Gazans Break Free

This is truly remarkable:

It took explosives to do what diplomacy couldn't: allow Palestinians to go on a shopping spree. The siege of Gaza, imposed by Israel and the international community after Hamas seized control of the Palestinian territory last July, ended abruptly before dawn on Wednesday when militants blew as many as 15 holes in the border wall separating the territory from Egypt. In the hours that followed, over 350,000 Palestinians swarmed across the frontier, nearly one fifth of Gaza's entire population.

Some Palestinians craved medicine and food — goats appeared to be a hot item — because Israel had cut off most supplies from entering Gaza as punishment for militants' firing rockets into southern Israel. Students and businessmen joined the throng heading for Egypt. There were scores of brides-to-be, stuck on the Egyptian side, who scurried across to be united with their future bridegrooms in Gaza. And some, like teacher Abu Bakr, stepped through a blast hole into Egypt simply "to enjoy the air of freedom."

The previous day, President Housni Mubarak faced the wrath of the Arab world when his riot police used clubs and water hoses to attack Palestinian women pleading for Egypt to open the Rafah crossing in Gaza. And despite pressure from Israel and the United States, Mubarak wasn't about to order his men to use force to restrain Palestinians rendered desperate by Israel's siege. The Egyptian President said he ordered his troops to "let them come to eat and buy food and go back, as long as they are not carrying weapons."
[...]
Many carried heavy suitcases and said that they were never coming back to captivity in Gaza.

But most Gazans were in a mad scramble to go shopping, and they returned with everything from goats to tires to jerricans full of gasoline. One stout woman in a veil threaded nimbly through barbed wire with a tray of canned fruit balanced on her head. The Palestinians cleaned out every shop on the Egyptian side: By afternoon, there was nothing to buy within a six-mile distance of the border; and even the Sinai town of El-Arish, three hours drive away, had been sucked dry of gasoline. One taxi driver who brought back cartons of cigarettes and gallons of gas to resell for a profit in Gaza said, "This should help feed my family for several months."

I can't even remember the last time I felt anything resembling a sigh of relief for the plight of the Palestinians.

The reactions:

Olmert continues his warmongering while the US expresses 'concern'. Hamas wants the Egyptian/Gaza border to be controlled by the Egyptians and the Palestinians. Egypt's president Mubarak said Gazans were allowed to cross the border because they were starving. The EU had accused Israel earlier in the week of collective punishment when it cut off fuel and supplies to Gaza while the UN security council stalled while considering a resolution condemning Israel because the US and France were concerned that it didn't include a fair and balanced view of the situation ie. it didn't address the rocket fire from Gaza. Same shit, different resolution. Israel has been in violation of UN security resolutions for years without consequence.

And here's one presidential candidate's response:

Barack Obama wants a U.N. Security Council resolution on the Gaza Strip to mention rocket attacks on Israel.

The Democratic presidential candidate in a letter sent Tuesday to Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, urged the United States not to allow the resolution to pass unless it notes the rocket salvos.

The Security Council is in emergency session this week considering Israel's blockade of Gaza.

"All of us are concerned about the impact of closed border crossings on Palestinian families," wrote Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, in his letter to Khalilzad. "However, we have to understand why Israel is forced to do this. Gaza is governed by Hamas, which is a terrorist organization sworn to Israel's destruction, and Israeli civilians are being bombarded on an almost daily basis."

Reality to Obama: it doesn't matter what the wording is. Israel will not comply. And, for all of your talk about "change", maybe you should explain why you're supporting the Bush administration's foreign policy stance.

In the meantime, Gazans are experiencing some much-needed freedom and it's about damn time.

Related:

Gaza's Last Gasp

Israel might find that giving the Palestinians their freedom and allowing them the dignity of self-determination in their own land might be far more effective in bringing about a peaceful solution than all this bloodshed and misery. Fifty years have passed since Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan said, "How can we complain about Gaza's hatred towards us? For eight years, they have been sitting in refugee camps while right in front of them, we are turning the land and villages of their forefathers into our home." How much deeper must the hatred be after decades of oppression that has reduced their existence to a mere specter of life? Without a political solution that includes Gaza in negotiations to settle the wrongs done to the Palestinians, a just peace for Palestinians and Israelis is as remote as ever.

The Palestinians need candles desperately and they need your voice to speak for them. There are many ways that you can do this. Organize demonstrations or vigils, or take part in ones that are already being organized. Take the time and write to newspapers and politicians urging them to take action and bring an end to this humanitarian disaster. Also, a deluge of letters to the Israeli Embassy would allow the Israelis to see that the world does not support a siege on the people of Gaza. The power is in your hands to spread the word through your churches, work groups, clubs, neighborhood networks, and simply by talking to everyone you know. We cannot stand by and allow this slow agonizing death of a whole people to continue whatever justification Israel gives for its actions. There has to be another way that gives succor to the people of Gaza and hope for a better future than the ominous one being forced on them right at this moment.

Gaddafi, Iran, The US and Nuclear Power

One longstanding criticism of Iran's pursuit of nuclear energy from the US government has been this talking point stressed by the state department back in 2004:

Speaking to reporters, spokesman Richard Boucher remarked:

"We don't see the economic or any other rationale for a country like Iran to try to generate power with nuclear energy, given that... they flare off way more gas every year than they could get energy from nuclear power plants of the kind that they're talking about."

