US Senate supports Israel's Gaza incursion
Thu Jan 8, 2009 WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate voiced strong support on Thursday for Israel's battle against Hamas militants in Gaza, while urging a ceasefire that would prevent Hamas from launching any more rockets into Israel.
The chamber agreed on a voice vote to the non-binding resolution co-sponsored by Democratic and Republican party leaders in the chamber.
"When we pass this resolution, the United States Senate will strengthen our historic bond with the state of Israel, by reaffirming Israel's inalienable right to defend against attacks from Gaza, as well as our support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said before the vote.
Noting that Israel was bent on halting Hamas rocket fire into its southern towns, Reid said: "I ask any of my colleagues to imagine that happening here in the United States. Rockets and mortars coming from Toronto in Canada, into Buffalo New York. How would we as a country react?"
Co-sponsor and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican said before the vote: "The Israelis ... are responding exactly the same way we would."
The House was expected to pass a similar resolution.
The Senate resolution encourages President George W. Bush "to work actively to support a durable, enforceable and sustainable ceasefire in Gaza as soon as possible that prevents Hamas from retaining or rebuilding the capability to launch rockets or mortars against Israel," Reid said.
It also expresses an "unwavering" commitment to Israel's welfare and recognizes its right to act in self defense to protect citizens against acts of terrorism, he said. "It allows for the long-term improvement of daily living conditions of the ordinary people of Gaza," he said.
Palestinians faced even grimmer conditions in Gaza on Thursday after a U.N. aid agency halted work, saying its staff was at risk from Israeli forces after two drivers were killed.
The reported Palestinian death toll in the 13-day-old conflict topped 700. At least 11 Israelis have been killed, eight of them soldiers, including four hit by "friendly fire."
(Reporting by Susan Cornwell, editing by Philip Barbara)
Friday, January 09, 2009
Israel's Gaza Gas Grab
British Gas, Israel to freeze Hamas out of $4b. gas deal
By MATTHEW KRIEGER
Israel and the British natural gas company BG Group Plc will move ahead with controversial plans to drill for natural gas in the Gaza Marine field, despite Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip last month, The Jerusalem Post learned on Thursday.
The two sides have arrived at an "understanding" that will transfer funds intended for the Palestinian Authority's Palestinian Investment Fund into an international bank account, a BG source told The Post.
"Both Israel and BG intend that until the PA is able to remove Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip, the money will be held in an international bank account," the source said. "Neither side wants the money to go to fund terror-related activities."
According to the plan, BG will drill for natural gas 36 kilometers off of the Gaza coast, in an area that was designated as PA territory following the Oslo Accords. The gas will then flow four km underwater in a pipeline 850 meters below the surface to an Ashkelon refinery. The field, which BG purchased in 2000 and to which Hamas now claims rightful ownership, contains 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas worth an estimated $4 billion, with Israel set to become the sole consumer of the resources.
"I cannot deny that Israel and BG are making attempts at arranging a payment plan to accommodate the PA [and completely exclude Hamas]," an official in the Infrastructure Ministry said, while adding that along with officials from the Finance Ministry, negotiations are still underway, despite the shaky security situation in Gaza.
Ronen Moshe, the Infrastructure Ministry spokesman, claimed, however, that he doesn't know anything about an "understanding" between BG and Israel regarding payments to the PA, but did say that right now the two sides are negotiating over the price that Israel will pay for the gas. Similarly, the spokesman's office in the Finance Ministry claimed no knowledge of any "understanding" between Israel and BG concerning the transfer of funds to an international account, while the Prime Minister's Office said nothing new has happened since the cabinet decided earlier this year to form a negotiating team to meet with BG representatives.
According to the original bilateral arrangement between Israel and the PA, some 60 percent of the revenues from the sale of the gas will go to BG; 30% will go to BG's partner in the deal, the British energy company CCC, and 10% of the revenue, estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year, is to be designated for the PA's Palestinian Investment Fund, under the auspices of the office of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
"However, now that the PA is no longer in control of the Gaza Strip, or the marine area off of its coast, Israel, should it purchase the gas, would no longer be making payments to the PA, but rather would have to pay Hamas," explained the BG source.
Israel is obviously opposed to the money ending up in the hands of Hamas, and British law mandates that should a British organization enter into any sort of negotiations with a terrorist group, that organization's leaders will be brought to trial and may be sentenced to jail, the source said.
"Therefore, Israel and BG have come to a new understanding of transferring the money into an international account - allowing the deal to go through," he said.
The deal appears to exclude Hamas from receiving any of the revenues from the gas sales.
Hamas, meanwhile, intends to ask for changes in the agreement with BG, Bloomberg reported two weeks ago. "It is unreasonable that the owner of the gas, Palestine, gets 10% only," Mohammed al-Madhoun, the director of Hamas leader Ismail Haniya's office, told the Palestinian Information Center, a Hamas Web site. "The government has no problem cooperating with the British gas company but only after modifying some points of the 1999 contract."
Earlier this week, Finance Ministry Accountant General energy coordinator Uri Shusterman confirmed that a dispute over prices is the official cause for the delay in the signing of a contract with British Gas, and that statement was the first comment by a government official about the negotiations with BG Group.
"Despite the disagreement, the government is determined to buy gas from the company's reserves offshore from Gaza, as an alternative to Egyptian gas," said Shusterman.
He added that Israel is seeking to diversify its supplies of gas, which it now buys domestically and also from Egypt, in order to ensure a competitive market. He noted that the country planned to buy 1.5 billion to 1.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year from BG over 12-14 years.
"It's critical that Israel come to an agreement now with BG, because the longer it waits to sign, the more likely it is that gas prices are going to rise even further and the less likely it is to begin receiving gas at its desired 2011 target date," said BG.
Once Israel and British Gas arrive at an agreement, the project will take three years to complete. "Right now there is nothing in the water, as soon as we can, we need to build a gas rig, get the drill ready and build the pipeline," said the BG official, adding that he hoped the two would finish the negotiations and sign an agreement within the next week.
"There are already clear intentions as to how to handle the Hamas situation, and plans have already been worked on regarding the construction of the pipeline, now we just need to finalize a price," he said.
Israel began talks with BG in February 2006 and said in May of that year that it expected to buy 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas from BG annually starting in 2009. Soonafter, BG broke off talks with Israel and said that it preferred bringing gas to Egypt to be liquefied and then shipped by tankers to the US, Europe and the Far East. The talks resumed in July 2006 and in April of this year the cabinet voted 21-to-three to grant a negotiating team formal permission to hold talks with BG on the purchase of gas from the Gaza Marine field.
By MATTHEW KRIEGER
Israel and the British natural gas company BG Group Plc will move ahead with controversial plans to drill for natural gas in the Gaza Marine field, despite Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip last month, The Jerusalem Post learned on Thursday.
The two sides have arrived at an "understanding" that will transfer funds intended for the Palestinian Authority's Palestinian Investment Fund into an international bank account, a BG source told The Post.
"Both Israel and BG intend that until the PA is able to remove Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip, the money will be held in an international bank account," the source said. "Neither side wants the money to go to fund terror-related activities."
According to the plan, BG will drill for natural gas 36 kilometers off of the Gaza coast, in an area that was designated as PA territory following the Oslo Accords. The gas will then flow four km underwater in a pipeline 850 meters below the surface to an Ashkelon refinery. The field, which BG purchased in 2000 and to which Hamas now claims rightful ownership, contains 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas worth an estimated $4 billion, with Israel set to become the sole consumer of the resources.
"I cannot deny that Israel and BG are making attempts at arranging a payment plan to accommodate the PA [and completely exclude Hamas]," an official in the Infrastructure Ministry said, while adding that along with officials from the Finance Ministry, negotiations are still underway, despite the shaky security situation in Gaza.
Ronen Moshe, the Infrastructure Ministry spokesman, claimed, however, that he doesn't know anything about an "understanding" between BG and Israel regarding payments to the PA, but did say that right now the two sides are negotiating over the price that Israel will pay for the gas. Similarly, the spokesman's office in the Finance Ministry claimed no knowledge of any "understanding" between Israel and BG concerning the transfer of funds to an international account, while the Prime Minister's Office said nothing new has happened since the cabinet decided earlier this year to form a negotiating team to meet with BG representatives.
According to the original bilateral arrangement between Israel and the PA, some 60 percent of the revenues from the sale of the gas will go to BG; 30% will go to BG's partner in the deal, the British energy company CCC, and 10% of the revenue, estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year, is to be designated for the PA's Palestinian Investment Fund, under the auspices of the office of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
"However, now that the PA is no longer in control of the Gaza Strip, or the marine area off of its coast, Israel, should it purchase the gas, would no longer be making payments to the PA, but rather would have to pay Hamas," explained the BG source.
Israel is obviously opposed to the money ending up in the hands of Hamas, and British law mandates that should a British organization enter into any sort of negotiations with a terrorist group, that organization's leaders will be brought to trial and may be sentenced to jail, the source said.
"Therefore, Israel and BG have come to a new understanding of transferring the money into an international account - allowing the deal to go through," he said.
The deal appears to exclude Hamas from receiving any of the revenues from the gas sales.
Hamas, meanwhile, intends to ask for changes in the agreement with BG, Bloomberg reported two weeks ago. "It is unreasonable that the owner of the gas, Palestine, gets 10% only," Mohammed al-Madhoun, the director of Hamas leader Ismail Haniya's office, told the Palestinian Information Center, a Hamas Web site. "The government has no problem cooperating with the British gas company but only after modifying some points of the 1999 contract."
Earlier this week, Finance Ministry Accountant General energy coordinator Uri Shusterman confirmed that a dispute over prices is the official cause for the delay in the signing of a contract with British Gas, and that statement was the first comment by a government official about the negotiations with BG Group.
"Despite the disagreement, the government is determined to buy gas from the company's reserves offshore from Gaza, as an alternative to Egyptian gas," said Shusterman.
He added that Israel is seeking to diversify its supplies of gas, which it now buys domestically and also from Egypt, in order to ensure a competitive market. He noted that the country planned to buy 1.5 billion to 1.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year from BG over 12-14 years.
"It's critical that Israel come to an agreement now with BG, because the longer it waits to sign, the more likely it is that gas prices are going to rise even further and the less likely it is to begin receiving gas at its desired 2011 target date," said BG.
Once Israel and British Gas arrive at an agreement, the project will take three years to complete. "Right now there is nothing in the water, as soon as we can, we need to build a gas rig, get the drill ready and build the pipeline," said the BG official, adding that he hoped the two would finish the negotiations and sign an agreement within the next week.
"There are already clear intentions as to how to handle the Hamas situation, and plans have already been worked on regarding the construction of the pipeline, now we just need to finalize a price," he said.
Israel began talks with BG in February 2006 and said in May of that year that it expected to buy 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas from BG annually starting in 2009. Soonafter, BG broke off talks with Israel and said that it preferred bringing gas to Egypt to be liquefied and then shipped by tankers to the US, Europe and the Far East. The talks resumed in July 2006 and in April of this year the cabinet voted 21-to-three to grant a negotiating team formal permission to hold talks with BG on the purchase of gas from the Gaza Marine field.
Gaza Victims' Burns Increase Concern
Gaza Victims' Burns Increase Concern Over Phosphorus
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/09
JERUSALEM - Photographic evidence has emerged that proves that Israel has been using controversial white phosphorus shells during its offensive in Gaza, despite official denials by the Israel Defence Forces.
The pale blue 155mm rounds are clearly marked with the designation M825A1, an American-made white phosphorus munitionThere is also evidence that the rounds have injured Palestinian civilians, causing severe burns. The use of white phosphorus against civilians is prohibited under international law.
The Times has identified stockpiles of white phosphorus (WP) shells from high-resolution images taken of Israel Defence Forces (IDF) artillery units on the Israeli-Gaza border this week. The pale blue 155mm rounds are clearly marked with the designation M825A1, an American-made WP munition. The shell is an improved version with a more limited dispersion of the phosphorus, which ignites on contact with oxygen, and is being used by the Israeli gunners to create a smoke screen on the ground.
The rounds, which explode into a shower of burning white streaks, were first identified by The Times at the weekend when they were fired over Gaza at the start of Israel's ground offensive. Artillery experts said that the Israeli troops would be in trouble if they were banned from using WP because it is the simplest way of creating smoke to protect them from enemy fire.
There were indications last night that Palestinian civilians have been injured by the bombs, which burn intensely. Hassan Khalass, a doctor at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, told The Times that he had been dealing with patients who he suspected had been burnt by white phosphorus. Muhammad Azayzeh, 28, an emergency medical technician in the city, said: "The burns are very unusual. They don't look like burns we have normally seen. They are third-level burns that we can't seem to control."
Victims with embedded WP particles in their flesh have to have the affected areas flushed with water. Particles that cannot be removed with tweezers are covered with a saline-soaked dressing.
Nafez Abu Shaban, the head of the burns unit at al-Shifa hospital, said: "I am not familiar with phosphorus but many of the patients wounded in the past weeks have strange burns. They are very deep and not like burns we used to see."
When The Times reported on Monday that the Israeli troops appeared to be firing WP shells to create a thick smoke camouflage for units advancing into Gaza, an IDF spokesman denied the use of phosphorus and said that Israel was using only the weapons that were allowed under international law.
Rows of the pale blue M825A1 WP shells were photographed on January 4 on the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border. Another picture showed the same munitions stacked up behind an Israeli self-propelled howitzer.
Confronted with the latest evidence, an IDF spokeswoman insisted that the M825A1 shell was not a WP type. "This is what we call a quiet shell - it is empty, it has no explosives and no white phosphorus. There is nothing inside it," she said.
"We shoot it to mark the target before we launch a real shell. We launch two or three of the quiet shells which are empty so that the real shells will be accurate. It's not for killing people," she said.
Asked what shell was being used to create the smokescreen effect seen so clearly on television images, she said: "We're using what other armies use and we're not using any weapons that are banned under international law."
Neil Gibson, technical adviser to Jane's Missiles and Rockets, insisted that the M825A1 was a WP round. "The M825A1 is an improved model. The WP does not fill the shell but is impregnated into 116 felt wedges which, once dispersed [by a high-explosive charge], start to burn within four to five seconds. They then burn for five to ten minutes. The smoke screen produced is extremely effective," he said.
The shell is not defined as an incendiary weapon by the Third Protocol to the Convention on Conventional Weapons because its principal use is to produce smoke to protect troops. However, Marc Galasco, of Human Rights Watch, said: "Recognising the significant incidental incendiary effect that white phosphorus creates, there is great concern that Israel is failing to take all feasible steps to avoid civilian loss of life and property by using WP in densely populated urban areas. This concern is amplified given the technique evidenced in media photographs of air-bursting WP projectiles at relatively low levels, seemingly to maximise its incendiary effect."
He added, however, that Human Rights Watch had no evidence that Israel was using incendiaries as weapons.
British and American artillery units have stocks of white phosphorus munitions but they are banned as anti-personnel weapons. "These munitions are not unlawful as their purpose is to provide obscuration and not cause injury by burning," a Ministry of Defence source said.
Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian war surgery specialist working in Gaza, told The Times that he had seen injuries believed to have resulted from Israel's use of a new "dense inert metal explosive" that caused "extreme explosions". He said: "Those inside the perimeter of this weapon's power zone will be torn completely apart. We have seen numerous amputations that we suspect have been caused by this."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/09
JERUSALEM - Photographic evidence has emerged that proves that Israel has been using controversial white phosphorus shells during its offensive in Gaza, despite official denials by the Israel Defence Forces.
The pale blue 155mm rounds are clearly marked with the designation M825A1, an American-made white phosphorus munitionThere is also evidence that the rounds have injured Palestinian civilians, causing severe burns. The use of white phosphorus against civilians is prohibited under international law.
The Times has identified stockpiles of white phosphorus (WP) shells from high-resolution images taken of Israel Defence Forces (IDF) artillery units on the Israeli-Gaza border this week. The pale blue 155mm rounds are clearly marked with the designation M825A1, an American-made WP munition. The shell is an improved version with a more limited dispersion of the phosphorus, which ignites on contact with oxygen, and is being used by the Israeli gunners to create a smoke screen on the ground.
The rounds, which explode into a shower of burning white streaks, were first identified by The Times at the weekend when they were fired over Gaza at the start of Israel's ground offensive. Artillery experts said that the Israeli troops would be in trouble if they were banned from using WP because it is the simplest way of creating smoke to protect them from enemy fire.
There were indications last night that Palestinian civilians have been injured by the bombs, which burn intensely. Hassan Khalass, a doctor at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, told The Times that he had been dealing with patients who he suspected had been burnt by white phosphorus. Muhammad Azayzeh, 28, an emergency medical technician in the city, said: "The burns are very unusual. They don't look like burns we have normally seen. They are third-level burns that we can't seem to control."
Victims with embedded WP particles in their flesh have to have the affected areas flushed with water. Particles that cannot be removed with tweezers are covered with a saline-soaked dressing.
Nafez Abu Shaban, the head of the burns unit at al-Shifa hospital, said: "I am not familiar with phosphorus but many of the patients wounded in the past weeks have strange burns. They are very deep and not like burns we used to see."
When The Times reported on Monday that the Israeli troops appeared to be firing WP shells to create a thick smoke camouflage for units advancing into Gaza, an IDF spokesman denied the use of phosphorus and said that Israel was using only the weapons that were allowed under international law.
