After being banned in Germany since the end of the Second World War, the general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany has called for an annotated version of Mein Kampf (My Combat) to be re-authorised in order to combat Neo-Nazism.

General Secretary Stephan Kramer had already called for the books’s reintroduction in June 2008, but those calls, like many others made since the end of WWII, were met with stiff resistance and a refusal.

Mein Kampf is only allowed to be reproduced in Germany for educational and research reasons. All reproductions are heavily censored and annotated. It is illegal to procure a copy of the book in any other way.

Kramer not only recommends lifting the ban on Mein Kampf, but he has also expressed the willingness of the Central Council of Jews in Germany to contribute to the editing and annotating of the text.

His calls, made on the German ZDF television station, may well be met with a more favourable response this time as he now has the support of Wolfgang Heubische, Science and Research Minister in the German state of Bavaria. Heubische said “There is a good chance that charlatans and Neo-Nazis will get a hold of this detestable book when Bavaria no longer has any rights over it. So I am of the opinion that a well-studied and documented edition should be prepared.”

Baveria is where Mein Kampf was written and the state currently holds the book’s copyright. Those rights will expire in 2015, 70 years after Hitler’s death.

Kramer also said that the book should be available online, adding “I think it makes sense and it is important to publish an edition of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ with an academic commentary. An academic and historically critical edition needs to be prepared today, to prevent Neo-Nazis profiting from it.”

Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, in which he laid out the fundamental basis of Nazi philosophy, whilst in prison in Landsberg in 1924.

He had been charged with treason and jailed for his role in the ‘Beer Hall Putsch,’ a failed coup attempt to overthrow the German government.

(Photo: WikiCommons)

Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli Minister of foreign affairs and Deputy Prime Minister who is currently under police investigation for fraud, money laundering and corruption, is becoming a liability for Israel and Mideast peace efforts.

He is of course, as any citizen would be, innocent until proven guilty of the charges laid against him, but he has already been tried and found guilty by the press, a large part of popular opinion, foreign governments and his own government of being a liar, a fascist and a troublemaker.

This ex nightclub bouncer has become such a liability for his country that several foreign leaders refuse to meet him and Defense Minister Ehud Barak has had to take over discussions with the United States and Arab states involved in efforts to get the peace process back on track.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has refused to meet him and told the Israeli government in no uncertain terms that he should be ejected from his post.

In another incident – no doubt the last contact between France and Lieberman - Foreign Secretary Bernard Kouchner was horrified to hear Lieberman tell him that the ‘natural growth’ of Israeli colonies should continue because there was already a lack of nursery facilities for infants in the town of Nokdim, where he lives. Kouchner replied that his children could go to a Palestinian nursery instead, to which Lieberman replied “They don’t have any nurseries and, even if they did, our children wouldn’t get out of them alive.”

Israeli daily Haaretz has written several articles lately expressing worries that Israel needs a Foreign Affairs Minister of international stature, and not a suspect character like him.
Haaretz is right.

How can a man who has called for the putting to death of what he calls “These (Palestinian) traitors” living in Israel be trusted to represent the Israelis?

He expressed his opposition to peace talks with Palestine last year by saying that “Negotiations on the basis of land for peace are a critical mistake (...) and will destroy us” and during his last European visit he once again made the headlines by declaring that “Nothing is going to come out of this ‘Peace Industry’ except for conferences in five star Hotels and a waste of money.”

But his vitriol is not only directed at foreigners. He once called for Arab members of the Knesset who met with Hamas to be tried for treason, saying that “The heads of the Nazi regime, along with their collaborators, were executed. I hope this will be the fate of the collaborators in the Knesset.”

On the subject of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Lieberman had this to say last year. “Mubarak never agreed to come here as president. He wants to talk to us? Let him come here. He doesn’t want to talk to us? He can go to hell.”

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmart and President Shimon Peres had to apologise to the Egypians, leading Lieberman to say that they were behaving “..like battered wives.”

It was after that that other leading Israeli political figures began questioning Lieberman’s ability to represent the country.

