DEATH TO ZIONISM

2009-04-30T19:26:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it....

Long Live Palestine - LowKey

I Love that song!!!

2009-04-30T19:22:00.001-07:00

Tafakji: Zionist scheme to settle one million Jews in Jerusalem, WB

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Khalil Tafakji, an expert on Israeli settlements and the director of the maps center for Arab studies, said that Israel was strenuously working on creating greater Jerusalem that would eat up 10% of the entire West Bank area.

Tafakji in a press statement on Wednesday said that Israel was trying to introduce a new demographic balance by which Israelis would constitute a big majority in Jerusalem.

He added that Israel also plans to separate northern West Bank from its southern areas and works against the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

The settlements' expert explained that the Kidar and Maaleh Adumim settlement bloc east and north of occupied Jerusalem over an area of 191 square kilometers would absolutely prevent establishment of a Palestinian state geographically connected with Jerusalem as its capital.

Tafakji said that the Israeli settlement drive never stopped in any of the West Bank settlements, noting that Israel plans to construct 73,000 new housing units within five years to accommodate one million Jews in Jerusalem and West Bank.

2009-04-30T19:19:00.000-07:00

UNICEF: Gaza children continue to suffer physically and psychologically

[ 30/04/2009 - 10:14 AM ]

NEW YORK, (PIC)-- The UN children's fund (UNICEF) reported Tuesday that children in Gaza continue to suffer both physically and psychologically despite the Israeli war which ended 100 days ago, stressing the need for allowing in supplies and materials needed for recovery and rehabilitation.

The UNICEF said that five children have died while at least 14 others were injured in unexploded ordnance-related incidents since the end of the 22-day Israeli war.

The UNICEF underlined that the Israeli war on Gaza took a heavy toll on children’s psychological wellbeing, adding that a recent UN study reaffirmed that mental health, anxiety and stress are the main health problems in Gaza.

According to the latest figures, 65 essential drugs were out of stock at Gaza’s central store, the UNICEF noted.

In another context, defense for children international (DCI) said that the number of children arrested and detained by Israel has risen by about 40 percent compared to the number for the same period last year.

DCI explained that the Israeli occupation authority intensified arrest of Palestinian children during the last two months, whereby the end of February 2009, the number of Palestinian children in detention had reached a peak of 423, one of the highest since the start of the second Intifada.

DCI added that it noted in early 2009 a worrying increase in arrests of children between the ages of 12 and 13 years old when it documented the arrest of 10 children compared to three children for the whole year of 2008.

Since the beginning of the second Intifada in 2000, the IOA has arrested about 6,700 Palestinian children, currently 423 of them are being held in Israeli prisons in the occupied Palestinian lands and inside Israel in contravention of international law. Six of these children are girls and an additional six are being held in administrative detention without charge or trial, DCI elaborated.

Palestinian child prisoners are exposed to different types of torture, abuse and degrading treatment at the hands of Israeli soldiers and policemen during their arrest and interrogation, DCI said.

DCI highlighted that these Israeli violations aim to break the Palestinian child prisoners psychologically and extract quick confessions to indict them before Israeli military courts which do not provide fair trials to them.

It noted that once Palestinian children are sent to Israeli prisons, they are deprived of their rights guaranteed in the UN convention on the rights of children and the fourth Geneva convention, adding that they are deprived of proper medical care, and are often blackmailed if they seek medical treatment.

2009-04-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

Soldiers Confirm Israel's War Crimes in Gaza

'Anyone who’s in there is a terrorist', said the commander.

By Kim Bullimore

Testimony given by Israeli soldiers involved in Israel’s 22-day December-January assault on Gaza to a pre-military preparatory program at the Oranim Academic College in Israel on February 13, and which the March 18 Haaretz daily began printing daily excerpts of, revealed that they repeatedly committed crimes with impunity in Gaza.

One soldier, a squad commander, revealed that his unit was instructed to open fire in densely populated areas without warning. “We were supposed to go in with an armoured personnel carrier called an Achzarit [literally meaning “cruel”] to burst through the lower door [of Palestinian houses], to start shooting inside and then ... I call this murder ... in effect, we were supposed to go up floor by floor, and any person we identified — we were supposed to shoot. I initially asked myself: Where is the logic in this?” He said his commanding officers “said this was permissible, because anyone who remained in the sector and inside Gaza City was in effect condemned, a terrorist, because they hadn’t fled. I didn’t really understand: On the one hand they don’t really have anywhere to flee to, but on the other hand they’re telling us they hadn’t fled so it’s their fault.”

The squad commander said that Palestinian civilians were suppose to be given five minutes’ warning to leave their houses. However, many soldiers under his command challenged this, one soldier saying, “Anyone who’s in there is a terrorist”. According to the squad commander, that sentiment was backed up by other soldiers under his command who said, “We need to murder any person who’s in there ... any person who’s in Gaza is a terrorist”.

‘Do Anything You Want’

According to the squad commander, the soldiers believed that “inside Gaza you are allowed to do anything you want”. He went on to say that commanding officers did little to counter this attitude and that it was permissible “to write ‘death to the Arabs’ on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can”.

The squad commander also related that soldiers under his command killed an old woman was who walking down the road. When asked why this happened, he responded, “That’s what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: you see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn’t have to be with a weapon, you don’t have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him. With us it was an old woman, on whom I didn’t see any weapon.”

According to another soldier, the descriptions of the squad commander were accurate. A third soldier said that lax rules of conduct within the attacking Israeli army also resulted in the death of many Palestinian civilians. In one incident, Israeli troops occupied a Palestinian house for several days, detaining the family who owned the house. According to the soldier, after a few days an order came through to release the family. However, not all the soldiers were informed “and they forgot to tell the sharpshooter on the roof they had let them go”. As a result, a mother and her two children were shot dead.

Click here to read more.

2009-04-30T19:01:00.000-07:00

The Palestinian Authority's authoritarian turn
Ben White, The Electronic Intifada, 30 April 2009

Appointed Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad at the opening ceremony of the Presidential Guards College in the West Bank city of Jericho, March 2009. (Mustafa Abu Dayeh/MaanImages)

Last week, less than two weeks after I had talked with him in his an-Najah University faculty office, Abdel Sattar Qassem was arrested by the Palestinian Preventive Security forces in Nablus, occupied West Bank.

Qassem is a 60-year-old professor of political science, and has been at an-Najah University since 1980. Imprisoned several times by the Israeli occupation, he is the author of dozens of books and papers, as well as hundreds of articles, on Palestinian politics and Islamic thought. But Qassem is also an eloquent and prominent critic of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and he has been arrested, and targeted by politically-motivated attacks, on a number of previous occasions.

The most recent of these was in January of this year, when his car was set alight. According to a news report from the Palestinian news agency, Ma'an, claim of responsibility was circulated by an unknown group who accused Qassem of being a "mouthpiece for the Iranian and the Syrian regimes." As reported by Asharq al-Awsat, Qassem pointed out how the statement was a "hoax," and thus a cover for individuals who did not want to openly identify themselves. The attack was condemned by a variety of public figures "in the harshest possible words," according to Ma'an.

This time, the official line is that his arrest was a civil, criminal case, the result of litigation proceedings against Qassem by two figures within the PA's security forces. The Palestinian Information Center reports that Qassem, who according to his family was arrested hours after he gave an interview to al-Aqsa TV to discuss the shooting of West Bank Hamas leader Hamid al-Bitawi, insists that the charges are groundless and politically motivated. Speaking to me on the telephone after his release, Qassem noted:

"It was evident that they didn't want to arrest me on a political basis, so they decided to fabricate something against me. Last Thursday, in court, there were many lawyers trying to represent me, because they feel like this is a national issue. They see that this is intimidation, not a genuine civil case."

The attempts to intimidate a critic of the Palestinian Authority into silence is disturbing, but is only one incident in a growing trend. The Ramallah-based political leadership, dominated by Fatah, and the PA security forces, are becoming increasingly authoritarian, encouraging a culture of militarized policing and a lack of respect for human rights and the rule of law. Now, nonviolent resistance leaders against the Israeli occupation like Sami Awad, based in Bethlehem, are saying that they "have to be ready to face any injustice even if caused by our own people, within the PA."

Click here to read more.

2009-04-30T18:51:00.000-07:00

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Continue Systematic Attacks against Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and Continue to Impose a Total Siege on the Gaza Strip

A Palestinian child standing near the debris of her family's house, which was destroyed by Israeli Occupation Forces in East Jerusalem.

20 Palestinian civilians, including 6 children, were wounded by IOF gunfire in the West Bank.
A number of these civilians were wounded by Israeli settlers during a joint attack with IOF.
IOF conducted 28 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank.
IOF arrested 32 Palestinian civilians, including 6 children.
IOF halted technical preparations related to a reception site intended for the Pope’s visit.
IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT and have isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world.
IOF imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian Christians during Easter.
IOF troops positioned at military checkpoints in the West Bank arrested 5 Palestinian civilians, including 3 children.
IOF have continued measures aimed at the changing the demographic majority of east Jerusalem’s population.
IOF started to establish a new settlement neighborhood in the al-Sawahra area, southeast of Jerusalem.
Media reports disclosed a plan to connect "Kidar" settlement with "Ma'ale Adomim" settlement and annex 12,000 donums[1] of Palestinian land.
IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property.
IOF resumed the establishment of a settler road to the south of Hebron.
Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian farmers in the north and south of the West Bank.

Summary

Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law escalated in the OPT during the reporting period (23 – 28 April 2009):

Shooting: During the reporting period, 20 Palestinian civilians, including 6 children, were wounded by IOF and Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

On 24 April 2009, 12 Palestinian civilians, including two children, were wounded when Israeli settlers and IOF troops attacked 'Ourif village, south of Nablus. This joint attack was the second of its kind in the West Bank this April; IOF and Israeli settlers launched a similar attack on Safa village, north of Hebron, on 08 April, in which 9 Palestinian civilians were wounded.

On 26 April 2009, an Israeli settler fired at a Palestinian child in Madama village, south of Nablus. The child was seriously wounded by a gunshot that entered the back and exited the chest.

On the same day, a Palestinian civilian was wounded when IOF moved into Rantis village, northwest of Ramallah, and opened fire indiscriminately.

Also on the same day, IOF troops positioned at Tarqoumia crossing, southwest of Hebron, fired at an old Palestinian man, wounding him.

During the reporting period, 5 Palestinian civilians, including two children, were wounded when IOF used force against peaceful demonstrations organized to protest the construction of the Annexation Wall.

Incursions: During the reporting period, IOF conducted at least 28 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. IOF arrested 32 Palestinian civilians, including 6 children.

During the reporting period, IOF stormed the public yard opposite 'Aaida refugee camp, north of Bethlehem. The yard was being readied in advance of the Pope’s intended visit. IOF forced workers to stop technical and construction preparations.

On 24 April 2009, IOF conducted a joint operation with Israeli settlers against 'Ourif village, south of Nablus. Both forces fired at Palestinian civilians, wounding 12 of them.

Restrictions on Movement: IOF have continued to impose a tightened siege on the OPT and imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.

Click here to read more.

2009-04-30T18:48:00.000-07:00

Tunnels Become a Lifeline

Erin Cunningham

RAFAH, Apr 29, 2009 (IPS) - Pick-up trucks speed westward on the Barth highway that flanks the Israeli border in Egypt's North Sinai region, stacked high with cartons of petrol. They are headed "for Gaza", the Bedouin residents of Barth village say – through the tunnels that burrow under the Egypt-Gaza border and are filling Gaza's aid gap in the aftermath of Israel's deadly assault on the territory.

The hundreds of subterranean passages that have fuelled Gaza's economy since its borders were hermetically sealed by Israel and Egypt in 2007 were one of the primary targets of Israel's three-week Operation Cast Lead.

Now largely rebuilt in the wake of a war that destroyed much of the strip's infrastructure and agricultural land, the tunnels that provide Gaza with food, fuel, medicine and other consumer goods may have become even more crucial as an economic lifeline, the World Food Programme (WFP) says.

During the war, economic activity in the Gaza Strip came to a grinding halt. Over 20,000 buildings were destroyed, including many factories. Gaza's Private Sector Coordinating Council estimates the losses in the private sector as a result of the war to be 1.5 billion dollars.

Since the Jan. 18 ceasefire, Israel has continued to operate its commercial crossings at minimal capacity. Only 35 percent of the 613 million dollars in funding requested by the United Nations (UN) Flash Appeal for Gaza has been received for reconstruction efforts.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that on average 127 aid trucks a day are entering Gaza, compared to 475 per day prior to the Hamas takeover.

"If Israel opened the borders, the tunnel business would end in a second," says Abu Hussein, a Palestinian who manages a tunnel on the Gaza side of the border. "But what are we supposed to do? These tunnels feed the people, give them what they need and give us jobs."

Before the war smuggling through tunnels, which the UN said last year was so widespread that it amounted to an industry, was generating some 650 million dollars in cash each year.

Analysts estimate that at least two-thirds of the goods sold across the Gaza Strip come from the tunnels, and that they employ some 12,000 Palestinians from all over the territory. Gaza's unemployment rate, according to the UN, stood at 45 percent before the war. It is the highest in the world.

During the assault, Rafah's underground tunnels were pummelled by Israeli bombs for three weeks. Israel claimed its air force destroyed 80 percent of the tunnels, about 600 of them, used by Hamas to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip.

But Palestinians working the tunnels on the Gaza side say while the bombs did damage some of the underground network, they almost always targeted just the entrance of the tunnel and to a depth of just ten metres.

Since the tunnels can reach as deep as 25 metres, rebuilding was simply a matter of digging a new entry point a few metres from the original hole, smugglers say. And the reconstruction began the morning after the ceasefire was called Jan. 18.

"Before the war, the tunnel began there," says Abu Hussein, pointing to a hole 10 metres behind him. "It cost about 6,000 dollars to dig again here and reinforce the walls." The rest of the tunnel, all the way to Egypt, was unscathed.

After the war, food, medical supplies and other goods immediately began to pour in, picking up where the commercial crossings - that allow in only what Israel deems as "essential" - leave off.

Click here to read more.

2009-04-30T18:41:00.000-07:00

Get up, stand up for Palestinian Rights on May Day and Every Day

Reham Alhelsi

April 30, 2009

Introduction by Mary Rizzo

– In many parts of the world, the first of May is an official holiday that celebrates the conquests that workers have achieved following centuries of exploitation. These rights are by no means guaranteed, and anywhere there are other social or political problems, the rights of workers seem more like a luxury than a necessity. In fact, when one looks at some of the old political slogans used throughout the world on this day, one has to realise that there is still so much injustice inflicted upon human beings by other human beings. "Food is not a Luxury" is fitting for today’s Gaza, not just in turn-of-the-century central Europe. The United Nations, in fact, has established that labour should be included in its Declaration of Human Rights stating that: "Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection." The conditions simply don’t exist for Palestinians to revel in any conquests, because they are denied the protection that is at the basis of any just human society.

In recent years, Europe has shifted the focus of its May Day to a moment when a focus on other rights might find a bit of attention, and it is not unusual to see demonstrations of support for oppressed people around the world during this commemoration, in the international spirit which makes this day different from all others. It is with this spirit that Palestine Think Tank is honoured to highlight one of our very favourite writers who connects the issues of workers rights, protection and a general call for justice, which is what is reflected in the intent of Article 23 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. When the very existence of the worker is threatened, as this listing of massacres perpetrated against Palestinian workers demonstrates, we realise that the conquests of workers are still at a very early stage. May all who read this reflect upon each name, thinking of the sacrifice that these people made just to bring food home to their families, and promising upon the memory of these men and women that we will not stop to fight for the rights of workers and Palestinians, so that these senseless deaths are in no way in vain. Long live the memory of these martyrs and long live the indomitable spirit of the Palestinian people, which is an inspiration to all who struggle for justice and freedom.

Click here to read more.

2009-04-30T18:39:00.000-07:00

Physicians offer chilling account of Gaza atrocities
By Marc Abizeid, Special to The Daily Star

April 28, 2009

BEIRUT: Renowned Chinese-English physician Dr. Swee Ang gave a moving testimony on Saturday of Israel's destruction in the Gaza Strip as witnessed in her recent trip to the tiny Palestinian enclave. "Cluster bombs, deliberate assassinations of whole families that they would line up and shoot," Ang said as she listed a number of acts committed by Israel during its 22-day assault on Gaza in December and January that left over 1,400 Palestinians dead.
"The Israelis would wait until the ambulances got the wounded and then attack them, killing and injuring the drivers," she continued.

Ang and Norwegian physician Hans Husum were invited to offer an assessment of the situation in Gaza during the "Wounds of Gaza" lecture at the UNESCO Palace organized by the Sabra Shatila Foundation.

Ang, who bears distinct Asian features, also remarked that Israelis couldn't distinguish her from the Palestinians during her visit - a fact that made her proud.

"The Israelis attacked me in London for saying that 1.5 million tons of bombs had been dropped on Gaza, but I will show you the evidence," she said while presenting nauseating photographs taken during her visit of charred victims burned with phosphorous and large civilian buildings collapsed with vacuum bombs.

"I was very angry when I learned that Israeli tanks would come in front of a house and first fire a normal shell to break open the wall, then shoot a phosphorous shell into it," she said.

Husum, equally angered by the war in Gaza, lashed out at the United States which he said provided Israel with the experimental Dense Inert Metal Explosives, or DIME weapons, to test on the Palestinians.

"This weapon tears the flesh off the bone, it opens up the chest, ... it kills a lot of people," he said, adding that the "new kind of wars" like in Gaza and Israel's summer 2006 war on Lebanon were launched not to make conventional military advancements, but rather with the aim of breaking the will of the people.
He went on to predict that the next war in Lebanon would be an urban one, systematically targeting cities in order to "break society" because, as he put, "humanitarian law is dead - it's out."

"I've been a war surgeon for 30 years. I've seen a lot, but I am shocked," he said. "If the aim of the enemy is to scare us into subjugation and to put us down on our knees, then we have to stand up - we do not bend down."

