Mustafa Qadri

It’s not the first time foreign passports have been used by Israeli assassins but the Dubai murder may push the limits of international goodwill, writes Mustafa Qadri

No organisation fuels more conspiracy theories than the Mossad, Israel’s much feared international spy agency — and conspiracy theories have been splashed across the front-pages of Australian newspapers today in the wake of allegations about the fraudulent use of Australian passports by Mossad agents.

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It’s unlikely Richard Goldstone’s report into the Gaza bombings will result in ICC prosecutions but it may mark a turning point in the conflict, writes Mustafa Qadri

This week the United Nations released an explosive report on Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip in late December last year. It finds both Israel and armed Palestinian groups guilty of war crimes and, potentially, of crimes against humanity. Over 1400 mostly civilian Palestinians (including over 300 children) and 13 Israeli (including nine soldiers) were killed during Israel’s massive invasion of the Gaza Strip, the most densely populated region on the planet.

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Britain aligned itself with the U.S. position on Hezbollah, but has now seen its error. Bill Marston, a Foreign Office spokesman, told Al Jazeera: “Hezbollah is a political phenomenon and part and parcel of the national fabric in Lebanon. We have to admit this.”

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One of the headlines coming out of the Gaza donors conference currently being held in Egypt is the US’s pledge of $900 million for the Palestinians. What is getting less attention is that only one third of that will actually go to Gaza and none of that can be used for rebuilding.

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The Diplomat’s Middle East and South Asia correspondent, Mustafa Qadri, reports on Hamas’ future…

The latest edition of the excellent The Diplomat magazine, Australia’s only dedicated foreign affairs magazine, has an article by me on the future of the Palestinian Hamas movement following the recent Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. The article is available here via subscription.

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“Hamas has to change its policies,” Mr. Kerry said at the ruins of the American International School in Gaza, which was destroyed by an Israeli air attack in early January. “There is no change in our policy.” I can’t think of any other conflict on earth where the aggressor (the US, by supplying Israel with [...]

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According to most regional analysts, the results of Israel’s recent election signal a profound shift to the right. But a deeper reading reveals a more pedestrian reality.

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Interesting that the Wall Street Journal has no qualms with Israeli soldiers who describe Palestinians as mosquitoes: Arieh Spitzen, the former head of the Israeli military’s Department of Palestinian Affairs, says that even if Israel had tried to stop the Islamists sooner, he doubts it could have done much to curb political Islam, a movement [...]

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The fact is that India knows that war will accomplish nothing. Indeed, it is just what the terrorists want – a cause that would rally all Pakistanis to the flag and provide Pakistan’s army an excuse to abandon the unpopular fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaida in the west for the more familiar terrain of [...]

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The scale of Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip, and the almost daily reports of war crimes over the last three weeks, has drawn criticism from even longstanding friends and sympathisers. Despite the Israeli government’s long-planned and comprehensive PR campaign, hundreds of dead children is a hard sell. As a former Israeli government press adviser [...]

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This is why it’s generally hard to trust the mainstream Western press when it comes to the Israel/Palestine conflict: <!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:SimSun; panose-1:2 1 6 0 3 1 1 1 1 1; mso-font-alt:??; mso-font-charset:134; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 680460288 22 0 262145 0;} @font-face {font-family:”Cambria Math”; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 [...]

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A prominent Jewish MP has compared the actions of Israeli troops with Nazis who forced his family to flee Poland.

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The following article, on the future of Hamas after the Israeli invasion of Gaza, was published in New Matilda today:

The end of Palestinian resistance?

With a ceasefire yet to materialise in Gaza, the future looks uncertain for Hamas, writes Mustafa Qadri

As Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip enters its third week, prospects for a ceasefire look as remote as ever. The UN Security Council passed a resolution calling on all parties to cease hostilities immediately and for Israel to end its blockade, but the resolution has had no immediate effect on the violence.

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According to a joint Tel Aviv University-European University study, this fits a larger pattern in which Israeli violence has been responsible for ending 79 per cent of all lulls in violence since the outbreak of the second intifada, compared with only 8 per cent for Hamas and other Palestinian factions.