It’s about time they began asking harder questions about Lieberman. This writer doen’t care whether he is guilty or not of financial misdealings – the courts will look after that issue, that’s what they’re there for – but it has become abundantly clear that he has become a burden and a serious handicap both to the government of Israel and the Mideast peace process.

He should go. Now.

(Image - WikiCommons)

“France’s heart is full of hate for Muslims” affirmed al-Qaida’s second-in-command on an internet site, where he denounced France’s hostility to the wearing of the Islamic veil yesterday.

The speech was released by American Intelligence services who surveille Islamist internet sites.

Al-Zawahiri was answering a question put to him regarding France’s policies regarding Islam.

“France pretends to be a secular country whereas its heart is full of hate for Muslims” he said, adding that “during its history, France supported the Jews in their efforts to take control of Palestine (...) fought Arabs in Algeria and supplied Israel with its first nuclear reactor.”

According to American Intelligence, it was the sixth interview by al-Zawahiri on that paticular internet site. During the 90-minute interview he repeated al-Qaida’s position on several issues.

In answer to another question he notably affirmed that “Israel is a crime which must be eliminated” and that Muslims will never accept a two-state solution to the Israel – Palestine conflict.

He also said that he saw no difference between the policies of American President Barack Obama and those of George Bush, his predecessor. He qualified Obama as being a “criminal” and a “liar.”

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, endorsed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term in office today according to the Iranian press. He is expected to be sworn in on Wednesday.

This means that any future protests by Iranians against the regime and the election results will be attacked even more ferociously by the state apparatus, seeing as Ahmadinejad will shortly enjoy the full legitimacy that his swearing in will give him.

After weeks of violent repression, the arrest of journalists and foreign nationals, the recalling of several ambassadors to Iran, the carpeting of several Iranian ambassadors in Europe and elsewhere, and accusations of interference in Iranian affairs by foreign countries, the stage is set for the future.

Israel has commented little on the events in Iran but is sure to be analysing its future diplomatic and military options in the light of the sea changes that have taken place. Those future options will surely mirror Tehran’s hardened attitude.

Iran is dramatically upping the stakes here, first of all to quell unrest by Iranian citizens, but also to warn the world that Iran will not accept foreign comment on its affairs on its own soil.

This go for bust policy is doomed to backfire on Iran.

And it is playing right into Israel’s hands.

The Iranien regime will survive the current unrest because the opposition, although widespread, is not coordinated and does not have a strong enough leader or a clear enough goal. Neda was a rallying point but not the aim of the protests, which was to obtain fresh and fair elections. That objective is now unattainable.

In other words, we seem to be heading for a situation in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is going to be around for a while to come.

Ahmadinejad is a fierce supporter of Iran’s plans to develop the means to produce nuclear weapons and has made that policy clear over the last few years.

And that’s where Israel comes into the equation.

The idea of nuclear weapons development in a country which already has the rocket capacity to deliver them as far as Israel has been largely opposed by Western governments and, of course, Israel.

A sizeable part of Western opinion however, up to now, has been hostile to veiled Israeli threats to destroy nuclear facilities in the event of Iran getting close to producing a missile-projected weapon.

But the tide of negative opinion towards the Iranian regime is increasing quickly in the West and the Middle East, and, for the moment at least, many supporters of Iran’s right to develop nuclear weapons, and their opinion that Iran has the right to have them, have taken to their bunkers and are silent.

And that is precisely what Israel needs.

The Jerusalem Press carried an article recently which quoted Yuval Steinitz, Israels’ Finance Minister, as saying that Iranians are now questioning the rule of the regime and that Iran’s capacity to export Islamic revolution has been reduced. This is being interpreted in Tel Aviv and elsewhere that provocative statements out of Iran regarding the development of nuclear weapons capability will not be as passively received by the Iranian population as they were before.

In a telling phrase, he also said that when states see a government declining, other countries are less motivated to maintain relations with it.

He perceives the possibility that there is optimism that the current turmoil would ultimately result in the end of Iran’s nuclear ambitions due not only to external pressure, but internal opposition.