2009-04-30T13:48:00.000-07:00

On celebrating ethnic cleansing
Marcy Newman, body on the line

This week the zionist entity celebrated 61+ years of ethnic cleansing: stealing palestinian land, murdering and massacring palestinians, lebanese, syrians, egyptians, jordanians, iraqis. 61 years of the zionist entity being recognized by the international community, though its colonial regime is 122 years old this year. barack obama rushed to congratulate this murderous thieving regime as quickly as the united states did it back in 1948, a fact which obama is proud of:
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday congratulated Israel on the 61st anniversary of its founding, according to Israel Radio.
In a statement released by the White House, Obama vowed to advance peace talks in the region and pursue the interests of both Palestinians and Israelis.
Obama reportedly noted that the US was the first country to recognize Israel in 1948.
puppet zionist leader of egypt hosni mubarak quickly followed suit:
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak congratulated Israel on its 61st anniversary of statehood Wednesday. In a letter of greeting sent to President Shimon Peres he wrote, "I am pleased to express my congratulations for Independence Day".
Mubarak added, "At this opportunity I would like to express anew my expectation for the return of the Middle East peace process to a path that will lead to an end to the violence and bloodshed, in a manner that will allow the establishment of an independent Palestinian state that will exist alongside Israel in peace and security."
mubarak rushing to congratulate the zionist entity–an entity that exists on the blood of his compatriots as well–led me to find an occasion to publish this mahjoob cartoon that al falasteenyia posted last week, which i just love. the arabic reads: "hezbollah and hamas are tools of the iranians."

Click here to read more

2009-04-20T17:38:00.001-07:00

IOF troops arrest Palestinian citizens including child

[ 20/04/2009 - 06:28 PM ]

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces at dawn Monday rounded up ten Palestinian citizens in various West Bank areas including a 15-year-old boy from Arub refugee camp north of Al-Khalil, local sources reported.

They said that the ten were arrested in Al-Khalil, Ramallah and Bethlehem districts and were carried to interrogation centers.

The sources pointed out that the detainees also included a teen from Sa'eer town northeast of Al-Khalil.

The IOF on Sunday night imposed a curfew on Kuful Hares village to the northwest of Salfit to pave the way for entry of thousands of Jewish settlers into the village to visit what they call Jewish sites.

Israeli occupation policemen on Sunday rounded up five Palestinians in Askalan on the charge of entering the 1948 occupied Palestine without permits.

Meanwhile, Mohammed Saadi, a prisoner in Israeli Megiddo jail, appealed to legal institutions to intervene and save his life, which is threatened in detention.

Saadi, who has been in administrative detention without trial or charge for two years, said that he was suffering form heart and kidney disease and was not accorded proper medical treatment.

Family of another prisoner in the same jail, Yehya Bilalo, said that he was in need of urgent surgery.

They said that Bilalo, who is serving a 13-year imprisonment term, was suffering from acute ulcer and a neurological disease.

2009-04-20T17:34:00.000-07:00

Another Obama Disappointment

'It is disappointing to see Obama bend to Israeli pressures and those of the Jewish lobby.'

By Joharah Baker

Today, April 20, the United Nations' global conference on racism opens in Geneva. There will be a few empty seats though, namely those reserved for the United States, Israel, Canada, Italy, Holland, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.

The United States, the obvious ringleader of the West has been mulling over whether to attend or not, with many of its sidekicks waiting for their cue. Israel of course, announced it would not attend from day one along with Canada and Italy.

At this point, I think everyone has guessed what is going on. The UN conference is the second one of its type, the first being the infamous Durban Conference in 2001 in the South African city during which the US and Israel walked out in protest. No surprises as to why. The pair's feathers got ruffled when a draft resolution midway through the conference likened Zionism to racism.

How dare they? I mean, how could the "only democracy in the Middle East" be likened to racism? Let's just disregard the fact that it has maintained an illegal, oppressive military occupation over Palestinian territories for the past 40-some years and has delegated Palestinians there to third class citizens for all practical purposes. Even Palestinians inside Israel are treated as second-class citizens because they, unlike the movement that founded Israel, are not Jewish.

Anyway, the last conference was during the Bush – that's George W. Bush – administration, so anything short of a boycott in the name of Israel would have been out of character. Today, the situation in the United States is supposedly different. The world's superpower is led now by Barack Obama, a man who espouses openness, inclusiveness and diversity. This time around, the Obama administration did not immediately announce its boycott of the conference but said it would "reconsider attendance" if the document to be adopted by the conference were revised – i.e. if all references to Israel as a racist state were dropped.

The subsequent changes to the document by the conference's preparatory committee fulfilled just that. No references to Israel or the Palestinians were made. This, however, was apparently not enough for Obama, who said "references" in the Durban I conference had not been "negated."

The document from the 2001 summit, he said, was unacceptable because "folks expressed antagonism toward Israel in ways that were often times completely hypocritical and counterproductive."

It's funny that Obama would use the word hypocritical because this whole situation seems the epitome of hypocrisy. What is so sacred about Israel that not even a pinch of criticism can be thrown its way? Now, not only is the US boycotting the conference, Israel is sending a delegation to Geneva to officially protest the gathering, on of its keynote speakers, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad and any possible criticisms that might be made of Israel as they come up.

I find this entire situation extremely frustrating. Not that we have not grown accustomed to the staunch and blind support Israel receives especially from the United States. On the contrary, we have come to expect it. That is, until President Obama was sworn into office. Perhaps against our better judgment, we hoped that finally the United States would have a leader that could make a real change, especially where we were concerned.

But like all hopes that have been raised on false pretenses, they come crashing down around us. Perhaps it was wrong to expect too much from Barack Obama, or perhaps he is not all we hoped he would be. The bottom line is that, despite the bending over backwards for Israel – some even accused Arabs and Palestinians who accepted the revised declaration of kowtowing to US and Israeli pressures – the US still opted for the boycott instead of daring any criticism of its best Middle East friend.

click here to read more

2009-04-20T17:29:00.000-07:00

The rhetoric of "peace"
Ziyaad Lunat, The Electronic Intifada, 15 April 2009

Benjamin Netanyahu's promise of "economic peace" means the beginning of a new stage of colonization. (Moti Milrod/MaanImages)

The Israelis have offered the Palestinians many types of "peace." Their first attempt to reach out to the Palestinians was in 1948 with an offer of a "racist peace." Ethnic cleansing was the basis of a "racist peace" where Zionist terrorists drove out two thirds of the Palestinian population from their homes. Its logic was that expulsion would end strife between Zionists and Palestinians (by eliminating one side) enabling the Zionists to enjoy peace in an ethnic Jewish haven. The Palestinians, stubborn as they were, refused a racist Zionist state as the basis for "peace."

Israel relentlessly extended its hand to the Palestinians offering them a "military peace" instead. Deterrence was the basis of a "military peace" where a Zionist state armed to the teeth would instill fear in the hearts of the Palestinians. Its logic was that through military deterrence the Palestinians would accept their condition of displacement. Soon after their expulsion in 1948, Palestinian refugees continuously attempted to return to their properties. The Zionists initiated a campaign of reprisals to deny their right to return. Hundreds were killed in this way, massacres included Qibya in 1953, Lebanon in 1982, Jenin in 2002 and Gaza in 2009. Palestinians however rejected Zionist military domination as the basis for "peace."

While the above two peace offers were crude, Israel devised an "apartheid peace" as a more elaborate proposal to the Palestinians, hoping they would finally reciprocate. Physical separation between Jews and Arab Palestinians was the basis for an "apartheid peace." Its logic was that the Palestinians would be given limited autonomy to manage their internal affairs and build their own institutions but their demands would have to eventually fall short of full sovereignty. Some Palestinians were co-opted in signing the Oslo accords in 1993, accepting apartheid as the basis for "peace."

Click here to read more.

2009-04-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

The Coming Breakup of American Zionism

By Norman Finkelstein

Independent scholar and author, Norman Finkelstein, speaking at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. The title of the lecture is "The Coming Breakup of American Zionism".

Uploaded May 2008

Click on "comments" below to read or post comments

2009-04-16T18:56:00.000-07:00

MIDEAST: Aid Rots Outside Gaza
By Erin Cunningham

Aid meant for Gaza going waste in Egypt.

Credit:Erin Cunningham

AL-ARISH, Egypt, Apr 15 (IPS) - Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of aid intended for the Gaza Strip is piling up in cities across Egypt's North Sinai region, despite recent calls from the United Nations to ease aid flow restrictions to the embattled territory in the wake of Operation Cast Lead.

Food, medicine, blankets, infant food and other supplies for Gaza's 1.5 million people, coming from governments and non-governmental agencies around the world, are being stored in warehouses, parking lots, stadiums and on airport runways across Egypt's North Sinai governorate.

Egypt shares a 14-kilometre border with Gaza that has been closed more or less permanently since the Islamist movement Hamas took control of the territory in June 2007.

Flour, pasta, sugar, coffee, chocolate, tomato sauce, lentils, date bars, juice, chickpeas, blankets, hospital beds, catheter tubes and other humanitarian- based items are all sitting in at least eight storage points in and around Al- Arish, a city in North Sinai approximately 50 kilometres from Gaza's border.

Three months after the end of the war, much of the aid has either rotted or been irreparably damaged as a result of both rain and sunshine, and Egypt's refusal to open the Rafah crossing.

"To be honest, most of this aid will never make it to Gaza," a local government official told IPS on condition of anonymity. "A lot of the food here will have to be thrown away

Click here: Egypt, Israel Block Mass Aid To Gaza - Food Rots to read more.

2009-04-16T18:24:00.000-07:00

The Israel Lobby

For many years now the American foreign policy has been characterized by the strong tie between the United States and Israel. Does the United States in fact keep Israel on its feet? And how long will it continue to do so?

In March 2006 the American political scientists John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) and Steve Walt (Harvard) published the controversial article 'The Israel Lobby and US foreign policy'. In it they state that it is not, or no longer, expedient for the US to support and protect present-day Israel. The documentary sheds light on both parties involved in the discussion: those who wish to maintain the strong tie between the US and Israel, and those who were critical of it and not infrequently became 'victims' of the lobby.

The question arises to what extend the pro-Israel lobby ultimately determines the military and political importance of Israel itself. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (Colin Powell's former chief-of-staff) explains how the lobby's influence affects the decision-making structure in the White House.

With political scientist John Mearsheimer, neocon Richard Perle, lobby organization AIPAC, televangelist John Hagee, historian Tony Judt, Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth, colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Democrat Earl Hilliard, Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy and investigative journalist Michael Massing.

Research: William de Bruijn
Director: Marije Meerman

2009-04-08T19:17:00.000-07:00

A Match Made in Tel Aviv
Will Netanyahu and the neocons live happily ever after?

By Leon Hadar
April 07, 2009 "The American Conservative" -- -Imagine that after Boris Yeltsin was elected president of a free post-Communist Russia in 1991, the Poles, residents of a former province of the Soviet empire, elected former Communist boss Edward Gierek as their new head of state. Then suppose that, upon entering office, he called on Moscow to forget about rapprochement with the West and prepare for military confrontation.
Improbable as it seems, some version of this scenario is playing out here. After their humiliating defeat in the 2008 presidential and congressional elections, the vanquished neoconservative legions won a major political victory in one of the provinces of the American empire when the parliamentary election in Israel brought to power a veteran neocon activist. He is calling on Washington to forget about changing U.S. policy in the Middle East and prepare for a military confrontation with Iran.
Initially, the neoconservatives envisioned a grander strategy. In November 2008, Americans would elect Norman Podhoretz’s favorite American politician, Rudy Giuliani, as their new president, followed by a vote in Israel in which Norman Podhoretz’s favorite Israeli politician, Benjamin Netanyahu, would be chosen as the Jewish state’s new prime minister.
It would have been like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire teaming in “Flying Down to Tehran” and dancing cheek to cheek in “Neocon Time.” Not unlike FDR and Churchill uniting their nations in the struggle against Fascism during World War II, Rudy and Bibi would bring their countries together to fight Islamofascism. How about a special commemorative issue of Commentary to celebrate the day the two tied the knot at the White House?

Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22366.htm to read more.

2009-04-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

Armed settlers confront US Consulate delegation near Nablus

Nablus - Ma'an - Armed Israeli settlers prevented a delegation from the US Consulate from approaching a settlement near Nablus on Monday, according to diplomatic officials. In a telephone call to Ma'an, a spokesperson for the US Consulate to Jerusalem said that officials were near the Hioval settlement, close to the Nablus-area village of Qaryut, when armed settler guards stopped the delegation. According to the American officials, the visit was a routine and periodic trip to areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and the visit was previously scheduled. Ghassan Doghlus, the head of the village's local council, told Ma'an that settlement guards stopped the American delegation from entering the area. "The guards prevented the delegation from getting close to the settlement and the nearby lands that were confiscated; the guards pointed their arms at the delegation, forcing them to leave the area," he said.Another spokesperson for the US Consulate in Jerusalem, Michaela Sweitzer-Blum, confirmed that armed Israeli settlers did confront an officer from the US Consulate back from the edge of the settlement."They [the US delegation] did meet up with some armed guards froma a local outpost," she said of the incident.

From:http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=36929

2009-04-08T18:54:00.000-07:00

US Envoy Writes of Israeli Threats
By Barbara Crossette
April 05, 2009 "The Nation" March 31, 2009 -- -In the wake of the accusation by Chas Freeman that his nomination to lead the National Intelligence Council was derailed by an "Israeli lobby," a forthcoming memoir by another distinguished ambassador adds stunning new charges to the debate. The ambassador, John Gunther Dean, writes that over the years he not only came under pressure from pro-Israeli groups and officials in Washington but also was the target of an Israeli-inspired assassination attempt in 1980 in Lebanon, where he had opened links to the Palestine Liberation Organization. Dean's suspicions that Israeli agents may have also been involved in the mysterious plane crash in 1988 that killed Pakistan's president, General Mohammed Zia ul Haq, led finally to a decision in Washington to declare him mentally unfit, which forced his resignation from the foreign service after a thirty-year career. After he left public service, he was rehabilitated by the State Department, given a distinguished service medal and eventually encouraged to write his memoirs. Now 82, Dean sees the subsequent positive attention he has received as proof that the insanity charge (he calls it Stalinist) was phony, a supposition later confirmed by a former head of the department's medical service.Dean, whose memoir is titled Danger Zones: A Diplomat's Fight for America's Interests, was American ambassador in Lebanon in August 1980 when a three-car convoy carrying him and his family was attacked near Beirut."I was the target of an assassination attempt by terrorists using automatic rifles and antitank weapons that had been made in the United States and shipped to Israel," he wrote. "Weapons financed and given by the United States to Israel were used in an attempt to kill an American diplomat!" After the event, conspiracy theories abounded in the Middle East about who could have planned the attack, and why. Lebanon was a dangerously factionalized country.

Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22356.htm to read more.

2009-04-08T18:43:00.000-07:00

While the US goes Bankrupt...
US Senate moves to fully fund Israel aid

The US Senate included a measure to restore full funding for foreign aid to the budget it approved late Thursday, increasing chances that the pool of money including assistance for Israel wouldn't be cut.
The $3.5 trillion document passed by the Senate includes a $4 billion boost to the foreign operations appropriation, bringing it up to the $53.8b. sought by President Barack Obama.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and co-sponsor of the amendment, defended the move as important to advancing moderation in the Middle East.
"The reality is that we are just not doing enough today to invest in the vital components of both diplomacy and development," Kerry said on the Senate floor, referencing his recent trip to Israel, Egypt, Syria and other regional countries. "I saw firsthand the degree to which people we support in many ways are struggling to push back against enormous spending by Iran and other actors who seek to destabilize the region."
The US House of Representatives, however, only approved $48.5b. for international assistance in its version of the Fiscal Year 2010 budget earlier this week, so the differences will have to be addressed in conference between the two committees, negotiations of which are expected to pick up in earnest when Congress returns from its recess later in the month.
The Senate move makes it much more likely Obama's foreign aid request will be fully funded. In the event that it isn't, it is yet to be determined which foreign aid programs would be affected, meaning Israel could still receive the total $2.77b. it is due under a long-term agreement worked out under the Bush administration

Click here: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1238562906554&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull to read more.

2009-04-08T18:20:00.000-07:00

It's a Lieberman Government
By Uri Avnery – Israel

April 04, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- -On the first day of the new Israeli government, the fog cleared: it's a Lieberman government.

The day started with a celebration at the President’s office. All the members of this bloated government – 30 ministers and 8 deputy ministers – were dressed up in their best finery and posed for a group photo. Binyamin Netanyahu read an uninspired speech, which included the worn-out clichés that are necessary to set the world at ease: the government is committed to peace, it will negotiate with the Palestinian Authority, bla-bla-bla.

Avigdor Lieberman hurried from there to the foreign Office, for the ceremonial change of ministers. He, too, made a speech – but it was not a routine speech at all.

“Si vis pacem, para bellum – if you want peace, prepare for war,” declared the new Foreign Minister. When a diplomat quotes this ancient Roman saying, the world pays no attention to the first part, but only to the second. Coming from the mouth of the already infamous Lieberman, it was a clear threat: the new government is entering upon a path of war, not of peace.

With this sentence, Lieberman negated Netanyahu’s speech and made headlines around the world. He confirmed the worst apprehensions connected with the creation of this government.

Not content with quoting the Romans, he explained specifically why he used this motto. Concessions, he said, do not bring peace, but quite the reverse. The world respected and admired Israel when it won the Six-day war.

Two fallacies in one sentence. Returning occupied territory is not a “concession”. When a thief is compelled to return stolen property, or when a squatter vacates an apartment that does not belong to him, that is not a “concession”. And the admiration for Israel in 1967 came from a world that saw us as a little, valiant country that had stood up to mighty armies out to destroy us. But today’s Israel looks like a brutal Goliath, while the occupied Palestinians are now viewed as a David with his slingshot, fighting for his life.

