Revelation of the Method in Israeli attacks on Gaza

By Michael Hoffman

From Israeli negotiator Gershon Baskin comes this key piece of Revelation of the Method. It shows that until a few days ago, the recent rocket attacks on the Israeli state were largely the work of Salafist (Saudi and western-intelligence-connected, Al Qaeda-style) groups who oppose Hamas. Mr. Baskin reveals that it was the chief Hamas negotiator on preventing rocket attacks, Ahmed al-Jabari, who the Israelis assassinated in a Barzini gambit. Jabari was one of the few Hamas enforcers with the power to stop the renegade Salafist rocketeers in Gaza. He was considering an apparent Israeli proposal for a ceasefire, which had been brokered by Egypt, when the Israelis terror-bombed the car he was riding in, killing him and his son.

Recall in the "Godfather" movie that a rival mobster named Barzini wanted to take over the Vito Corloene family by starting a war. Sonny, Vito's hot-headed eldest, was lured into an angry reaction when Barzini paid Sonny's brother-in-law Carlo, to beat Sonny's sister. In response, Sonny thoughtlessly jumped into a car to get revenge. On his way to administer a beating to Carlo, Sonny is cut down in a hail of bullets at a thruway toll booth. The war begins in earnest and tit-for-tat violence becomes the order of the day.

In the latest Gaza version of this blood theatre, the part of Sonny's sister is played by Jabari, who is suckered into believing he will help bring about a ceasefire and is instead murdered. Hamas is the stand-in for Sonny. Their use of rockets against Israeli cities is tantamount to Sonny roaring off in his automobile to vengefully beat Carlo.

Our script might be dismissed as far-fetched were it not for the fact that the Israeli government's own negotiator has confirmed the details. His revelation consists in the fact that every four years or so, the Israelis decide to "mow the lawn" in Gaza -- i.e. as a matter of routine -- destroy dozens or hundreds of buildings and kill dozens or hundreds of Palestinians, as was accomplished the last time this occurred, in "Operation Cast Lead."

To slaughter the requisite number of Palestinians and fulfill the quota for the destuction of the infrastructure in Gaza, Ahmed al-Jabari, the Hamas leader most likely to control renegade rocket attacks, was assassinated last week. Rockets were then launched, Sonny Corleone style, by Hamas, in revenge, and it is only at this point, and not before, that Fox News, the Protestant Fundamentalists and the Catholic neocons begin their account of what has happened: poor little "Israel" -- only defending itself against intolerable rocket attacks by Arab terrorists.

Israel’s Shortsighted Assassination

By Gershon Baskin • New York Times

November 16, 2012

JERUSALEM -- Ahmed al-Jabari, — the strongman of Hamas, the head of its military wing, the man responsible for the abduction of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit — was assassinated on Wednesday by Israeli missiles. Why?

Israel’s government has declared that the aim of the current strikes against Gaza is to rebuild deterrence so that no rockets will be fired on Israel. Israel’s targeted killings of Hamas leaders in the past sent the Hamas leadership underground and prevented rocket attacks on Israel temporarily. According to Israeli leaders, deterrence will be achieved once again by targeting and killing military and political leaders in Gaza and hitting hard at Hamas’s military infrastructure. But this policy has never been effective in the long term, even when the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, was killed by Israel. Hamas didn’t lay down its guns then, and it won’t stop firing rockets at Israel now without a cease-fire agreement.

When we were negotiating with Hamas to release Mr. Shalit, members of the Israeli team believed that Mr. Jabari wouldn’t make a deal because holding Mr. Shalit was a kind of “life insurance policy.” As long as Mr. Jabari held Mr. Shalit, Israelis believed, the Hamas leader knew he was safe. The Israeli government had a freer hand to kill Mr. Jabari after Mr. Shalit was released in October 2011. His insurance policy was linked to their assessment of the value of keeping him alive. This week, that policy expired.

I believe that Israel made a grave and irresponsible strategic error by deciding to kill Mr. Jabari. No, Mr. Jabari was not a man of peace; he didn’t believe in peace with Israel and refused to have any direct contact with Israeli leaders and even nonofficials like me. My indirect dealings with Mr. Jabari were handled through my Hamas counterpart, Ghazi Hamad, the deputy foreign minister of Hamas, who had received Mr. Jabari’s authorization to deal directly with me. Since Mr. Jabari took over the military wing of Hamas, the only Israeli who spoke with him directly was Mr. Shalit, who was escorted out of Gaza by Mr. Jabari himself. (It is important to recall that Mr. Jabari not only abducted Mr. Shalit, but he also kept him alive and ensured that he was cared for during his captivity.)