This is because Iran is at present heading straight towards the kind of isolation it has been trying to avoid for years.

The Israeli government has been notable by its absence lately. This is because any comment by leading Israeli politicians would only inflame passions.

American President Barack Obama’s understandable reticence to be accused of interfering in Iran’s internal affairs follows that line.

It seems clear that the West and Israel are letting Ahmadinejad stew in his own juice right now.

Future events will tell us how intent he still is in his intentions to persue his nuclear programme.

But, while we are waiting, Israel is surely quite content to be sitting on the sidelines, counting on the fact that Western political and public opinion will be less critical if ever Israel decides to harden its stance towards the ever more belligerant Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad has finally managed to do what years of Israeli public relations moves have failed to achieve – legitimise Israel’s attack-as-defense policy.

His blatant election swindle, his violent oppression of opposition in his country and his declared intention to press ahead with his nuclear programme all mean that, if necessary, Israel will finally be able to openly declare its intention to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities using military means if work on them continues.

Several Middle East countries have quietly announced in little-publicised statements that they will allow Israeli planes to overfly their airspace if ever Israel decides to attack Iran’s nuclear installations, or offer them other passive aid facilities.

Also, America has just offered “umbrella” protection to many Mideast countries in the event of Iranian belligerence. This is a first for America, which previously offered umbrella protection uniquely to its staunchest allies.

Israel may not be saying much right now, but is aware that Iran has painted itself into a corner.

If Iran was ever estimated by Israel to be preparing to break out of that corner by means of the threat of deploying nuclear weapons those weapons would surely be attacked.

And Israel knows that the West and half of the Middle East, including public opinion, would have no option but to follow.

Persistent violence and threatening behavior in French hospitals caused by tensions between the French and Muslim concepts of hospital procedures have led to calls for clearer guidlines on how to reconcile them.

French hospitals work on the principal of equal treatment for all, as they are government-run. All public institutions in France are “Laïque”, which means that no distinction is made between those using them according to religious and other criteria. This is French-style secularism.

The changing demographics of the country have led to this apparently simple rule being increasingly challenged for religious reasons. Patients ask for specific treatment based on their religious beliefs, which the state refuses to accord. The largest religious group of non-Western origin being Muslim, it is only natural that it is the increase in contestation based on tenets of the Muslim faith which have been causing the most concern.

The group “Islam and Laicite” is an umbrella group associating many religions in Frace in the context of finding solutions for the integration of religious practices into public life where possible and practical.

This group was supported the creation of a Charter, introduced in 2007, which was designed to set out the philosophy of the French healhcare system as a response to violence in public hospitals. The group also collated examples of violence in hospitals directly imputable to Muslim beliefs as a means of supporting the Charter. Other supporters included hospital staff and doctors.

Many cases involve pregnant women. Well-publicised examples of this kind of violence include:

Doctor JF Oury from a hospital in Paris was threatened and slapped by Fouad Ben Moussa, the Muslim husband of a Maghrebin woman who had had difficulties giving birth. He said that Islam forbade the touching of a Muslim man’s wife.

Near Grenoble, A doctor was attacked by a Muslim man under pretext that Islam forbade the use of forceps.

In lyon, Doctor Raudrant was threatened with a knife by a Muslim who objected to his wife being examined by a man.

Doctor Nisand, in Strasbourg, witnessed the attack by two Muslim men on a Social Assistant. They slapped him and banged his head against a table before shouting “That will teach you to touch our women.” Finally they ripped open his t-shirt and wrote the word “Mohamed” on his chest. They left him in a coma.

Worse still, there have been instances of Muslim men quite simply refusing that their wives be examined, having caeserians or even treated at all, thereby risking the patient’s life. Hospital staff call the police in that case, which leads to violence being redirected onto them.

All this led to the CNGOF, the national representative college and body of gyneacologists and obstetricians to issue a statement expressing their worries about being able to “defend women against Muslim Integrism.”