Rows of the pale blue M825A1 WP shells were photographed on January 4 on the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border. Another picture showed the same munitions stacked up behind an Israeli self-propelled howitzer.
Confronted with the latest evidence, an IDF spokeswoman insisted that the M825A1 shell was not a WP type. "This is what we call a quiet shell - it is empty, it has no explosives and no white phosphorus. There is nothing inside it," she said.
"We shoot it to mark the target before we launch a real shell. We launch two or three of the quiet shells which are empty so that the real shells will be accurate. It's not for killing people," she said.
Asked what shell was being used to create the smokescreen effect seen so clearly on television images, she said: "We're using what other armies use and we're not using any weapons that are banned under international law."
Neil Gibson, technical adviser to Jane's Missiles and Rockets, insisted that the M825A1 was a WP round. "The M825A1 is an improved model. The WP does not fill the shell but is impregnated into 116 felt wedges which, once dispersed [by a high-explosive charge], start to burn within four to five seconds. They then burn for five to ten minutes. The smoke screen produced is extremely effective," he said.
The shell is not defined as an incendiary weapon by the Third Protocol to the Convention on Conventional Weapons because its principal use is to produce smoke to protect troops. However, Marc Galasco, of Human Rights Watch, said: "Recognising the significant incidental incendiary effect that white phosphorus creates, there is great concern that Israel is failing to take all feasible steps to avoid civilian loss of life and property by using WP in densely populated urban areas. This concern is amplified given the technique evidenced in media photographs of air-bursting WP projectiles at relatively low levels, seemingly to maximise its incendiary effect."
He added, however, that Human Rights Watch had no evidence that Israel was using incendiaries as weapons.
British and American artillery units have stocks of white phosphorus munitions but they are banned as anti-personnel weapons. "These munitions are not unlawful as their purpose is to provide obscuration and not cause injury by burning," a Ministry of Defence source said.
Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian war surgery specialist working in Gaza, told The Times that he had seen injuries believed to have resulted from Israel's use of a new "dense inert metal explosive" that caused "extreme explosions". He said: "Those inside the perimeter of this weapon's power zone will be torn completely apart. We have seen numerous amputations that we suspect have been caused by this."
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Waiting
Israel Ignores Security Council Ceasefire Resolution...
by C. L. Cook
Former Bush point man at the United Nations, John Bolton famously opined, ten-stories from the U. N. could go without effecting that organization's global effectiveness. Today, Israel is proving Bolton more conservative than even he could imagine.
Whilst even its most ardent supporters in Washington waiver, and an abstention is the most Israel received from the U.S. in the "security council" yesterday, the bombing continued overnight over Gaza. With an apparent thumb in the eye to the entire world, the Israeli military has yet to slow the onslaught.
Racing to reach the 1000 killed outright mark in captive Gaza, the IDF seems grimly determined to make of Operation Cast Lead an intransigent tread mark, scarring permanently the people, a gaping milestone of the long trudge to justice life in Palestine has been these last sixty years. Already its damage is called "unprecedented" in that long benighted land.
And now the world waits.
by C. L. Cook
Former Bush point man at the United Nations, John Bolton famously opined, ten-stories from the U. N. could go without effecting that organization's global effectiveness. Today, Israel is proving Bolton more conservative than even he could imagine.
Whilst even its most ardent supporters in Washington waiver, and an abstention is the most Israel received from the U.S. in the "security council" yesterday, the bombing continued overnight over Gaza. With an apparent thumb in the eye to the entire world, the Israeli military has yet to slow the onslaught.
Racing to reach the 1000 killed outright mark in captive Gaza, the IDF seems grimly determined to make of Operation Cast Lead an intransigent tread mark, scarring permanently the people, a gaping milestone of the long trudge to justice life in Palestine has been these last sixty years. Already its damage is called "unprecedented" in that long benighted land.
And now the world waits.
GUNNing Down Public Participation in Tasmania
MEDIA RELEASE
Gunns Limited is serving a writ on 13 forest defenders claiming damages resulting from an action conducted at the Triabunna woodchip mill last month.
Activists halted work at the mill to draw attention to the impact of old growth logging on climate change.
Gunns Limited is claiming damages for trespass, and seeking an injunction that will prevent the defendants from entering its property.
"The action taken at Triabunna was legitimate peaceful protest, taken in defense of Tasmania's carbon dense old growth forest. The Tasmanian people will not stand by and allow the destruction of ancient forest to continue just because Gunns has decided to throw its weight around," Still Wild Still Threatened spokesperson Ula Majewski said.
"Vast tracts of our precious old growth and high conservation value forests continue to be logged, woodchipped and exported by Gunns Limited" said Ula Majewski.
"This is a move that smacks of desperation. Gunns is aware of the growing frustration and anger within the community resulting from its destructive logging operations. Actions such as this will do nothing to stem the rising tide of community outrage over the ongoing destruction of Tasmania's remaining wild places," said Huon Valley Environment Centre spokesperson Warrick Jordan.
"Gunns Limited's destructive business model is tearing the heart out of the last remaining areas of ancient forest in Southern Tasmania. Iconic valleys such as the Weld and Upper Florentine are being destroyed as we speak in order to line the pockets of Gunns Limited" said Warrick Jordan.
Jenny Weber"
www.huon.org
--
*Media release* *Wednesday Jan 7, 2009.*
*Gunns Ltd sues again.*
Tasmanian based logging company Gunns Ltd has issued a law suit on thirteen forest defenders claiming damages for trespass, and seeking an injunction that will prevent the defendants from entering its property and land holdings.
The forest campaigners halted work at the Triabunna woodchip mill in an act of civil disobedience to draw attention to the impact of old growth logging on climate change.
“Civil disobedience is a vital part of democracy. This heavy handed tactic from Gunns is tantamount to corporate bullying. Gunns Ltd is pushing ahead with its unacceptable and irresponsible activities in Tasmania, endangering the health of the state’s environment and its economic future” Said Greenpeace Campaign Coordinator John Hepburn.
The proposed Gunns Ltd Pulp Mill and recent announcements that construction may begin in 2009 will ensure that Tasmanian forest protection will remain a central issue in the lead up to the next federal election.
Louise Morris, Friends of the Earth Climate Campaigner and Gunns 20 defendant said
“This lawsuit comes four years after Gunns Ltd issued the now infamous Gunns 20 lawsuit in 2004 against twenty individuals and organisations in response their efforts to protect Tasmania’s native forests. It is clear the desire to protect Tasmania’s forests has not diminished.
“The use of such harsh legal tactics does nothing to improve the company’s standing in the eyes of socially responsible investors and the wider community. We stand by Tasmanians’ desire to protect their precious native forests” concluded Simon Branigan Environment Tasmania spokesperson.
For media comment contact.
John Hepburn, Greenpeace: 0407231172
Louise Morris, Friends of the Earth: 0408906310
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Landwatch is a service of the British Columbia Environmental Network (BCEN)
*To subscribe to landwatch, a current landwatch member must send a message to
the list manager with a recommendation.
*To unsubscribe, send a blank email to: landwatch-unsubscribe@lists.onenw.org
1. Use Landwatch for conveying information about (BC's) environmental and land-use
issues (e.g. campaign alerts, enviro-news, etc.).
2. Unless indicated otherwise, please do not cross-post without the permission
of the author.
3. Please keep all communications useful, thoughtful, and respectful.
Gunns Limited is serving a writ on 13 forest defenders claiming damages resulting from an action conducted at the Triabunna woodchip mill last month.
Activists halted work at the mill to draw attention to the impact of old growth logging on climate change.
Gunns Limited is claiming damages for trespass, and seeking an injunction that will prevent the defendants from entering its property.
"The action taken at Triabunna was legitimate peaceful protest, taken in defense of Tasmania's carbon dense old growth forest. The Tasmanian people will not stand by and allow the destruction of ancient forest to continue just because Gunns has decided to throw its weight around," Still Wild Still Threatened spokesperson Ula Majewski said.
"Vast tracts of our precious old growth and high conservation value forests continue to be logged, woodchipped and exported by Gunns Limited" said Ula Majewski.
"This is a move that smacks of desperation. Gunns is aware of the growing frustration and anger within the community resulting from its destructive logging operations. Actions such as this will do nothing to stem the rising tide of community outrage over the ongoing destruction of Tasmania's remaining wild places," said Huon Valley Environment Centre spokesperson Warrick Jordan.
"Gunns Limited's destructive business model is tearing the heart out of the last remaining areas of ancient forest in Southern Tasmania. Iconic valleys such as the Weld and Upper Florentine are being destroyed as we speak in order to line the pockets of Gunns Limited" said Warrick Jordan.
Jenny Weber"
www.huon.org
--
*Media release* *Wednesday Jan 7, 2009.*
*Gunns Ltd sues again.*
Tasmanian based logging company Gunns Ltd has issued a law suit on thirteen forest defenders claiming damages for trespass, and seeking an injunction that will prevent the defendants from entering its property and land holdings.
The forest campaigners halted work at the Triabunna woodchip mill in an act of civil disobedience to draw attention to the impact of old growth logging on climate change.
“Civil disobedience is a vital part of democracy. This heavy handed tactic from Gunns is tantamount to corporate bullying. Gunns Ltd is pushing ahead with its unacceptable and irresponsible activities in Tasmania, endangering the health of the state’s environment and its economic future” Said Greenpeace Campaign Coordinator John Hepburn.
The proposed Gunns Ltd Pulp Mill and recent announcements that construction may begin in 2009 will ensure that Tasmanian forest protection will remain a central issue in the lead up to the next federal election.
Louise Morris, Friends of the Earth Climate Campaigner and Gunns 20 defendant said
“This lawsuit comes four years after Gunns Ltd issued the now infamous Gunns 20 lawsuit in 2004 against twenty individuals and organisations in response their efforts to protect Tasmania’s native forests. It is clear the desire to protect Tasmania’s forests has not diminished.
“The use of such harsh legal tactics does nothing to improve the company’s standing in the eyes of socially responsible investors and the wider community. We stand by Tasmanians’ desire to protect their precious native forests” concluded Simon Branigan Environment Tasmania spokesperson.
For media comment contact.
John Hepburn, Greenpeace: 0407231172
Louise Morris, Friends of the Earth: 0408906310
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Landwatch is a service of the British Columbia Environmental Network (BCEN)
*To subscribe to landwatch, a current landwatch member must send a message to
the list manager
*To unsubscribe, send a blank email to: landwatch-unsubscribe@lists.onenw.org
1. Use Landwatch for conveying information about (BC's) environmental and land-use
issues (e.g. campaign alerts, enviro-news, etc.).
2. Unless indicated otherwise, please do not cross-post without the permission
of the author.
3. Please keep all communications useful, thoughtful, and respectful.
LOCAL WATER A GLOBAL ISSUE
Island Lens #114 - January 7, 2008
By Richard Boyce
LOCAL WATER A GLOBAL ISSUE
I've explored much of the crystal-clear water of Englishman River, as it runs its course of 10 km between the source on Mount Arrowsmith and the estuary in the Strait of Georgia. Jumping off the cliffs at the lower falls in the provincial park led my friends and I to swim across the large pool to the gushing flow of water that was the falls. Skirting around the edge of the pounding water and thick spray we were able to access a fairly large cave in behind the cascading waterfall. We sat on a log, wedged between the rocks, and watched the light filter in through the emerald coloured waterfall. That memory will remain with me forever.
Today, that waterfall no longer exists. The water has finally carved through solid rock, allowing the river to flow under a massive boulder rather than over it. The deep canyon between steeply carved cliffs, etched out by the river's flow of water, bears testament to the fact that this type of natural change has been happening for millennia. The disappearance of this waterfall reminds me to look at the bigger picture.
Multi-national corporations around the world are taking over control of the world's water. The pretense is usually that the local governments cannot keep up with the public demands for increased water, safety and security. The result is that the price of water doubles, public access decreases, and poor people die of thirst. The fact is corporations have made water more expensive than anything the general public consumes because it is essential for us to exist. Water in small plastic bottles, fetches double the price of gasoline at your local convenience store.
Today Natural Glacial Waters, a local company, pumps fresh water directly out of Rosewall Creek, just north of Deep Bay. They export more than 24 million individual plastic bottles of water to Asia every year. Recycling has to be a question, but so does ownership of water. Who has the right to sell water?
In 1997 The World Bank, on behalf of multi-national corporations, forced the government of Bolivia to privatize their public water systems as explicit condition of aid for this impoverished country. The collection of rainwater by the people was made illegal. The people revolted, police killed ordinary citizens, but the people prevailed and eventually they were victorious. The government was forced to change and some of the multi-national corporations were expelled from the country. Water was returned to the people as a right, not a privilege to be paid for with cash.
"In every corner of the globe, we are polluting, diverting, pumping, and wasting our limited supply of fresh water at an expediential level as population and technology grows. The rampant overdevelopment of agriculture, housing and industry increase the demands for fresh water well beyond the finite supply, resulting in the desertification of the earth." This quote comes directly from a film I saw on the big screen during the holidays. "Blue Gold: World Water Wars" is winning awards, receiving rave reviews, and attracting a great deal of public attention. Check it out at: www.bluegold-worldwaterwars.com
The film goes on to state; "Corporate giants force developing countries to privatize their water supply for profit. Wall Street investors target desalination and mass bulk water export schemes. Corrupt governments use water for economic and political gain. Military control of water emerges and a new geo-political map and power structure forms, setting the stage for world water wars."
Maude Barlow, one of the main characters in the film proclaims, "This is our revolution, this is our war. A line has been crossed, as water becomes a commodity. Will we survive?" As the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, and the founder of the Blue Planet Project, Barlow has been raising awareness about this issue for decades and sees a sharp increase in support as people begin to realize the dangers. Find out more: www.blueplanetproject.net
One of the most inspiring characters is a Canadian, Ryan Hreljac, who started raising money to provide clean drinking water for people in Africa when he was in grade one. Since then he has raised $2 million which have built 319 wells in 114 countries providing clean drinking water to nearly half a million people. Today he's in High School.
-30-
Richard Boyce is a free-lance writer and award winning documentary filmmaker. Island Lens has been published by the Parksville-Qualicum News for the past four years. Please help to send the article far and wide by forwarding this e-mail.
----------------------------
Richard Boyce, BFA, MFA
Producer/Director
Island Bound Media Works
E-mail: rcboyce@shaw.ca
http://www.islandboundmedia.ca
http://islandlens.blogspot.com
By Richard Boyce
LOCAL WATER A GLOBAL ISSUE
I've explored much of the crystal-clear water of Englishman River, as it runs its course of 10 km between the source on Mount Arrowsmith and the estuary in the Strait of Georgia. Jumping off the cliffs at the lower falls in the provincial park led my friends and I to swim across the large pool to the gushing flow of water that was the falls. Skirting around the edge of the pounding water and thick spray we were able to access a fairly large cave in behind the cascading waterfall. We sat on a log, wedged between the rocks, and watched the light filter in through the emerald coloured waterfall. That memory will remain with me forever.
Today, that waterfall no longer exists. The water has finally carved through solid rock, allowing the river to flow under a massive boulder rather than over it. The deep canyon between steeply carved cliffs, etched out by the river's flow of water, bears testament to the fact that this type of natural change has been happening for millennia. The disappearance of this waterfall reminds me to look at the bigger picture.
Multi-national corporations around the world are taking over control of the world's water. The pretense is usually that the local governments cannot keep up with the public demands for increased water, safety and security. The result is that the price of water doubles, public access decreases, and poor people die of thirst. The fact is corporations have made water more expensive than anything the general public consumes because it is essential for us to exist. Water in small plastic bottles, fetches double the price of gasoline at your local convenience store.
Today Natural Glacial Waters, a local company, pumps fresh water directly out of Rosewall Creek, just north of Deep Bay. They export more than 24 million individual plastic bottles of water to Asia every year. Recycling has to be a question, but so does ownership of water. Who has the right to sell water?
In 1997 The World Bank, on behalf of multi-national corporations, forced the government of Bolivia to privatize their public water systems as explicit condition of aid for this impoverished country. The collection of rainwater by the people was made illegal. The people revolted, police killed ordinary citizens, but the people prevailed and eventually they were victorious. The government was forced to change and some of the multi-national corporations were expelled from the country. Water was returned to the people as a right, not a privilege to be paid for with cash.
"In every corner of the globe, we are polluting, diverting, pumping, and wasting our limited supply of fresh water at an expediential level as population and technology grows. The rampant overdevelopment of agriculture, housing and industry increase the demands for fresh water well beyond the finite supply, resulting in the desertification of the earth." This quote comes directly from a film I saw on the big screen during the holidays. "Blue Gold: World Water Wars" is winning awards, receiving rave reviews, and attracting a great deal of public attention. Check it out at: www.bluegold-worldwaterwars.com
The film goes on to state; "Corporate giants force developing countries to privatize their water supply for profit. Wall Street investors target desalination and mass bulk water export schemes. Corrupt governments use water for economic and political gain. Military control of water emerges and a new geo-political map and power structure forms, setting the stage for world water wars."