Passing messages between the two sides, I was able to learn firsthand that Mr. Jabari wasn’t just interested in a long-term cease-fire; he was also the person responsible for enforcing previous cease-fire understandings brokered by the Egyptian intelligence agency. Mr. Jabari enforced those cease-fires only after confirming that Israel was prepared to stop its attacks on Gaza. On the morning that he was killed, Mr. Jabari received a draft proposal for an extended cease-fire with Israel, including mechanisms that would verify intentions and ensure compliance. This draft was agreed upon by me and Hamas’s deputy foreign minister, Mr. Hamad, when we met last week in Egypt.

The goal was to move beyond the patterns of the past. For years, it has been the same story: Israeli intelligence discovers information about an impending terrorist attack from Gaza. The Israeli Army takes pre-emptive action with an airstrike against the suspected terror cells, which are often made up of fighters from groups like Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees or Salafi groups not under Hamas’s control but functioning within its territory. These cells launch rockets into Israeli towns near Gaza, and they often miss their targets. The Israeli Air Force responds swiftly. The typical result is between 10 and 25 casualties in Gaza, zero casualties in Israel and huge amounts of property damage on both sides.

Other key Hamas leaders and members of the Shura Council, its senior decision-making body, supported a new cease-fire effort because they, like Mr. Jabari, understood the futility of successive rocket attacks against Israel that left no real damage on Israel and dozens of casualties in Gaza. Mr. Jabari was not prepared to give up the strategy of “resistance,” meaning fighting Israel, but he saw the need for a new strategy and was prepared to agree to a long-term cease-fire.

This war is being presented in Israel, once again, as a war of “no choice.” The people of Israel are rallying around the flag as would be expected anywhere in the world. The United States government has voiced its support of the Israeli operation by stating, “Israel has the full right to defend itself and protect its citizens.” It certainly does, but we must ask whether there is another way to achieve the same goal without the use of force.

Israel has used targeted killings, ground invasions, drones, F-16s, economic siege and political boycott. The only thing it has not tried and tested is reaching an agreement (through third parties) for a long-term mutual cease-fire.

No government can tolerate having its civilian population attacked by rockets from a neighboring territory. And the firing of thousands of rockets from Gaza into Israel must end. There was a chance for a mutually agreed cease-fire. The difference between the proposal I drafted in cooperation with my Hamas counterpart and past proposals was that it included both a mechanism for dealing with impending terror threats and a clear definition of breaches. This draft was to be translated and shared with both Mr. Jabari and Israeli security officials, who were aware of our mediation efforts.

In the draft, which I understand Mr. Jabari saw hours before he was killed, it was proposed that Israeli intelligence information transmitted through the Egyptians would be delivered to Mr. Jabari so that he could take action aimed at preventing an attack against Israel. Mr. Jabari and his forces would have had an opportunity to prove that they were serious when they told Egyptian intelligence officials that they were not interested in escalation. If Mr. Jabari had agreed to the draft, then we could have prevented this new round of violence; if he had refused, then Israel would have likely attacked in much the same way as it is now.

The proposal was at least worth testing. Moreover, it included the understanding that if Israel were to take out a real ticking bomb — people imminently preparing to launch a rocket — such a strike would not be considered a breach of the cease-fire and would not lead to escalation.

Instead, Mr. Jabari is dead — and with him died the possibility of a long-term cease-fire. Israel may have also compromised the ability of Egyptian intelligence officials to mediate a short-term cease-fire and placed Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt at risk.

This was not inevitable, and cooler heads could have prevailed. Mr. Jabari’s assassination removes one of the more practical actors on the Hamas side.  Who will replace him? I am not convinced that Israel’s political and military leaders have adequately answered that question. (Emphasis supplied).

Gershon Baskin is a co-chairman of the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information, a columnist for The Jerusalem Post and the initiator and negotiator of the secret back channel for the release of Gilad Shalit.

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For Further Research

Israeli assassinations: recent by Mossad; by the Israeli military

The Israeli Holocaust Against the Palestinians 

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Israelis Bomb Gaza, Kill at Least 11, Including Children
By Jodi Rudoren and Fares Akram
Sunday, November 18, 2012, New York Times online

GAZA CITY — Israeli forces killed at least 11 people, including several children, in a single airstrike that destroyed a home here on Sunday, as Israel pressed its bombardment of the Gaza Strip for a fifth day, deploying warplanes and naval vessels to pummel the coastal enclave.