With this speech, Lieberman succeeded in stirring the world, but even more in humiliating Netanyahu. He exposed the peace declarations of the new Prime Minister as nothing but soap bubbles.

Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22353.htm to read more.

2009-04-03T14:55:00.000-07:00

Israel admits no Hamas rockets were fired during Ceasefire

2009-04-02T18:40:00.000-07:00

Falk: The Palestinian people have the right to resistance

NEW JERSEY, (PIC)-- Richard Falk, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Palestine, stressed that the Palestinian people have the right to resistance, self-determination and the establishment of their independent state.
In a press statement, Falk stated that the last war on the Gaza Strip revealed the huge disparity between the Israeli army which is equipped with all kinds of weapons and the unarmed Palestinians who live under an unjust siege, reiterating that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza.
The UN official underscored that Israel has a colonial, violent and criminal nature, adding that Israel waged a war on Gaza because the Palestinians hold one of its soldiers while there are more than 11,000 Palestinian prisoners in its jails.
As for trying Israeli leaders on charges of war crimes, the UN official said the UN General Assembly according to its charter has the right to form an international court to try Israeli leaders, pointing out that he will submit recommendations urging the UN to move from investigation into Israeli war crimes to the stage of leveling charges.

From: http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7U2O5W6xF%2f%2fwUtNqtg0yG2bg91fqyQLG1Dz%2bBpnF%2f3mdVgTfy9SK1KVEK6NvY7PSMXk1uqjXrPkRKskME5KW9o9yBdpWW6%2f%2fcdx2xY1T7CGE%3d

2009-04-02T18:36:00.000-07:00

Avigdor and Netanyahu: an Evil Marriage
By Mohamed El Mokhtar Sidi Haiba

Taking office as Israel's new leader Tuesday, Benjamin Netanyahu promised to supposedly seek 'full peace' with the Arab and Muslim world while deliberately avoiding to even mention the only word that really matters here. The word that matters the most to the Arab and Muslim world .The word without which Israel will never, ever, live in peace. The word whose continuous negations will ultimately be dearly costly to Israel's very existence: “Palestinian state."
"Under the permanent status agreement, the Palestinians will have all the authority to rule themselves, “Netanyahu said in comments echoing an old mantra of negationism and deep-seated racism at the core of the Likud political philosophy: There is no such thing as Palestine or Palestinian people.
Netanyahu's hysterical obsession to carry on his father’s racist fascisto-zionist phantasms could put him at odds with his indispensable benefactor and much of the rest of the world. His refusal to embrace the idea of Palestinian statehood and decision to appoint ultranationalist politician Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister don’t bode well for a hopeful time for peace in the Middle-East or the world for that matter.
From the outset, he announced the true nature of his colors when he painted a grim picture of the future in the region by putting the onus exclusively on radical Islam and Iran which he describes in his acceptance speech as “the gravest threat to our existence since the war of independence.” A danger therefore that needs to be dealt with, swiftly and militarily, before it is too late for a nuclear weapon is a critical threshold.
That will be the focal point of his agenda. Not peace. In other words a settlement with the Palestinians based on the two-state solution which, not so long ago, he compared to a danger akin to the Nazis will be the last preoccupation of Bibi.
But Netanyahu’s "basic" extremism is somewhat overshadowed these days by the Nazi-like fascism of his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberma, the leader of the ultranationalist party, Yisrael Beiteinu.
The political ascension of this hawkish racist, ex-nightclub bouncer from Russia and former member of the party Kach who espoused overtly the idea of forced mass expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel and has even recently suggested, as final solution, that Gaza be nuked, constitutes an eloquent expression of the moral decay and suicidal irrationalism infecting the Israeli society at large. It is a wake-up call, a warning sign. It is an invitation for reflection on the reality of Israel and the pervasive nature of Zionism. Better, a clear indication of the direction the country is hurriedly taking. A trend so visible in the upwardly shift toward the right of Israel entire political spectrum.

Click here: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14977 to read more.

2009-04-02T18:29:00.000-07:00

Changing the rules of war
George Bisharat, The Electronic Intifada, 2 April 2009

The extent of Israel's brutality against Palestinian civilians in its 22-day pounding of the Gaza Strip is gradually surfacing. Israeli soldiers are testifying to lax rules of engagement tantamount to a license to kill. One soldier commented: "That's what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him."What is less appreciated is how Israel is also brutalizing international law, in ways that may long outlast the demolition of Gaza.Since 2001, Israeli military lawyers have pushed to reclassify military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from the law enforcement model mandated by the law of occupation to one of armed conflict. Under the former, soldiers of an occupying army must arrest, rather than kill, opponents, and generally must use the minimum force necessary to quell disturbances.While in armed conflict, a military is still constrained by the laws of war -- including the duty to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and the duty to avoid attacks causing disproportionate harm to civilian persons or objects -- the standard permits far greater uses of force.Israel pressed the shift to justify its assassinations of Palestinians in the occupied territories, which clearly violated settled international law. Israel had practiced "targeted killings" since the 1970s -- always denying that it did so -- but had recently stepped up their frequency, by spectacular means (such as air strikes) that rendered denial futile.Former US President Bill Clinton charged the 2001 Mitchell Committee with investigating the causes of the second Palestinian uprising and recommending how to restore calm in the region. Israeli lawyers pleaded their case to the committee for armed conflict. The committee responded by criticizing the blanket application of the model to the uprising, but did not repudiate it altogether.Today, most observers -- including Amnesty International -- tacitly accept Israel's framing of the conflict in Gaza as an armed conflict, as their criticism of Israel's actions in terms of the duties of distinction and the principle of proportionality betrays. This shift, if accepted, would encourage occupiers to follow Israel's lead, externalizing military control while shedding all responsibilities to occupied populations.

Click here: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10442.shtml to read more.

2009-04-02T18:23:00.000-07:00

Report excoriates Israel's use of white phosphorous in Gaza
Marian Houk, The Electronic Intifada, 1 April 2009

Israel's recent use of white phosphorus bombs in densely populated areas of Gaza violated the rules of war, according to report issued by a leading human rights organization last week. The 71-pages-long Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, entitled "Rain of Fire: Israel's Unlawful Use of White Phosphorous in Gaza," states that even before the group's researchers were able to enter Gaza, they had watched from adjacent perimeter areas in Israel as white phosphorus bombs exploded in the air over densely-packed residential areas in the Gaza Strip.Israeli troops began using white phosphorus in Gaza after the ground phase of the military offensive started on 3 January, a week into the invasion of the Strip, and continued until the ceasefire two weeks later, according to HRW. The report notes that it was the first time that the Israeli military had ever used white phosphorus in the densely-populated coastal Strip, despite numerous previous ground incursions. The report also notes that Israel used white phosphorus twice in Lebanon, in 1982 and in 2006.The Israeli military was well aware of the effects of white phosphorus and the extreme danger it poses to civilians, HRW says in the report. According to the group, if the Israeli army actually intended to use white phosphorus for its obscurant effect, it could only have done so lawfully in open areas, and not in downtown Gaza City, or downtown Beit Lahiya.The report states that far safer alternatives are available -- such as the very effective smoke artillery manufactured by Israel Military Industries, that does not burn.Ground-exploded white phosphorous creates a much thicker and more effective smokescreen than shells detonated in the air, HRW says, but that was not the tactic Israeli troops employed.

Click here: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10436.shtml to read more.

2009-03-27T17:23:00.000-07:00

"Why Should Anyone Believe a Nation of Liars, War Mongers and Land Thieves?"
Posted by Greg Bacon at http://wakeupfromyourslumber.blogspot.com/

When a nation engages in serial lying about recent and past actions, can that nation be believed about anything?
-Lies told about the "claims" on West Bank Palestinian land they've stolen, saying the land belonged to them since the 18th Century
Lies told about the reasons for invading Gaza in 2008
-Lies told about who broke that cease-fire and the next several that were proposed Lies told about the reasons for invading Lebanon in 2006
-Lies told about the savage, brutal and unprovoked attack on the USS LibertyLies told about the Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard
-Lies told about events surrounding 9/11Lies told about the AIPAC Lobby's influence on Congress
-Lies told about that stolen pension fund money that made "aliyah" to Israel in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme
-Lies told about the reasons it launched the 1967 Six Day War of Aggression against its neighbors
-Lies told about the still at large Israeli spy that has infiltrated the White House known as "Mega"
-Lies told about its involvement in getting the US to invade IraqLies now being told about the non-existent Iranian nuclear program
-Lies told about the 300 or so nukes that nation of liars, war mongers and land thieves has and is ready to use, along with lies about its robust biological and chemical weapons programs.

So why would anyone believe anything that nation of liars, war mongers and land thieves, Israel, says about the Holocaust™?

2009-03-27T17:01:00.000-07:00

Israeli Attack On Sudan Killed At Least 39
U.S. Officials Say Israel Struck in Sudan

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and JEFFREY GETTLEMANMarch 27, 2009 "NYT" -- - WASHINGTON — Israeli warplanes bombed a convoy of trucks in Sudan in January that was believed to be carrying arms to be smuggled into Gaza, according to American officials.Israeli officials refused to confirm or deny the attack, but intelligence analysts noted that the strike was consistent with other measures Israel had taken to secure its borders.American officials said the airstrike took place as Israel sought to stop the flow of weapons to Gaza during the weeks it was fighting a war with Hamas there.Two American officials who are privy to classified intelligence assessments said that Iran had been involved in the effort to smuggle weapons to Gaza. They also noted that there had been intelligence reports that an operative with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had gone to Sudan to coordinate the effort.But one former official said that the exact provenance of the arms that were being smuggled via Sudan was unclear.Although the airstrike was carried out two months ago, it was not publicized until Sudanese officials said Thursday that a convoy of trucks in the remote eastern part of Sudan was bombed by what they called “American fighters,” killing dozens. The strikes were first reported on several Internet-based news sites, including cbsnews.com.The area where the Sudanese said the attack occurred, near Port Sudan on the Red Sea, is an isolated patch of eastern Sudan near the Egyptian border and a notorious smuggling route, populated mostly by nomads and known as one of the poorest, least developed parts of a very poor, underdeveloped country.The Sudanese said the reports emerged now because it took time to fully investigate the strike. But an accusation from one government official that the attack was an American act of genocide raised the possibility that the Sudanese were lashing out because the International Criminal Court had issued a warrant for the arrest of their president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, on war-crimes charges in the conflict in Darfur.The official, Rabie A. Atti, a government spokesman, also gave a death toll in the attack that was higher than the 39 reported in other secondhand accounts. Mr. Rabie said by telephone from Khartoum, the capital, that “more than 100 people” had been killed in the air raid. He said the trucks that were bombed were not carrying weapons. “I’ve heard this allegation, but it’s not true,” he said. “It was a genocide, committed by U.S. forces.”When asked how he knew the forces were American, Mr. Rabie said: “We don’t differentiate between the U.S. and Israel. They are all one.”

Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22299.htm to read more

2009-03-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

Israel accused of indiscriminate phosphorus use in Gaza
Human Rights Watch report claims Israel committed war crimes in its use of air-burst white phosphorus artillery shells

Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 March 2009 16.00 GMT

Israel's military fired white phosphorus over crowded areas of Gaza repeatedly and indiscriminately in its three-week war, killing and injuring civilians and committing war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.
In a 71-page report, the rights group said the repeated use of air-burst white phosphorus artillery shells in populated areas of Gaza was not incidental or accidental, but revealed "a pattern or policy of conduct".
It said the Israeli military used white phosphorus in a "deliberate or reckless" way. The report says:
• Israel was aware of the dangers of white phosphorus.
• It chose not to use alternative and less dangerous smoke shells.
• In one case, Israel even ignored repeated warnings from UN staff before hitting the main UN compound in Gaza with white phosphorus shells on 15 January.

"In Gaza, the Israeli military didn't just use white phosphorus in open areas as a screen for its troops," said Fred Abrahams, a senior Human Rights Watch researcher. "It fired white phosphorus repeatedly over densely populated areas, even when its troops weren't in the area and safe smoke shells were available. As a result, civilians needlessly suffered and died." He said senior commanders should be held to account.
Human Rights Watch called on the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, to launch an international commission of inquiry to investigate allegations of violations of international law in the Gaza war by the Israeli military and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that controls Gaza.

Click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/25/israel-white-phosphorus-gaza to read more.

Click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/audio/2009/mar/26/gaza-white-phosphorus-human-rights to hear audio.

AlJazeera report from January 11 2009 on Israel's use of White Phosphorus

2009-03-26T18:39:00.000-07:00

Gaza Tragedy Going Unreported

March 25, 2009Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros, reported from the Gaza Strip during Israel's 23-day offensive that ended via unilateral ceasefires in the middle of January. Here she describes what the territory is like on her return.

A porter gives me my first greeting as I cross to the Gazan side of the Erez border with Israel."You said you'd be back in a couple of weeks, it's been more than a month!"It's nice to know I have been missed. Strangely, it felt like I was coming home.In fact, it's been almost two months since I left Gaza, shortly after the end of Israel's offensive on the territory.Everything looks exactly the same. Everyone looks exactly the same and, worst of all, as I quickly discover, everyone still feels exactly the same - frustrated and isolated.In two months, there has been no reconstruction, the siege has tightened and Israel has kept its crossings with Gaza almost permanently closed.Subtle changesHowever, Israel has made subtle changes in the last few weeks.Fishermen can now fish up to three miles off the coast of Gaza only. It was double that before the war.Many of Gaza's 3,000 fishermen have given up and don't go out to work any more because the water is too crowded.Israel has closed one of the commercial crossings into Gaza for no apparent reason. The other two working crossings for goods have had more restrictions placed on their opening times.Humanitarian aid is still dripping in - about 100 trucks a day - but supplies fall well short of what Gaza needs. And 50,000 people have no clean water. Gaza City experiences electricity cuts of up to 12 hours a day.As disappointed as I was with the lack of reconstruction, it is not surprising - what is surprising is the lack of foreign journalists in Gaza. Again.When I left after the war, there were 400 international journalists covering this "uncovered" story.Complaining they had been locked out, forced to report on Gaza from the periphery. They came, they saw and they left - story over?There is no military operation in Gaza, but there is still a tragedy taking place worth reporting. It's the same story it has been for two years: siege, occupation, violence, the strangulation of a population.They ignored it before the war and they are ignoring it again now. I'm not sure why I am so surprised.Nowhere to goOne thing that is new are the tents ... tents, tents everywhere - every size, every colour and they have one thing in common ... none are withstanding the terrible weather.Over the past few days there have been severe gales and low temperatures and the tents are falling like paper.And in Gaza, when your tent is blown away, there is not much anyone can do for you.Now 100,000 people are homeless and what strikes me as so unfair is that they are not even allowed to be refugees.Not allowed to flee the war zone and start afresh, in a different place as other people caught in other conflicts are permitted.They are living on top or underneath or beside or even inside what is left of their homes.The same homes that hold such painful memories of Israel's 23-day onslaught.That is where they are forced to live in their tents.And those are the luckier ones.

2009-03-26T16:50:00.000-07:00

Radiohead's Like Spinning plates

While you make pretty speeches, I'm being cut to shreds. You feed me to the lions, a delicate balance
When this just feels like spinning plates. I'm living in cloud cuckoo land. And this just feels like spinning plates Our bodies floating down the muddy river

.-Radiohead

2009-03-25T17:59:00.000-07:00

An Army of Extremists
By Christopher Hitchens

March 25, 2009 "Slate" -- Recent reports of atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers in the course of the intervention in Gaza have described the incitement of conscripts and reservists by military rabbis who characterized the battle as a holy war for the expulsion of non-Jews from Jewish land. The secular Israeli academic Dany Zamir, who first brought the testimony of shocked Israeli soldiers to light, has been quoted as if the influence of such extremist clerical teachings was something new. This is not the case.
I remember being in Israel in 1986 when the chief army "chaplain" in the occupied territories, Rabbi Shmuel Derlich, issued his troops a 1,000-word pastoral letter enjoining them to apply the biblical commandment to exterminate the Amalekites as "the enemies of Israel." Nobody has recently encountered any Amalekites, so the chief educational officer of the Israeli Defense Forces asked Rabbi Derlich whether he would care to define his terms and say whom he meant. Rather evasively—if rather alarmingly—the man of God replied, "Germans." There are no Germans in Judaea and Samaria or, indeed, in the Old Testament, so the rabbi's exhortation to slay all Germans as well as quite probably all Palestinians was referred to the Judge Advocate General's Office. Forty military rabbis publicly came to Derlich's support, and the rather spineless conclusion of the JAG was that he had committed no legal offense but should perhaps refrain in the future from making political statements on the army's behalf.
The problem here is precisely that the rabbi was not making a "political" statement. Rather, he was doing his religious duty in reminding his readers what the Torah actually says. It's not at all uncommon in Israel to read discussions, featuring military rabbis, of quite how to interpret the following holy order from Moses, in the Book of Numbers, Chapter 31, Verses 13-18, as quoted from my 1985 translation by the Jewish Publication Society. The Israelites have just done a fairly pitiless job on the Midianites, slaughtering all of the adult males. But, says their stern commander-in-chief, they have still failed him:
Moses, Eleazer the priest, and all the chieftains of the community came out to meet them outside the camp. Moses became angry with the commanders of the army, the officers of thousands and the officers of hundreds, who had come back from the military campaign. Moses said to them, "You have spared every female! Yet they are the very ones who, at the bidding of Balaam, induced the Israelites to trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, so that the Lord's community was struck by the plague. Now, therefore, slay every male among the children, and slay also every young woman who has known a man carnally; but spare every young woman who has not had carnal relations with a man."
Moses and Eleazar the priest go on to issue some complex instructions about the ritual cleansings that must be practiced after this exhausting massacre has been completed.