Maude Barlow, one of the main characters in the film proclaims, "This is our revolution, this is our war. A line has been crossed, as water becomes a commodity. Will we survive?" As the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, and the founder of the Blue Planet Project, Barlow has been raising awareness about this issue for decades and sees a sharp increase in support as people begin to realize the dangers. Find out more: www.blueplanetproject.net
One of the most inspiring characters is a Canadian, Ryan Hreljac, who started raising money to provide clean drinking water for people in Africa when he was in grade one. Since then he has raised $2 million which have built 319 wells in 114 countries providing clean drinking water to nearly half a million people. Today he's in High School.
-30-
Richard Boyce is a free-lance writer and award winning documentary filmmaker. Island Lens has been published by the Parksville-Qualicum News for the past four years. Please help to send the article far and wide by forwarding this e-mail.
----------------------------
Richard Boyce, BFA, MFA
Producer/Director
Island Bound Media Works
E-mail: rcboyce@shaw.ca
http://www.islandboundmedia.ca
http://islandlens.blogspot.com
Letter to the First Lady in Waiting
William A. Cook
Dear Michelle; before you were silenced by your husband’s handlers for speaking your mind and heart, I listened to you talk to Americans about how they had changed by recognizing that the ideas embedded in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights encased sacred values that gave meaning to human life. One cannot know change if one does not accept the reality that preceded it. You know the reality of America’s past, its racist, barbaric existence as a slave nation, its years of genocidal ferocity against the indigenous people of this continent, its 100 years of apartheid, and its slow acceptance of the reality of America that it is a multicultural, multiracial land that can rise above fanatical closed minds of those who would wish otherwise.
That’s why I turn to you and not your husband. He appears to be at the mercy of those who would see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. Yet evil exists, now, in Palestine, an evil comparable in its hatred and ferocity to that endured by the Jews in Nazi Germany. Listen to Yehuda Bauer, Academic Advisor to Yad Vashem and the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research:
“Politics that are not based on moral considerations are, at the end of the day, not practical politics at all. It is out of these considerations that I beg you to permit me to repeat here what I have said, exactly eight years ago, in a speech to the German Bundestag: I come from a people that gave the Ten Commandments to the world. Let us agree that we need three more commandments, and they are these: thou shalt not be a perpetrator; thou shalt not be a victim; and thou shalt never, but never, be a bystander.” (January 27, 2006)
Now, in this time, your husband is a bystander. Isreal is the perpetrator of horrific violence against a caged victim, helpless as the slave lashed to a pole before the onslaught of the overseer’s whip, mercilessly slashing his victim’s flesh with the steel barbs that he swings with all his might as Frederick Douglass describes so vividly in his narrative. But now the victims are one million five hundred thousand caged Palestinians being slashed by America’s $300,000 missiles hurled from the sky by American planes or American supplied rockets shot from American tanks or swarms of thousands of soldiers protected by American armor and ordnance, all trained to inflict the most devastating destruction possible on people who have no why to defend themselves but to hide in their homes that may become their tomb as its walls collapse from the Israeli onslaught.
The Jews of Israel that stand silent as this slaughter continues have broken the first of Bauer’s new commandments; so has your husband. No defense that “there is only one President at a time” can excuse this silence. This man, a man of promise and hope not just to Americans that have lived through these eight years of American failure at home and abroad but a man of hope and promise for the world, stands silent, a mute statue, a symbol to all that have abandoned the moral base of politics to curry favor with the overseers lest they too have to suffer the displeasure of the elite that control our Congress placing America in extreme danger.
Bauer makes this observation earlier in his speech: “There are two aspects to the Holocaust. One is the specificity of the Jewish fate, the other are the universal implications: they are two sides of the same coin. The Jews were the specific victims of the genocide. But the implications are universal, because who knows who the Jews may be next time.”
Well now we know; and as the Jews of this Israeli state perpetrate such genocide on the Palestinians you and I must accept the fact that it would not and could not be done without America’s support both in the field and in the United Nations. Listen once again to Bauer: “The main parallel between the Holocaust and other genocides is that the suffering of the victims is the same. Murder is murder, torture is torture, rape is rape; starvation, disease, and humiliation are the same in all mass murders. There are no gradations, and no genocide is better or worse than another one, no one is more a victim than anyone else.” Let me add to this litany of truth the reality that all who say or do nothing against such murder are themselves complicit in the murder; no one in this world has more potential to stop this unspeakable genocide than your husband. Don’t let him renege on his commitment made in Germany before 200,000 adoring people, a commitment made in the land where the Jews suffered their genocide, a commitment to what is right and just in this world, to tear down the walls that divide so that all may reach out to the other and seek the harmony he saw in this changing America that has blessed him with the unique opportunity to lift America out of the chaos that it has been mired in because of its acquiescence to and obsequious acceptance of Israel’s illegal and inhumane treatment of the Palestinian people.
Let me add a personal note as I end this letter. I am a Professor; I’ve served higher education for 50 years as a teacher and administrator; now, in this time, I stand appalled at the silence of my peers in the United States and in Israel who have, with some exceptions, remained silent about Israel’s atrocities. They will in due time be seen as their peers in Germany are now seen from the days of the Holocaust, silent stooges for those in power, unable or unwilling to stand before the world against unspeakable crimes. I share your dilemma; I yearn for the voices of the professoriate to cry out to the world that nothing by way of argument can justify this carnage, that compassion cries for justice, that peace cannot rise from the ashes of a military onslaught, only hatred, vengeance, and slavery.
You, Michelle, in the silence of your room, can speak to our President; you must make him stand against those who permit this genocide to continue, to stand with millions of people around the world who have and continue to assert their anger at Israel and the United States that have betrayed their morals and the agreements they have signed with their fellow nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Accords. Don’t let him be remembered as the man that did nothing before this plague of evil that contaminates the mid-east; don’t let him become the new Uncle Tom who humiliates himself before his white overseers that control our Congress and Israel.
Dear Michelle; before you were silenced by your husband’s handlers for speaking your mind and heart, I listened to you talk to Americans about how they had changed by recognizing that the ideas embedded in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights encased sacred values that gave meaning to human life. One cannot know change if one does not accept the reality that preceded it. You know the reality of America’s past, its racist, barbaric existence as a slave nation, its years of genocidal ferocity against the indigenous people of this continent, its 100 years of apartheid, and its slow acceptance of the reality of America that it is a multicultural, multiracial land that can rise above fanatical closed minds of those who would wish otherwise.
That’s why I turn to you and not your husband. He appears to be at the mercy of those who would see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. Yet evil exists, now, in Palestine, an evil comparable in its hatred and ferocity to that endured by the Jews in Nazi Germany. Listen to Yehuda Bauer, Academic Advisor to Yad Vashem and the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research:
“Politics that are not based on moral considerations are, at the end of the day, not practical politics at all. It is out of these considerations that I beg you to permit me to repeat here what I have said, exactly eight years ago, in a speech to the German Bundestag: I come from a people that gave the Ten Commandments to the world. Let us agree that we need three more commandments, and they are these: thou shalt not be a perpetrator; thou shalt not be a victim; and thou shalt never, but never, be a bystander.” (January 27, 2006)
Now, in this time, your husband is a bystander. Isreal is the perpetrator of horrific violence against a caged victim, helpless as the slave lashed to a pole before the onslaught of the overseer’s whip, mercilessly slashing his victim’s flesh with the steel barbs that he swings with all his might as Frederick Douglass describes so vividly in his narrative. But now the victims are one million five hundred thousand caged Palestinians being slashed by America’s $300,000 missiles hurled from the sky by American planes or American supplied rockets shot from American tanks or swarms of thousands of soldiers protected by American armor and ordnance, all trained to inflict the most devastating destruction possible on people who have no why to defend themselves but to hide in their homes that may become their tomb as its walls collapse from the Israeli onslaught.
The Jews of Israel that stand silent as this slaughter continues have broken the first of Bauer’s new commandments; so has your husband. No defense that “there is only one President at a time” can excuse this silence. This man, a man of promise and hope not just to Americans that have lived through these eight years of American failure at home and abroad but a man of hope and promise for the world, stands silent, a mute statue, a symbol to all that have abandoned the moral base of politics to curry favor with the overseers lest they too have to suffer the displeasure of the elite that control our Congress placing America in extreme danger.
Bauer makes this observation earlier in his speech: “There are two aspects to the Holocaust. One is the specificity of the Jewish fate, the other are the universal implications: they are two sides of the same coin. The Jews were the specific victims of the genocide. But the implications are universal, because who knows who the Jews may be next time.”
Well now we know; and as the Jews of this Israeli state perpetrate such genocide on the Palestinians you and I must accept the fact that it would not and could not be done without America’s support both in the field and in the United Nations. Listen once again to Bauer: “The main parallel between the Holocaust and other genocides is that the suffering of the victims is the same. Murder is murder, torture is torture, rape is rape; starvation, disease, and humiliation are the same in all mass murders. There are no gradations, and no genocide is better or worse than another one, no one is more a victim than anyone else.” Let me add to this litany of truth the reality that all who say or do nothing against such murder are themselves complicit in the murder; no one in this world has more potential to stop this unspeakable genocide than your husband. Don’t let him renege on his commitment made in Germany before 200,000 adoring people, a commitment made in the land where the Jews suffered their genocide, a commitment to what is right and just in this world, to tear down the walls that divide so that all may reach out to the other and seek the harmony he saw in this changing America that has blessed him with the unique opportunity to lift America out of the chaos that it has been mired in because of its acquiescence to and obsequious acceptance of Israel’s illegal and inhumane treatment of the Palestinian people.
Let me add a personal note as I end this letter. I am a Professor; I’ve served higher education for 50 years as a teacher and administrator; now, in this time, I stand appalled at the silence of my peers in the United States and in Israel who have, with some exceptions, remained silent about Israel’s atrocities. They will in due time be seen as their peers in Germany are now seen from the days of the Holocaust, silent stooges for those in power, unable or unwilling to stand before the world against unspeakable crimes. I share your dilemma; I yearn for the voices of the professoriate to cry out to the world that nothing by way of argument can justify this carnage, that compassion cries for justice, that peace cannot rise from the ashes of a military onslaught, only hatred, vengeance, and slavery.
You, Michelle, in the silence of your room, can speak to our President; you must make him stand against those who permit this genocide to continue, to stand with millions of people around the world who have and continue to assert their anger at Israel and the United States that have betrayed their morals and the agreements they have signed with their fellow nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Accords. Don’t let him be remembered as the man that did nothing before this plague of evil that contaminates the mid-east; don’t let him become the new Uncle Tom who humiliates himself before his white overseers that control our Congress and Israel.
Israel's Holocaust Deniers
Holocaust Denied
The lying silence of those who know
By John Pilger
January 08, 2009 "Information Clearinghouse" -- -"When the truth is replaced by silence," the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko said, "the silence is a lie." It may appear the silence is broken on Gaza. The cocoons of murdered children, wrapped in green, together with boxes containing their dismembered parents and the cries of grief and rage of everyone in that death camp by the sea, can be viewed on al-Jazeera and YouTube, even glimpsed on the BBC. But Russia's incorrigible poet was not referring to the ephemeral we call news; he was asking why those who knew the why never spoke it and so denied it. Among the Anglo-American intelligentsia, this is especially striking. It is they who hold the keys to the great storehouses of knowledge: the historiographies and archives that lead us to the why.
They know that the horror now raining on Gaza has little to do with Hamas or, absurdly, "Israel's right to exist." They know the opposite to be true: that Palestine's right to exist was canceled 61 years ago and the expulsion and, if necessary, extinction of the indigenous people was planned and executed by the founders of Israel. They know, for example, that the infamous "Plan D" resulted in the murderous depopulation of 369 Palestinian towns and villages by the Haganah (Jewish army) and that massacre upon massacre of Palestinian civilians in such places as Deir Yassin, al-Dawayima, Eilaboun, Jish, Ramle and Lydda are referred to in official records as "ethnic cleansing." Arriving at a scene of this carnage, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, was asked by a general, Yigal Allon, "What shall we do with the Arabs?" Ben-Gurion, reported the Israeli historian Benny Morris, "made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and said, ‘Expel them'. The order to expel an entire population "without attention to age" was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, a future prime minister promoted by the world's most efficient propaganda as a peacemaker. The terrible irony of this was addressed only in passing, such as when the Mapan Party co-leader Meir Ya'ari noted "how easily" Israel's leaders spoke of how it was "possible and permissible to take women, children and old men and to fill the roads with them because such is the imperative of strategy … who remembers who used this means against our people during the [Second World] war … we are appalled."
Every subsequent "war" Israel has waged has had the same objective: the expulsion of the native people and the theft of more and more land. The lie of David and Goliath, of perennial victim, reached its apogee in 1967 when the propaganda became a righteous fury that claimed the Arab states had struck first. Since then, mostly Jewish truth-tellers such as Avi Schlaim, Noam Chomsky, the late Tanya Reinhart, Neve Gordon, Tom Segev, Yuri Avnery, Ilan Pappe and Norman Finklestein have dispatched this and other myths and revealed a state shorn of the humane traditions of Judaism, whose unrelenting militarism is the sum of an expansionist, lawless and racist ideology called zionism. "It seems," wrote the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe on 2 January, "that even the most horrendous crimes, such as the genocide in Gaza, are treated as desperate events, unconnected to anything that happened in the past and not associated with any ideology or system … Very much as the apartheid ideology explained the oppressive policies of the South African government, this ideology – in its most consensual and simplistic variety – has allowed all the Israeli governments in the past and the present to dehumanize the Palestinians wherever they are and strive to destroy them. The means altered from period to period, from location to location, as did the narrative covering up these atrocities. But there is a clear pattern [of genocide]."
In Gaza, the enforced starvation and denial of humanitarian aid, the piracy of life-giving resources such as fuel and water, the denial of medicines and treatment, the systematic destruction of infrastructure and the killing and maiming of the civilian population, 50 per cent of whom are children, meet the international standard of the Genocide Convention. "Is it an irresponsible overstatement," asked Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and international law authority at Princeton University, "to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not."
In describing a "holocaust-in-the making," Falk was alluding to the Nazis' establishment of Jewish ghettos in Poland. For one month in 1943, the captive Polish Jews led by Mordechaj Anielewiz fought off the German army and the SS, but their resistance was finally crushed and the Nazis exacted their final revenge. Falk is also a Jew. Today's holocaust-in-the-making, which began with Ben-Gurion's Plan D, is in its final stages. The difference today is that it is a joint US-Israeli project. The F-16 jet fighters, the 250-pound "smart" GBU-39 bombs supplied on the eve of the attack on Gaza, having been approved by a Congress dominated by the Democratic Party, plus the annual $2.4 billion in war-making "aid," give Washington de facto control. It beggars belief that President-elect Obama was not informed. Outspoken on Russia's war in Georgia and the terrorism in Mumbai, Obama's silence on Palestine marks his approval, which is to be expected, given his obsequiousness to the Tel Aviv regime and its lobbyists during the presidential campaign and his appointment of Zionists as his secretary of state, chief of staff and principal Middle East advisers. When Aretha Franklin sings "Think," her wonderful 1960s anthem to freedom, at Obama's inauguration on 21 January, I trust someone with the brave heart of Muntadar al-Zaidi, the shoe-thrower, will shout: "Gaza!"
The asymmetry of conquest and terror is clear. Plan D is now "Operation Cast Lead," which is the unfinished "Operation Justified Vengeance." The latter was launched by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 when, with Bush's approval, he used F-16s against Palestinian towns and villages for the first time. In the same year, the authoritative Jane's Foreign Report disclosed that the Blair government had given Israel the "green light" to attack the West Bank after it was shown Israel's secret designs for a bloodbath. It was typical of New Labor Party's enduring, cringing complicity in Palestine's agony. However, the 2001 Israeli plan, reported Jane's, needed the "trigger" of a suicide bombing which would cause "numerous deaths and injuries [because] the 'revenge' factor is crucial." This would "motivate Israeli soldiers to demolish the Palestinians." What alarmed Sharon and the author of the plan, General Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli Chief of Staff, was a secret agreement between Yasser Arafat and Hamas to ban suicide attacks. On 23 November, 2001, Israeli agents assassinated the Hamas leader, Mahmud Abu Hunud, and got their "trigger"; the suicide attacks resumed in response to his killing.
Something uncannily similar happened on 5 November last, when Israeli special forces attacked Gaza, killing six people. Once again, they got their propaganda "trigger." A ceasefire initiated and sustained by the Hamas government – which had imprisoned its violators – was shattered by the Israeli attack and homemade rockets were fired into what used to be Palestine before its Arab occupants were "cleansed." The On 23 December, Hamas offered to renew the ceasefire, but Israel's charade was such that its all-out assault on Gaza had been planned six months earlier, according to the Israeli daily Ha'aretz.
Behind this sordid game is the "Dagan Plan," named after General Meir Dagan, who served with Sharon in his bloody invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Now head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence organization, Dagan is the author of a "solution" that has seen the imprisonment of Palestinians behind a ghetto wall snaking across the West Bank and in Gaza, effectively a concentration camp. The establishment of a quisling government in Ramallah under Mohammed Abbas is Dagan's achievement, together with a hasbara (propaganda) campaign relayed through a mostly supine, if intimidated western media, notably in America, that says Hamas is a terrorist organization devoted to Israel's destruction and to "blame" for the massacres and siege of its own people over two generations, long before its creation. "We have never had it so good," said the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Gideon Meir in 2006. "The hasbara effort is a well-oiled machine." In fact, Hamas's real threat is its example as the Arab world's only democratically elected government, drawing its popularity from its resistance to the Palestinians' oppressor and tormentor. This was demonstrated when Hamas foiled a CIA coup in 2007, an event ordained in the western media as "Hamas's seizure of power." Likewise, Hamas is never described as a government, let alone democratic. Neither is its proposal of a ten-year truce as a historic recognition of the "reality" of Israel and support for a two-state solution with just one condition: that the Israelis obey international law and end their illegal occupation beyond the 1967 borders. As every annual vote in the UN General Assembly demonstrates, 99 per cent of humanity concurs. On 4 January, the president of the General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto, described the Israeli attack on Gaza as a "monstrosity."