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An Israeli peacenik’s view of Egypt

Editor’s Note: Mr. Baskin is a Zionist Israeli, but he is a fairly decent person in spite of his adherence to Zionism. His nationalism is genuinely moderate rather than just a velvet glove for war-Zionism. He is  interested in peace. He is however, also saddled with certain Israeli handicaps. For example, he sees Hizbollah in Lebanon as merely an "Iranian proxy" rather than a people’s liberation movement that drove the Israeli proxies (South Lebanon Army) out, and closed down the now completely forgotten (in the West, anyway) Israeli concentration camp in Lebanon, El Khiam. We don’t make peace with friends, we make peace with enemies and if Baskin, by reason of his Zionist orientation, is an enemy, he is one with whom peace can be made. He deflates the American right wing view that Israelis are hated no matter what they do in the Middle East. Baskin shows that Israeli dispossession of the Palestinians is the deciding factor behind the animosity.

Encountering Peace: The view from Cairo

What’s needed is stronger bridges, not higher walls

By Gershon Baskin 

Jerusalem Post, Sept. 12, 2011

Since Friday I have been in Cairo. This great city is not unfamiliar to me – I’ve been here more than 20 times, although my last visit was five years ago. I came to Cairo to attend a small meeting of MECA – the Middle East Citizens Assembly. This small but important organization was founded by Walid Salem, a Palestinian peace and democracy activist from east Jerusalem who decided that for real democracy to take root in the Arab world, citizens needed to take responsibility, stop acting like subjects and become active participants. Walid succeeded in creating a network of democracy activists from all over the Middle East including Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Iran, Palestine, Israel and more.

Walid has consistently demanded that Israelis be included at every meeting. I was privy to an email correspondence between Walid, other members of MECA and a new Libyan participant, in which the Libyan said he wouldn’t participate in any meeting that included Israelis. Walid and other Arab members told him directly that while it was certainly his right to boycott Israelis, MECA was a inclusive forum for all citizens of the Middle East, including Israelis. Six or seven Israelis had been scheduled to attend the Cairo meetings, but canceled due to the current political and security tensions. Being somewhat more familiar with traveling in the region, and knowing that I would be in Cairo with friends, I made up my mind to go as planned. I did decide, however, not to visit Tahrir Square, which has become a less than welcoming place for foreigners in general and Israelis in particular.

DESPITE HAVING a US passport, I always try to travel in the Arab world on my Israeli one, and this trip was no exception. I did, however, take some precautions. On the advice of some Israeli friends who work in security, I checked into the hotel on my US passport; a hotel clerk making a few dollars a day can easily be bribed by terrorist groups to provide information about Israeli guests. I also locked all of my Israeli documents in the room safe and carried only my US passport with me in my travels around Cairo. I only had to show it once, while visiting an open-air market behind the foreign ministry.

I was taking pictures and a young man stopped me and asked me who I was taking pictures for, adding that I required a permit. I told him in Arabic that I didn’t need a permit, that Egypt was a democracy now, but he insisted. I told him the pictures were for my private use, and showed him my US passport. He accepted my explanation, and then insisted I come with him to photograph some graffiti on the Foreign Ministry walls. With a big smile on his face, he proudly translated some of it: “death to Israel,” “cancel the peace treaty with Israel,” etc.

On Friday night, as the Israeli Embassy was under attack, I was sitting with an Egyptian friend in a coffee shop in Zamalek, where my hotel is. Zamalek is an island in the middle of the Nile where most of the embassies in Cairo are located. There a many foreigners in Zamalek and security is always on high alert. I heard shooting from the direction of Giza, where the Israeli embassy is located. I thought it was fireworks from a wedding celebration, such as I often hear from my home in Jerusalem. When I woke up the next morning, however, I learned of the horrible attack against the Israeli Embassy, and the failure of the Egyptian security forces to prevent it. My friends at the MECA meeting condemned the attack both publicly and in private, and also expressed their concern for my security and their solidarity, assuring me that they would protect me.

At the meeting, the well known professor and democracy activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who had been jailed and tortured by Mubarak, gave a brilliant presentation about the Egyptian revolution and how Tahrir square, and many other squares around Egypt, had been transformed into “Parliaments of the People.” In my speech, which followed Prof. Ibrahim’s, I tried to express the deep concern felt by Israelis at what we saw going on around us in “the neighborhood.” The “Parliaments of the People,” I said, were beginning to look like “Parliaments of the mobs.”

