Robert Fisk: So, I asked the UN secretary general, isn’t it time for a war crimes tribunal?

by Robert Fisk at The Independent

It’s a wrap, a doddle, an Israeli ceasefire just in time for Barack Obama to have a squeaky-clean inauguration with all the world looking at the streets of Washington rather than the rubble of Gaza…

… After killing hundreds of women and children, Israel was the good guy again, by declaring a unilateral ceasefire that Hamas was certain to break. But Obama will be smiling on Tuesday. Was not this the reason, after all, why Israel suddenly wanted a truce?

[read the rest of the article, here]

Israel to pull troops out of Gaza by time Obama is inaugurated if militants hold fire ABC News

Why Do They Hate the West So Much, We Will Ask

by Robert Fisk at Truthdig

So once again, Israel has opened the gates of hell to the Palestinians. Forty civilian refugees dead in a United Nations school, three more in another. Not bad for a night’s work in Gaza by the army that believes in “purity of arms”. But why should we be surprised?