When the monstrosity is done and the people of Gaza are even more stricken, the Dagan Plan foresees what Sharon called a "1948-style solution" – the destruction of all Palestinian leadership and authority followed by mass expulsions into smaller and smaller "cantonments" and perhaps finally into Jordan. This demolition of institutional and educational life in Gaza is designed to produce, wrote Karma Nabulsi, a Palestinian exile in Britain, "a Hobbesian vision of an anarchic society: truncated, violent, powerless, destroyed, cowed … Look to the Iraq of today: that is what [Sharon] had in store for us, and he has nearly achieved it."
Dr. Dahlia Wasfi is an American writer on Palestine. She has a Jewish mother and an Iraqi Muslim father. "Holocaust denial is anti-Semitic," she wrote on 31 December. "But I'm not talking about World War Two, Mahmoud Ahmedinijad (the president of Iran) or Ashkenazi Jews. What I'm referring to is the holocaust we are all witnessing and responsible for in Gaza today and in Palestine over the past 60 years … Since Arabs are Semites, US-Israeli policy doesn't get more anti-Semitic than this." She quoted Rachel Corrie, the young American who went to Palestine to defend Palestinians and was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer. "I am in the midst of a genocide," wrote Corrie, "which I am also indirectly supporting and for which my government is largely responsible."
Reading the words of both, I am struck by the use of "responsibility." Breaking the lie of silence is not an esoteric abstraction but an urgent responsibility that falls to those with the privilege of a platform. With the BBC cowed, so too is much of journalism, merely allowing vigorous debate within unmovable invisible boundaries, ever fearful of the smear of anti-Semitism. The unreported news, meanwhile, is that the death toll in Gaza is the equivalent of 18,000 dead in Britain. Imagine, if you can.
Then there are the academics, the deans and teachers and researchers. Why are they silent as they watch a university bombed and hear the Association of University Teachers in Gaza plea for help? Are British universities now, as Terry Eagleton believes, no more than "intellectual Tescos, churning out a commodity known as graduates rather than greengroceries"?
Then there are the writers. In the dark year of 1939, the Third Writers' Congress was held at Carnegie Hall in New York and the likes of Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein sent messages and spoke up to ensure the lie of silence was broken. By one account, 3,500 jammed the auditorium and a thousand were turned away. Today, this mighty voice of realism and morality is said to be obsolete; the literary review pages affect an ironic hauteur of irrelevance; false symbolism is all. As for the readers, their moral and political imagination is to be pacified, not primed. The anti-Muslim Martin Amis expressed this well in Visiting Mrs. Nabokov: "The dominance of the self is not a flaw, it is an evolutionary characteristic; it is just how things are."
If that is how things are, we are diminished as a civilized society. For what happens in Gaza is the defining moment of our time, which either grants the impunity of war criminals the immunity of our silence, while we contort our own intellect and morality, or gives us the power to speak out. For the moment I prefer my own memory of Gaza: of the people's courage and resistance and their "luminous humanity," as Karma Nabulsi put it. On my last trip there, I was rewarded with a spectacle of Palestinian flags fluttering in unlikely places. It was dusk and children had done this. No one told them to do it. They made flagpoles out of sticks tied together, and a few of them climbed on to a wall and held the flag between them, some silently, others crying out. They do this every day when they know foreigners are leaving, believing the world will not forget them.
The lying silence of those who know
By John Pilger
January 08, 2009 "Information Clearinghouse" -- -"When the truth is replaced by silence," the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko said, "the silence is a lie." It may appear the silence is broken on Gaza. The cocoons of murdered children, wrapped in green, together with boxes containing their dismembered parents and the cries of grief and rage of everyone in that death camp by the sea, can be viewed on al-Jazeera and YouTube, even glimpsed on the BBC. But Russia's incorrigible poet was not referring to the ephemeral we call news; he was asking why those who knew the why never spoke it and so denied it. Among the Anglo-American intelligentsia, this is especially striking. It is they who hold the keys to the great storehouses of knowledge: the historiographies and archives that lead us to the why.
They know that the horror now raining on Gaza has little to do with Hamas or, absurdly, "Israel's right to exist." They know the opposite to be true: that Palestine's right to exist was canceled 61 years ago and the expulsion and, if necessary, extinction of the indigenous people was planned and executed by the founders of Israel. They know, for example, that the infamous "Plan D" resulted in the murderous depopulation of 369 Palestinian towns and villages by the Haganah (Jewish army) and that massacre upon massacre of Palestinian civilians in such places as Deir Yassin, al-Dawayima, Eilaboun, Jish, Ramle and Lydda are referred to in official records as "ethnic cleansing." Arriving at a scene of this carnage, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, was asked by a general, Yigal Allon, "What shall we do with the Arabs?" Ben-Gurion, reported the Israeli historian Benny Morris, "made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and said, ‘Expel them'. The order to expel an entire population "without attention to age" was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, a future prime minister promoted by the world's most efficient propaganda as a peacemaker. The terrible irony of this was addressed only in passing, such as when the Mapan Party co-leader Meir Ya'ari noted "how easily" Israel's leaders spoke of how it was "possible and permissible to take women, children and old men and to fill the roads with them because such is the imperative of strategy … who remembers who used this means against our people during the [Second World] war … we are appalled."
Every subsequent "war" Israel has waged has had the same objective: the expulsion of the native people and the theft of more and more land. The lie of David and Goliath, of perennial victim, reached its apogee in 1967 when the propaganda became a righteous fury that claimed the Arab states had struck first. Since then, mostly Jewish truth-tellers such as Avi Schlaim, Noam Chomsky, the late Tanya Reinhart, Neve Gordon, Tom Segev, Yuri Avnery, Ilan Pappe and Norman Finklestein have dispatched this and other myths and revealed a state shorn of the humane traditions of Judaism, whose unrelenting militarism is the sum of an expansionist, lawless and racist ideology called zionism. "It seems," wrote the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe on 2 January, "that even the most horrendous crimes, such as the genocide in Gaza, are treated as desperate events, unconnected to anything that happened in the past and not associated with any ideology or system … Very much as the apartheid ideology explained the oppressive policies of the South African government, this ideology – in its most consensual and simplistic variety – has allowed all the Israeli governments in the past and the present to dehumanize the Palestinians wherever they are and strive to destroy them. The means altered from period to period, from location to location, as did the narrative covering up these atrocities. But there is a clear pattern [of genocide]."
In Gaza, the enforced starvation and denial of humanitarian aid, the piracy of life-giving resources such as fuel and water, the denial of medicines and treatment, the systematic destruction of infrastructure and the killing and maiming of the civilian population, 50 per cent of whom are children, meet the international standard of the Genocide Convention. "Is it an irresponsible overstatement," asked Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and international law authority at Princeton University, "to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not."
In describing a "holocaust-in-the making," Falk was alluding to the Nazis' establishment of Jewish ghettos in Poland. For one month in 1943, the captive Polish Jews led by Mordechaj Anielewiz fought off the German army and the SS, but their resistance was finally crushed and the Nazis exacted their final revenge. Falk is also a Jew. Today's holocaust-in-the-making, which began with Ben-Gurion's Plan D, is in its final stages. The difference today is that it is a joint US-Israeli project. The F-16 jet fighters, the 250-pound "smart" GBU-39 bombs supplied on the eve of the attack on Gaza, having been approved by a Congress dominated by the Democratic Party, plus the annual $2.4 billion in war-making "aid," give Washington de facto control. It beggars belief that President-elect Obama was not informed. Outspoken on Russia's war in Georgia and the terrorism in Mumbai, Obama's silence on Palestine marks his approval, which is to be expected, given his obsequiousness to the Tel Aviv regime and its lobbyists during the presidential campaign and his appointment of Zionists as his secretary of state, chief of staff and principal Middle East advisers. When Aretha Franklin sings "Think," her wonderful 1960s anthem to freedom, at Obama's inauguration on 21 January, I trust someone with the brave heart of Muntadar al-Zaidi, the shoe-thrower, will shout: "Gaza!"
The asymmetry of conquest and terror is clear. Plan D is now "Operation Cast Lead," which is the unfinished "Operation Justified Vengeance." The latter was launched by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 when, with Bush's approval, he used F-16s against Palestinian towns and villages for the first time. In the same year, the authoritative Jane's Foreign Report disclosed that the Blair government had given Israel the "green light" to attack the West Bank after it was shown Israel's secret designs for a bloodbath. It was typical of New Labor Party's enduring, cringing complicity in Palestine's agony. However, the 2001 Israeli plan, reported Jane's, needed the "trigger" of a suicide bombing which would cause "numerous deaths and injuries [because] the 'revenge' factor is crucial." This would "motivate Israeli soldiers to demolish the Palestinians." What alarmed Sharon and the author of the plan, General Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli Chief of Staff, was a secret agreement between Yasser Arafat and Hamas to ban suicide attacks. On 23 November, 2001, Israeli agents assassinated the Hamas leader, Mahmud Abu Hunud, and got their "trigger"; the suicide attacks resumed in response to his killing.
Something uncannily similar happened on 5 November last, when Israeli special forces attacked Gaza, killing six people. Once again, they got their propaganda "trigger." A ceasefire initiated and sustained by the Hamas government – which had imprisoned its violators – was shattered by the Israeli attack and homemade rockets were fired into what used to be Palestine before its Arab occupants were "cleansed." The On 23 December, Hamas offered to renew the ceasefire, but Israel's charade was such that its all-out assault on Gaza had been planned six months earlier, according to the Israeli daily Ha'aretz.
Behind this sordid game is the "Dagan Plan," named after General Meir Dagan, who served with Sharon in his bloody invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Now head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence organization, Dagan is the author of a "solution" that has seen the imprisonment of Palestinians behind a ghetto wall snaking across the West Bank and in Gaza, effectively a concentration camp. The establishment of a quisling government in Ramallah under Mohammed Abbas is Dagan's achievement, together with a hasbara (propaganda) campaign relayed through a mostly supine, if intimidated western media, notably in America, that says Hamas is a terrorist organization devoted to Israel's destruction and to "blame" for the massacres and siege of its own people over two generations, long before its creation. "We have never had it so good," said the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Gideon Meir in 2006. "The hasbara effort is a well-oiled machine." In fact, Hamas's real threat is its example as the Arab world's only democratically elected government, drawing its popularity from its resistance to the Palestinians' oppressor and tormentor. This was demonstrated when Hamas foiled a CIA coup in 2007, an event ordained in the western media as "Hamas's seizure of power." Likewise, Hamas is never described as a government, let alone democratic. Neither is its proposal of a ten-year truce as a historic recognition of the "reality" of Israel and support for a two-state solution with just one condition: that the Israelis obey international law and end their illegal occupation beyond the 1967 borders. As every annual vote in the UN General Assembly demonstrates, 99 per cent of humanity concurs. On 4 January, the president of the General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto, described the Israeli attack on Gaza as a "monstrosity."
When the monstrosity is done and the people of Gaza are even more stricken, the Dagan Plan foresees what Sharon called a "1948-style solution" – the destruction of all Palestinian leadership and authority followed by mass expulsions into smaller and smaller "cantonments" and perhaps finally into Jordan. This demolition of institutional and educational life in Gaza is designed to produce, wrote Karma Nabulsi, a Palestinian exile in Britain, "a Hobbesian vision of an anarchic society: truncated, violent, powerless, destroyed, cowed … Look to the Iraq of today: that is what [Sharon] had in store for us, and he has nearly achieved it."
Dr. Dahlia Wasfi is an American writer on Palestine. She has a Jewish mother and an Iraqi Muslim father. "Holocaust denial is anti-Semitic," she wrote on 31 December. "But I'm not talking about World War Two, Mahmoud Ahmedinijad (the president of Iran) or Ashkenazi Jews. What I'm referring to is the holocaust we are all witnessing and responsible for in Gaza today and in Palestine over the past 60 years … Since Arabs are Semites, US-Israeli policy doesn't get more anti-Semitic than this." She quoted Rachel Corrie, the young American who went to Palestine to defend Palestinians and was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer. "I am in the midst of a genocide," wrote Corrie, "which I am also indirectly supporting and for which my government is largely responsible."
Reading the words of both, I am struck by the use of "responsibility." Breaking the lie of silence is not an esoteric abstraction but an urgent responsibility that falls to those with the privilege of a platform. With the BBC cowed, so too is much of journalism, merely allowing vigorous debate within unmovable invisible boundaries, ever fearful of the smear of anti-Semitism. The unreported news, meanwhile, is that the death toll in Gaza is the equivalent of 18,000 dead in Britain. Imagine, if you can.
Then there are the academics, the deans and teachers and researchers. Why are they silent as they watch a university bombed and hear the Association of University Teachers in Gaza plea for help? Are British universities now, as Terry Eagleton believes, no more than "intellectual Tescos, churning out a commodity known as graduates rather than greengroceries"?
Then there are the writers. In the dark year of 1939, the Third Writers' Congress was held at Carnegie Hall in New York and the likes of Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein sent messages and spoke up to ensure the lie of silence was broken. By one account, 3,500 jammed the auditorium and a thousand were turned away. Today, this mighty voice of realism and morality is said to be obsolete; the literary review pages affect an ironic hauteur of irrelevance; false symbolism is all. As for the readers, their moral and political imagination is to be pacified, not primed. The anti-Muslim Martin Amis expressed this well in Visiting Mrs. Nabokov: "The dominance of the self is not a flaw, it is an evolutionary characteristic; it is just how things are."
If that is how things are, we are diminished as a civilized society. For what happens in Gaza is the defining moment of our time, which either grants the impunity of war criminals the immunity of our silence, while we contort our own intellect and morality, or gives us the power to speak out. For the moment I prefer my own memory of Gaza: of the people's courage and resistance and their "luminous humanity," as Karma Nabulsi put it. On my last trip there, I was rewarded with a spectacle of Palestinian flags fluttering in unlikely places. It was dusk and children had done this. No one told them to do it. They made flagpoles out of sticks tied together, and a few of them climbed on to a wall and held the flag between them, some silently, others crying out. They do this every day when they know foreigners are leaving, believing the world will not forget them.
Venezuela Expels Israeli Mission, Called "Terrorist State"
Venezuela Expels Israeli Ambassador in Solidarity with Palestinian People
Source: Tamara Pearson - Venezuelanalysis.com January 7, 2009
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4089
To express solidarity with the Palestinian people, Venezuela expelled Israel’s ambassador, is organizing humanitarian aid, and has called on the international community to protest. In response, the Israeli government called Venezuela a terrorist state. The Israeli ambassador in Venezuela, Shlomo Cohen, was expelled from Venezuela on Tuesday in response to the recent attacks by the Israeli government on Gaza.
The Venezuelan ministry for foreign affairs explained the action its statement dated January 5:The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela witnesses once again, together with the peoples of the world, the horror of the death of innocent women and children as a result of the invasion of the Gaza strip by Israeli troops and from the bombardment that, from sky and land, the State of Israel systematically executes over Palestinian territory.
In this tragic and infuriating time, the people of Venezuela manifest their unlimited solidarity with the heroic Palestinian people, and share in the grief that has seized thousands of families for the loss of loved ones and holds its hands out to affirm that the Venezuelan government won’t rest until those responsible have been severely punished for these heinous crimes.The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela categorically condemns the blatant violations of International Law that the State of Israel has committed and denounces its planned use of state terrorism, with which it has placed itself outside the community of nations.For the above reasons, the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has decided
to expel the Israeli ambassador and part of the staff in the Israeli embassy in Venezuela, reaffirming its position of peace and its demand for respecting international law.
The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has instructed its representatives to the United Nations, which together with most governments that agree, urges the Security Council to put urgent and necessary measures in place to stop this invasion by the state of Israel against the Palestinian people.
President Hugo Chavez, who has held meetings with top representatives of the World Jewish Council and has always opposed anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination and racism, makes a brotherly call on the Jewish people throughout the world to oppose the criminal politics of the state of Israel that bring to mind the worst pages of the history of the twentieth century. With the genocide of the Palestinian people, the Israeli state will never be able to offer its people a perspective of lasting peaces, as is so needed.
Chavez has demanded that the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Omert, be taken to the International Criminal Court for his aggression against Gaza and for more than 500 civilian deaths. "They bomb innocent people. Oh wow, how brave is the Israeli army! And those who accuse me of being a tyrant and of genocide are the ones who stay silent in front of such evidence,” Chavez said. He also called on the Israeli people to rise up against their government and condemned the prohibition against water, food, and the International Red Cross entering the Gaza strip.
Israeli response
Israel will expel the Venezuelan charge d’affaires, based in Tel Aviv, in retaliation for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from Venezuela. Israel’s Minister for Foreign Affairs said in her response, “Israel will continue defending itself from its enemies, among those Hamas and Iran, with which Venezuela has close ties.” “Venezuela needs to choose what side of the war it is on. It should choose between those who struggle against terrorism and those who support it. It is no surprise that Venezuela has again made clear to the world on what side it positions itself.”