Although efforts have been made by moderate Muslim representative bodies to get Muslims to accept the rules, medical staff are not seeing an appreciable difference.

Doctor Nisand said at the time the charter came out, “We are formally saying that we shall continue to run a service where male and female doctors treat patients irrespective of gender. We defend the rights of women to decide about contraception, abortion and sterilisation without their husbands’ point of view. (…) Thirty years ago, Muslim women came to our hospitals with no worries about being treated by mainly male doctors, and we didn’t have all this violence. What is the reason for this regression?”

Middle East countries are worried about recent events in Iran and they have every reason to be. They fear that internal dissent in Iran will be overcome by efforts by the regime to whip up nationalist sentiment to counter imaginary threats in the Gulf.

Middle East concern with the increase in muscle-flexing by Iran is nothing new of course. But recent events, and most particularly the confused messages coming from Tehran’s leadership structure since the June 12 election fiasco, as well as Iran’s avowed intention to continue nuclear development, have ratcheted up what is turning out to be very legitimate consternation.

It is to be expected that Iran will begin to, if it hasn’t already, create tensions and antagonistic situations elsewhere in the Gulf to divert attention away from its internal issues. That is a classic move by regimes under internal pressure and its potential benefit is not lost on Iranian leaders.

The nuclear issue is a very good example of that. External criticism is routinely dismissed as being an attempt by outsiders to belittle and influence Iran’s existence.

It’s an easy sell.

If left unchecked, Iran may well be emboldened enough by the relative weakness and vulnerability of various Gulf states and the West’s hesitant response to its actions to be tempted to take control of both sides of the Gulf using proxy or more direct means in order to try to establish control over what represents the majority of the world’s oil reserves.

It is estimated that thousands of Iranian or pro-Iranian militants in sleeper cell form are present all around the Gulf. They are said to be providing intelligence to Tehran on a variety of sensitive subjects, from military intelligence to behind-the-scenes oil price negotiations.

Iran, according to a general consensus in intelligence services, already enjoys the support of a large majority of the Shi’ite population on the Western side of the Gulf. Bahrain is a Sunnite Monarchy but it reigns over a population consisting largely of Shi’ites. Several terrorist attacks in that country are suspected to have been financed and carried out by pro-Iranian elements.
Saudi Arabia has a very active Shiite population which is concentrated in those areas of the country containing the country’s oil reserves.

Quatar shares a gas contract with Iran which encourages it to maintain good relations with Tehran and Quatar has also shown its willingness to play the go-between for Iran, the Lebanese Hezbollah and Hamas in Palestine. This posture is seen as being ambivalent by certain of its neighbours.

The United Emirates is grappling with a territorial dispute with Iran, which claims rights over several small but strategic islands in the Strait of Hormuz. This dispute is dividing the Emirates along lines drawn according to each Emirate’s separate relations with Iran, relations that are largely dominated by petrol or territorial interests.

Iran is also active further afield.

Hamas and the Hezbollah are both dependent on Iranian support in one way or another and Egypt is also struggling to contain the Muslim Brothers, who support the Iranians.

Iraq will constitute a litmus test for Iranian intentions once American troops have with drawn in large numbers. Iranian influence is expected to grow in the aftermath of the American withdrawal and its influence could be a major factor in Iraq’s post-war history.

Obama did not endear himself to Gulf states with his conciliatory talk after his election and both Europe and Britain seem to be incapable of articulating a coherent policy to address the various possibilities and options that shall inevitably be exploited by Iran in the near future.

The Middle East chessboard, like any chessboard, has many options and combinations.

What happens next depends on a number of interlinked and evolving factors and who makes what move next.

That means that the long-term outcome of all these manoeuvres is far from being certain today.

And I didn’t even write one word about the intentions of Israel.

Many people have been asking in recent years if the Taliban or other radical Islamist groups could control Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and, speculation apart, there has been precious little hard information available to help answer them. A new report concludes that it would be almost impossible for Islamists to achieve that aim.