Click here: http://www.slate.com/id/2214440/to read more

2009-03-25T16:48:00.000-07:00

Incriminating Evidence Of Israeli War Crimes
By Stephen Lendman3-25-9

Throughout its history, Israel has willfully and repeatedly committed crimes of war and against humanity, always with impunity. Yet under customary legal standards and norms (including Geneva, Hague, the UN Charter, S.C. and G.A. resolutions), it's lawless, a serial abuser, a threat to the region and humanity, mostly as an oppressive occupier. Attacking Gaza is the latest episode in its six-decade reign of terror satisfying the definition of genocide against defenseless Palestinian civilians. This article covers more evidence from some disturbing but unsurprising newly published information.

On March 19, in the first of a series of articles, Haaretz headlined: "IDF killed civilians in Gaza under loose rules of engagement." Military correspondent Amos Harel revealed Israeli soldier and pilot ("dirty secret") testimonies of being ordered to kill unarmed civilians and destroy their property - accounts at variance with official claims that only military targets were attacked and that "Israeli troops observed a high level of moral behavior during the operation." Defense Minister Ehud Barak calls the IDF "the most moral army in the world."

"Moral" examples included an infantry squad leader recounting the shooting of a mother and her two children: "There was a house with a family inside....We put them in a room. Later we left the house and another platoon entered it, and a few days after that there was an order to release the family....The platoon commander let the family go and told them to go to the right. One mother and her two children didn't understand and went to the left," after which a rooftop sniper "shot them straight away....I don't think he felt too bad about it, because after all, as far as he was concerned, he (followed orders, and, besides, Palestinian lives are) less important" than our own soldiers.

Other incidents included:

-- a squad leader telling of a company commander ordering an elderly Palestinian woman to be shot and killed;

-- soldiers saying "we should kill everyone (in the center of Gaza); everyone there is a terrorist;"

-- soldiers writing "death to the Arabs on walls" and spitting on family pictures;

-- a squad leader saying: "At the beginning, the directive was to enter a house with an armored vehicle, break the door down, (and) start shooting inside - I call it murder - to shoot at everyone we identify;" commanders called it OK "because everyone left in the city is culpable because they didn't run away;"

-- soldiers ordered to indiscriminately destroy property and farmland;

-- orders given to enter a house, "switch on loudspeakers and tell (occupants) you have five minutes to run away and whoever doesn't will be killed;"

Click here: http://www.rense.com/general85/incrim.htm to read more.

2009-03-24T17:28:00.000-07:00

Will Israel Be Brought To Book?
The evidence of war crimes in Gaza is a challenge to universal justice: will western-backed perpetrators ever stand trial?
By Seumas Milne

March 23, 2009 "The Guardian" -- - Evidence of the scale of Israel's war crimes in its January onslaught on Gaza is becoming unanswerable. Clancy Chassay's three films investigating allegations against Israeli forces in the Gaza strip, released by the Guardian today, include important new accounts of the flagrant breaches of the laws of war that marked the three-week campaign – now estimated to have left at least 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 13 Israelis dead.
The films provide compelling testimony of Israel's use of Palestinian teenagers as human shields; the targeting of hospitals, clinics and medical workers, including with phosphorus bombs; and attacks on civilians, including women and children – sometimes waving white flags – from hunter-killer drones whose targeting systems are so powerful they can identify the colour of a person's clothes.
Naturally, the Israeli occupation forces' spokesperson insists to Chassay that they make every effort to avoid killing civilians and denies using human shields or targeting medical workers – while at the same time explaining that medics in war zones "take the risk upon themselves". By banning journalists from entering Gaza during its punitive devastation of the strip, the Israeli government avoided independent investigations of the stream of war crimes accusations while the attack was going on.
But now journalists and human rights organisations are back inside, doing the painstaking work, the question is whether Israel's government and military commanders will be held to account for what they unleashed on the Palestinians of Gaza – or whether, like their US and British sponsors in Iraq and Afghanistan, they can carry out war crimes with impunity.
It's not as if Clancy's reports are unique or uncorroborated by other evidence. Last week, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that a group of Israelis soldiers had admitted intentionally shooting dead an unarmed Palestinian mother and her two children, as well as an elderly Palestinian woman, in Gaza in January. As one explained: "The lives of Palestinians, let's say, is something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers. So as far as they are concerned they can justify it that way".

Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22285.htm to read more.

2009-03-24T17:06:00.000-07:00

Israel’s War Crimes

Israel blamed its earlier wars on the threat to its security, even that against Lebanon in 1982. However, its assault on Gaza was not justified and there are international calls for an investigation. But is there the political will to make Israel account for its war crimes?
By Richard Falk

March 21, 2009 "Le Monde diplomatique" -- -For the first time since the establishment of Israel in 1948 the government is facing serious allegations of war crimes from respected public figures throughout the world. Even the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, normally so cautious about offending sovereign states – especially those aligned with its most influential member, the United States – has joined the call for an investigation and potential accountability. To grasp the significance of these developments it is necessary to explain what made the 22 days of attacks in Gaza stand shockingly apart from the many prior recourses to force by Israel to uphold its security and strategic interests.In my view, what made the Gaza attacks launched on 27 December different from the main wars fought by Israel over the years was that the weapons and tactics used devastated an essentially defenceless civilian population. The one-sidedness of the encounter was so stark, as signalled by the relative casualties on both sides (more than 100 to 1; 1300-plus Palestinians killed compared with 13 Israelis, and several of these by friendly fire), that most commentators refrained from attaching the label “war”.The Israelis and their friends talk of “retaliation” and “the right of Israel to defend itself”. Critics described the attacks as a “massacre” or relied on the language of war crimes and crimes against humanity. In the past Israeli uses of force were often widely condemned, especially by Arab governments, including charges that the UN Charter was being violated, but there was an implicit acknowledgement that Israel was using force in a war mode. War crimes charges (to the extent they were made) came only from radical governments and the extreme left.The early Israeli wars were fought against Arab neighbours which were quite literally challenging Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign state. The outbreaks of force were of an inter-governmental nature; and even when Israel exhibited its military superiority in the June 1967 six day war, it was treated within the framework of normal world politics, and though it may have been unlawful, it was not criminal.But from the 1982 Lebanon war this started to change. The main target then was the presence of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in southern Lebanon. But the war is now mainly remembered for its ending, with the slaughter of hundreds of unarmed Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Although this atrocity was the work of a Lebanese Christian militia, Israeli acquiescence, control and complicity were clearly part of the picture. Still, this was an incident which, though alarming, was not the whole of the military operation, which Israel justified as necessary due to the Lebanese government’s inability to prevent its territory from being used to threaten Israeli security.

Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22264.htm to read more.

2009-03-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

Cut to pieces: the Palestinian family drinking tea in their courtyard Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles – the dreaded drones – caused at least 48 deaths in Gaza during the 23-day offensive
Clancy Chassay

Mounir al-Jarah slowly takes down the bricks he used to wall up the entrance to his sister's courtyard. Inside, flesh still clings to the walls; blood-soaked furniture and family items lie broken and mangled.
Mounir's eyes search around the old house as he recounts the events of 16 January, when a rocket fired from an unmanned aerial vehicle killed his sister, her husband and four of her children.
Sitting around drinking tea with the family in their small courtyard, Mounir heard the loud buzzing of an Israeli drone, clearly visible in the sky above.
He went inside for a moment and, as he returned, he saw a ball of light hurtling down toward him. There was a loud explosion and he was thrown backward. He gathered himself and stumbled out into the courtyard, where he saw the scene he says will never leave him.
"We found Mohammed lying there, cut in half. Ahmed was in three pieces; Wahid was totally burnt – his eyes were gone. Wahid's father was dead. Nour had been decapitated. We couldn't see her head anywhere."
All six members of the family had been blown to pieces, coating each wall of the narrow enclosure with blood and body matter.
"You cannot imagine the scene: a family all sitting around together and then, in a matter of seconds, they were cut to pieces. Even the next day we found limbs and body parts on the roof, feet and hands," Mounir says.

Civilian casualties from Israeli drones Link to this video

Click here: http://uruknet.info/?p=m52863&hd=&size=1&l=e to read more.

2009-03-24T16:22:00.000-07:00

UK Baroness: "The constant accusation of Anti-Semitism to silence Israels critics is vindictive"

2009-03-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

'1000% rise in attacks on Palestinians'

A research by an Arab human rights group shows a ten-fold increase in Jewish attacks on the Arab population in Israel over the last year.

On Saturday, the Mossawa Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens reported the 1000 percent rise in 2008 crime rates compared with 2007, citing the recent Israeli war on Gaza and the Israeli elections in February as a reason, said Israeli website Ynetnews. The report said that the Israeli-occupied western Jerusalem (Al-Quds) in the West Bank witnessed the highest rate of racist crimes with 32 counts of anti-Arab violence. Akka [Akko] in northern Israel came second with 22 instances of such crimes. It also noted that 42 Arab citizens had been killed since 2000 at the hands of the Israeli security forces. "What we are witnessing is a moral collapse, and it's time to shout out against racism," said Jafar Farah, the head of the group adding that "the data is especially worrying in regards to civilian violence."
Mossawa decries Tel Aviv's decimation of the Palestinian population, embodied by December 27-January 18 military operations in the Gaza Strip which claimed more than 1,300 Palestinians. The body also regrets Israel's "constant political de-legitimization and marginalization of Arab citizens." The group holds senior Israeli officials such as Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the founder and spiritual leader of Shas party, and Avigdor Lieberman, the chairman of the far-right Yisrael Beitenu, responsible for spreading anti-Arab sentiment. Yosef is known for making controversial remarks such as referring to Arabs as 'snakes'. "The Arabs are like snakes, and you should destroy the head of a snake," the Rabbi, himself of Arab descent, is famed to have said. Lieberman also insists that Arabs residing in the occupied territories should prove their loyalty to Tel Aviv. Mossawa contends that "Lieberman's threats and incitement against Arabs ... are paving the way for a racist Israeli society." Blaming such controversial stances for the surge in racist crimes, Mossawa's director said the Saturday report "definitely" proves that an "extremist message" by an Israeli parliamentarian "permeates and leads to the involvement of more and more citizens." "These attacks are not the hand of fate, but a direct result of incitement against the Arab citizens of this country by religious, public, and elected officials," the report concluded.

2009-03-24T16:08:00.000-07:00

Racist and sexist Israeli military shirts show the mindset that led to war crimes in Gaza

Ha'aretz is continuing to divulge soldier testimonies from Gaza. You can find the fullest report yet here. The messianic fervor that fueled the Israeli policy of collective punishment is laid bare.I'm not going to comment on it yet, just go read it.
There is another report in today's Ha'aretz that I do want to comment on. Uri Blau's article "'No virgins, no terror attacks'" describes the practice of Israeli soldiers getting custom clothing printed with their unit's insignia along with graphics and text. Below are some examples of shirts that were printed, along with some of the images. These images only appeared on Ha'aretz's Hebrew-language website:
A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription "Better use Durex," next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him.
A sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills."
After Operation Cast Lead, soldiers from that battalion printed a T-shirt depicting a vulture sexually penetrating Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh
A "graduation" shirt for those who have completed another snipers course depicts a Palestinian baby, who grows into a combative boy and then an armed adult, with the inscription, "No matter how it begins, we'll put an end to it."
There are also plenty of shirts with blatant sexual messages. For example, the Lavi battalion produced a shirt featuring a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan, "Bet you got raped!"
A few of the images underscore actions whose existence the army officially denies - such as "confirming the kill" (shooting a bullet into an enemy victim's head from close range, to ensure he is dead), or harming religious sites, or female or child non-combatants.
"Let every Arab mother know that her son's fate is in my hands!" had previously been banned for use on another infantry unit's shirt. A Givati soldier said this week, however, that at the end of last year, his platoon printed up dozens of shirts, fleece jackets and pants bearing this slogan.
"It has a drawing depicting a soldier as the Angel of Death, next to a gun and an Arab town," he explains. "The text was very powerful. The funniest part was that when our soldier came to get the shirts, the man who printed them was an Arab, and the soldier felt so bad that he told the girl at the counter to bring them to him."

Click here: http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/racist-and-sexist-military-shirts-show-the-fruits-of-israeli-militarism.html to read more.

2009-03-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

Israeli minister calls for new Gaza invasion
Deputy defence minister Matan
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Monday 23 March 2009 10.09 GMT

Israel's deputy defence minister has called for a new invasion of Gaza and the capture of land close to the border, despite growing domestic and international concern about the conduct of the previous war.
"We need to conquer the areas from which mortar shells are being fired," Matan Vilnai told an Israeli conference on the Gaza war last night. "The mortar shell is the main threat," he said. Most were launched from within four miles (6km) of the border. "We just need to be there," he said.
His comments reflected a wider Israeli frustration with the results of the devastating three-week war. Israeli forces destroyed thousands of homes and buildings and killed more than 1,400 Palestinians but failed to achieve their main goal: to halt the rockets and mortars which are still being fired into southern Israel.
Binyamin Netanyahu, who is expected to become the prime minister of a new, rightwing Israeli government within days, has decided that "toppling the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip" will be a strategic goal of his government.
The latest criticism of Israeli military conduct in Gaza comes in the wake of fresh testimony last week from Israeli soldiers who gave accounts of how Palestinian civilians were killed and their homes ransacked. Themilitary said it would investigate the claims.
This week Richard Falk, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, is due to report to the UN human rights council. An advance copy of his report is highly critical of the war, saying Israel's "recourse to force was not legally justified given the circumstances and diplomatic alternatives available, and was potentially, a crime against peace". He calls for an expert inquiry into war crimes allegations against Israel.

2009-03-17T18:01:00.000-07:00

Rachel Corrie

Introduction
March 16, 2009 marked the sixth anniversary of the killing of the American peace activist Rachel Corrie. She was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in Rafah on March 16, 2003, a few days before the United States attacked Iraq. The twenty-three-year-old student from Olympia, Washington went to Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement. She was crushed to death by a US Caterpillar bulldozer that was run by the Israeli military. She had been trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home near the border with Egypt when she was killed. Eyewitnesses say she was wearing a fluorescent orange vest and in full view of the bulldozer’s driver.
(In a remarkable series of emails to her family, she explained why she was risking her life.)
February 7 2003
Hi friends and family, and others,
I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. It is most difficult for me to think about what's going on here when I sit down to write back to the United States. Something about the virtual portal into luxury. I don't know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I'm not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand that life is not like this everywhere. An eight-year-old was shot and killed by an Israeli tank two days before I got here, and many of the children murmur his name to me - Ali - or point at the posters of him on the walls. The children also love to get me to practice my limited Arabic by asking me, "Kaif Sharon?" "Kaif Bush?" and they laugh when I say, "Bush Majnoon", "Sharon Majnoon" back in my limited arabic. (How is Sharon? How is Bush? Bush is crazy. Sharon is crazy.) Of course this isn't quite what I believe, and some of the adults who have the English correct me: "Bush mish Majnoon" ... Bush is a businessman. Today I tried to learn to say, "Bush is a tool", but I don't think it translated quite right. But anyway, there are eight-year-olds here much more aware of the workings of the global power structure than I was just a few years ago.
Nevertheless, no amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just can't imagine it unless you see it - and even then you are always well aware that your experience of it is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli army would face if they shot an unarmed US citizen, and with the fact that I have money to buy water when the army destroys wells, and the fact, of course, that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family has been shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major street in my hometown. I have a home. I am allowed to go see the ocean. When I leave for school or work I can be relatively certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting halfway between Mud Bay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint with the power to decide whether I can go about my business, and whether I can get home again when I'm done. As an afterthought to all this rambling, I am in Rafah: a city of about 140,000 people, approximately 60% of whom are refugees - many of whom are twice or three times refugees. Today, as I walked on top of the rubble where homes once stood, Egyptian soldiers called to me from the other side of the border, "Go! Go!" because a tank was coming. And then waving and "What's your name?". Something disturbing about this friendly curiosity. It reminded me of how much, to some degree, we are all kids curious about other kids. Egyptian kids shouting at strange women wandering into the path of tanks. Palestinian kids shot from the tanks when they peak out from behind walls to see what's going on. International kids standing in front of tanks with banners. Israeli kids in the tanks anonymously - occasionally shouting and also occasionally waving - many forced to be here, many just agressive - shooting into the houses as we wander away.

Click here: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14919 to read more.

2009-03-17T17:55:00.000-07:00

Durban II: no-show is slap in face of victims of apartheid
Arjan El Fassed, The Electronic Intifada, 17 March 2009

More and more Western countries are either announcing their boycott or are threatening to boycott Durban II, a United Nations conference scheduled for April to review progress made since the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) held in Durban, South Africa in 2001, nicknamed Durban I. Earlier this month, Italy became the first EU member to withdraw from the event, stating that it could not endorse a draft agenda that criticizes Israel. Italy followed in the footsteps of Israel, Canada and the United States. France and the Netherlands are threatening their own boycotts. Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch foreign minister, recently explained that "The Netherlands will not be party to a propaganda circus." In December 2008, Verhagen claimed that the 2001 summit was an "anti-Semitic witch-hunt."Perhaps in September 2001, the world was not yet ready to accept the notion that Israel is in fact practicing apartheid. But ever more observers are coming to precisely that conclusion. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman warned four years ago that "if Israel does not relinquish the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians will soon outnumber the Jews and Israel will become either an apartheid state or a non-Jewish state."Four years later, Friedman wrote, "Well, having taken a little drive through part of the West Bank, as I always do when I visit, it strikes me more than ever that it's not only five after midnight, it's five after midnight and a whole week later."The Israeli organization Peace Now stated early in March that Israel's housing ministry has plans that would nearly double the number of settlers in the West Bank, rendering a two-state solution impossible. Israel has planned 73,000 new housing units in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli group stated, of which 15,000 have already received approval. Moreover, Israel's prime minister designate Benjamin Netanyahu announced that a government he leads will expand settlements.

Click here: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10396.shtml to read more.