Roy Chaderton Matos, the Venezuelan ambassador to the Organization of American States, in an interview on Venezuelan state TV, said that Israel was being totalitarian when it classified Venezuela as an “ally of terrorism” and he likened the language used in the statement from Israel to that of the Bush administration. Matos said that Israel is a military government that knows no other solution than violence and that Venezuela would always defend persecuted peoples, “this includes persecuted Jews, Arabic peoples, and any others.”
Hamas, in a press release on its website, said that it appreciated the “courageous” step by Chavez, a step that no other “Arab countries who maintain relations with Israel, dare to take.” Further solidarity: On Tuesday the Venezuelan National Assembly had a minute of silence for the victims of the Israeli armed forces in the Gaza strip.
Legislator Roy Daza proposed the minute of silence, saying that the attacks on Gaza deserve the complete rejection of the international community. Daza said the invasion is genocide against the Palestinian people and asked the National Assembly to sign a declaration condemning the actions of the Israeli government as criminal.
The National Assembly in its official statement demanded a cease of all military action by Israel in Gaza and rejected the attitude taken on by the United Nations Security Council of not stopping the “massacre…owing to the veto imposed by the United States government.”
It said, “An end must be brought to the occupation of the territories [of Palestine], and to the siege imposed on the Gaza strip, to the Israeli settlements, and the question of the Palestinian refugees must be resolved, to be able to guarantee peace in the region.” The Palestinian flag will be raised in the National Assembly for one month as a gesture of solidarity. Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro announced that the government would establish an “air bridge” to send humanitarian aid to Palestine. Venezuela would work with other Arabic and Muslim nations, he said, as well as with other Latin American countries, to bring medicine, food, water, and milk to Palestine. Maduro called the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from Venezuela an “act full of love, the desire for peace, as well as anger, pain
and condemnation, a greeting and a brotherly hug of solidarity.” “The world must raise its voice, as the most powerful of all the powers of the world is the people, international public opinion, and it should continue raising its voice in all the streets of all the cities and towns until a cease fire is imposed, Gaza is no longer occupied and there are fair peace negotiations for the Palestinian people,” he said.
Source: Tamara Pearson - Venezuelanalysis.com January 7, 2009
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4089
To express solidarity with the Palestinian people, Venezuela expelled Israel’s ambassador, is organizing humanitarian aid, and has called on the international community to protest. In response, the Israeli government called Venezuela a terrorist state. The Israeli ambassador in Venezuela, Shlomo Cohen, was expelled from Venezuela on Tuesday in response to the recent attacks by the Israeli government on Gaza.
The Venezuelan ministry for foreign affairs explained the action its statement dated January 5:The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela witnesses once again, together with the peoples of the world, the horror of the death of innocent women and children as a result of the invasion of the Gaza strip by Israeli troops and from the bombardment that, from sky and land, the State of Israel systematically executes over Palestinian territory.
In this tragic and infuriating time, the people of Venezuela manifest their unlimited solidarity with the heroic Palestinian people, and share in the grief that has seized thousands of families for the loss of loved ones and holds its hands out to affirm that the Venezuelan government won’t rest until those responsible have been severely punished for these heinous crimes.The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela categorically condemns the blatant violations of International Law that the State of Israel has committed and denounces its planned use of state terrorism, with which it has placed itself outside the community of nations.For the above reasons, the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has decided
to expel the Israeli ambassador and part of the staff in the Israeli embassy in Venezuela, reaffirming its position of peace and its demand for respecting international law.
The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has instructed its representatives to the United Nations, which together with most governments that agree, urges the Security Council to put urgent and necessary measures in place to stop this invasion by the state of Israel against the Palestinian people.
President Hugo Chavez, who has held meetings with top representatives of the World Jewish Council and has always opposed anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination and racism, makes a brotherly call on the Jewish people throughout the world to oppose the criminal politics of the state of Israel that bring to mind the worst pages of the history of the twentieth century. With the genocide of the Palestinian people, the Israeli state will never be able to offer its people a perspective of lasting peaces, as is so needed.
Chavez has demanded that the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Omert, be taken to the International Criminal Court for his aggression against Gaza and for more than 500 civilian deaths. "They bomb innocent people. Oh wow, how brave is the Israeli army! And those who accuse me of being a tyrant and of genocide are the ones who stay silent in front of such evidence,” Chavez said. He also called on the Israeli people to rise up against their government and condemned the prohibition against water, food, and the International Red Cross entering the Gaza strip.
Israeli response
Israel will expel the Venezuelan charge d’affaires, based in Tel Aviv, in retaliation for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from Venezuela. Israel’s Minister for Foreign Affairs said in her response, “Israel will continue defending itself from its enemies, among those Hamas and Iran, with which Venezuela has close ties.” “Venezuela needs to choose what side of the war it is on. It should choose between those who struggle against terrorism and those who support it. It is no surprise that Venezuela has again made clear to the world on what side it positions itself.”
Roy Chaderton Matos, the Venezuelan ambassador to the Organization of American States, in an interview on Venezuelan state TV, said that Israel was being totalitarian when it classified Venezuela as an “ally of terrorism” and he likened the language used in the statement from Israel to that of the Bush administration. Matos said that Israel is a military government that knows no other solution than violence and that Venezuela would always defend persecuted peoples, “this includes persecuted Jews, Arabic peoples, and any others.”
Hamas, in a press release on its website, said that it appreciated the “courageous” step by Chavez, a step that no other “Arab countries who maintain relations with Israel, dare to take.” Further solidarity: On Tuesday the Venezuelan National Assembly had a minute of silence for the victims of the Israeli armed forces in the Gaza strip.
Legislator Roy Daza proposed the minute of silence, saying that the attacks on Gaza deserve the complete rejection of the international community. Daza said the invasion is genocide against the Palestinian people and asked the National Assembly to sign a declaration condemning the actions of the Israeli government as criminal.
The National Assembly in its official statement demanded a cease of all military action by Israel in Gaza and rejected the attitude taken on by the United Nations Security Council of not stopping the “massacre…owing to the veto imposed by the United States government.”
It said, “An end must be brought to the occupation of the territories [of Palestine], and to the siege imposed on the Gaza strip, to the Israeli settlements, and the question of the Palestinian refugees must be resolved, to be able to guarantee peace in the region.” The Palestinian flag will be raised in the National Assembly for one month as a gesture of solidarity. Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro announced that the government would establish an “air bridge” to send humanitarian aid to Palestine. Venezuela would work with other Arabic and Muslim nations, he said, as well as with other Latin American countries, to bring medicine, food, water, and milk to Palestine. Maduro called the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from Venezuela an “act full of love, the desire for peace, as well as anger, pain
and condemnation, a greeting and a brotherly hug of solidarity.” “The world must raise its voice, as the most powerful of all the powers of the world is the people, international public opinion, and it should continue raising its voice in all the streets of all the cities and towns until a cease fire is imposed, Gaza is no longer occupied and there are fair peace negotiations for the Palestinian people,” he said.
Montreal Israeli Consulate Occupation and Expulsion Order
AUDIO report recorded by CKUT Radio (www.ckut.ca) just after 11am on
Wednesday, January 8th.
MP3:
http://www.ncra.ca/business/admin_ncra/progex/programFiles/53/MontrealOccupation.mp3
AUDIO WEB LINKS:
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/31038
http://www.ncra.ca/exchange/dspProgramDetail.cfm?programID=79399
MONTREAL, January 8, 2009 -- Approximately 30 people entered the lobby of the Israeli consulate this morning to serve an eviction notice to consular staff, demanding the expulsion of the Consular General and an immediate end to the Israeli invasion and siege of Gaza.
"The Canadian government's support for the ongoing atrocities in Gaza is totally unacceptable. Canada should immediately end diplomatic ties with the Israeli apartheid regime, starting with the expulsion of Israeli representatives from Canada. Since the Canadian government has refused to do so, we are taking action ourselves," said Aaron Lakoff, one of the participants.
Demonstrators arrived at the Consulate on the 6th floor of Westmount Square in Montreal, condemning consular officials in English, French and Hebrew for the massacres committed in Gaza. They blocked access to the consulate for almost two hours before being physically expelled by police. Journalists were denied access to the lobby, and two CTV and Radio-Canada cameramen were shoved into an elevator by police.
During the action, demonstrators chanted slogans such as "Fight the power, turn the tide, end Israeli apartheid!" calling for a boycott of Israel, and addressed consular officials through the intercom.
"Since the Israeli assault began, over 700 Gazans have been killed and nearly 3100 have been injured, with no place to escape the relentless bombing of schools, homes, mosques, and places of refuge. The besieged hospitals in Gaza are overwhelmed," said Sophie Schoen, another organizer.
"This devastating level of violence has defined Israel since its inception, and goes hand in hand with its apartheid system. We must not forget that the vast majority of Gazans are refugees who were ethnically cleansed from other parts of Palestine with the founding of the state of Israel in 1948," said Meg Leitold to participants.
"Israeli apartheid could not continue without moral and economic support from Canada and Quebec," she said, calling for a boycott of Israel.
As police pushed them out, demonstrators left chanting "Boycottons Israel, liberez Palestine!" Similar actions will take place until Canada and Quebec cease their support for Israeli violence and apartheid.
Media contacts:
Mostafa Henaway (514) 659-0106 (English / Arabic); Matan Cohen (514)
848-7583 (English / Hebrew) ; Sophie Schoen (514) 998-7243 (French)
For additional high resolution photos and videos please contact us.
www.tadamon.ca
-0-
Meanwhile, in Toronto...
"The people of Gaza are not alone!"
MP3 Audio:
http://www.ncra.ca/business/admin_ncra/progex/programFiles/53/occupation070109.mp3
AUDIO WEB LINKS:
http://www.ncra.ca/exchange/dspProgramDetail.cfm?programID=79393
http://www.radio4all.net/
AUDIO from Today's Occupation by Jewish Women of Israeli Consulate in Toronto
Toronto, Canada: Wednesday January 8, 2009 Time: 10:25 am
A diverse group of Jewish Canadian women occupied the Israeli consulate at 180 Bloor Street West in Toronto. This action is in protest against the on-going Israeli assault on the people of Gaza.
The group is carrying out this occupation in solidarity with the 1.5 million people of Gaza and to ensure that Jewish voices against the massacre in Gaza are being heard. They are demanding that Israel end its military assault and lift the 18-month siege on the Gaza Strip to allow humanitarian aid into the territory.
Israel has been carrying out a full-scale military assault on the Gaza Strip since December 27, 2008. At least 660 people have been killed and 3000 injured in the air strikes and in the ground invasion that began on January 3, 2009. Israel has ignored international calls for a ceasefire and is refusing to allow food, adequate medical supplies and other necessities of life into the Gaza Strip.
Protesters are outraged at Israel's latest assault on the Palestinian people and by the Canadian government's refusal to condemn these massacres. They are deeply concerned that Canadians are hearing the views of pro-Israel groups who are being represented as the only voice of Jewish Canadians. The protesters have occupied the consulate to send a clear statement that many Jewish-Canadians do not support Israel's violence and apartheid policies. They are joining with people of conscience all across the world who are demanding an end to Israeli aggression and justice for the Palestinian people.
The group includes: Judy Rebick, professor; Judith Deutsch, psychoanalyst and president of Science for Peace; B.H. Yael, filmmaker; Smadar Carmon, an Canadian Israeli peace activist and others.
Just before Noon, CKUT Radio interviewed Judy Rebick inside the Israeli Consulate and Mariam Garfinkle on the outside.
index.php/program/31020
Wednesday, January 8th.
MP3:
http://www.ncra.ca/business/admin_ncra/progex/programFiles/53/MontrealOccupation.mp3
AUDIO WEB LINKS:
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/31038
http://www.ncra.ca/exchange/dspProgramDetail.cfm?programID=79399
MONTREAL, January 8, 2009 -- Approximately 30 people entered the lobby of the Israeli consulate this morning to serve an eviction notice to consular staff, demanding the expulsion of the Consular General and an immediate end to the Israeli invasion and siege of Gaza.
"The Canadian government's support for the ongoing atrocities in Gaza is totally unacceptable. Canada should immediately end diplomatic ties with the Israeli apartheid regime, starting with the expulsion of Israeli representatives from Canada. Since the Canadian government has refused to do so, we are taking action ourselves," said Aaron Lakoff, one of the participants.
Demonstrators arrived at the Consulate on the 6th floor of Westmount Square in Montreal, condemning consular officials in English, French and Hebrew for the massacres committed in Gaza. They blocked access to the consulate for almost two hours before being physically expelled by police. Journalists were denied access to the lobby, and two CTV and Radio-Canada cameramen were shoved into an elevator by police.
During the action, demonstrators chanted slogans such as "Fight the power, turn the tide, end Israeli apartheid!" calling for a boycott of Israel, and addressed consular officials through the intercom.
"Since the Israeli assault began, over 700 Gazans have been killed and nearly 3100 have been injured, with no place to escape the relentless bombing of schools, homes, mosques, and places of refuge. The besieged hospitals in Gaza are overwhelmed," said Sophie Schoen, another organizer.
"This devastating level of violence has defined Israel since its inception, and goes hand in hand with its apartheid system. We must not forget that the vast majority of Gazans are refugees who were ethnically cleansed from other parts of Palestine with the founding of the state of Israel in 1948," said Meg Leitold to participants.
"Israeli apartheid could not continue without moral and economic support from Canada and Quebec," she said, calling for a boycott of Israel.
As police pushed them out, demonstrators left chanting "Boycottons Israel, liberez Palestine!" Similar actions will take place until Canada and Quebec cease their support for Israeli violence and apartheid.
Media contacts:
Mostafa Henaway (514) 659-0106 (English / Arabic); Matan Cohen (514)
848-7583 (English / Hebrew) ; Sophie Schoen (514) 998-7243 (French)
For additional high resolution photos and videos please contact us.
www.tadamon.ca
-0-
Meanwhile, in Toronto...
"The people of Gaza are not alone!"
MP3 Audio:
http://www.ncra.ca/business/admin_ncra/progex/programFiles/53/occupation070109.mp3
AUDIO WEB LINKS:
http://www.ncra.ca/exchange/dspProgramDetail.cfm?programID=79393
http://www.radio4all.net/
AUDIO from Today's Occupation by Jewish Women of Israeli Consulate in Toronto
Toronto, Canada: Wednesday January 8, 2009 Time: 10:25 am
A diverse group of Jewish Canadian women occupied the Israeli consulate at 180 Bloor Street West in Toronto. This action is in protest against the on-going Israeli assault on the people of Gaza.
The group is carrying out this occupation in solidarity with the 1.5 million people of Gaza and to ensure that Jewish voices against the massacre in Gaza are being heard. They are demanding that Israel end its military assault and lift the 18-month siege on the Gaza Strip to allow humanitarian aid into the territory.
Israel has been carrying out a full-scale military assault on the Gaza Strip since December 27, 2008. At least 660 people have been killed and 3000 injured in the air strikes and in the ground invasion that began on January 3, 2009. Israel has ignored international calls for a ceasefire and is refusing to allow food, adequate medical supplies and other necessities of life into the Gaza Strip.
Protesters are outraged at Israel's latest assault on the Palestinian people and by the Canadian government's refusal to condemn these massacres. They are deeply concerned that Canadians are hearing the views of pro-Israel groups who are being represented as the only voice of Jewish Canadians. The protesters have occupied the consulate to send a clear statement that many Jewish-Canadians do not support Israel's violence and apartheid policies. They are joining with people of conscience all across the world who are demanding an end to Israeli aggression and justice for the Palestinian people.
The group includes: Judy Rebick, professor; Judith Deutsch, psychoanalyst and president of Science for Peace; B.H. Yael, filmmaker; Smadar Carmon, an Canadian Israeli peace activist and others.
Just before Noon, CKUT Radio interviewed Judy Rebick inside the Israeli Consulate and Mariam Garfinkle on the outside.
index.php/program/31020
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Killing Them Where They Hide: Israel Targets U.N. School Havens in Gaza
Killing Them Where They Hide: Israel Targets U.N. School Havens in Gaza
by C. L. Cook
If there was any doubt Israel's latest campaign of death and horror visited against the refugee populations of the Gaza ghetto was anything other than a war of extermination, this latest outrage should dispel finally that.
Thousands of Gazans have fled their homes, many at the telephoned advice of the Israeli Defense Forces themselves, this being Israel's version of humanitarian warfare - ringing up victims before bombing their homes. Where does a walled-in population run when their homes are being bombed and strafed and run over by tanks?
For many Gazans the answer was the United Nations-run schools. There they sought shelter, but if they believed there they would find haven the Israeli Defense Forces proved them wrong today, (though to be fair, Israel's IDF has a record of repeatedly targeting the U.N. in Palestine and Lebanon). The message Israel would send the Palestinians, if not the world, is; "We will kill you where you hide."
Below unsanctioned video from Al Jazeera's Mosaic program, found at Link TV here.
by C. L. Cook
If there was any doubt Israel's latest campaign of death and horror visited against the refugee populations of the Gaza ghetto was anything other than a war of extermination, this latest outrage should dispel finally that.
