Palestinian tragedy played out live on Israeli television

I would hope that this awful tragedy does something to help the peace process.

Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Ashi is a Palestinian who works in Israeli hospitals and lives in Gaza. He is very well known in Israel and, in more peaceful times, was embraced by the Israeli Army soldiers as he crossed into Gaza. He has been reporting each day into an Israeli television programme, telling of the reality in Gaza. Then Israeli viewers heard as he spoke live on television as his three daughters were killed by an Israeli army strike.

"No one can get to us," he screamed in Arabic on a live phone call with a channel 10 anchor.

"My God ... My God ..."Dr. Ashi told the anchor his family had just been killed, and that he was "overwhelmed." "My God ... My girls ..." he cried. "Shiomi ... Can't anybody help us please?"

The news anchor asked Dr. Ashi where his house is, and cameras followed as the journalist frantically tried to employ his network of contacts to send help to the doctor. Shortly thereafter, the Israeli Army allowed a Palestinian ambulance to speed to his location. Only one of al-Ashi's daughters survived.

"Everybody in Israel knows that I was talking on television and on the radio," said Dr. Ashi. "That we are home, that we are innocent people. "Suddenly, today, when there was hope for ceasefire, on the last day I was talking to my children ... Suddenly, they bombed us; a doctor who takes care of Israeli patients. Is that what's done? Is that peace?"

Eyewitnesses denied Israeli claims of sniper fire in the area. "But over 90 percent of Israelis still support the war on Gaza, while hundreds of other tragedies remain just a number in a rising Palestinian death toll," reported Al Jazeera's Roza Ibragimova.

Al Jazeera's English service has the full story here:

Israel Fisked

With a hat-tip to Wit and Wisdom, I most highly recommend this article by Robert Fisk. It is a most passionate and knowledgeable explosion of the myth which is the justification given to the extreme violence of Israel:

Yes, Israelis deserve security. Twenty Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure indeed. But 600 Palestinians dead in just over a week, thousands over the years since 1948 – when the Israeli massacre at Deir Yassin helped to kick-start the flight of Palestinians from that part of Palestine that was to become Israel – is on a quite different scale. This recalls not a normal Middle East bloodletting but an atrocity on the level of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. And of course, when an Arab bestirs himself with unrestrained fury and takes out his incendiary, blind anger on the West, we will say it has nothing to do with us. Why do they hate us, we will ask? But let us not say we do not know the answer.

Well done Cleggie! At last, straight talking on Gaza!

Hurrah! Nick Clegg has called on Brown to "unambiguously condemn" Israel's actions in Gaza, as well as Hamas' attacks, becoming the first senior UK politician to do so:

We have a prime minister talking like an accountant about aid earmarked for Gaza without once saying anything meaningful about the conflict's origins

A sense of proportion?

Over the last six years, Hamas rockets have led to 19 Israeli deaths. Several thousand Palestinians have been killed over the same period (around 2,300 in Gaza alone, including nearly 400 children).

Despair at Israel's disproportionate violence in Gaza

With a hat-tip to Caron's Musings, I thoroughly recommend this passionate reflection on the situation in Gaza by Adrian Cruden.

George Bush visits the misery he created

For a moment, I was rejoicing when I read on the Guardian's front page that George Bush had said, in respect of Israel, that "There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967". On the face of it, that is encouraging.

Sadly my euphoria only lasted until I got to page 22. A strap line read: "US leader implies largest settlements will remain":

The future borders of a Palestinian state, he said, would "require mutually agreed adjustments to the armistice lines of 1949 to reflect current realities".

The use of the phrase "current realities" is a concession to the Israelis that "the largest settlements would remain".

Oh. Dear.

There are two things which have long infuriated me about the Bush administration. One is Guantanamo. The other is Bush's utterly stupid and destructive policy on Israel v Palestine. When you compare the nuanced, concerned, intelligent (though admittedly flawed) policy of Bill Clinton, the Bush policy is enough to make one weep.

He deserves the other headline, over an article by Jonathan Steele, in the Guardian which heralded his arrival in Israel:

Welcome, Mr President, to the misery you've created