2009-03-17T16:36:00.000-07:00

Israelis 'firing live rounds' at West Bank protesters

Israeli armed forces and border police used the cover of the war against Hamas in Gaza to reintroduce the firing of .22 rifle bullets - as well as the extensive use of a new model of tear-gas canister - against unarmed demonstrators in the Occupied West Bank protesting at the building of Israel's "separation wall".
The tactics were highlighted on Friday, when a US protester, Tristan Anderson, 38, was hit in the head by one of the new extended-range gas canisters in the village of Ni'ilin, suffering an open wound in his skull and substantial brain damage. Anderson's friend, Gabrielle Silverman, claims he was struck by a canister fired from a high-velocity rifle. The Israeli military says stone-throwing "poses a threat to troops", and several officers have been injured by rocks.
It said troops used the permitted means of riot dispersal in Friday's incident, including tear gas, rubber-coated steel pellets and stun grenades.
The extended-range canisters have been brought into service at the same time that the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and border police have again been using live rounds fired from Ruger sniper rifles, banned in 2001 by Israel's then military advocate general, Menahem Finkelstein.
The new gas canister that injured Anderson - the fourth member of the International Solidarity Movement to be killed or seriously injured by Israeli troops since the beginning of the Second Intifada - is fired at a much higher speed than the gas canisters and grenades deployed before.

Click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/15/israel-hamas-gaza-weapons to read more.

2009-03-17T16:33:00.000-07:00

Israel's new defence minister accused of war crime
Uzi Mahnaimi

A HAWKISH general, who cancelled a trip to London four years ago because he feared being arrested on war crime charges, is expected to become Israel’s new defence minister.
Moshe “Boogie” Ya’alon, 58, former chief of staff of the Israel Defence Forces, is reported to have accepted an invitation from Binyamin Netanyahu, the incoming prime minister, to serve in the new government.
Renowned as a tough-minded commander, Ya’alon’s legal problems stem from a decision in July 2002 to assassinate Salah Shehadeh, the commander of the military wing of Hamas, the hardline Islamic organisation that now controls Gaza.
Shehadeh, 49, who was blamed for scores of deaths and who masterminded the production of Qassam rockets that were fired into Israel, was killed by a 2,200lb bomb dropped on a building in Gaza City, where he and his family were hiding.
Fourteen other people also died, including his wife and nine children.
Ya’alon was accused by Palestinian groups of helping to plan the raid. In September 2005, in the wake of reports that warrants were being sought for his arrest, he was forced to call off a visit to Britain, where he was planning to attend a fundraising event for an Israeli soldiers’ welfare association.

Click to here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5908235.ece read more.

2009-03-17T16:28:00.000-07:00

Desmond Tutu demands Gaza war crimes inquiry
By Dina Kraft

Leading human rights figures including Archbishop Desmund Tutu have called for the United Nations to launch a war crimes inquiry into the conduct of both Israel and Hamas in the recent fighting in Gaza

The letter, supported by Amnesty International, called for "a prompt, independent and impartial investigation".
It said: "We have seen at first hand the importance of investigating the truth and delivering justice for the victims of conflict and believe it is a precondition to move forward and achieve peace in the Middle East."
It is signed by 16 judges and investigators into human rights crimes committed in conflicts around the world including the former Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Darfur and Rwanda.
Since a three-week massive Israeli assault against Hamas militants in Gaza ended in mid-January there have been questions about the nature of the fighting that occurred on the ground.

Click here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4998082/Desmond-Tutu-demands-Gaza-war-crimes-inquiry.html to read more.

2009-03-13T18:40:00.000-07:00

Focus on Gaza
The Blockade
Al Jazeera Video

2009-03-13T18:34:00.000-07:00

CIA Report: Israel Will Fall In 20 Years (INSALLAH)

March 13, 2009 "Press TV" -- A study conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has cast doubt over Israel's survival beyond the next 20 years.The CIA report predicts "an inexorable movement away from a two-state to a one-state solution, as the most viable model based on democratic principles of full equality that sheds the looming specter of colonial Apartheid while allowing for the return of the 1947/1948 and 1967 refugees. The latter being the precondition for sustainable peace in the region."The study, which has been made available only to a certain number of individuals, further forecasts the return of all Palestinian refugees to the occupied territories, and the exodus of two million Israeli - who would move to the US in the next fifteen years."There is over 500,000 Israelis with American passports and more than 300,000 living in the area of just California," International lawyer Franklin Lamb said in an interview with Press TV on Friday, adding that those who do not have American or western passport, have already applied for them."So I think the handwriting at least among the public in Israel is on the wall...[which] suggests history will reject the colonial enterprise sooner or later," Lamb stressed.He said CIA, in its report, alludes to the unexpectedly quick fall of the apartheid government in South Africa and recalls the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, suggesting the end to the dream of an 'Israeli land' would happen 'way sooner' than later.The study further predicts the return of over one and a half million Israelis to Russia and other parts of Europe, and denotes a decline in Israeli births whereas a rise in the Palestinian population.Lamb said given the Israeli conduct toward the Palestinians and the Gaza strip in particular, the American public -- which has been voicing its protest against Tel Aviv's measures in the last 25 years -- may 'not take it anymore'.Some members of the US Senate Intelligence Committee have been informed of the report.

From: http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=88491&sectionid=351020202
See also: Fearing a One-State Solution, Israel’s President Serves Pabulum to Washington

2009-03-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

Butchery in Gaza
This album contains images which have been kindly provided to me by Dr. Mouneer Deeb, who entered Gaza together with some other surgeons from Europe during the last Israeli butchery, "Operation Cast Lead", in January 2009, to help the local doctors. The pictures are part of what he lived through during those weeks. The pictures were taken during a short stopover at Al-Quds hospital in the Tel Al-Hawa neighbourhood in the south of the Gaza Strip in January 2009.Thousands and thousand of people are in conditions similar to these pictures, and almost all help is being withheld from them until now. Seeing these horrible pictures left me asking if it was not enough to kill these poor people. Did they have to disfigure them, to subject them and their families to this horror, this misery? What do these pictures tell us about the state of mind of the israelis, who are now going around presenting themselves as victims?Dr. Deeb is a native from Gaza who lives and works in Germany. The Israelis murdered 12 of the 17 members of his family. Two of the survivors are currently in critical condition, one female was transferred to Turkey to receive medical attention.

Click here:http://www.kawther.info/ga2/v/Maslakh/ to see pictures.

2009-03-10T18:12:00.000-07:00

“Two States”
Sanctimonious Hypocrisy
By Uri Avnery

Binyamin Netanyahu has a similar vision, but differently worded: the Arabs will “govern themselves”. They will govern their towns and villages, but not the territory, neither the West Bank nor the Gaza Strip. They will have no army, of course, and no control of the airspace over their heads, neither will they have any physical contact with neighboring countries. Menachem Begin used to call this “autonomy”.But there will be “economic peace”. The Palestinian economy will “flourish”. Even Hillary Clinton ridiculed this idea publicly before meeting with Netanyahu.Tzipi Livni wants “Two Nation-States”. Yes’ Ma’m. When? Well… First of all there have to be negotiations, unlimited in time. They did not come to fruition during the years she has been conducting them, nor have they got anywhere at all. Ehud Olmert speaks about the “Political Process” – why did he not bring it to a successful conclusion during the years of his stewardship? How long must the “Process” go on? Five years? Fifty? Five hundred?So Hillary speaks about “Two States”. Speaks with great vigor. Is ready to speak about it with any Israeli government that will be set up, even if inspired by the ideas of Meir Kahane. The main thing is that they talk with Mahmoud Abbas, and that Abbas in the meantime receives money, a lot of money.

Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22175.htm to read more.

2009-03-10T18:05:00.000-07:00

Gaza Or Bust
By Yvonne Ridley

March 09, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- The last 24 hours have probably been the blackest since the Viva Palestina convoy set off from London.Yesterday the convoy members became the target of an orchestrated wave of violence first started by Egyptian police and then culminating in vicious attacks by unknown thugs.The end result was a number of peace activists whose only aim is to take humanitarian aid into war torn Gaza were treated in hospital for head injuries.Mercifully the string of casualties was not too serious but the experience denied us the chance of fulfilling our mission to deliver aid to Gaza yesterday.And dramatic images of the rioting and attacks could not be relayed to Press TV viewers because someone sabotaged the satellite van by deliberately cutting through a vital cable which would have beamed the shameful attacks across the world.However, every cloud has a silver lining and I would like to take this opportunity of personally thanking the Egyptian authorities and those dark forces who tried to derail Viva Palestina.The event has only served to make us stronger, unite and bond us together more and created a wave of international media interest in Viva Palestina.I think it would be fair to say that when you bring a diverse group of 300 plus people together on a gruelling mission to cover 5,000 miles driving across North Africa the result can result in a less than harmonious state of affairs.To be frank, there was friction and infighting and some of us generally got on each other's nerves as you would when you are confined to close quarters with challenging living, sleeping and eating conditions.

Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22179.htmto read more.

2009-03-10T18:02:00.000-07:00

Viva Palestina!
British AID Convoy Arrives In Gaza
George Galloway's Speaks To The People Gaza
Video - March 09, 2009

2009-03-05T23:35:00.000-08:00

Human Rights In Israel & Occupied Palestine
By Stephen Lendman3-5-9
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) publishes annual reports on "The State of Human Rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories." This article reviews its December 2008 one as human rights activists commemorated the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on December 10.

ACRI is Israel's leading human and civil rights organization and the only one addressing all liberty and rights issues. It was founded in 1972, is independent and nonpartisan, believes human and civil rights are universal, and leads the struggle for these issues in Israel and Occupied Palestine (OPT) through litigation, legal advocacy, education, and public outreach.

Ten years ago on UDHR's 50th anniversary, ACRI assessed the status of human rights in Israel and discovered some troubling phenomena and trends:

-- inequality,

-- social gaps,
-- human rights violations in the OPT,

-- eroding social rights,

-- increasing privatization of social services, and more.

Even so, ACRI noted that "The State of Israel has impressive achievements in the field of human rights." A decade later, ACRI concludes that troubling 1997 trends are now worse. Human rights aren't in a constitution. Israel has none. Only some are in the Basic Laws, and those apply only for Jews. Israeli Arab citizens have no rights whatever.

"The State of Israel has increasingly shirked its responsibility to ensure its citizens the most fundamental rights:"

-- to health,

-- education,

-- housing, and

-- to live in dignity.

Quite the opposite:

-- inequality is growing,

-- socioeconomic gaps are widening,

-- free expression and privacy are threatened,

-- racist trends are more common,

-- so are ones that limit basic freedoms and endanger human and civil rights; legislation for them has been tabled in the Knesset,

-- judicial equity is eroding,

-- so is democracy,

-- civil society organizations and activists are threatened,

-- institutionalized discrimination exists,

-- Arab Israelis are disadvantaged, persecuted, endangered, and live under third-world conditions, especially in "unrecognized villages" in the Negev and Galilee;

-- the gap between Arabs and Jews has widened, and

-- all of the above is in Israel.

In Occupied Palestine, conditions are far worse and oppressive. "For forty-one years, Israel has denied fundamental rights to four million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza," effectively controlling their lives, and repressively denying them their rights under military occupation:

-- to life,

-- liberty,

-- personal security,

-- free movement and expression,

-- to earn a living,
-- to health,
-- education,
-- to basic dignity, and much more.

ACRI compiled its data from numerous and varied sources:

-- non-governmental organizations,

-- newspapers,

-- Knesset deliberations and documents, and

-- Israeli published material and court proceedings.

Its report covers equality, civil, and social rights.

The Right to Equality

Click here: http://www.rense.com/general85/hmn.htm to read more.

2009-02-25T21:55:00.000-08:00

Targeting Israel With Boycotts, Divestment, Sanctions, And Prosecutions
By Stephen Lendman 2-25-9

Enough is enough. After 61 years of Palestinian slaughter, displacement, occupation, oppression, and international dismissiveness and complicity, global action is essential. Israel must be held accountable. World leaders won't do it, so grassroots movements must lead the way.

In 2004, Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote:

"The end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning accomplishments of the past century, but we would not have succeeded without the help of international pressure - in particular the divestment movement of the 1980s. Over the past six months, a similar movement has taken shape, this time aiming at an end to the Israeli occupation."

In July 2008, 21 South African activists, including ANC members, visited Israel and Occupied Palestine. Their conclusion was unanimous. Israel is far worse than apartheid as former Deputy Minister of Health and current MP Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge explained:

"What I see here is worse than what we experienced - the absolute control of people's lives, the lack of freedom of movement, the army presence everywhere, the total separation and the extensive destruction we saw....racist ideology is also reinforced by religion, which was not the case in South Africa."

Sunday Times editor, Mondli Makhanya, went further: "When you observe from afar you know that things are bad, but you do not know how bad. Nothing can prepare you for the evil we have seen here. It is worse, worse, worse than everything we endured. The level of apartheid, the racism and the brutality are worse than the worst period of apartheid."

Activist Opposition to a Fundamentally Evil Occupation

In July 2005, a coalition of 171 Palestinian Civil Society organizations created the global BDS movement - for "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights" for Occupied Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinian diaspora refugees.

Since 1948, hundreds of UN resolutions condemned Israel's colonial occupation, its decades of discriminatory policies, illegal land seizures and settlements, international law violations, and oppression of a civilian population, and called for remedial action.

Nothing so far has worked. Palestine remains occupied. Its people continue to suffer. Their human rights are denied. These abuses no longer can be tolerated. In solidarity, people of conscience demand justice and "call upon international civil society organizations and (supporters everywhere) to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to (apartheid) South Africa." Pressure is needed for "embargoes and sanctions....for the sake of justice and genuine peace."

Nonviolent punitive measures should continue until Israel:

-- recognizes Palestinian rights to self-determination;

-- respects international law;

-- ends its illegal occupation;

-- dismantles its Separation Wall;

-- grants Israeli Arabs equal rights as Jews; and

-- complies with UN resolution 194 affirming the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and property or be fully compensated for loss or damage if they prefer.

Click here: http://www.rense.com/general85/targg.htm to read more.

2009-02-25T21:43:00.000-08:00

Israel lobbies for war on Iran
Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:42:10 GMT

Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak urges Washington to consider "other alternatives" vis-a-vis Iran's nuclear issue.Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak says he advocates a war on Iran, following the country's successful test-runs at the Bushehr power plant.

Tehran edged closer towards the final launch of a light-water reactor in the southern port of Bushehr on Wednesday, after it staged pre-commission operations at the 1000-megawatt reactor. Simulated fuel rods made of lead were reportedly used instead of virtual nuclear fuel in the pilot operation, which was launched in the presence of Iranian and Russian dignitaries -- including Russian nuclear agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko. While the incident was hailed in Iran as a huge leap in the construction of the country's first power reactor, the test-run immediately raised hackles in Israel. In a direct reference to a possible military option, Barak urged Washington to consider "alternatives other than tougher sanctions" as a means to prevent a breakthrough in Iran's uranium enrichment. "We believe the continuation of the Iranian atomic project is a potential danger for the existence of the state of Israel. Our position is clear. Sanctions are necessary but Israel does not rule out any option and suggests other countries do the same," Barak said Wednesday, AFP reported.

Tel Aviv continues to accuse Tehran of making preparations for a nuclear weapons program, calling on the Islamic Republic to halt its uranium enrichment program. Iran, however, says its enrichment program is a peaceful drive to produce nuclear energy. The UN nuclear watchdog recently affirmed that the Islamic Republic is far from "a breakout capacity" to produce a bomb, "we think they (Iranians) are not there," said an IAEA official.

From: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=86784&sectionid=351020104

2009-02-23T22:10:00.000-08:00

Amnesty urges UN to ban arms to Israel and Hamas - 23 Feb 09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JtcvoOwnfE&feature=channel_page

2009-02-23T22:03:00.000-08:00

Gaza and Antonio Caso – A Poem
By Andrea Allamb
(Antonio Caso was a Mexican philosopher who died in 1946, and was a friend of the poet Octavio Paz.)

Antonio Caso warned us of this, in the language of the beautiful other –la existencia como economía, implies the use of people as means,entirely for self interests and gain. In this case are States, under flags of artificial stars,maximum gain with minimum effort, and the States whose mantra is thisare Primitive, so Caso himself explained it.

From his ethereal terraces of beautiful carehe wept at the people’s Catastrophe.Over the horror of Gaza he drapes his monsoon of grief.The Primitive becoming the Barbaric becoming the Ugly, who construct terraces of cement sorrow, fill tea urnswith human feces, destroy the beautiful olive tree.
As faltering wings Caso’s grief shelters the father who crawlsto shield his dead child’s face from the teeth of a hungry cat, while the soldiers of Ugliness take aim as he outwardly stretches twice the full length of his struggling body to protect his slain son’s beauty.It is the barbarian’s game of human cat and mouse.

Seek not beauty in the human face, for it is a light within the heart,whispers the Lebanese poet, and may his words give comfort to Gaza.Heart speaks to heart, deep cries to deep, beauty whispers beauty, truth declares truth,uniting and igniting living languages in lanterned hearts thatbirth the secret language of freedom, shared only by those who struggleto create la existencia como caridad. This thought Antonio also gifted to us, in the language of the beautiful other.
From: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14853

2009-02-23T21:49:00.000-08:00

'Ramallah helped Israel hit Hamas, Gaza'
Hamas accuses the Palestinian Authority of providing Tel Aviv with a map of the locations targeted by the Israeli army during the Gaza War.