Thousands of Gazans have fled their homes, many at the telephoned advice of the Israeli Defense Forces themselves, this being Israel's version of humanitarian warfare - ringing up victims before bombing their homes. Where does a walled-in population run when their homes are being bombed and strafed and run over by tanks?
For many Gazans the answer was the United Nations-run schools. There they sought shelter, but if they believed there they would find haven the Israeli Defense Forces proved them wrong today, (though to be fair, Israel's IDF has a record of repeatedly targeting the U.N. in Palestine and Lebanon). The message Israel would send the Palestinians, if not the world, is; "We will kill you where you hide."
Below unsanctioned video from Al Jazeera's Mosaic program, found at Link TV here.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Gaza Time Line from Behind the Lines
Dear Friends,
Below are two articles on the horrific situation unfolding in Gaza. One is an eyewitness account carried in the British newspaper The Guardian. The Israeli government is keeping all journalists out of Gaza, so this article cuts through the wall of silence which surrounds the use of high tech weaponry against a largely defenseless, impoverished civilian population. The second article is a Norwegian report on the use of depleted uranium against the civilians of Gaza.
You can view these articles and more on the International Clearinghouse site: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
Unconscionably, the Harper government is in full support of the U.S. blocking the call for a ceasefire at the U.N. Security Council. This amounts to a green light for the killing to continue.
Please circulate these articles and raise in any way you can, in the media and with the government and opposition MPs, the demand for an immediate ceasefire and the opening up of the border crossings into Gaza for access to urgently needed food, fuel, medicine and relief supplies for the besieged and blockaded Palestinian population.
It is only through public pressure from citizens across the globe that the bloodshed taking place can be stopped. Every voice counts.
Sincerely,
David Orchard
==================================================
DAVID ORCHARD CAMPAIGN FOR CANADA
National office: P.O. Box 1983, Saskatoon, S7K 3S5
Tel: (306) 664-8443 fax: (306) 244-3790
Toll free: 1-877-WE STAND (937-8263)
Toronto tel: (416) 778-7027 fax: (416) 778-6348
Vancouver tel: (604) 215-5580 fax: (604) 215-5523
davidorchard@sasktel.net OR ccaftnat@sasktel.net
website: http://www.davidorchard.com
==================================================
Do Israel pilots feel happy killing innocent women and children?
A Palestinian in Gaza chronicles life under Israeli bombardment
By Fida Qishta
The Guardian, January 04, 2009
Saturday 27 December
I go to visit friends in the Block J neighbourhood in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. While I am in a friend's house, my phone rings. It's a friend from Gaza City, calling for a chat. Suddenly I hear the sound of an explosion at his end. At the same time I hear an explosion in Rafah too. Just outside, somewhere near. My friend says: "Fida, they are attacking nearby." I say: "They are attacking here too."
I run into the street and everybody is running, children and grown-ups, all looking to see if their relatives and friends are alive. It is the time for children to go to school for the second shift, after the first shift finishes at 11.30am.Naama is aged 13. This is what she tells me: "I was sitting in the classroom with my friends when the attack happened. We were scared and we ran out of our school. Our headmaster asked us to go home. We saw fire everywhere."
People are looking at the remains of a police station. There are still bodies under the wreckage. It is scary because the attack isn't over, and from where we are we can see an Israeli airplane attacking another police station.
At the hospital, I speak to a wounded police officer, aged 39. "We were at the police station," he said. "The Israeli planes came and suddenly the building collapsed on us. I saw four dead bodies near me. They were in pieces. Outside there were more bodies. Everyone was shouting. I lost consciousness and then found myself in hospital."
Later I am at home with my family. We've just received a phone call on our land line. It's the Israeli defence ministry, and they say that any house that has guns or weapons will be targeted next, without warning and without any announcement. Just to let you know, we don't have any weapons in our house. If we die please defend my family.
Sunday 28 December
I wake up at 7 am after an Israeli F-16 attack. Our house is shaking. We all try to imagine what has happened, but we want to at least know where the attack was. It is so scary. We try to open the main door to our flat, but it's stuck shut after the attack. I have to climb out of the window to leave the house. I am shocked when I find out our neighbour's pharmacy was the target. It is just 60 metres from our house. They targeted a pharmacy. I still can't believe it.
Om Mohammed says: "They [Israeli forces] attack everywhere. They have gone crazy. The Gaza Strip is just going to die ... it's going to die. We were sleeping. Suddenly we heard a bomb. We woke up and we didn't know where to go. We couldn't see through the dust. We called to each other. We thought our house had been hit, not the street. What can I say? You saw it with your own eyes. What is our guilt? Are we terrorists? I don't carry a gun, neither does my girl.
"There's no medicine. No drinks, no water, no gas. We are suffering from hunger. They attack us. What does Israel want? Can it be worse than this? I don't think so. Would they accept this for themselves?
"Look at the children. What are they guilty of? They were sleeping at 7am. All the night they didn't sleep. This child was traumatised during the attack. Do they have rockets to attack with?"
Monday 29 December
The Israeli army is destroying the tunnels that go from Rafah into Egypt. For the past year and a half the Israeli government has intensified the economic blockade of Gaza by closing all the border crossings that allow aid and essential supplies to reach Palestinians in Gaza. This forced Palestinians to dig tunnels to Egypt to survive. >From our house we can hear the explosions and the house is shaking.At night we can't go out. No one goes out. If you go out you will risk your life. You don't know where the bombs will fall. My mother is so sad. She watches me writing my reports and says: "Fida, will it make any difference?"
Before the attack started we got some food aid from the EU. It's not much, but it's enough, we're not starving. But some of our friends have nothing. My mum warns me: "Fida, don't leave the house, it's too dangerous outside." Then she goes out to share our food with the neighbours who have nothing.
Wednesday 31 December
11.40 pm: a powerful air strike somewhere nearby. I was sleeping but the blast wakes me up. I see my mum looking from the window. She points at one of the refugee camps. "The attack was there," she said.
I went back to sleep – not because I don't care, but because I can't deal with it. If the attack was really aimed at one of the camps that means hundreds are going to be injured or even killed, the houses destroyed. I really can't imagine it.
Thursday 1 January
In the morning I get up early and call a friend who lives in Alshabora camp. He confirms the attack had hit there and I go to meet him.
It looks like an earthquake. Many houses have been damaged, and many people have been wounded. The people who had escaped injury were trying to clean the place up – they have nowhere else to go. But the biggest shock is when I ask about the target. It was the children's playground.
"We heard a strong explosion happen, but with all the smoke and the dust we couldn't see well, and the electricity was off," I am told by a small child.
"We saw everything fall down – the window broke on us. We went downstairs, and people were saying that the playground's been targeted. This park is not a member of Hamas, it's a park for playing. It's for civilians – so why did they attack it?," asks one 12-year-old girl who lives nearby.
The target was a civilian area – but there was no warning, not one phone call from the Israeli army to tell civilians to beware.
I visit the main hospital in Rafah. There are so many injured people, most of them children. In one ward, I meet four children aged five or six. They are in deep shock. They can't speak, they just look at you.
Only one child could say his name: "Abdel Rahman". That's all he can say. Otherwise, he just stares. He's five. His ear was wounded by shrapnel, his head is covered by bandages.
There is a 16-year-old girl also suffering from shrapnel injuries. Three of her brothers were killed; all her family were injured. She looks like a zombie and says nothing at all. Her mother is dying in the intensive care unit.
The hospital manger, Abu Youssef Alnajar, gives the statistics for 1 January: two dead – a young man aged 22 and a woman aged 33; 59 injured – 16 children, 18 women and the rest old people. Most of them had been sleeping when the bombs dropped.
I go back home and the first thing I do is take a shower. I feel really upset after what I have seen. As always I am trying to cope with the situation but sometimes it is too much to deal with.
A short message to the pilots in the Israeli F-16s: does it make you feel happy to kill Palestinian children and women? Do you feel it's your duty? Killing every child and woman, man and teenager in Gaza? I don't know what exactly you feel, what exactly you think, but please think of your mother and sister, your son and daughter.
Friday 2 January
I am in the hospital again. An ambulance crew has been called out to help an injured man somewhere near the ruins of the old Gaza airport. He's a civilian, one of the bedouin who tend their sheep in that area. Four shepherds saw an explosion and went to investigate – when they arrived at the scene there was a second bomb and they were injured. An ambulance managed to rescue three of the men. But one of their friends is still there, bleeding.
The ambulance crew are afraid to go back for him. The wounded man is just 50 metres away from the green line so they are afraid the Israeli soldiers will target them. Outside there are still planes in the air. I have just heard a big explosion on the border area.
• Fida Qishta is a freelance Palestinian television producer and writer based in Gaza's southern township of Rafah
======
Depleted uranium found in Gaza victims
Sun, 04 Jan 2009 13:16:21 GMT
Medics tell Press TV they have found traces of depleted uranium in some Gaza residents wounded in Israel's ground offensive on the strip.
Norwegian medics told Press TV correspondent Akram al-Sattari that some of the victims who have been wounded since Israel began its attacks on the Gaza Strip on December 27 have traces of depleted uranium in their bodies.
The report comes after Israeli tanks and troops swept across the border into Gaza on Saturday night, opening a ground operation after eight days of intensive attacks by Israeli air and naval forces on the impoverished region.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned on Sunday that the wide-ranging ground offensive in the Gaza Strip would be "full of surprises."
A ground offensive in the densely-populated Gaza is expected to drastically increase the death toll of the civilian population.
The latest assaults bring the number of Palestinians killed to over 488 with 2790 others wounded. The UN says that about 25 percent of the casualties were civilian deaths - including at least 34 children.
According to Israeli army officials, at least 30 of its soldiers have been wounded since the start of the ground campaign.
Amid global condemnation of the ongoing violence in the region, the UN Security Council failed to agree on a united approach to resolve the crisis.
"Once again, the world is watching in dismay the dysfunctionality of the Security Council," UN General Assembly chief Miguel d'Escoto said Sunday.
According to diplomatic sources, the US blocked a Security Council resolution, with US Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff arguing that an official statement that criticizes both Israel and Hamas would not be helpful.
The White House has so far declined to comment on whether an Israeli ground incursion into Gaza is a justified measure.
AA/DT/CS/MD
© Press TV 2007. All Rights Reserved.
Below are two articles on the horrific situation unfolding in Gaza. One is an eyewitness account carried in the British newspaper The Guardian. The Israeli government is keeping all journalists out of Gaza, so this article cuts through the wall of silence which surrounds the use of high tech weaponry against a largely defenseless, impoverished civilian population. The second article is a Norwegian report on the use of depleted uranium against the civilians of Gaza.
You can view these articles and more on the International Clearinghouse site: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
Unconscionably, the Harper government is in full support of the U.S. blocking the call for a ceasefire at the U.N. Security Council. This amounts to a green light for the killing to continue.
Please circulate these articles and raise in any way you can, in the media and with the government and opposition MPs, the demand for an immediate ceasefire and the opening up of the border crossings into Gaza for access to urgently needed food, fuel, medicine and relief supplies for the besieged and blockaded Palestinian population.
It is only through public pressure from citizens across the globe that the bloodshed taking place can be stopped. Every voice counts.
Sincerely,
David Orchard
==================================================
DAVID ORCHARD CAMPAIGN FOR CANADA
National office: P.O. Box 1983, Saskatoon, S7K 3S5
Tel: (306) 664-8443 fax: (306) 244-3790
Toll free: 1-877-WE STAND (937-8263)
Toronto tel: (416) 778-7027 fax: (416) 778-6348
Vancouver tel: (604) 215-5580 fax: (604) 215-5523
davidorchard@sasktel.net OR ccaftnat@sasktel.net
website: http://www.davidorchard.com
==================================================
Do Israel pilots feel happy killing innocent women and children?
A Palestinian in Gaza chronicles life under Israeli bombardment
By Fida Qishta
The Guardian, January 04, 2009
Saturday 27 December
I go to visit friends in the Block J neighbourhood in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. While I am in a friend's house, my phone rings. It's a friend from Gaza City, calling for a chat. Suddenly I hear the sound of an explosion at his end. At the same time I hear an explosion in Rafah too. Just outside, somewhere near. My friend says: "Fida, they are attacking nearby." I say: "They are attacking here too."
I run into the street and everybody is running, children and grown-ups, all looking to see if their relatives and friends are alive. It is the time for children to go to school for the second shift, after the first shift finishes at 11.30am.Naama is aged 13. This is what she tells me: "I was sitting in the classroom with my friends when the attack happened. We were scared and we ran out of our school. Our headmaster asked us to go home. We saw fire everywhere."
People are looking at the remains of a police station. There are still bodies under the wreckage. It is scary because the attack isn't over, and from where we are we can see an Israeli airplane attacking another police station.
At the hospital, I speak to a wounded police officer, aged 39. "We were at the police station," he said. "The Israeli planes came and suddenly the building collapsed on us. I saw four dead bodies near me. They were in pieces. Outside there were more bodies. Everyone was shouting. I lost consciousness and then found myself in hospital."
Later I am at home with my family. We've just received a phone call on our land line. It's the Israeli defence ministry, and they say that any house that has guns or weapons will be targeted next, without warning and without any announcement. Just to let you know, we don't have any weapons in our house. If we die please defend my family.
Sunday 28 December
I wake up at 7 am after an Israeli F-16 attack. Our house is shaking. We all try to imagine what has happened, but we want to at least know where the attack was. It is so scary. We try to open the main door to our flat, but it's stuck shut after the attack. I have to climb out of the window to leave the house. I am shocked when I find out our neighbour's pharmacy was the target. It is just 60 metres from our house. They targeted a pharmacy. I still can't believe it.
Om Mohammed says: "They [Israeli forces] attack everywhere. They have gone crazy. The Gaza Strip is just going to die ... it's going to die. We were sleeping. Suddenly we heard a bomb. We woke up and we didn't know where to go. We couldn't see through the dust. We called to each other. We thought our house had been hit, not the street. What can I say? You saw it with your own eyes. What is our guilt? Are we terrorists? I don't carry a gun, neither does my girl.
"There's no medicine. No drinks, no water, no gas. We are suffering from hunger. They attack us. What does Israel want? Can it be worse than this? I don't think so. Would they accept this for themselves?
"Look at the children. What are they guilty of? They were sleeping at 7am. All the night they didn't sleep. This child was traumatised during the attack. Do they have rockets to attack with?"
Monday 29 December
The Israeli army is destroying the tunnels that go from Rafah into Egypt. For the past year and a half the Israeli government has intensified the economic blockade of Gaza by closing all the border crossings that allow aid and essential supplies to reach Palestinians in Gaza. This forced Palestinians to dig tunnels to Egypt to survive. >From our house we can hear the explosions and the house is shaking.At night we can't go out. No one goes out. If you go out you will risk your life. You don't know where the bombs will fall. My mother is so sad. She watches me writing my reports and says: "Fida, will it make any difference?"
Before the attack started we got some food aid from the EU. It's not much, but it's enough, we're not starving. But some of our friends have nothing. My mum warns me: "Fida, don't leave the house, it's too dangerous outside." Then she goes out to share our food with the neighbours who have nothing.
Wednesday 31 December
11.40 pm: a powerful air strike somewhere nearby. I was sleeping but the blast wakes me up. I see my mum looking from the window. She points at one of the refugee camps. "The attack was there," she said.
I went back to sleep – not because I don't care, but because I can't deal with it. If the attack was really aimed at one of the camps that means hundreds are going to be injured or even killed, the houses destroyed. I really can't imagine it.
Thursday 1 January
In the morning I get up early and call a friend who lives in Alshabora camp. He confirms the attack had hit there and I go to meet him.
It looks like an earthquake. Many houses have been damaged, and many people have been wounded. The people who had escaped injury were trying to clean the place up – they have nowhere else to go. But the biggest shock is when I ask about the target. It was the children's playground.
"We heard a strong explosion happen, but with all the smoke and the dust we couldn't see well, and the electricity was off," I am told by a small child.
"We saw everything fall down – the window broke on us. We went downstairs, and people were saying that the playground's been targeted. This park is not a member of Hamas, it's a park for playing. It's for civilians – so why did they attack it?," asks one 12-year-old girl who lives nearby.
The target was a civilian area – but there was no warning, not one phone call from the Israeli army to tell civilians to beware.
I visit the main hospital in Rafah. There are so many injured people, most of them children. In one ward, I meet four children aged five or six. They are in deep shock. They can't speak, they just look at you.
Only one child could say his name: "Abdel Rahman". That's all he can say. Otherwise, he just stares. He's five. His ear was wounded by shrapnel, his head is covered by bandages.
There is a 16-year-old girl also suffering from shrapnel injuries. Three of her brothers were killed; all her family were injured. She looks like a zombie and says nothing at all. Her mother is dying in the intensive care unit.
The hospital manger, Abu Youssef Alnajar, gives the statistics for 1 January: two dead – a young man aged 22 and a woman aged 33; 59 injured – 16 children, 18 women and the rest old people. Most of them had been sleeping when the bombs dropped.
I go back home and the first thing I do is take a shower. I feel really upset after what I have seen. As always I am trying to cope with the situation but sometimes it is too much to deal with.
A short message to the pilots in the Israeli F-16s: does it make you feel happy to kill Palestinian children and women? Do you feel it's your duty? Killing every child and woman, man and teenager in Gaza? I don't know what exactly you feel, what exactly you think, but please think of your mother and sister, your son and daughter.