Any attempt to answer the question would be doomed to failure without an understanding of how Pakistan administrates and protects its nuclear weapon stockpile, and that was precisely the objective of a recent study and research programme carried out by the French Institute the ‘Foundation for Strategic Research’ – the FRS in French.

The study examined the scenarios which most worry Western Intelligence Agencies.

Its conclusions are summed up in one simple phrase by Bruno Tertrais, Master in Research at the FRS;

“The Taliban will never be able to wrest control of Pakistan’s nuclear arms by force.”

Pakistan has become more volatile over the last five years. The Taliban’s Swat Valley insurrection and religious extremism have contributed to a deteriorating security situation within Pakistan’s borders. The Taliban and their allies are not hiding their intention of destabilising the country.

The scenario in which the Taliban come down from the mountain to attack nuclear installations is pure science-fiction, but there are others.

Pakistan developed its first nuclear weapon in the 1970’s with for sole objective the protection of the country from any eventual attack by India, which already posessed a nuclear capability..
Research into how best to create a weapon was greatly aided by Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani employee of Urenco, a European company specialising in the enriching of uranium. He stole the company’s technology and took it back to Pakistan.From there, a little help from the Chinese helped Pakistan to complete it’s research.

Pakistan had the bomb.

Khan was also responsible for Pakistan becoming the principal nuclear proliferator on the planet.

Iran, North Korea and Libya all profited from the technology that he either gave or sold to them.

Pakistan now has just under a hundred nuclear warheads, almost all of which are composed of enriched uranium. Nuclear engineers are actively looking to upgrade the country’s nuclear capability using plutonium.

The man responsible for the security of Pakistan’s nuclear installations and technology is 59 year old Khalid Kidawi. He runs the Pakistani Strategic Planning Department, the SPD.
The United States gave him a credit line of $100 million to help him develop his control systems with their aid. Pakistan didn’t let Americans into sensitive areas though, and that’s why America still has limited knowledge of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

Americans and Pakistanis do agree on one thing however, and that is that the Taliban or any other group would never be able to physically gain control over nuclear weapons and activate them, in any situation.

Not only are the weapons dissimulated on ultra-protected independent and hermetic sites, they are stocked in “kit” form. The motors are stored away from the missiles, and fissile material is kept in a separate area from the warheads.

Any movement of any element must have the agreement of at least two individuals all the way down the command chain.

An additional safeguard consists of the fact that the missile activation procedure, besides following the above procedure for all actions, also has a double coding system which needs command authentication in order that those ordering the bomb’s activation as well as those actually activating it need to verify and authenticate themselves.

But there is also the scenario of technology transfer and leaks, such as what happened with Khan. 70 000 people work in Pakistan’s nuclear sector, including 8000 research engineers, 2000 of which have access to sensitive information.

The CIA has not forgotten the case of Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmoud, a nuclear engineer converted to Radical Islamism and invited to meet Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri in order to share what he knew. Luckily, he only had access to low-level data.

The result of that episode was that since 2005 Pakistan has implemented a carbon copy of a sophisticated American personnel surveillance programme called the ‘Personal Reliability Program.’ This programme is a combination of intense police and intelligence surveillance and enquiries linked to psychological testing.

Although this programme is not estimated to be fail-proof, Pervez Hoodboy, Physics Department President at Pakistan’s prestigious Qaid-e Azam university, says that “It is not impossible that a plot be organized to help terrorists to build a rudimentary bomb, but there would have to be at least twenty of them in order to obtain all the specific knowledge necessary to build the bomb as well as to procure fissile material for it.”

But the two scenarios which are most worrying intelligence experts are elsewhere.

The first scenario involves a radicalisation process developing within the system itself. The consensus is that an Islamic Revolution is impossible, but chaos and anarchy in Pakistan could destabilise the country to a point where people could view the nuclear issue in another light.

This is why the Pakistani government decided to deal with the Swat Valley rebellion so determinedly. The idea that the Taliban could win the hearts and minds of the people was seen as a threat. The Pakistani and American governments entirely agree on the need to ensure that the Swat Valley experience does not repeat itself.