"With the help of Google Earth program, those groups prepared maps to local mosques, institutions, tunnels or workshops," said Abu Abdallah, a senior Hamas intelligence officer. The intelligence allegedly included the location of weapon caches, mosques, and tunnels at the Rafah border. The movement also said Ramallah provided Israel with the blueprints of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah's home, according to AFP. "This information was sent to Ramallah then transmitted to the enemy which hit targets on the basis of this information collected before and during the war," said Ihab al-Ghossein, a spokesman for Hamas' Interior Ministry. "Officers and members of the Ramallah security services in (the West Bank city of) Ramallah tasked their agents with tracking the movements of the resistance in Gaza," Ghossein, said. Israeli warplanes struck hundreds of targets including, mosques, residential homes, schools, hospitals as well as UN compounds and government buildings across the Gaza Strip during its offensive against the populated region. The all-out war which lasted for 23 days claimed over 1,350 Palestinian lives, including more than 400 children

Article from: http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=86546&sectionid=351020202

2009-02-23T21:39:00.000-08:00

Lobby Whistles Up Cordesman to "Prove" Israel Waged a Clean War in Gaza
The Cleanser

By Norman Finkelstein

February 23, 2009 "Counterpunch" -- -Anthony H. Cordesman, a leading military analyst from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has published a “strategic analysis” of the Gaza massacre.(1) He reaches the remarkable conclusion that “Israel did not violate the laws of war.” The report is based on “briefings in Israeli [sic] during and immediately after the fighting made possible by a visit sponsored by Project Interchange, and using day-to-day reporting issued by the Israeli Defense Spokesman.” Cordesman omits mention that Project Interchange is funded by the American Jewish Committee.
Cordesman’s faith in the pronouncements of Israeli notwithstanding, respected Israeli analysts exhibit less confidence. “The state authorities, including the defense establishment and its branches,” Uzi Benziman observed in Haaretz, “have acquired for themselves a shady reputation when it comes to their credibility.” The “official communiqués published by the IDF have progressively liberated themselves from the constraints of truth,” B. Michael wrote in Yediot Ahronot, and the “heart of the power structure”—police, army, intelligence—has been infected by a “culture of lying.”(2) During the Gaza massacre Israel was repeatedly caught lying among many other things about its use of white phosphorus.(3) Recalling Israel’s train of lies during both the 2006 Lebanon war and the Gaza massacre, Human Rights Watch senior military analyst Marc Garlasco rhetorically asked, “How can anyone trust the Israeli military?”(4)
A chunk of Cordesman’s “strategic analysis” consists of recycling verbatim the daily press releases of the Israeli air force and army spokesmen, which he then dubs “chronologies” of the war. He asserts that these statements provide “considerable insight” and “important insights” into what happened. Some of these statements provide so much insight that he reproduces them multiple times. For example he reiterates over and over again versions of each of these statements: “The IDF will continue operating against terror operatives and anyone involved, including those sponsoring and hosting terrorists, in addition to those that send innocent women and children to be used as human shields”; “The IDF will not hesitate to strike those involved both directly and indirectly in attacks against the citizens of the State of Israel”; “The IDF will continue to operate against Hamas terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip according to plans in order to reduce the rocket fire on the south of Israel”; “IDF Infantry Corps, Armored Corps, Engineering Corps, Artillery Corps and Intelligence Corps forces continued to operate during the night against Hamas terrorist infrastructure throughout the Gaza Strip.”

Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22082.htm to read more.

2009-02-23T21:29:00.000-08:00

EU-Israel Collusion Against Palestinians?
Feb 22nd, 2009 by kawther.salam

Some days ago I was able to speak with Dr. Tammam Kelani, the President of Arab-Austrian Federation of Doctors and Pharmacists, who had just returned from Germany after participating in a Congress of the Federation of Arab Doctors in Europe. I was thinking to speak with him about the humanitarian conclusions from that congress, in which the participants declared the 28 March 2009 as a day of solidarity with the children of Gaza in all of Europe, and to write about the activities of his association in support of the Palestinians in Gaza affected by the Israeli criminality. But the conversation with the doctor turned out to be far more interesting than what I expected.
Dr. Kelani shocked and surprised me when he accidentally exposed the scandalous collusion of the EU with Israel to keep humanitarian volunteers and medical relief workers and resources donated by private organizations and individuals throughout Europe, out of Gaza. He related to me information which I believed only when he gave me several documents (reproduced below). When I first read these documents I was speechless, because the only allow the conclusion that the EU and its member states are not only passively looking the other way, what is bad enough, but that they are in active collusion with Israel to continue and even aggravate the misery of the Palestinians in Gaza, and that these governments are actively engaged in a campaign of intimidation against their own nationals should they decide to show solidarity with the Palestinian population in Gaza. If these are papers which are being made public, then I must ask, what machinations are being done in secret?

Click here: http://www.kawther.info/wpr/2009/02/22/eu-israel-collusion-against-palestinians to read more.

2009-02-23T21:25:00.000-08:00

Global boycott movement marks its successes
Jeff Handmaker, The Electronic Intifada, 20 February 2009

Responding to the many calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, solidarity movements around the world have marked many successes. It is important for human rights advocates to build on this momentum and seize the opportunity to do what is within their power to try and hold Israel accountable for its abuses of human rights and other international laws.Since the initial BDS call by Palestinian intellectuals and academics in October 2003, which was followed by separate calls for sports, arts, economic and other calls for BDS, there has been a seismic shift in the global solidarity movement for human rights in Israel-Palestine. Lawyers, doctors, academics, students, trade unionists, school teachers and many other activists have marked successes around the world. Their efforts are an inspiring reflection of the South African anti-apartheid movement, where BDS was also used very effectively.In first few weeks of 2009 alone, European, North American and South African solidarity movements have made remarkable progress:

+A growing number of politicians in Europe and North America have put forward uncomfortable, probing questions to their governments and clearly want to do more. One example is the "Break the Silence" campaign within the Dutch Labor Party.
+Numerous letters and opinion pieces have been published by prominent figures in major national newspapers, including statement by prominent lawyers and professors published by The Sunday Times on 11 January 2009.
The global "Derail Veolia" campaign has grown in leaps and bounds. An important success was the decision by the Stockholm municipality to cancel an agreement with Veolia Transport, on the basis of its involvement in the Jerusalem light-rail project, to the tune of several billion euros.
+There have been calls for international investigations of war crimes from the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the head of UNRWA (the UN agency for Palestine refugees) and the UN Secretary General as well as scores of high-profile international lawyers around the world.

Click here: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10319.shtml to read more.

2009-02-23T21:22:00.000-08:00

EU paying for Gaza blockade
David Cronin, The Electronic Intifada, 23 February 2009

BRUSSELS (IPS) - European Union aid has been given to an Israeli oil company which has reduced the supply of fuel to Gaza as part of an economic blockade internationally recognized as illegal, Brussels officials have admitted.Almost 97 million euros (124 million dollars) in funds managed by the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, were handed over directly to the firm Dor Alon between February 2008 and January this year. Under orders from the Israeli authorities, Dor Alon has been rationing the amount of industrial diesel brought into Gaza in order to deprive its 1.5 million inhabitants of electricity. Power cuts have been a regular occurrence in Gaza because of Israeli actions undertaken since the militant party Hamas won an unexpected victory in Palestinian legislative elections during 2006.Charles Shamas from the Mattin Group, an organization based in the West Bank that monitors Europe's relationship with Israel, said that the EU has been helping to accommodate the economic blockade of Gaza. This is despite how the Union's most senior diplomats, including its foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, have condemned the blockade as "collective punishment" of a civilian population. Collective punishment constitutes a war crime, according to the 1949 Geneva convention.

Click here: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10334.shtml to read more.

2009-02-19T22:04:00.000-08:00

Israeli Bombs inflict more pain on Gaza hospital
Omar Karmi, Foreign Correspondent
February 18. 2009 9:30AM UAE

GAZA CITY // Tareq Dardas remains haunted by the night he, three other doctors, eight nurses and 15 patients thought might be their last.“You can’t imagine what a horrible night that was,” said the general practitioner, who trained eight years in Pakistan and now works at Gaza’s Al Wafa Hospital. “I’ve never been so miserable.”Dr Dardas and his colleagues found themselves pinned down in their hospital, east of Gaza City and near the Israeli border, on the night of Jan 15 by heavy Israeli bombardment for which Dr Dardas said he could think of no explanation. No one was killed or injured in the bombardment, but the hospital sustained significant damage and staff had to evacuate the hospital by carrying patients out in bed sheets when ambulances finally arrived after 10am the next day.
Behind them they left a building with all its windows shattered and a gaping hole in one wall on the second floor, caused by what staff believe was a tank shell. The shell struck just where the large metal letters in the word ‘hospital’ on that side of the building were hung, leaving only the last three. Inside, medical equipment worth US$250,000 (Dh918,000) was destroyed.

Click here: http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090218/FOREIGN/554187121/1140 to read more.

2009-02-19T21:56:00.000-08:00

Sources expose covert Israel war on Iran
Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:25:37 GMT

Israeli "hits" are meant to deprive Tehran of key technical skills at the heart of the nuclear program, sources say.
The Israeli intelligence agency Mossad has launched covert operations to sabotage Iran's nuclear progress, US intelligence sources reveal.

Israel has commenced a clandestine war against Iran as an alternative to direct military strikes against Tehran's nuclear program, The Daily Telegraph cited US intelligence officials as saying on Monday.

According to the report, Mossad has been using hitmen, sabotage, front companies and double agents in a bid to delay Iran's nuclear research as much as possible.

"Disruption is designed to slow progress on the program, done in such a way that they don't realize what's happening," an unnamed former CIA officer on Iran told the daily.

"The goal is delay, delay, delay until you can come up with some other solution or approach," the official added.

The report also reveals that Mossad operations are not confined to Iran's nuclear program; the agency claims to have collected information on the country's missile sites.

Click here: http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=85901&sectionid=351020104 to read more.

2009-02-19T21:47:00.000-08:00

Farra: Israel destroyed 3,000 residential units in Khan Younis
Palestinian Information Center

Feb 18, 2009KHAN YOUNIS, (PIC)-- Mohamed Al-Farra, the mayor of Khan Younis city, said Tuesday that Israel destroyed about 3,000 residential units and other buildings in the city during its wanton aggression on the Gaza Strip.In a statement received by the PIC, Farra explained that Israel destroyed completely 450 housing units and over 2,500 other units partially as well as it caused serious damage to about 25 educational institutions, schools, mosques and emergency centers.The mayor affirmed that Israel bulldozed about 2,000 dunums of agricultural lands and destroyed completely four concrete production plants in addition to three clinics and a number of poultry and livestock farms.He underlined that Israel deliberately destroyed civilian homes, bulldozed agricultural lands and killed innocent civilians not to mention the targeting of civil defense and medical crews.Farra noted that the municipality embarked, in cooperation with relief organizations, on providing civil services to the citizens in the city, removing rubble from the streets and providing shelters for the displaced families and citizens.

Article from: http://uruknet.info/?p=m51926&hd=&size=1&l=e

Israeli forces seize 65 youths in Jayyus in third day of mass arrests
Ma'an news
Feb 18, 2009Bethlehem – Ma’an – In a third consecutive day of mass arrests Israeli forces stormed the northern West Bank town of Jayyus near Qalqiliya early morning Wednesday and seized 65 Palestinian youth in an ongoing military operation.Israeli soldiers declared the town a "Closed Military Area" and barred journalists from entering. A curfew has been imposed, trapping residents in their homes.Soldiers told the families of those detained that they were "wanted" by Israeli intelligence.Local sources said several Israeli military vehicles surrounded the town, blocked the main road using earth piles and rocks, and used loudspeakers to announce a curfew and order all the youth of the town to gather for inspection in the local school.Once the youth were gathered Israeli soldiers took 20 of them to an unknown location. By noon more than 65 had been detained.Jayyus Mayor Muhammad Taher Jaber described the situation as "miserable," saying that residents are fleeing the town in fear."The Israelis’ actions aim to make us leave our land," he said.Jaber added that the Israeli troops are threatening in an attempt to stop weekly demonstrations taking place in the town.

Click here: http://uruknet.info/?p=m51925&hd=&size=1&l=e to read more.

2009-02-19T21:40:00.000-08:00

Petition for Israel War Crimes Tribunal
Feb 19th, 2009 by kawther.salam

A petition forwarded to me by Dr. Tammam Kelani, the president of Arab-Austrian Federation of Doctors and Pharmacists, follows below. The Petition is about the creation of a Special UN Tribunal to try Israeli War Criminals. This petition was also forwarded to me by Maha HOMSI from the Early Childhood/Child Protection Specialists of the UNICEF in Jordan.

To: President and Member States of United Nations General Assembly
PETITION
To: President and Member States of United Nations General AssemblyThe Creation of a Special Tribunal to try Israeli War Criminals
Recalling that Israel was created by virtue of a General Assembly Resolution in 1947 against the wishes of the indigenous population of Palestine;
Recalling that the creation of Israel was achieved through the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population, which resulted in the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem, and that more than half of the population of 1.5 millions of the Palestinian Occupied Territory called the Gaza Strip are Palestinian refugees who have become, with the other civilian population, victims of the recent Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip;
Noting that the UN Human Rights Council, in its ninth Special Session, has adopted on 12 January 2009, a resolution “on the grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory including the recent aggression of the occupied Gaza Strip” in which it “strongly condemned the ongoing Israeli military operation which had resulted in massive violations of human rights of the Palestinian people and systematic destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure”; and “decided to dispatch an urgent independent international fact-finding mission to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying power against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory”(United Nations Press Release of 12 January 2009, Human Rights Council, ROUNDUP);
Recalling that Israel has in the past refused to cooperate with similar fact-finding commissions or even give them visas to enter;
Recalling Article 22 of the Charter of the United Nations
Recalling further the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 9th July 2004 on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall by Israel, the occupying power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in which the Court emphasized the special responsibility of the General Assembly for the Question of Palestine;
The undersigned NGOs and individuals,
Call upon the General Assembly to create a special international tribunal to try Israel, its political and military leaders, for such crimes in violation of international law, human rights law and international humanitarian law in the Palestinian Occupied Territory of which they may be charged.
Sincerely,
Sign the Petition

2009-02-19T21:35:00.000-08:00

Did Egypt sabotage deal over Gaza, Shalit?
Amal Ghazal, The Electronic Intifada, 18 February 2009

One of the major achievements of the Israeli revisionist historians has been to break down Israeli myths surrounding the establishment of the State of Israel. A key myth has been the claim that Israel is surrounded by hostile Arab regimes. While this claim has been debunked, even mocked, by many Arabs who accuse their regimes of not only collaboration with Israel but also complicity in the continuing suppression of Palestinian resistance movements, that collaboration has now been documented and exposed with the unearthing of official records. This history came alive during the recent war on Gaza and the Egyptian government's (and other Arab governments') complicity in this war provided a clear idea of the organic relationship between Israel and some of those regimes which do not refrain from or hesitate to sacrifice the Palestinian question for their own political ends.The complicity of the Egyptian regime extends to the negotiations mediated by Cairo. In fact, that regime is not a mediator between two sides or an honest deal maker; its interests meet those of Israel to the extent that it is functioning as a broker on behalf of Israel. The war on Gaza left us with one eye set on the scenes of carnage in Gaza itself and another on Cairo, where the Egyptian negotiating team was trying to pressure the Palestinians (through Hamas) into surrender, something that Israel was not able to achieve by sheer military force. The international outcry, Hamas' ability to absorb the Israeli attacks and the resolve of Palestinians in Gaza provided the Hamas delegation in Cairo with a political leverage that allowed it to resist Egyptian pressure and intimidation. And as has been revealed through some recent leaks to the press, the Egyptians have utilized various intimidating techniques in order to force Hamas into accepting the terms proposed by Israel. It may be a matter of time before we know those details which will reinforce the idea that the Egyptian negotiating team wanted to impose the Israeli terms rather than negotiate a fair agreement. An indication of Egypt's readiness to push Hamas into surrender was the original Egyptian proposal to discuss a 10- to 15-year ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. Hamas' refusal to negotiate such a long-term agreement finally led to a negotiation of an 18-month agreement. As revealed by confidential sources, below is what the Egyptians have been proposing in terms of a two-phase agreement, followed by a Hamas counter-proposal.

Click here: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10317.shtml to read more.

2009-02-18T11:09:00.000-08:00

Thousands of Gazans remain homeless
The Electronic Intifada, 18 February 2009

Azza Abed Rabu with her neice and four-year-old daughter, who sustained serious head wounds during the family's evacuation. She and her family are now living in a tent in the Abed Rabu area of Jabaliya. (Erica Silverman/IRIN)

GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IRIN) - Thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip remain homeless after their houses were badly damaged or destroyed during Israel's recent military offensive there.The Israeli army began with aerial bombardments of the enclave on 27 December and added a ground assault from 3 January. Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire on 18 January while Hamas, the de facto ruling authority in the Strip, declared its own ceasefire later that day.According to a 16 February report by Save the Children Alliance "at least 100,000 people, including 56,000 children, remain displaced with many continuing to take shelter in tents or crowding into remaining homes with other families, one month since the Gaza ceasefire was declared."The non-governmental organization estimated that some 500,000 people, including 280,000 children, were forced from their homes at some point during the conflict and added that "tent cities" had sprung up where whole neighborhoods were destroyed. Many tent residents are without access to clean drinking water and toilets, it said.

Click here: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10321.shtml to read more.

2009-02-17T17:45:00.000-08:00

Zionist IsraHell: What the world should know

2009-02-17T17:37:00.000-08:00

Gaza civilians left with extensive burns
AlJazeeraEnglish

Feb 15, 2009As well as the 1300 Palestinians who were killed in the war, thousands more suffered serious injuries.Many of them were left with extensive burns, with Israel accused of using highly inflammable white phosphorus in civilian areas.Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel Hamid reports from the burns unit in Gaza's Shifa hospital.

2009-02-17T16:41:00.000-08:00

Photo shows 'Willie Pete' went to Gaza

Despite Israeli denial, newly found photographic evidence proves that Israel has used controversial white phosphorus shells on Gazans.

While the use of the solid, waxy synthetic chemical -- also known by the military as WP or Willie Pete -- against civilians is prohibited under international law, there is evidence that Palestinian civilians have been subjected to the chemical weapon. The Times says it has identified stockpiles of M825A1, an American-made WP munition, from high-resolution pictures taken from Israeli artillery units on the Gaza border. White phosphorus is used in munitions, to mark enemy targets and to produce smoke for concealing troop movement. It can also be used as an incendiary device to firebomb enemy positions. If particles of ignited white phosphorus land on a person's skin, they burn right through flesh to the bone. Toxic phosphoric acid can also be released into wounds, risking phosphorus poisoning. Exposure to white phosphorus smoke in the air can also cause liver, kidney, heart, lung and bone damage and can even lead to death. There has been evidence that Palestinian civilians have been injured by the incendiary bombs. A doctor at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City Hassan Khalass told The Times that he had been treating patients who he believed had been burnt by white phosphorus.

