'Israel still dealing with international falloutBy MATTI FRIEDMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
JERUSALEM -- More than two weeks after halting its Gaza offensive, Israel is still dealing with the international fallout, including a very public spat with the leader of Turkey, a slew of war crimes allegations and broken ties with Venezuela, Bolivia and Qatar.
It's not quite a major diplomatic crisis, but it is a serious public relations problem for the Jewish state, which once again finds itself on the defensive against an avalanche of accusations.
Israel's defenders say the country was acting in self-defense and charge that no other country would be singled out for the kind of criticism that has been slung in its direction since the beginning of the Gaza offensive on Dec. 27.
The Foreign Ministry says Israel's important relationships are unharmed and predicts the international mood will pass.
The three-week offensive, aimed at halting years of rocket fire at Israeli towns from Gaza, killed some 1,300 Palestinians, at least half of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials. Thirteen Israelis were killed, including three civilians.
Perhaps the most noteworthy outburst was Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's spat with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum, usually a refined get-together for the world's most powerful.
"You kill people," Erdogan snapped at Peres, shortly after Peres offered an impassioned defense of the Israeli operation and shortly before Erdogan stormed off the stage.
Despite hurried attempts at damage control from both sides, the flap has further disrupted the close alliance between the two countries. The hordes of Israeli package tourists who vacation in Turkey are reportedly staying home.
The Davos incident came as a Spanish judge decided to open a war crimes investigation into a 2002 incident in which an Israeli F-16 killed a top Hamas mastermind in Gaza along with 14 other people, including nine children. Though it dealt with an earlier incident, the timing was clearly linked to the current violence.'
1 opmerking:
Must see: 25 januari 2009 CBS 60 Minutes Exposing Israeli Apartheid. Het item is van de 'senior foreign correspondent' Bob Simon, een jood die in de buurt van Tel Aviv woont.
Gedeelte commentaar Bob Simon: "The problem is, even before Israel invaded Gaza, a growing number of Israelis and Palestinians had concluded that peace between them was no longer possible, that history had passed it by. For peace to have a chance, Israel would have to withdraw from the West Bank, which would then become the Palestinian state.... It’s known as the "two-state" solution. But, while negotiations have been going on for 15 years, hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers have moved in to occupy the West Bank. Palestinians say they can't have a state with Israeli settlers all over it, which the settlers say is precisely the idea."
Uitzonderlijk voor een commerciële Amerikaanse zender. Het toont aan dat Israël ook op dit front aan het verliezen is.
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