The Bush administration is now doing everything it possibly can at the UN to stop Iran's program over fears that it may be used to produce nuclear weapons. (The IAEA scolded the Bush administration back in September 2006 saying part of its case against Iran is "outrageous and dishonest.")

Now, considering that the state department apparently believes that countries with vast oil resources don't really need nuclear power, what are we to make of this news?

TRIPOLI – The United States will help Libya generate nuclear electricity, the North African country said on Monday, in an announcement appearing to herald a further improvement in ties with the West.

There was no immediate comment from Washington, which has been repairing ties with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi since he began a series of moves in 2003 aimed at ending decades of international isolation for his oil and gas exporting country.

Libya's official Jana news agency said an agreement between the two countries would be signed shortly.

It would include building a nuclear power plant, helping develop water desalination capacity, joint research and technical projects and training Libyan technicians in the United States.
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Fears over finite oil and gas supplies and climate change have pushed nuclear power into the limelight as a way of producing energy and cutting emissions of carbon dioxide, blamed for global warming.

Libya has proven oil reserves of 39 billion barrels, enough for 60 years at current production rates. Its largely unexploited gas reserves are estimated at 53 trillion cubic feet.

Gaddafi, who Ronald Reagan once called "the mad dog of the Middle East" back in the day when he was busy supporting terrorists, has undergone an apparent conversion in his advancing years so he's now on the US's "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" list.

But, wait a minute, as recently as 2005 it was reported that Libya was allegedly getting uranium hexafluoride from North Korea after Gaddafi said he'd given up his weapons programs:

The nuclear material that North Korea may have exported to Libya was uranium hexafluoride. This is not fissile material but can be enriched into weapons-grade material if it is fed into nuclear centrifuges. Thus, it is considered material that could eventually be used in weapons, making the discovery of the sale disturbing to U.S. officials.

No big deal though, since the US government always acts based on its own interests in the end:

CAIRO, May 15 [2006] -- The normalization of U.S.-Libya relations is a natural marriage of an American administration desperate for friends and oil in the Middle East and a government that needs to open its economy to the outside world, Arab and exiled Libyan observers said Monday.

The announcement was called proof that promotion of democracy is no longer a top priority of the Bush administration, which is grappling to hold Iraq together and has turned attention toward building alliances against a hostile Iran over its nuclear program. Libya has been ruled by Moammar Gaddafi since he seized power in 1969.
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The United States lifted its economic embargo against Libya in 2004, and since then, at least six U.S. oil companies have resumed drilling and exploration that had been suspended in 1986. Libya possesses the world's eighth-largest oil reserves, but the U.S. embargo had driven down production by keeping new equipment and technology out of the country.

Since Gaddafi is cooperating with the IAEA inspections and has surrendered Libya's components (the power of which the Bush administration vastly overestimated in 2004) one question still remains: why is there a double standard in dealing with Iran?

March 5, 2007

Dr. ElBaradei said that to date in Iran, the Agency had "not seen any diversion of nuclear materials... nor the capacity to produce weapons usable materials". He said that these were also "important elements in assessing the situation, assessing the risk, and understanding how to address the Iranian question".

The Director General reiterated his call for a "timeout" regarding the Iranian nuclear issue, saying he hoped talks could resume on the matter. "That´s the only way in my view to achieve a durable solution to the issue."

There hasn't been a "time out" of course. The US government is forcefully seeking a second UN security council resolution to impose more sanctions on Iran, which has become a very hard sell, and Iran's president is now saying that he wants to address the UN security council about his program.

Meanwhile, the official Bush administration position remains a refusal to talk to Ahmadinejad unless he stops enriching uranium while it continues an embargo on Iran's banks as well. Iran's government considers that tactic as "harassment" while Hans Blix called in February for those who are aggressively pushing for more sanctions to stop "humiliating" Iran by demanding that it cease its programs before it will be dealt with:

His warning came as top members of the UN Security Council met in London to consider additional sanctions on Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, a key nuclear process.

He said the package of economic and political incentives put forward in June 2006 by the US and key European countries, which was later endorsed by the council, did not mention the key issue of security guarantees for Iran or adequately address the possibility of US diplomatic recognition if Tehran renounces enrichment.

"The first incentive, I think, is to sit down with them in a direct talk rather than saying to them 'you do this, thereafter we will sit down at a table and tell you what you get for it'," Mr Blix said.

"That's getting away from a humiliating neo-colonial attitude to a more normal (one). People have their own pride whether you like them or don't," he told a media briefing ahead of a conference on Weapons Threats and International Security organised by a Washington-based research institute on domestic and international challenges.
[...]
"This is in a way like telling a child, first you will behave and thereafter you will be given your rewards," he said.

"And this, I think, is humiliating. The Iranians have resisted all the time saying, no, we are willing to talk, we are willing to talk about the suspension of enrichment, but we are not for suspension before the talks. I would be surprised if a poker player would toss away his trump card before he sits down at the table. Who does that?" he asked.

The stalemate continues.

They talked to Gaddafi. Why won't they talk to Ahmadinejad?

Related:
Military action against Iran would backfire on Israel, report warns
Libyan Nuclear Weapons
Flashback to 2004: IAEA Leader's Phone Tapped