Click here: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=81564&sectionid=351020202 to read more.

2009-02-17T16:32:00.000-08:00

In Gaza town, a bitter aftermath
By Ashraf Khalil, LATimes

HURT: Fatma Zidane el-Banneh, 8, left, and her mother, Azza, return to the school in Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza, where Azza says her daughter was burned by white phosphorus used in the Israeli military offensive.

February 15, 2009Reporting from Khozaa, Gaza Strip — She was the strongest among them, the natural leader. So when the shelling stopped and the Israeli soldiers announced through loudspeakers that all residents should come out of their homes and head for the center of town, neighbors turned to Rawhiya Najar for guidance.Emptying the cupboards of sheets and tablecloths -- anything white -- she led a procession of 20 women and children into the streets holding a white flag in each hand, residents say.The group had made it perhaps 200 yards when a soldier stepped out from a door down the street and shot Najar in the head, multiple witnesses say. Her body lay in the street for 12 hours, villagers and doctors say.Weeks after Israel declared a unilateral end to its offensive in the Gaza Strip, the aftermath still burns in Khozaa, a farm town of 11,000 in the south of the territory. Chunks of white phosphorus still lie scattered throughout neighborhoods, buried in dirt and sand; when excavated, they immediately ignite and spew noxious smoke that smells vaguely of garlic.As the International Criminal Court weighs a war crimes investigation of the Gaza offensive, the experience of Khozaa could be a key part in the evidence. It was here that Israeli troops staged a series of incursions from Jan. 11 to 13, facing off against local militant fighters and leaving a trail of accusations and recriminations in their wake.These include charges of indiscriminate firing on civilians and ambulances and what one international weapons expert called the heaviest use of controversial white phosphorus munitions in the 22-day offensive.Local officials say 19 people were killed during the assault, 16 of them civilians. About 150 people were injured, most from prolonged exposure to phosphorus smoke, local medical officials say.

Click here: http://uruknet.info/?p=m51822&hd=&size=1&l=e to read more.

2009-02-17T16:29:00.001-08:00

Bleeding Gaza Schools
By Motasem Dalloul, IOL Correspondent

Palestinian schoolgirls walk in the rubble of the Sakhnin School, devastated in Israel's latest incursion into Gaza, in Beit Lahiya, northern of Gaza Strip, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2009.

Feb 15, 2009GAZA CITY — In the bombed-out Gaza Strip, schooling, already hit by a chocking Israeli siege, has become a greater struggle after three weeks of massive bombing and attacks that left dozens of schools in ruins and students too traumatized to learn."We are working hard to find an appropriate building to resume our work, but because of the shortage of buildings and the increase of demand after the war we haven’t found any yet," Mamdouh Salem, headmaster of the American International School in Gaza, told IslamOnline.net.Salem's school stands as an example of dozens of schools, many run by the UNRWA and the private sector, flattened by the Israeli war machine during its recent onslaught.The two-storey school, built on an 8-acre plot overlooking the Mediterranean, is now a mere mound of broken concrete.Even the school's buses were burnt by Israeli fire "with premeditation," Salem says.Striving to get its 220 students back to classes, the school officials approached the UNRWA and the Education Ministry for help."The UNRWA said that all of their schools are busy in both shifts and the Education Ministry allowed us to use three of their big schools in the afternoon shifts," Salem said.

Click here: http://uruknet.info/?p=m51831&hd=&size=1&l=e to read more.

2009-02-17T16:26:00.000-08:00

Israel takes control of more West Bank land
By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer Karin Laub, Associated Press Writer

Mon Feb 16, JERUSALEM – Israel has taken control of a large chunk of land near a prominent West Bank settlement, paving the way for the possible construction of 2,500 settlement homes, officials said Monday, in a new challenge to Mideast peacemaking.Successive Israeli governments have broken promises to the United States to halt settlement expansion, defined by Washington as an obstacle to peace. Ongoing expansion is likely to create friction not only with the Palestinians, but with President Barack Obama, whose Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, has long pushed for a settlement freeze. Obama has said he'd get involved quickly in Mideast peace efforts.The composition of Israel's next government is not clear yet following inconclusive elections last week. However, right-wing parties are given a better chance to form a ruling coalition, with hardline leader Benjamin Netanyahu at the helm.Netanyahu supports settlement expansion and has derided peace talks with the Palestinians as a waste of time, saying he would focus instead of trying to improve the Palestinian economy. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has dismissed Netanyahu's approach as a non-starter, and his aides said recently that peace talks can only resume after a settlement freeze.

Click here: http://uruknet.info/?p=m51849&hd=&size=1&l=e to read more.

2009-02-17T16:20:00.001-08:00

Gaza’s forgotten elderly
15 February 2009

In this new series of personal testimonies, PCHR looks at the aftermath of Israel’s 22 day offensive on the Gaza Strip, and the ongoing impact it is having on the civilian population

At the nursing home of Al Wafaa Hospital in the northeastern Gaza Strip, frail women lie curled in their beds, most of them bedridden. In Gaza’s close-knit society, nursing homes are not very common, as most people prefer to care for their elderly family members at home. The patients at Al Wafaa have nowhere else to go.
While many reports have been released on the effect of the conflict on children, other vulnerable groups such as the elderly and disabled are often disregarded.
Seventy five year old Rahma Mourad is one of the hospital’s permanent residents. Her face lights up as she remembers her early years in Damascus, where she came from a privileged background and her first language was French. Now, with her children in Syria and no family nearby to visit her, all she has are her memories. “I used to be so beautiful”, she says. “I came from a life of culture. Now look at me – I don’t even have teeth.”
Over 4,300 people were physically injured during Israel’s 22 day offensive on the Gaza Strip, many of whom sustained horrific injuries. But the wounds of psychological trauma, caused by shelling and bombardment, will also take time to heal.
In the early hours of the 16 January 2009, Al Wafaa Hospital, the only rehabilitation centre of its kind in Gaza, was hit several times by artillery fire, including rounds of white phosphorus. The holes in the wards of the hospital’s eastern wing attest to the damage sustained that night, estimated to cost around half a million dollars.
Rahma and the other patients reported “a long night of terror”, trapped in the hospital, unable to leave. Even now, three weeks after Israel’s unilateral ceasefire, Rahma is in tears. “I can’t describe the noise of the shelling,” Rahma says, her eyes darting around the shrapnel holes that pepper the walls of her hospital room. “It was unbearable…” She clasps her hands together tightly, as a hospital volunteer comforts her.

Click here: http://pchrgaza.ps/files/campaigns/english/aftermath/2.html to read more.

2009-02-17T16:15:00.000-08:00

Unmanned aerial vehicles and the warfare of inequality management

Jimmy Johnson, The Electronic Intifada, 17 February 2009

Aeronautics Defense Systems, based in the Israeli city of Yavne, was recently awarded a contract by the Dutch Ministry of Defense "to supply unmanned air vehicle capacity to Dutch troops serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan." [1] The Netherlands is not the only nation to employ Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in foreign occupation. They are also utilized by Canadian, US, UK and Australian forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their foreign sale has developed largely because of significant use in the wars against and occupations of Lebanon and Palestine. A variety of Israeli firms are developing new unmanned aerial, terrestrial and nautical vehicles. As these are proven in combat, here it can be expected that they too will be exported to foreign forces.Israel was the first country to widely adopt and integrate UAVs into its armed forces beyond their use as gunnery targets for anti-aircraft training. The US made somewhat sporadic use of the machines for intelligence gathering in south China and Vietnam during the Vietnam war but it wasn't until Israel led the way that Washington started to recognize and exploit their potential value. "The Israeli Air Force pioneered several UAVs in the late 1970s and 1980s that were eventually integrated into the United States' UAV inventory. US observers noticed Israel's successful use of UAVs during operations in Lebanon in 1982, encouraging then-Navy Secretary John Lehman to acquire a UAV capability for the Navy." Military esteem of Israeli UAVs further grew after the first Gulf War when Israel Aircraft Industries' Pioneer "emerged as a useful source of intelligence at the tactical level during Desert Storm. Pioneer was used by Navy battleships to locate Iraqi targets for its 16-inch guns." [2] Earlier restrictions on UAV operational capacity have fallen away with the dramatic increases in computer processing power and sensor technologies that allow for higher resolution photo and video transmissions and improved communications. The speed of technological advance in the field has led to constant reassessment of unmanned vehicles' battlefield potential and the dedication of increasing resources to development and procurement by armed forces worldwide. The US's National Defense Authorization Fiscal Year 2001 legislation declared "It shall be a goal of the Armed Forces to achieve the fielding of unmanned, remotely controlled technology such that ... by 2010, one-third of the aircraft in the operational deep strike force aircraft fleet are unmanned." [3] Just five years later, the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review increased that to 45 percent. [4]

Click here:http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10312.shtml to read more.

2009-02-13T11:52:00.000-08:00

Crossing the Line: US role in the war on Gaza Podcast, Crossing the Line, 13 February 2009

This week on Crossing The Line: As US President Barack Obama stood before a crowd of two million and gave his inaugural address, he pledged to work with those in the Arab and Muslim world towards peace. But absent in the address was any condemnation of Israeli atrocities committed against the Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Host Naji Ali speaks with The Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah about the Obama administration, the recent massacre in Gaza and the prospects of peace in the region.Also this week, Ali speaks with Gaza-based journalist Rami Almeghari about the current situation on the ground in Gaza in the aftermath of the 22 days of Israeli attacks.And as always, Crossing the Line begins with "This week in Palestine," a service provided by The International Middle East Media Center.
Listen Now [MP3 - 22 MB]

2009-02-13T11:37:00.000-08:00

Israel's Bloody Excesses
Was Einstein Right?
By JOHN CHUCKMAN
"My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain -- especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state."
Albert Einstein

Einstein is one of my favorite twentieth-century characters. He was remarkable, and I don't mean only for his profound contributions to our understanding of the physical world. He was someone who drove authoritarians like J. Edgar Hoover mad. He was one of those rare souls, like George Orwell, who despite mistakes and flaws, consciously worked to direct his actions, and redirect them after missteps, by principles of decency, humanity, and rational thought. He never subscribed to menacing slogans like "My country, right or wrong" or "You're either with us or against us." Quite the opposite, he knew any country was capable of being wrong at times and did not deserve blind allegiance when it was.
Einstein's was one of the most important names lent to the cause of Zionism. His name and visits and letters raised a great deal of money towards establishing universities and resettling European Jews suffering under violent anti-Semitism long before the founding of Israel.
But even in a cause so dear to his heart, Einstein never stopped thinking for himself. He not only opposed the establishment of a formal Israeli state--he was after all a great internationalist--but he always advocated treating the Arabic people of Palestine with generosity and understanding.

Clock here: http://www.counterpunch.org/chuckman04042003.html to read more.

2009-02-13T11:18:00.000-08:00

Gaza: the world looks away
Clare Short
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 February 2009 12.00 GMT

On top of the dreadful casualties from Israel's 22-day war in Gaza, we should add a further serious injury. It is longer-lasting and threatens the lives and wellbeing of very many people in the future. In the Israel/Palestine conflict, we are seeing a terrible undermining of international law and the principle that armies should adhere to minimum standards of humane behaviour, even during the heat of battle.
If they fall below this minimum, they should, according to the laws of war, be held responsible for their war crimes – first, by their own superiors or courts, but, if necessary, by other nations or international courts. This principle – of accountability, even in war – is now in a critical condition as the standards are being ignored by Gaza's warring parties. Then, it's being assailed afresh by pugnacious and irresponsible remarks from leaders in the region.

Click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/09/israel-gaza-war-crimes to read more.

2009-02-05T21:55:00.000-08:00

Change the Lobby

By Ramzy Baroud

One cannot emphasize enough the stranglehold Israel's lobbying infrastructure has on US foreign policy. The events of recent weeks undoubtedly attest to this. "The special relationship" that has been historically fostered between the US and Israel in fact, is often a relationship of leverage, manipulation and intimidation, and often leads to the US supporting actions or resolutions that stand at complete odds with the interests of the American people.
The promise of change echoed the world over as people from all corners anticipated the magic moment Obama could actually change the devastating reality in which we live today. But just weeks before his inauguration, Israel unleashed the most barbaric attacks on defenseless Palestinian civilians since 1948. Civil societies expressed outrage and called for Israeli leaders to be tried for war crimes and genocide. Other nations cut diplomatic ties completely with the Jewish state. But the man of change did absolutely nothing. For weeks he was completely silent. Even in his first days in office, Obama made no mention of the Israeli genocide in Gaza. So, what of this change that he promised? What kind of hold does Israel have to silence the President of the United States?

Click here: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14790 to read more.

2009-02-05T21:43:00.000-08:00

Facing dilemmas
Published Date: 05/02/2009 - 02:28 AM

Despite official denials from the Israeli government, the central goal of the genocidal Israeli campaign in the Gaza Strip may well be the elimination of the elected Hamas government and the reinstatement to power of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
From a purely military viewpoint, the removal of the Hamas authority in the Gaza Strip is not a particularly difficult task, given the immense superiority of the Israeli fire-power in comparison with the primitive means of defense that Hamas and all other Palestinian resistance factions possess.
In fact, the ongoing Israeli blitz has already seriously weakened the government in Gaza, especially its ability to re-establish a semblance of normal life in the bombed-out coastal enclave and to meet the basic needs of its thoroughly ravaged inhabitants.
Indeed, with Gaza looking very much like Dresden in the closing months of the Second World War, reverting to the status quo ante, which by no means was rosy given the harsh Israeli siege, will be too formidable a task for Hamas to tackle alone.
In short, the pornographic bombing of the basic civilian infrastructure, including nearly all public buildings and basic facilities, will make the task of rehabilitating life in Gaza nearly impossible for any normal government, let alone a beaten organization, thoroughly beaten by Israel and hated by the bulk of the international community.

Click here: http://www.ptimes.org/Main/default.aspx?xyz=BOgLkxlDHteZpYqykRlUuI1kx%2fVDUOFovXIaM0g6phOVrpZi1dFJ%2fUKV36q%2bZ3lnZjWDwdb6GrIBFI8ZTlCUXjRaPl6QABdNIGb8b9FKF4Au9G8hcHWWhTVQxoo%2bLZFrbVYpjfyDbOU%3d to read more.

2009-02-05T21:15:00.000-08:00

No territorial concessions to Palestinians, says Netanyahu
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 4 February 2009 17.35 GMT

Israel's rightwing opposition leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, who leads the polls before next week's parliamentary elections, warned today against giving up any occupied territory to the Palestinians, saying it would be "grabbed by extremists".
Under Netanyahu, leader of the Likud party, Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are likely to grow more rapidly, putting Israel at odds with the new US administration.
In a speech, Netanyahu said that rather than peace talks with the Palestinians about giving up territory, he favoured economic development – a plan of "economic peace". He has stopped short of endorsing a two-state solution that would see the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
It is a stance that is likely to draw criticism from Washington, particularly from new Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who wrote a report in 2001 explicitly calling for a halt to all settlement growth. Since then the Jewish settler population has increased significantly until today it stands at nearly 500,000 settlers in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/04/israelandthepalestinians-usa to read more.

2009-02-05T21:07:00.000-08:00

Lieberman set to be Israel’s kingmaker
By Tobias Buck
Published: February 4 2009 17:57 Last updated: February 4 2009 17:57

Mr Lieberman opposes peace talks with the Palestinians or handing back the occupied Golan Heights to Syria. He has also struck an aggressive line towards what he sees as Israel’s most menacing threat: Iran and its nuclear programme.
Unlike Mr Netanyahu, the Yisrael Beiteinu leader has also made the issue of Israel’s Palestinian minority a central theme of his election campaign. Under the slogan “No Loyalty, No Citizenship”, Mr Lieberman wants to introduce a law forcing 1.2m Palestinians with an Israeli passport to choose: either they swear an oath of allegiance to the Israeli state and serve in the military – or commit to alternative national service – or they lose their citizenship.

Click here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c5aee19a-f2e2-11dd-abe6-0000779fd2ac.html to read more.

2009-02-04T21:49:00.000-08:00

The Genocidal settlers
Khalid Amayreh - Published Date: 07/01/2009 - 02:46 AM

When the Israeli High Court recently ordered Jewish squatters to leave an Arab house they had illegally seized in al-Khalil ( Hebron) a few years ago, settlers and their supporters converged at the contentious site, vowing to put up a showdown with the Israeli army and police.
Among the settler leaders arriving at the site, apparently to incite the squatters to resist evacuation, was Daniela Weise, a charismatic settler leader who preaches blood and fire against the Palestinian community in Israel-Palestine, demanding that they either be enslaved, expelled or outright exterminated.
Weise didn’t content herself with invoking the usual mantras, such as “God gave us this land,” and “We are only reclaiming our country.”
She actually quoted heavily from the Old Testament, telling hundreds of Jewish fanatics that it was a Mitzvah (good religious deed) to attack Arabs, even murder them, and damage their property, because “their lives have no sanctity and their property belongs to us.”
“The Bible shows us the way as to how we should be dealing with the Arabs. The Bible can’t be wrong.”

Click here: http://www.ptimes.org/Main/default.aspx?xyz=BOgLkxlDHteZpYqykRlUuI1kx%2fVDUOFolgAufZmUp4Mj6nir5gP%2b0YeEoKr97ymRiqvv%2bvKeQhgjkMwtlo97YjlmqV7tGpw9SQFublQGRulm4S8JEzfLxofe%2bF60Q3iTwL%2bYUv6zY9c%3d to read more.