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Will Obama be more hardnosed with the Israelis? I doubt it. Why would he? You’re not supposed to say out loud that there’s a big rich Israeli lobby, but everybody knows there is. And more to the point, what’s their counterweight? Who cares about the Palestinians, even in the Arab world, never mind DC? So [...]

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NEARLY everything you’ve been led to believe about Gaza is wrong. Below are a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation, much of which has taken place in the press, about Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip.

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The following article, on Israel’s continued invasion of the Gaza Strip, was published in NewMatilda.com today:

The World Gives Israel The Green Light

Israel has attacked Gaza with unprecedented barbarity — largely because it has a virtual blank cheque from its powerful allies, writes Mustafa Qadri

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Several rockets have been fired into northern Israel from neighbouring Lebanon, Israeli police say.

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While Americans may believe that the current violence in Gaza began Dec. 27, in fact Palestinians have been dying from bombardments for many weeks. On Nov. 4, when the Israeli-Palestinian truce was still in effect but global attention was turned to the U.S. elections, Israel launched a “preemptive” airstrike on Gaza, alleging intelligence about an [...]

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There are other pictures that haunt me. The Israeli army issued a video of the bombing of the Hamas-run government compound, which it posted on YouTube. In it, I also can see my home being destroyed, and I watch it obsessively.

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Dr. Mads Gilbert, a member of a Norwegian triage medical team working in Gaza, has documented Israel’s use of Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME), which cuts its victims to pieces and reportedly causes cancer in survivors. Gilbert, who has worked in several conflict zones, said the situation in Gaza is the worst he has ever [...]

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“Obama said that if rockets were being fired at his home while his two daughters were sleeping, he would do everything he could to prevent it,” Barak was reported as saying on Monday.

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The young in Gaza have nothing to do. There are no jobs. They have nowhere to escape to. They cannot marry because they cannot afford housing. They cannot leave Gaza, even for Israel. They sleep, sometimes 10 to a room, and live on less than $2 a day, surviving on United Nations or Hamas charities [...]

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And therein lies my problem. I came to the march to express solidarity with Palestinians and express my anger at Israel’s bombings. I didn’t come to express solidarity with Hamas, nor want to come to a religious march. If I wanted to hear “God is Great” I could have gone to a mosque or a [...]

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It has never been like this before. The assault is coming from the sky, the sea and the ground. The explosion of shells, the gunfire from the tanks and the missiles from planes and helicopters are incessant. The sky is laced with smoke, grey here, black there, as the array of weaponry leaves its distinctive [...]

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But Hamas officials and analysts said Monday that the organization would actually like Israel to launch a ground operation; it hopes this would let it inflict such heavy losses on Israeli tanks and infantry that Israel would flee with its tail between its legs. (Thanks Antony)

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Barack Obama yesterday appeared to line up behind the Bush administration in support of Israel’s attack on Gaza.

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Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

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Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, a former chief of staff who is now Likud’s security expert, recommended the assassinations of Hamas leaders and “in and out” military incursions to stop the rockets. However, a leading analyst, Yossi Alpher, said it is time for Israel to admit that it does not have a “workable strategy” for dealing [...]

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Thousands are stranded. The militant group and rival Palestinian faction Fatah are embroiled in a power struggle over who has the right to hand out visas for the pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.

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These leaders claim Hamas in Gaza caused the reconciliation talks with Fatah that had been slated for Cairo to fail, and that their Gaza counterparts thwarted the chances for a Palestinian national unity government by their unwillingness to consider giving up control of the Strip and setting “impossible” conditions.

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“Sultans of Spin” The Diplomat magazine Sept/Oct 2008
(Article on Hamas media strategies based on interviews with Hamas officials and Israeli analysts)

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Hamas and a group affiliated with Fatah battle it out in Gaza leading to deaths on both sides, mostly on the latter. This follows a bomb blast that killed Hamas members that the Islamic movement beleives the group is responsible for. Interestingly that blast was not described as a ‘terror attack’. That term seems to be reserved for attacks against Israel.

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