The second and by far the most worrying scenario does not just involve Pakistan’s internal affairs. It involves India too.

What intelligence agencies fear the most is that another massive wave of terrorist attacks in India and organized inside Pakistan could, in a worst-case scenario, provoke high tensions and even war between India and Pakistan.

This could lead to a situation in which Pakistan relieves the pressure on the Taliban and leaves them free to roam the country to defend it.

This in its turn could result in extremely dangerous circumstances in which the Pakistani Army may need to transfer and prepare several armed and prepared weapons at once, all of this done by people whose frustration with an eventual war’s progress could lead them to consider the Taliban as a means of helping them to attack India.

It is thought that this is the scenario which the United States and other countries fear the most.

1) I have just been through the recent posts of the people I have met on this site.

And I am struck by some of the content of some of them. Hate. Revenge too. Vengeance. Exhortations to fight. Racism. Xenopobia. Sectarianism. You name it, it’s there. And that’s VERY revealing.

2) I have just been through the recent posts of the people I have met on this site.

But there are NO recent posts to be struck by by the others. I am, on the contrary, struck by the saddening absence of the gentle and cultured words of the kind people who were here before, with their messages of peace and creation and hope. They have quite simply stopped contributing articles. And that’s VERY revealing.

Those people don’t contribute articles any more because of the oppressing and violent omnipresence here of the second-hand hatred of people who, if they were directly involved in the battles of this world, wouldn’t have the luxury of posting the things they do.

I have just been through all my posts too. I’m happy with them.

So I, like the other absent contributors, am going on holiday for at least a while. Who needs intellectual and ideological pollution.

Have fun.

Michael C

(Image - christophersmark.files.wordpress.com)

This is a photo of my mother with me on her lap. It was taken by my father. I was 11 months old, and she was beautiful and elegant.

My parents died when I was a young teenager and I lost sight of my sisters shortly afterwards.

I spent the next 34 years looking for them, and I also spent those 34 years dogged by nagging questions and doubts about how my mother died. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but...... So this meant I spent half my life wondering about the fate of both my sisters and my mother. I never forgot what my mother looked like though, because for all those years I carried around in my head the memory of the photo you see above.

I was reunited with my sisters this summer via Facebook.

It was a wonderful moment, and I shall never forget it. One of them came to France and gave me the original of the photo.. I was over the moon to be able to hold it in my hands after all those years, touch it, smell it, and remember how it was always my favourite photo of her when I was a child. There’s what appears to be a tea-stain in the middle of it. She looks so fine and strong.

It’s impossible to describe the profound feelings I felt when I saw that photo again. Up until that moment, I had believed myself to be a strong and rational man, a man impervious to that kind of sentimentality. Well, that moment proved me to be so terribly wrong.

I also learned that my doubts concerning my mother’s death were not unfounded. I learned that she had been murdered by anti-german fascists (this was the 1960’s, and feelings were still running high about World War Two) because she was of German origin.

I have done my own detective work since, and I have just located one of the three people who killed her. He is still alive. He is now 86 years old. He lives alone in a small town in the North-East of England. I have his address.

Since my sister went back to England she has written to let me know that seeing me again was wonderful and that she was glad to know that I was alive and well, but she felt that us finding each other again had brought back too many bad memories for her, memories she had tried to erase during all of her adult life. She said that although she wanted us to keep in touch, she didn’t want to see me too often, at least for now. My other sister thinks more or less the same thing.

So here I am.

One photo. Two sisters. One killer.

I can’t see my sisters, but I can see the photo of my mother. It’s stuck to the bottom left corner of the computer screen I am looking at as I type these words.

I don’t know what you are going to think of this, but I prefer to have this photo near me, and not my sisters, than to have my sisters near me, and not this photo.

And that’s because there’s a detail I need to attend to.

I loved my mother. And someone killed her. And he’s out there.

I don’t know if I’ll ever see my sisters much, but I have a much more important issue to address.