2009-02-04T21:37:00.001-08:00

Israeli army "subcontracted" by extremist settlers

Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 4 February 2009

Extremist rabbis and their followers, bent on waging holy war against the Palestinians, are taking over the Israeli army by stealth, according to critics.In a process one military historian has termed the rapid "theologization" of the Israeli army, there are now entire units of religious combat soldiers, many of them based in West Bank settlements. They answer to hardline rabbis who call for the establishment of a Greater Israel that includes the Occupied Palestinian Territories.Their influence in shaping the army's goals and methods is starting to be felt, say observers, as more and more graduates from officer courses are also drawn from Israel's religious extremist population."We have reached the point where a critical mass of religious soldiers is trying to negotiate with the army about how and for what purpose military force is employed on the battlefield," said Yigal Levy, a political sociologist at the Open University who has written several books on the Israeli army.The new atmosphere was evident in the "excessive force" used in the recent Gaza operation, Dr Levy said. More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed, a majority of them civilians, and thousands were injured as whole neighborhoods of Gaza were leveled."When soldiers, including secular ones, are imbued with theological ideas, it makes them less sensitive to human rights or the suffering of the other side."

Click here: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10274.shtml to read more.

2009-02-04T21:30:00.000-08:00

Israel continues pounding Gaza
Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:55:26 GMT

Israeli warplanes attacked the city hours after striking the Rafah border region in southern Gaza Strip, according to a Press TV correspondent in the area. Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who was addressing the annual Herzliya Conference at the time of the attack, informed the audience that the military "is currently operating in the Gaza Strip." Tel Aviv had recently stopped an all-out war on the densely-populated area, but resumed the attacks shortly after realizing that it failed to achieve its primary goals set against the Hamas government. Israel's 23-day long Operation Cast Lead killed almost 1,400 people in the Gaza Strip, but eventually failed to destroy Hamas's military power.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=84531&sectionid=351020202

2009-02-04T21:25:00.000-08:00

Israeli Spokesman Says We Control Stupid Americans

Sunday, 01 February 2009 01:09
"Another Israeli spokeswoman, Tzipora Menache, stated that she was not worried about negative ramifications the Israeli onslaught on Gaza might have on the way the Obama administration would view Israel. She said 'You know very well, and the stupid Americans know equally well, that we control their government, irrespective of who sits in the White House. You see, I know it and you know it that no American president can be in a position to challenge us even if we do the unthinkable. What can they (Americans) do to us? We control congress, we control the media, we control show biz, and we control everything in America. In America you can criticize God, but you can't criticize Israel."Commenting on the latest Israeli one-directional onslaught against the Palestinians of Gaza Strip, the Israeli 10th TV channel has disclosed that the Israeli genocidal forces had used half of its air force and had launched at least 2500 air raids against Gaza Strip.The television military correspondent stated that the Israeli warplanes had dropped more than a thousand tons of explosives, including white phosphorous and DIME (Dense Inert Metal Explosive) bombs, during three weeks on the virtually unarmed densely populated 360 square Kilometers Strip. He added that the shells fired by tanks, artillery, gunboats, and infantry were not included in those fired by the air force.After a whole week of continuous air bombardments Israel sent in its elite foot soldiers; 30,000 of them, and called in 10,000 of its reservists. Armed with the latest weapons of mass murder, covered with an umbrella of free reigning air force, and accompanied with raining shells of heavy artilleries, they drove their tanks into the civilian towns murdering civilians and destroying every structure in their path.

Click here: http://www.daily.pk/world/americas/9334-israeli-spokesman-says-we-control-stupid-americans.html to read more.

2009-02-04T21:08:00.000-08:00

Testimonies of Israeli Crimes in Gaza
Feb 4th, 2009 by kawther.salam

On February 2nd 2009, two surgeons from the UK, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr. Swee Ang, who managed to get into Gaza during the Israeli invasion, released a statement describing their experiences, sharing their views, and conclusions that the people of Gaza are extremely vulnerable and defenseless in the event of another attack. Their statement was originally published in the magazine The Lancet Global Health Network .
Under the title “The wounds of Gaza”, the two surgeons described the Israeli genocide and war crimes against the Palestinian civilians in Gaza as they observed it. I received the statement of the surgeons from a reader from the Sabra Shatila Foundation in Lebanon. I expect that the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, will take in consideration the testimonies of these two surgeons from the UK, and I remind him of the precedent which was set when he signed an arrest warrant against the Sudanese president on 14 July 2008, despite the fact that the ICC does not have territorial jurisdiction in Sudan.
The full Article : The Wounds of Gaza
Two surgeons from the UK, Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr Swee Ang, managed to get into Gaza during the Israeli invasion. Here they describe their experiences, share their views, and conclude that the people of Gaza are extremely vulnerable and defenseless in the event of another attack.
The wounds of Gaza are deep and multi-layered. Are we talking about the Khan Younis massacre of 5,000 in 1956 or the execution of 35,000 prisoners of war by Israel in 1967? Yet more wounds of the First Intifada, when civil disobedience by an occupied people against the occupiers resulted in massive wounded and hundreds dead? We also cannot discount the 5,420 wounded in southern Gaza alone since 2000.
Hence what we are referring to below are only that of the invasion as of 27 December 2008,Over the period of 27 December 2008 to the ceasefire of 18 Jan 2009, it was estimated that a million and a half tons of explosives were dropped on Gaza Strip. Gaza is 25 miles by 5 miles and home to 1.5 million people. This makes it the most crowded area in the whole world. Prior to this Gaza has been completely blockaded and starved for 50 days. In fact since the Palestinian election Gaza has been under total or partial blockade for several years.
On the first day of the invasion, 250 persons were killed. Every single police station in Gaza was bombed killing large numbers of police officers. Having wiped out the police force attention was turned to non government targets. Gaza was bombed from the air by F16 and Apache helicopters, shelled from the sea by Israeli gunboats and from the land by tank artillery. Many schools were reduced to rubble, including the American School of Gaza, 40 mosques, hospitals, UN buildings, and of course 21,000 homes, 4,000 of which were demolished completely. It is estimated that 100,000 people are now homeless.
Israeli weaponsThe weapons used apart from conventional bombs and high explosives also include unconventional weapons of which at least 4 categories could be identified.

Click here: http://www.kawther.info/wpr/2009/02/04/testimonies-of-israeli-crimes-in-gaza to read more.

2009-02-02T21:57:00.000-08:00

Israel Asserting Middle East Supremacy From Gaza To Tehran
By James Petras2-1-9

"The Israeli Defense Force is the most moral army in the World!" --Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany bombed, invaded and annexed countries and territories as a prelude to their quest for World Empire. Israel 's drive for regional dominance has followed in their footsteps, imitating their style: Indiscriminate aerial bombings of civilian and military facilities, a savage blitzkrieg led by armored vehicles, disdain and repudiation of all criticism from international agencies was accompanied by an open, military buildup for a new and bigger war against Iran . Like the Nazi leadership, who played on the 'Bolshevik threat', the Israeli high command has set in motion a vast world-wide propaganda campaign led by its world Zionist network, raising the specter of 'Islamic terror' to justify its preparations for a military assault on seventy-four million Iranians. Just as Nazi Germany interpreted the passivity, sympathy and impotence of the West when confronted by 'facts on the ground' as license for aggression, the Israeli military machine receives a powerful impetus for new wars by the Western governments' inaction and flaccid response to its invasion of Lebanon, the bombing of Syria and now its Nazi style blitz and conquest of Gaza. For the Israeli high command, the impotence and complicity of the Western states, marks the way to bigger and bloodier wars to establish Israel 's supremacy and dominance of the Middle East, from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf .

Click here: http://www.rense.com/general84/suprem.htm to see more.

2009-02-02T21:52:00.000-08:00

Israeli warlord vows face-off with Iran
Israeli election frontrunner Benjamin Netanyahu says his first mission if elected prime minister would be to 'thwart the Iranian threat'.

In an interview with Israel's Channel 2 TV late Saturday, Netanyahu said he fully intends to sabotage Tehran's nuclear efforts once and for all. "[Iran] will not be armed with a nuclear weapon… It includes everything that is necessary to make this statement come true," said Israel's leading candidate for prime minister. Israel, the sole nuclear power in the Middle East, accuses Tehran of seeking nuclear weaponry while the UN nuclear watchdog, in its Sept. 15 report on Iran, declared that it could not find any "components of a nuclear weapon" or "related nuclear physics studies" in the country. Netanyahu, who is currently facing war crime charges in Gaza, claimed the Islamic Republic's uranium enrichment is the greatest danger to Israel and humanity. After weeks of denying that it used illegal weapons in the densely-populated Gaza Strip, the Israeli military finally admitted Friday that it had pounded the Palestinian coast with at least twenty white phosphorus bombs. The 1980 third Convention on Conventional Weapons has banned the use of white phosphorus as a weapon, even against military targets situated within population centers. International attorneys have filed war crime charges against 15 Israeli political and military officials, including Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak

Click here: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=84344&sectionid=351020104 to see more.

2009-02-02T21:44:00.000-08:00

Envoy to Australia: Gaza op shows Israel 'ready to engage' on Iran threat
By Asaf Ronel

Israel's ambassador to Australia told leaders of the Sydney Jewish community on Sunday that, "Israel's efforts in Gaza were to bring about understanding that we are ready to engage in a decisive way" over Iran and its nuclear aspirations. The three-week Gaza operation was merely a "pre-introduction" to the challenge Israel would face from Iran, which will become a nuclear power within a year, Yuval Rotem said. According to Australia's Channel 7 television, Rotem made the statement at a meeting with leaders of the Sydney Jewish community, having first asked that the cameras be switched off.

While being filmed before the discussion, Rotem said, "The best thing to do is to have a very open dialogue if there are no reporters or journalists here," before telling the cameraman to stop filming. "He said that Israel's recent military offensives were a pre-introduction to the challenge Israel expects from a nuclear-equipped Iran within a year," Channel 7 reporter Sarah Cummings said.

Click here: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1060802.html to see more.

2009-02-02T21:20:00.001-08:00

Gaza and the Crimes of Mubarak
By Rannie Amiri - February 02, 2009

By Rannie AmiriFebruary 02, 2009 "Counterpunch" -- -As staggering as the statistics detailing Gaza’s destruction may be, they still do not present a complete picture of the unique travesties and tragedies suffered by individuals, families, neighborhoods and villages during Israel’s savage 22-day assault on the tiny territory. Yet, they bear repeating. From the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/) and various NGOs:
1,334 killed, one-third of them children (more children than ‘militants’ were killed)
5,450 injured, one-third of them children
100,000 displaced, 50,000 made homeless
4,100 residential homes and buildings destroyed, 17,000 damaged (together accounting for 14 percent of all buildings in Gaza)
29 destroyed educational institutions, including the American International School
92 destroyed or damaged mosques
1,500 destroyed shops, factories and other commercial facilities
20 destroyed ambulances
35-60% of agricultural land ruined
$1.9 billion in total estimated damages
In the face of such massive devastation and hardship—and this after the crippling 18-month siege had already reduced Gazato a state of bare subsistence—the behavior and actions of the regime of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak remain as contemptible after the war as they were before.

Click here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21887.htm to read more.

2009-01-29T21:33:00.000-08:00

Jesus in Gaza

By Rassool Jibraeel Snyman

I met Jesus in Gaza last night

Nailed to a concrete wall

Impaled by shrapnel

Through hands and feet

Wearing a crown of barbed wire

And a countenance of sorrow

At his feet

A bloodied child

Frozen

Still

Cold

Tattered were her clothes

Ugly were her wounds

I wept for her

He wept for us

Soldiers with blues stars

And white apparel

Stared stonily

Coldly

With no emotion on their faces

And death in their souls

Moonlight reflected on their guns

And their dead eyes

I met Jesus in Gaza last night

I’ve aged a thousand years

And died a thousand times

I met Jesus in Gaza last night

Life will never be the same

(South Africa – January 29, 2009; "Tales of Extreme Sanity")

2009-01-29T20:53:00.000-08:00

Every family has a story, here are some of them
Eva Bartlett writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 30 January 2009

One family's story

There are many stories. Each account -- each murdered individual, each wounded person, each burned-out and broken house, each shattered window, trashed kitchen, strewn item of clothing, bedroom turned upside down, bullet and shelling hole in walls, offensive Israeli army graffiti -- is important.

I start to tell the stories of Ezbet Abbed Rabu, eastern Jabaliya, where homes off the main north south road, Salah al-Din, were penetrated by bullets, bombs and/or soldiers. If they weren't destroyed, they were occupied or shot up. Or occupied and then destroyed. The army was creative in their destruction, in their defacing of property, in their insults. Creative in the ways they could shit in rooms and save their shit for cupboards and unexpected places. Actually, their creativity wasn't so broad. The rest was routine: ransack the house from top to bottom. Turn over or break every clothing cupboard, kitchen shelf, television, computer, window pane and water tank.

Click here: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10261.shtml to see entire article.

2009-01-29T20:01:00.000-08:00

Gaza truce under fire as Israel continues offensive

Israeli warplane bombs Gaza-Egypt border as Abbas accuses Israel of not wanting peace.
GAZA CITY - Spiralling violence near Gaza threatened on Thursday to shatter ceasefires that ended a war in the enclave as US envoy George Mitchell headed for talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
Israeli warplanes bombed tunnels on Gaza's border with Egypt and resistance fighters in the coastal strip fired two rockets into Israel.
The attacks, which did not injure anyone, further stoked tensions that have been rising.
Israeli officials, in the midst of an election campaign ahead of February 10 legislative polls, vowed that they would hit back hard at any resistance strike and warned Gaza's borders would remain closed if attacks continued.

Click here: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=30072 to see entire article

2009-01-28T21:59:00.000-08:00

The shortcut to peace
Hasan Abu Nimah, The Electronic Intifada, 28 January 2009

Palestinians in Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip huddle around a fire next to their home destroyed during Israel's 22 days of attacks on Gaza. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

Because it is generally accepted by the so-called "international community" that Hamas is a major threat to Israel, and therefore to world peace and security, France has dispatched a frigate to participate in a new blockade of the Gaza Strip. The Sunday Times reported that United States naval ships hunting pirates in the Gulf of Aden have been instructed to track down Iranian arms shipments (25 January). Many other European states offered their navies to assist. Indeed, United Nations Security Council resolution 1860 emphasized the need to prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition.

Unfortunately not one European country offered to send its navy to render humanitarian assistance to the thousands of injured, hungry, cold and homeless people in Gaza rendered so as a result of Israel's attack. Perhaps helping children dying from white phosphorus burns, or just lack of clean water, would be seen as supporting "terrorism."

The perverse assumption behind all the offers of help to Israel seems to be that Hamas and other resistance groups in Gaza fired rockets at Israel merely because rockets were available. Therefore, the logic goes, peace would prevail if the supply of rockets were curtailed.

Another strange assumption is that Hamas was freely importing rockets from Iran or elsewhere because Gaza's borders were open and free of any control.

This ignores the fact that since Israel "disengaged" from Gaza in the summer of 2005, the coastal territory was never allowed any free access to the outside world. Gaza has been under varied forms of siege and blockade by land, sea and air. Fishermen were not even free to fish without constant attacks by the Israeli navy.

Click here: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10248.shtml to see entire article.

2009-01-28T18:54:00.000-08:00

Dr. Norman Finkelstein slams Israeli 'massacre' of Gaza civilians

2009-01-27T20:50:00.000-08:00

Link for "Unseen Gaza" videos

The documentary broadcasted on channel 4 of British Television called "Unseen Gaza" has been pulled out of You tube,so i deleted the videos ive posted a few days ago.Instead im posting this link from Google Video that i just found.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8132449999430251419&ei=2Od_Sb7MB6e6qAOpoOyPDg&q=Unseen+Gaza

2009-01-27T18:32:00.000-08:00

Ceasefire broken from day one
Eva Bartlett, The Electronic Intifada, 27 January 2009

GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - At 7:30am 22 January, five days after Israeli authorities declared a "ceasefire" following their 22-day air, land and sea bombardment of the Gaza Strip, Israeli gunboats renewed shelling off the Gaza city coast, injuring at least six, including four children.

Muawiyah Hassanain, director of Ambulance and Emergency Services, reported more shelling in the northwestern coastal area al-Sudaniya the same morning. Five fishermen were injured in the attacks, he said.

About 9:45am that morning in Shejaiya district to the east of Gaza City, seven-year-old Ahmed Hassanian was outside his house with friends when Israeli soldiers fired from the eastern border. A bullet lodged in his brain, causing brain hemorrhage. Dr. Fawzi Nablusi, director of the ICU at al-Shifa hospital, says the boy is not expected to survive.

Click here: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10247.shtml to see entire article

2009-01-27T18:02:00.000-08:00

We Will Never Forget
Montage documenting the genocide committed by Isreal in "Operation Cast Lead"

2009-01-26T22:30:00.000-08:00

Breaking Gaza's Will: Israel’s Enduring Fantasy
By RAMZY BAROUD

My three-year-old son Sammy walked into my room uninvited as I sorted through another batch of fresh photos from Gaza.
I was looking for a specific image, one that would humanise Palestinians as living, breathing human beings, neither masked nor mutilated. But to no avail.
All the photos I received spoke of the reality that is Gaza today - homes, schools and civilian infrastructure bombed beyond description. All the faces were either of dead or dying people.
I paused as I reached a horrifying photo in the slideshow of a young boy and his sister huddled on a single hospital trolley waiting to be identified and buried. Their faces were darkened as if they were charcoal and their lifeless eyes were still widened with the horror that they experienced as they were burned slowly by a white phosphorus shell.
It was just then that Sammy walked into my room snooping around for a missing toy. "What is this, daddy?" he inquired.
I rushed to click past the horrific image, only to find myself introducing a no less shocking one. Fretfully, I turned the monitor off, then turned to my son as he stood puzzled. His eyes sparkled inquisitively as he tried to make sense of what he had just seen.
He needed to know about these kids whose little bodies had been burned beyond recognition.
"Where are their mummies and daddies? Why are they all so smoky all the time?"

Click here: http://www.ramzybaroud.net/ to see entire article.