Friday 2 January
I am in the hospital again. An ambulance crew has been called out to help an injured man somewhere near the ruins of the old Gaza airport. He's a civilian, one of the bedouin who tend their sheep in that area. Four shepherds saw an explosion and went to investigate – when they arrived at the scene there was a second bomb and they were injured. An ambulance managed to rescue three of the men. But one of their friends is still there, bleeding.
The ambulance crew are afraid to go back for him. The wounded man is just 50 metres away from the green line so they are afraid the Israeli soldiers will target them. Outside there are still planes in the air. I have just heard a big explosion on the border area.
• Fida Qishta is a freelance Palestinian television producer and writer based in Gaza's southern township of Rafah
======
Depleted uranium found in Gaza victims
Sun, 04 Jan 2009 13:16:21 GMT
Medics tell Press TV they have found traces of depleted uranium in some Gaza residents wounded in Israel's ground offensive on the strip.
Norwegian medics told Press TV correspondent Akram al-Sattari that some of the victims who have been wounded since Israel began its attacks on the Gaza Strip on December 27 have traces of depleted uranium in their bodies.
The report comes after Israeli tanks and troops swept across the border into Gaza on Saturday night, opening a ground operation after eight days of intensive attacks by Israeli air and naval forces on the impoverished region.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned on Sunday that the wide-ranging ground offensive in the Gaza Strip would be "full of surprises."
A ground offensive in the densely-populated Gaza is expected to drastically increase the death toll of the civilian population.
The latest assaults bring the number of Palestinians killed to over 488 with 2790 others wounded. The UN says that about 25 percent of the casualties were civilian deaths - including at least 34 children.
According to Israeli army officials, at least 30 of its soldiers have been wounded since the start of the ground campaign.
Amid global condemnation of the ongoing violence in the region, the UN Security Council failed to agree on a united approach to resolve the crisis.
"Once again, the world is watching in dismay the dysfunctionality of the Security Council," UN General Assembly chief Miguel d'Escoto said Sunday.
According to diplomatic sources, the US blocked a Security Council resolution, with US Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff arguing that an official statement that criticizes both Israel and Hamas would not be helpful.
The White House has so far declined to comment on whether an Israeli ground incursion into Gaza is a justified measure.
AA/DT/CS/MD
© Press TV 2007. All Rights Reserved.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
The Secret Georges Bank Review
Chronicle Herald, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
The secret Georges Bank review
JIM MEEK
Sun. Dec 28 - 7:20 AM
IF YOU DON'T know what's happening with the Georges Bank oil and gas review, join the crowd. Almost a year after Energy Minister Richard Hurlburt first beat a drum to support petroleum exploration in the rich fishing hole, all is silent.
But the silence can't quite hide a flurry of underground activity.
This fall, Nova Scotia's government quietly directed $150,000 toward the South West Shore Development Authority to "examine economic opportunities from potential offshore oil and gas activities."
The agreement, struck with Hurlburt's department, also says the authority should "look at environmental and social risks" linked to drilling on the moratorium lands on Georges Bank and on adjacent offshore lands.
Why my charge of secrecy here?
First, Hurlburt's department didn't release the authority agreement until after I had asked for it. Secondly, no official news release has been issued to date to describe this use of taxpayers' money.
And lastly, the words Georges Bank are not mentioned once in the authority agreement, though it is clear that the primary focus of the work will be the debate surrounding possible oil and gas activity on the rich fishing hole.
I also learned that the authority has hired a researcher, Yarmouth Harbour Master Garth Atkinson, to put together some background on the Georges Bank story and the effects of the industry in other parts of the province. (The harbour master's job is a federal appointment.)
When I phoned Atkinson, he said he'd rather his name was not used in print, adding he is now trying to "catch up with the file." Atkinson, now making money sourced from two levels of government, said I should speak instead with Clifford Hood.
Hood, a fisheries lawyer and former Yarmouth deputy mayor, told me he is now the unpaid chairman of the Ocean First Task Force. Under the authority agreement, the task force will conduct community consultations in the Tri-County area of southern Nova Scotia. Overall, it will look at the effects of possible oil and gas activity on Georges Bank if the Canadian moratorium expires in 2012.
Hood would be the first to concede that he now comes down on the Prorigs side of this debate, not the Norigs side led by the fishing industry. Cliff has made his money from a fisheries law practice, but it's clear to him that a little economic diversity wouldn't hurt down Yarmouth way.
Speaking of Yarmouth, Hood, Hurlburt and Atkinson are all like-minded gentlemen of that community. Nothing the matter with that, I suppose, but given the close ties between the minister and the lawyer, a little more transparency is in order here.
Hood was not appointed by the minister as chairman of the Ocean Firsts Task Force; the development authority gave him the position. But it would hardly be a stretch to suggest that Cliff would not have the job in the absence of Hurlburt's tacit approval.
Put that together with Hurlburt's early support for oil and gas exploration, and you've got yourself a political problem. Last February, Hurlburt referred in a Halifax breakfast speech to "the tremendous resources on Georges Bank," adding that the fish and oil industries could "coexist" offshore.
Before that speech, at his party's 2008 annual meeting, Hurlburt was more direct when he was asked about the moratorium: "It's safe to do drilling in our offshore," he said.
Given this history, it is clear Hurlburt's credibility rests on an impartial review of oil and gas activity on Georges Bank. The authority contract and cast of characters doesn't help establish his neutrality - quite the opposite, in fact. (I say that with some regret, for Hood is both a straight shooter and a friend; we have fought battles together.)
The danger here is that the politics of the authority's work will undermine the more important scientific review of Georges Bank that is just getting underway.
Lord knows, after 20 years of moratorium, Nova Scotia needs a dispassionate, evidence-based review of the potential and risks of oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Maine.
But who will believe the science is pure if the politics is already seen to be poisoned?
( jmeek@herald.ca)
The secret Georges Bank review
JIM MEEK
Sun. Dec 28 - 7:20 AM
IF YOU DON'T know what's happening with the Georges Bank oil and gas review, join the crowd. Almost a year after Energy Minister Richard Hurlburt first beat a drum to support petroleum exploration in the rich fishing hole, all is silent.
But the silence can't quite hide a flurry of underground activity.
This fall, Nova Scotia's government quietly directed $150,000 toward the South West Shore Development Authority to "examine economic opportunities from potential offshore oil and gas activities."
The agreement, struck with Hurlburt's department, also says the authority should "look at environmental and social risks" linked to drilling on the moratorium lands on Georges Bank and on adjacent offshore lands.
Why my charge of secrecy here?
First, Hurlburt's department didn't release the authority agreement until after I had asked for it. Secondly, no official news release has been issued to date to describe this use of taxpayers' money.
And lastly, the words Georges Bank are not mentioned once in the authority agreement, though it is clear that the primary focus of the work will be the debate surrounding possible oil and gas activity on the rich fishing hole.
I also learned that the authority has hired a researcher, Yarmouth Harbour Master Garth Atkinson, to put together some background on the Georges Bank story and the effects of the industry in other parts of the province. (The harbour master's job is a federal appointment.)
When I phoned Atkinson, he said he'd rather his name was not used in print, adding he is now trying to "catch up with the file." Atkinson, now making money sourced from two levels of government, said I should speak instead with Clifford Hood.
Hood, a fisheries lawyer and former Yarmouth deputy mayor, told me he is now the unpaid chairman of the Ocean First Task Force. Under the authority agreement, the task force will conduct community consultations in the Tri-County area of southern Nova Scotia. Overall, it will look at the effects of possible oil and gas activity on Georges Bank if the Canadian moratorium expires in 2012.
Hood would be the first to concede that he now comes down on the Prorigs side of this debate, not the Norigs side led by the fishing industry. Cliff has made his money from a fisheries law practice, but it's clear to him that a little economic diversity wouldn't hurt down Yarmouth way.
Speaking of Yarmouth, Hood, Hurlburt and Atkinson are all like-minded gentlemen of that community. Nothing the matter with that, I suppose, but given the close ties between the minister and the lawyer, a little more transparency is in order here.
Hood was not appointed by the minister as chairman of the Ocean Firsts Task Force; the development authority gave him the position. But it would hardly be a stretch to suggest that Cliff would not have the job in the absence of Hurlburt's tacit approval.
Put that together with Hurlburt's early support for oil and gas exploration, and you've got yourself a political problem. Last February, Hurlburt referred in a Halifax breakfast speech to "the tremendous resources on Georges Bank," adding that the fish and oil industries could "coexist" offshore.
Before that speech, at his party's 2008 annual meeting, Hurlburt was more direct when he was asked about the moratorium: "It's safe to do drilling in our offshore," he said.
Given this history, it is clear Hurlburt's credibility rests on an impartial review of oil and gas activity on Georges Bank. The authority contract and cast of characters doesn't help establish his neutrality - quite the opposite, in fact. (I say that with some regret, for Hood is both a straight shooter and a friend; we have fought battles together.)
The danger here is that the politics of the authority's work will undermine the more important scientific review of Georges Bank that is just getting underway.
Lord knows, after 20 years of moratorium, Nova Scotia needs a dispassionate, evidence-based review of the potential and risks of oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Maine.
But who will believe the science is pure if the politics is already seen to be poisoned?
( jmeek@herald.ca)
Bush Family Fortunes: A Treasonous Tradition
The Daddy Bush Connection with JFK's Assassination? Please check out these links.
by W. Christopher Epler (Bill)
www.opednews.com
The links are below:
http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/bush.htm
http://www.john-f-kennedy.net/thenixonbushconnectiontothekennedyassassination.htm
http://video.google.com/videosearch?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=s&hl=en&q=JFK%27s+assassination+and+the+Bush+Family&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#
http://www.totse.com/en/conspiracy/dead_kennedys/161963.html
http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/FbiMemoPhotoLinkBushJfk.htm
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20Government/War%20on%20Drugs%20Scam/Order%20of%20Skull%20&%20Bones/bush_bones_jfk_assassination.htm
http://www.geocities.com/vienna/strasse/7676/pagesix.html
http://edward.de.leau.net/jfk-ii-assassination-study-many-ties-to-the-bush-crime-family-20081216.html
http://www.ctrl.org/essay2/MCIJFKA1.html
http://www.amazon.com/JFK-II-Connection-John-Hankey/dp/B000AAIUWA
This is merely a small sample of many, many more sites where these came from. Some may be over the top (or not), but most of them are as historically/factually substantive as the 9/11 “inside job” scenario -- so[me] validated by scientific evidence, on the spot observations, and pictures of IMPLODING, not exploding, towers!
It is limitlessly suspicious that Bush Sr. and Jr. have their hands all over the two most consecutively treasonous events which have defined American history as much as the Civil War.
The trail to the truth of JFK’s assassination may be cold, but it would be a virtual act of God if it helped to confirm the engineering of 9/11 by George W. Bush, and his fascist elite masters -- and vise versa for JFK's assassination. Could 9/11 ironically be the event that also leads to the truth of JFK's assassination! What a twofer that would be?
Like father, like son?
W. Christopher Epler (Bill)
ps: Naturally it's also a matter of historical record that GRANDFATHER Prescott Bush tried to engineer a Nazi coup D'etat in America in the 30's. The archetypal treason family of Bush's -- who also made much (most?) of their fortune with connections with the Germany's WW2 evil incarnate Third Reich.
http://theliberationofrealism.blogspot.com/
by W. Christopher Epler (Bill)
www.opednews.com
The links are below:
http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/bush.htm
http://www.john-f-kennedy.net/thenixonbushconnectiontothekennedyassassination.htm
http://video.google.com/videosearch?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=s&hl=en&q=JFK%27s+assassination+and+the+Bush+Family&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#
http://www.totse.com/en/conspiracy/dead_kennedys/161963.html
http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/FbiMemoPhotoLinkBushJfk.htm
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20Government/War%20on%20Drugs%20Scam/Order%20of%20Skull%20&%20Bones/bush_bones_jfk_assassination.htm
http://www.geocities.com/vienna/strasse/7676/pagesix.html
http://edward.de.leau.net/jfk-ii-assassination-study-many-ties-to-the-bush-crime-family-20081216.html
http://www.ctrl.org/essay2/MCIJFKA1.html
http://www.amazon.com/JFK-II-Connection-John-Hankey/dp/B000AAIUWA
This is merely a small sample of many, many more sites where these came from. Some may be over the top (or not), but most of them are as historically/factually substantive as the 9/11 “inside job” scenario -- so[me] validated by scientific evidence, on the spot observations, and pictures of IMPLODING, not exploding, towers!
It is limitlessly suspicious that Bush Sr. and Jr. have their hands all over the two most consecutively treasonous events which have defined American history as much as the Civil War.
The trail to the truth of JFK’s assassination may be cold, but it would be a virtual act of God if it helped to confirm the engineering of 9/11 by George W. Bush, and his fascist elite masters -- and vise versa for JFK's assassination. Could 9/11 ironically be the event that also leads to the truth of JFK's assassination! What a twofer that would be?
Like father, like son?
W. Christopher Epler (Bill)
ps: Naturally it's also a matter of historical record that GRANDFATHER Prescott Bush tried to engineer a Nazi coup D'etat in America in the 30's. The archetypal treason family of Bush's -- who also made much (most?) of their fortune with connections with the Germany's WW2 evil incarnate Third Reich.
http://theliberationofrealism.blogspot.com/
Saturday, January 03, 2009
[Anna in Palestine] Gaza Massacres; The Time is Now
[Anna in Palestine] Gaza Massacres; The Time is Now
Gaza Massacres; The Time is Now by Anna Baltzer
Please, everyone, stop what you're doing. This is not just any report
from Palestine, but the worst in my lifetime, the worst in 40 years.
At this moment, Israel is raining bombs down on Gaza, an enclosed tiny
area that is home to 1.5 million men, women, and children, most of
them innocent civilians. This space is tightly sealed by Israel, which
constantly denies Gazans electricity, food, medicine, and the ability
to leave. Gaza is one big prison being bombed from above. The death
toll is up to 428 in the past 7 days. That's more than the number of
Israelis killed in the last 7 years. This is what I would call a massacre.
Yes, more Palestinians killed in 7 days than Israelis in 7 years, and
yet no comments from President Bush or President-elect Obama.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice places blame solely on Hamas for
holding Gazans "hostage," as if Israel's actions were beyond judgment.
Would Rice ever respond to a Palestinian attack on Israelis by blaming
the Israeli government for holding its citizens hostage with their
army's violence?
I am writing you from Jordan. I arrived the day after the attacks
began. The day before they began, my friend and colleague Hannah had
asked me to deliver a book of poetry to her friend Summer in Gaza,
hoping I'd manage to make it on a Free Gaza boat. Since then, these
boats bringing unarmed witnesses to Gaza (www.freegaza.org) have been
attacked in international waters, and Summer's house has been blown to
pieces, her brother almost died under the rubble, and her father
desperately needs an operation but the hospitals are overflowing. In
every home or shop I enter in Jordan, people are huddled watching the
stories unfold: a family killed in their home, a university destroyed,
a pharmacy blown to pieces, countless bloody babies screaming or
worse, silent.
I wonder if people in the US are also seeing the bodies and faces or,
as I fear, only some rubble and angry Gazans. The day after attacks
began, Israel's largest newspaper Yediot Aharonot covered almost the
entire front page with the words, "500,000 Israelis Under Attack!" In
smaller font, one could learn that in addition to 1 Israeli, 225
Palestinians had also been killed. It was surreal. Consider where you
are getting your news, and what is not being told to you.
For example, the stated purpose of the attack is to drive out Hamas,
i.e. to kill anyone in Hamas and scare the rest into turning against
Hamas. Not only does this tactic not work (brutality fosters
violence), but it clearly fits the definition of terrorism: unlawful
violence intended to frighten or coerce a people or government in
order to achieve a political or ideological agenda. Israel is
operating as a terrorist state in the true sense of the word.
Hamas is also a terrorist organization by this definition, so it would
be easy to simplify the conflict as "an endless cycle of violence"
were there no historical context. But there is a context, and there
are alternatives: Let us remember that Hamas was elected after an
intentional shift away from violence towards a mainstream political
agenda. Hamas stopped its attacks and began offering the Palestinian
people an alternative to the corruption of Fatah. Hamas was
democratically elected and immediately strangled by a US-led boycott,
preventing the government from functioning. Hamas continued to hold to
its one-sided ceasefire (totaling almost 2 years), meanwhile the US
and Israel began to train and arm the opposition government, Fatah,
which they preferred. In response to plans for a coup in Gaza
(anti-democratic takeover by the US-supported opposition government),
Hamas secured its control (again, democratically-elected whether or
not we like them) over Gaza, and continues to offer Israel an
indefinite ceasefire--no more violent attacks, period--if Israel
simply complies with international law. The Arab League (comprised of
22 Arab nation members) has offered the same. These offers are
dismissed by Israel and silenced in the US media. Israel says it has
tried everything else, but it has not tried the most obvious:
complying with international law and accepting repeated offers for a
peaceful resolution.
As events unfold in Gaza neither the media nor the people are silent
here in Jordan, where people refuse to go on as if nothing were
happening to their brothers and sisters (sometimes literally--more
than 60% of Jordan's population is Palestinian refugees). Just one day
after attacks began, the king of Jordan gave blood to send to Gaza and
inspired hundreds of others to do the same (meanwhile President Bush
was on vacation in Texas). Spontaneous demonstrations have erupted at
least twice here in the capitol today, and thousands are protesting in
various major cities around the Middle East and around the world.
