government as an oppressor of the Iranian people and a frustrater of the Iranian people’s will. This is how the U.S. government is setting up Iran for military attack.


Bloomsday Edition
June 16, 2009
Why the US Wants to Delegitimize the Iranian Elections
Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

'The Arabs attempt to strangle Israel at birth' is a Myth and classic Israeli propaganda churned out so that the immigrant settler Jews in the Middle East can perpetuate the status of Victimhood and 'another Holocaust in the making at the hands of the Arabs'.
Such a Myth conveniently veils the Operations of Ethnic Cleansing carried out in early 1948 well before the Arab Armies entered Palestine on May 15th, 1948. It is also convenient that this Myth not unaccidentally ignores the fact that these Arab Armies stayed in the areas allotted to the Palestinians by the Partition Plan of November 1947. Other facts are also conveniently ignored.
Stating 'decades of suicide bombings' is hyperbole. Exaggerating 'suicide bombings' is in the vein of blaming the victims to the exclusion of rampant violence of Israel's occupation and colonial policies. The first suicide bombing began in 1994 after the massacre of Palestinians at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. 'Suicide bombings' came to a halt a few years ago. That does not amount to 'decades of suicide bombings'.
'Hizullah's shelling of northern Israel for six years' – what period or phase does the 'six years' indicate? Here again there is no substantiation, explanation let alone facts. When Israel withdrew in 2000 there was no shelling by Hizbullah until the War on Lebanon in July 2006. Has the person conveniently omitted that Israel occupied Lebanese territory for over 18 years, not to mention Israeli devastating invasions of that small country?
'Iran's bloodthirsty threat to wipe Israel off the map' – that is mere supposition, heresay, unproven and unevidenced and factually incorrect. That is demonising propaganda! It's aim is to taint anyone and everyone with 'Hitler' and the 'Nazis'. Such a tactic is a gross distortion.
Jewish settlers in Hebron celebrate the deaths of Palestinians. In one instance, there was photographic evidence of Jewish settlers giving out sweets to each other on the death of a Palestinian.

THE COLONIAL WAR OF ATTRITION AGAINST PALESTINE

"Palestinians have been the subject of frequent attack -- often with civilians and their homes in the direct line of fire. Since 1967, the Israeli army demolished more than 20,000 Palestinian houses, uprooted more than 3,000,000 trees, revoked residency rights of more than 6,000 Palestinians in Jerusalem, imprisoned more than 700,000 Palestinians for various periods of time, and killed or assassinated 15,000."

and

"Since Israel removed its settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2004, Israeli settlements have expanded at their fastest rate in history. Moreover, Israel has issued plans to build more than 150,000 illegal housing units in Israeli settlements. In 2008, amidst the "settlement freeze" agreed upon in the 2007 Annapolis framework, tenders for new settlement building increased by 550 percent. Actual settlement construction has increased by 30 percent since the launching of the new round of peace talks."

and

" Since it removed 8,000 settlers from Gaza, over 50,000 new settlers have come to the West Bank in less than 3 years. The Israeli army is still in effective control of 24 percent of the land along Gaza's northern and eastern borders."

and very disturbingly:

"Israel's 21-day incursion into Gaza left an immense humanitarian crisis: More than 50,800 Gazans were left homeless; 80 percent of the population are now dependent on assistance; between 35 and 60 percent of the agriculture industry was wrecked (60 percent of the agricultural land in the north of the Strip may no longer be arable); 219 factories were destroyed or severely damaged; 48 percent of the 122 health facilities assessed were found to be damaged or destroyed; 15 of Gaza's 27 hospitals and 41 primary health care centers suffered damages; 14,000 homes, 68 government buildings, and 31 NGOs were either totally or partially damaged -- as a result, an estimated 600,000 tons of concrete rubble will need to be removed.