Viewed through Israeli eyes, I said, the neighborhood looked quite disturbing. Lebanon is ruled by Hizbullah – an Iranian proxy, and Gaza is controlled by Hamas – an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. The West Bank could easily fall into Hamas hands as well. Egypt could easily be taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood. If the Syrian revolution is successful it, too, could be taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood, as could Jordan, if the Hashemite regime is overthrown. In addition, from the Israeli perspective Turkey is on its way to becoming a radical Islamic state. A scary picture indeed.

THE NARGILA boy in the coffee shop in Zamalek asked me where I was from. “Falestin,” I said. “Very good,” he replied, “we love Palestine ... I will kill all of the Israelis for you!” I asked him why he hated Israelis so much. Did he know any Israelis, I asked? No, and he didn’t want to, he replied. He hated the Israelis, he said, because they killed Palestinians and took their land, and because now they were also killing Egyptians. I asked him what he would think if Israel ended the occupation and made peace with a Palestinian state. After a brief pause, he said, “If they make real peace and free the Palestinians and let them have a state, we will have nothing against Israel, ahalan w’sahalan (welcome).”


This young man, educated on the street, and by Al Jazeera, probably knows almost nothing about the conflict, but his views reflect those of millions of Arabs all over the region, and millions of Turks as well. People across this region are willing to accept an Israel that lives in peace with its Arab neighbors. Israel is hated in the Arab and Muslim world not, as many Israelis believe, simply because they deny our right to exist. If Israel would only understand that its relations with the Palestinians determine the level of its acceptance in the region perhaps we would be at a very different place today.

People in the MECA meeting said that the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative was still on the table and serves as the basis for Israel to be a welcome member throughout the region. All of the Egyptians that I have spoken with condemned the attack against the Israeli embassy. The story on the street and among the youth leaders of the revolution is that the leaders of the mobs that torched the Ministry of Interior, the headquarters of the el-Ghad party and the Israeli embassy have been identified as members of the hated former internal security forces. They say that these people are actively working to undermine the revolution and to show that post-Mubarak Egypt is a lawless society where all security has broken down. They hope to hijack the revolution and to bring back the old regime. My first impulse was to dismiss this claim as just another Arab conspiracy theory, but after talking to some serious analysts and experts I changed my mind. It seems there is a very real possibility that these attacks were in fact carried out by anti-revolutionary “agents provocateurs.”

From my admittedly non-scientific reading of the Cairo street “map,” the Egyptian masses do not support the attack against the Israeli embassy. They do not support warm peace with Israel or forms of normalization because in their view Israel has not implemented the second chapter of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty of Camp David – ending the occupation, but they do understand and support the strategic importance of the peace for Egypt. Egyptians do not want to go to war against Israel.

I HAVE also been in Turkey more than 100 times, for joint Israeli-Arab meetings, mainly during the years of the second intifada when it was almost impossible to meet locally. I have met Turkish President Abdullah Gul and hosted him in Jerusalem when he was foreign minister. I know the current foreign minister Mr. Ahmet Davutoglu, from when he was an advisor to the party leader. We have remained in contact over the past years via email. The AKP in Turkey is not a radical Islamic party, nor are its leaders radical Muslims. The root cause of the free-fall of Israel/Turkey relations is the same as that of the Arab street’s hatred of Israel: the continuation and entrenching of the Israeli occupation, when there is a moderate – as understood by most of the world – Palestinian leadership willing to make peace with Israel.

Notwithstanding the fact that we are not solely responsible for the lack of peace, we have clearly not done enough to strive for real peace. The current events in Cairo and Ankara should be our wake-up call. Most of our leaders will respond by calling for higher walls, when what we really need are stronger bridges. An Israel reaching out to the Palestinians and willing to make peace with them – not an imaginary peace with a Palestinian state floating in the air, but one based on the 1967 borders – will find a welcoming neighborhood in Benghazi, Baghdad, Beirut, Amman, Cairo, Ankara, Ramallah and even in Gaza. (End quote; emphasis supplied).

Gershon Baskin is the founder and co-director of IPCRI, the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information, he hosts a weekly radio show in Hebrew on All for Peace radio, and a voluntary columnist for The Jerusalem Post.

Gershon Baskin, Ph.D.
P.O. Box 9321, Jerusalem 91092
Cellphone: +972-(0)52-238-1715
gershonbaskin@gmail.com

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