I am going to go to England in a few weeks. I am going to go to the house of the person who killed my mother.

I am going to walk in, look him in the eyes, tell him who I am, tell him that I know who he is, tell him that I know what he did, tell him what I came to do, and do it.

________________________________

I shall tell him that I could kill him.
I shall tell him that I should kill him.

Then I shall tell him that I won’t.

Then I shall walk out of there.

But, just before I leave, I shall make him look at this photo. Hard and long.

He shall then be free to live out the rest of his days..........

Revenge.

Revenge?

Tell me about it...................

Michael C

My readers will know that I firmly believe that Palestinians must be able to live in peace, without outside interference. I believe that it applies to Israel too. I also respect the vote of the Palestinian people that put Hamas in power.

I also believe that the West should insist on the following;

Israel MUST cease fire, respect Palestinian rights, and keep agreements; Palestinians MUST halt rockets, repudiate terror, and work with moderates towards a new unity.

In that context I thought I’d give you some information I have found from independant intelligence analysis organisations here in the West, to give you a Western IB view of what’s happening, because I know (I have read them) that there are some (perfectly understandably) violent reactions in certain Mideast press circles which may sometimes speak more out of (again understandably) vengeance than objectivity.

I am NOT sending this to colour your opinion, just to help you see clear and decide by having as much info as possible.

This is a short summary of what I found.

ISRAEL
There are two theories about their intentions. The first theory is that Israel does not have the intention of stopping its military operations until there is a formal promise of, and concrete proof of, Hamas stopping its rocket firing into Israel. For Israelis, stopping their operations before Hamas stops rocketing is not an option because Hamas would not be obliged to stop afterwards and could then claim they have won a “war”. When the rockets stop, the bombing stops.

The second theory is that Israel wants the total destruction of Hamas, and there is evidence that Israel is deliberately not targeting all rocket firing sites in order to let a certain number of rockets be fired every day and thus have an excuse to keep going until they destroy Hamas completely. This does not, of course, mean that Israel could stop all firing, just that it could stop more if it wanted.

No-one thinks that the Israelis want to occupy Gaza.

HAMAS
Western intelligence agencies are sure that there is political division within Hamas. Those for continued rocket firing and those against. They are also convinced that the moderates are secretly trying to find ways of negotiating a ceasefire. The opinion here is that Hamas’s political, military and installation infrastructure has been almost totally destroyed and that the longer this continues, the harder it will be for Hamas to keep control after the fighting ends.

FIGHTING
There is evidence, again according to analysts, that Hamas is deliberately trying to attract Israeli forces into Gaza city and Khan Younés, heavily populated areas, in order to increase civilian casualties and in that way get international opinion on their side.
Analysts think that Hamas has concentrated fighters and weapons stockpiles in heavily populated areas.

THE POPULATION
Evidence is increasing that the population is beginning to ask questions about Hamas’s choices. There are several reports of Palestinian civilians seeing arms and ammunition be stored in mosques and other buildings. Fighters too. They cannot say anything because they could be shot as spies and this is said to have already happened on a couple of occasions. The Western press is also beginning to print interviews with Gazans who are worried about this tendency.

CONCLUSION
Most analysts agree that, whether they choose option one or two, the Israelis are determined to win this battle, and that they are doing so. They think that if Hamas keeps firing in retaliation, they will lose international support because high civilian casualty rates will make them ask serious questions about Hamas’s intentions. They think Hamas cannot win a military war, and so every day spent firing less and less rockets, with less and less effect, will lead even Europe to think that Hamas is prepared to let civilian lives be lost needlessly.

My take? Hamas should stop. This may backfire on them if they continue what is already a lost military battle.

The International Community, during post-conflict negotiations, must insist on strict limits being put on Israel’s and Hamas’s action in return for monitoring and aid help. Hamas was elected by the people, and should remain in power, which means I do not want them, by continuing to fire rockets which have no military impact and only lead to more civilian casualties. This only gives Israel an excuse for trying to destroy it entirely.

There are times when you have to know when to cut your losses....

Michael C