Please, wherever you are, do something. Write a letter to the editor.
Get a large group to inundate your congressperson at once. Protest!
There are demonstrations being organized around the US. If there isn't
one happening near you, then do what I would do: buy a poster-board
and large marker and write something on it ("Gazans Are People Too,"
"Massacre in Gaza: Silence is Complicity," "Our Weapons Are Killing
Palestinian Children," or anything you can think of). Go outside and
stand on a busy corner with it. Force others to confront the reality.
Talk to people, invite them to join you. People around the world are
empowered enough to take to the streets; we have no excuse not to. The
time is now.
------
http://www.annainthemiddleeast.com/
Gaza Massacres; The Time is Now by Anna Baltzer
Please, everyone, stop what you're doing. This is not just any report
from Palestine, but the worst in my lifetime, the worst in 40 years.
At this moment, Israel is raining bombs down on Gaza, an enclosed tiny
area that is home to 1.5 million men, women, and children, most of
them innocent civilians. This space is tightly sealed by Israel, which
constantly denies Gazans electricity, food, medicine, and the ability
to leave. Gaza is one big prison being bombed from above. The death
toll is up to 428 in the past 7 days. That's more than the number of
Israelis killed in the last 7 years. This is what I would call a massacre.
Yes, more Palestinians killed in 7 days than Israelis in 7 years, and
yet no comments from President Bush or President-elect Obama.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice places blame solely on Hamas for
holding Gazans "hostage," as if Israel's actions were beyond judgment.
Would Rice ever respond to a Palestinian attack on Israelis by blaming
the Israeli government for holding its citizens hostage with their
army's violence?
I am writing you from Jordan. I arrived the day after the attacks
began. The day before they began, my friend and colleague Hannah had
asked me to deliver a book of poetry to her friend Summer in Gaza,
hoping I'd manage to make it on a Free Gaza boat. Since then, these
boats bringing unarmed witnesses to Gaza (www.freegaza.org) have been
attacked in international waters, and Summer's house has been blown to
pieces, her brother almost died under the rubble, and her father
desperately needs an operation but the hospitals are overflowing. In
every home or shop I enter in Jordan, people are huddled watching the
stories unfold: a family killed in their home, a university destroyed,
a pharmacy blown to pieces, countless bloody babies screaming or
worse, silent.
I wonder if people in the US are also seeing the bodies and faces or,
as I fear, only some rubble and angry Gazans. The day after attacks
began, Israel's largest newspaper Yediot Aharonot covered almost the
entire front page with the words, "500,000 Israelis Under Attack!" In
smaller font, one could learn that in addition to 1 Israeli, 225
Palestinians had also been killed. It was surreal. Consider where you
are getting your news, and what is not being told to you.
For example, the stated purpose of the attack is to drive out Hamas,
i.e. to kill anyone in Hamas and scare the rest into turning against
Hamas. Not only does this tactic not work (brutality fosters
violence), but it clearly fits the definition of terrorism: unlawful
violence intended to frighten or coerce a people or government in
order to achieve a political or ideological agenda. Israel is
operating as a terrorist state in the true sense of the word.
Hamas is also a terrorist organization by this definition, so it would
be easy to simplify the conflict as "an endless cycle of violence"
were there no historical context. But there is a context, and there
are alternatives: Let us remember that Hamas was elected after an
intentional shift away from violence towards a mainstream political
agenda. Hamas stopped its attacks and began offering the Palestinian
people an alternative to the corruption of Fatah. Hamas was
democratically elected and immediately strangled by a US-led boycott,
preventing the government from functioning. Hamas continued to hold to
its one-sided ceasefire (totaling almost 2 years), meanwhile the US
and Israel began to train and arm the opposition government, Fatah,
which they preferred. In response to plans for a coup in Gaza
(anti-democratic takeover by the US-supported opposition government),
Hamas secured its control (again, democratically-elected whether or
not we like them) over Gaza, and continues to offer Israel an
indefinite ceasefire--no more violent attacks, period--if Israel
simply complies with international law. The Arab League (comprised of
22 Arab nation members) has offered the same. These offers are
dismissed by Israel and silenced in the US media. Israel says it has
tried everything else, but it has not tried the most obvious:
complying with international law and accepting repeated offers for a
peaceful resolution.
As events unfold in Gaza neither the media nor the people are silent
here in Jordan, where people refuse to go on as if nothing were
happening to their brothers and sisters (sometimes literally--more
than 60% of Jordan's population is Palestinian refugees). Just one day
after attacks began, the king of Jordan gave blood to send to Gaza and
inspired hundreds of others to do the same (meanwhile President Bush
was on vacation in Texas). Spontaneous demonstrations have erupted at
least twice here in the capitol today, and thousands are protesting in
various major cities around the Middle East and around the world.
Please, wherever you are, do something. Write a letter to the editor.
Get a large group to inundate your congressperson at once. Protest!
There are demonstrations being organized around the US. If there isn't
one happening near you, then do what I would do: buy a poster-board
and large marker and write something on it ("Gazans Are People Too,"
"Massacre in Gaza: Silence is Complicity," "Our Weapons Are Killing
Palestinian Children," or anything you can think of). Go outside and
stand on a busy corner with it. Force others to confront the reality.
Talk to people, invite them to join you. People around the world are
empowered enough to take to the streets; we have no excuse not to. The
time is now.
------
http://www.annainthemiddleeast.com/
Attacks Condemned as Supplies Dwindle
Attacks Condemned as Supplies Dwindle and Deaths Rise
by Michael Jansen
Published on Friday, January 2, 2009 by the Irish Times
Deposed Palestinian prime minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh yesterday called for an immediate halt to the Israeli attack on Gaza, lifting of the siege and opening of all crossings.
"This war does not target just Hamas and the government, it is targeting Palestinians and their cause," he stated in a televised address as Gaza's death toll rose to 417.
Some 2,070 Gazans have been wounded since Israel's offensive began on Saturday. Among the latest targets were the Palestinian legislative council building and a complex housing the ministries of health, education and transport, all facilities belonging to the Palestinian National Authority and built with donations from Europe and elsewhere.
Dr Ziad Abu Amr, an independent legislator from Gaza, said he and colleagues had made fruit- less protests against the "total destruction" of Gaza but there is international "complicity" with Israel. He said these institutions will have to be rebuilt before governance can be restored.
A doctor who lives in Gaza city asserted, "We have never, never, never heard such explosions." His family survives by staying home. They eat rice and vegetables. Meat cannot be stored because there is no electricity: "I managed to get a small bag of bread because the lady [at the bakery] had promised me a few loaves."
His specialised clinic does not have equipment to treat wounded. "They all go to the [government] Shifa hospital. But it does not have the means to deal with all the casualties . . . Many doctors and nurses cannot reach the hospital because of the bombing," he said.
He planned to walk to his clinic to conduct emergency surgery, although he was uncertain whether anaesthetic was available.
Dr Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian physician who reached Gaza on Wednesday, said Gaza is a "complete man-made disaster. It's cold, there's no food, no fuel. At the main hospital [Shifa] all the windows have been blown out."
At the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza, he saw two field hospitals and 30 tonnes of medical supplies waiting to enter Gaza. He said the Israelis are using outlawed fuel air bombs and depleted uranium warheads. Many bodies are shredded and burnt.
While women and children comprise 25 per cent of the fatalities, they make up 40 per cent of the wounded. "Civilians are the targets, they are the victims," said Dr Gilbert.
Although the UN yesterday opened ration distribution centres for refugees for the first time in two weeks, humanitarian co-ordinator Maxwell Gaylard warned, "Without the violence stopping, it is extremely difficult to get food to people who need it. We cannot assess where the most urgent needs are. And it is too dangerous for civilians to leave their homes to seek urgent medical treatment, buy supplies and assist people in distress."
Israel has to open goods crossings for wheat, grain and other basic foods to feed the 1.1 million civilians dependent on food aid and to allow fuel to flow.
"Gaza's hospitals are facing their largest-ever trauma caseloads . . . They must have reliable power."
© 2009 irishtimes.com
by Michael Jansen
Published on Friday, January 2, 2009 by the Irish Times
Deposed Palestinian prime minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh yesterday called for an immediate halt to the Israeli attack on Gaza, lifting of the siege and opening of all crossings.
"This war does not target just Hamas and the government, it is targeting Palestinians and their cause," he stated in a televised address as Gaza's death toll rose to 417.
Some 2,070 Gazans have been wounded since Israel's offensive began on Saturday. Among the latest targets were the Palestinian legislative council building and a complex housing the ministries of health, education and transport, all facilities belonging to the Palestinian National Authority and built with donations from Europe and elsewhere.
Dr Ziad Abu Amr, an independent legislator from Gaza, said he and colleagues had made fruit- less protests against the "total destruction" of Gaza but there is international "complicity" with Israel. He said these institutions will have to be rebuilt before governance can be restored.
A doctor who lives in Gaza city asserted, "We have never, never, never heard such explosions." His family survives by staying home. They eat rice and vegetables. Meat cannot be stored because there is no electricity: "I managed to get a small bag of bread because the lady [at the bakery] had promised me a few loaves."
His specialised clinic does not have equipment to treat wounded. "They all go to the [government] Shifa hospital. But it does not have the means to deal with all the casualties . . . Many doctors and nurses cannot reach the hospital because of the bombing," he said.
He planned to walk to his clinic to conduct emergency surgery, although he was uncertain whether anaesthetic was available.
Dr Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian physician who reached Gaza on Wednesday, said Gaza is a "complete man-made disaster. It's cold, there's no food, no fuel. At the main hospital [Shifa] all the windows have been blown out."
At the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza, he saw two field hospitals and 30 tonnes of medical supplies waiting to enter Gaza. He said the Israelis are using outlawed fuel air bombs and depleted uranium warheads. Many bodies are shredded and burnt.
While women and children comprise 25 per cent of the fatalities, they make up 40 per cent of the wounded. "Civilians are the targets, they are the victims," said Dr Gilbert.
Although the UN yesterday opened ration distribution centres for refugees for the first time in two weeks, humanitarian co-ordinator Maxwell Gaylard warned, "Without the violence stopping, it is extremely difficult to get food to people who need it. We cannot assess where the most urgent needs are. And it is too dangerous for civilians to leave their homes to seek urgent medical treatment, buy supplies and assist people in distress."
Israel has to open goods crossings for wheat, grain and other basic foods to feed the 1.1 million civilians dependent on food aid and to allow fuel to flow.
"Gaza's hospitals are facing their largest-ever trauma caseloads . . . They must have reliable power."
© 2009 irishtimes.com
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Murder Party
Party to Murder
by Chris Hedges
Editor’s note: In light of the recent fighting in Gaza, Truthdig asked Chris Hedges, who covered the Mideast for The New York Times for seven years, to update a previous column on Gaza.
Can anyone who is following the Israeli air attacks on Gaza—the buildings blown to rubble, the children killed on their way to school, the long rows of mutilated corpses, the wailing mothers and wives, the crowds of terrified Palestinians not knowing where to flee, the hospitals so overburdened and out of supplies they cannot treat the wounded, and our studied, callous indifference to this widespread human suffering—wonder why we are hated?
Our self-righteous celebration of ourselves and our supposed virtue is as false as that of Israel. We have become monsters, militarized bullies, heartless and savage. We are a party to human slaughter, a flagrant war crime, and do nothing. We forget that the innocents who suffer and die in Gaza are a reflection of ourselves, of how we might have been should fate and time and geography have made the circumstances of our birth different. We forget that we are all absurd and vulnerable creatures. We all have the capacity to fear and hate and love. “Expose thyself to what wretches feel,” King Lear said, entering the mud and straw hovel of Poor Tom, “and show the heavens more just.”
Privilege and power, especially military power, is a dangerous narcotic. Violence destroys those who bear the brunt of its force, but also those who try to use it to become gods. Over 350 Palestinians have been killed, many of them civilians, and over 1,000 have been wounded since the air attacks began on Saturday. Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, said Israel is engaged in a “war to the bitter end” against Hamas in Gaza. A war? Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely crowded refugee camps and slums, to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command and control, no army, and calls it a war. It is not a war. It is murder.
The U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, former Princeton University law professor Richard Falk, has labeled what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza “a crime against humanity.” Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as “a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” He has asked for “the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.”
Falk’s unflinching honesty has enraged Israel. He was banned from entering the country on Dec. 14 during his attempt to visit Gaza and the West Bank.
“After being denied entry I was put in a holding room with about 20 others experiencing entry problems,” he said. “At this point I was treated not as a U.N. representative, but as some sort of security threat, subjected to an inch-by-inch body search, and the most meticulous luggage inspection I have ever witnessed. I was separated from my two U.N. companions, who were allowed to enter Israel. At this point I was taken to the airport detention facility a mile or so away, required to put all my bags and cell phone in a room, taken to a locked, tiny room that had five other detainees, smelled of urine and filth, and was an unwelcome invitation to claustrophobia. I spent the next 15 hours so confined, which amounted to a cram course on the miseries of prison life, including dirty sheets, inedible food, and either lights that were too bright or darkness controlled from the guard office.”
The foreign press has been, like Falk, barred by Israel from entering Gaza to report on the destruction.
Israel’s stated aim of halting homemade rockets fired from Gaza into Israel remains unfulfilled. Gaza militants have fired more than 100 rockets and mortars into Israel, killing four people and wounding nearly two dozen more, since Israel unleashed its air assault. Israel has threatened to launch a ground assault and has called up 6,500 army reservists. It has massed tanks on the Gaza border and declared the area a closed military zone.
The rocket attacks by Hamas are, as Falk points out, also criminal violations of international law. But as Falk notes, “... such Palestinian behavior does not legalize Israel’s imposition of a collective punishment of a life- and health-threatening character on the people of Gaza, and should not distract the U.N. or international society from discharging their fundamental moral and legal duty to render protection to the Palestinian people.”
“It is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe that each day poses the entire 1.5 million Gazans to an unspeakable ordeal, to a struggle to survive in terms of their health,” Falk has said of the ongoing Israeli blockade of Gaza. “This is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Gazan children need thousands of hearing aids. Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Gazans. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people without the will to live. Over 50 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live.”
Before the air assaults, Gaza spent 12 hours a day without power, which can be a death sentence to the severely ill in hospitals. Most of Gaza is now without power. There are few drugs and little medicine, including no cancer or cystic fibrosis medication. Hospitals have generators but often lack fuel. Medical equipment, including one of Gaza’s three CT scanners, has been destroyed by power surges and fluctuations. Medical staff cannot control the temperature of incubators for newborns. And Israel has revoked most exit visas, meaning some of those who need specialized care, including cancer patients and those in need of kidney dialysis, have died. Of the 230 Gazans estimated to have died last year because they were denied proper medical care, several spent their final hours at Israeli crossing points where they were refused entry into Israel. The statistics gathered on children—half of Gaza’s population is under the age of 17—are increasingly grim. About 45 percent of children in Gaza have iron deficiency from a lack of fruit and vegetables, and 18 percent have stunted growth.
“It is macabre,” Falk said of the blockade. “I don’t know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times.”
“There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances,” the rapporteur added. “The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable.”
The point of the Israeli attack, ostensibly, is to break Hamas, the radical Islamic group that was elected to power in 2007. But Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. During the last cease-fire, established through Egyptian intermediaries in July, Hamas upheld the truce although Israel refused to ease the blockade. It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel.
“This is a crime of survival,” Falk said of the rocket attacks by Palestinians. “Israel has put the Gazans in a set of circumstances where they either have to accept whatever is imposed on them or resist in any way available to them. That is a horrible dilemma to impose upon a people. This does not alleviate the Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, for accountability for doing these acts involving rocket fire, but it also imposes some responsibility on Israel for creating these circumstances.”
Israel seeks to break the will of the Palestinians to resist. The Israeli government has demonstrated little interest in diplomacy or a peaceful solution. The rapid expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank is an effort to thwart the possibility of a two-state solution by gobbling up vast tracts of Palestinian real estate. Israel also appears to want to thrust the impoverished Gaza Strip onto Egypt. Dozens of tunnels had been the principal means for food and goods, connecting Gaza to Egypt. Israel had permitted the tunnels to operate, most likely as part of an effort to further cut Gaza off from Israel. This ended, however, on Sunday when Israeli fighter jets bombed over 40 tunnels along Gaza’s border with Egypt. The Israeli military said that the tunnels, on the Gaza side of the border, were used for smuggling weapons, explosives and fugitives. Egypt has sealed its border and refused to let distraught Palestinians enter its territory.
“Israel, all along, has not been prepared to enter into diplomatic process that gives the Palestinians a viable state,” Falk said. “They [the Israelis] feel time is on their side. They feel they can create enough facts on the ground so people will come to the conclusion a viable state cannot emerge.”
The use of terror and hunger to break a hostile population is one of the oldest forms of warfare. I watched the Bosnian Serbs employ the same tactic in Sarajevo. Those who orchestrate such sieges do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse. A father or a mother whose child dies because of a lack of vaccines or proper medical care does not forget. A boy whose ill grandmother dies while detained at an Israel checkpoint does not forget. A family that loses a child in an airstrike does not forget. All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of family members do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who, eventually, stumble out into the daylight. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a “martyr”?
The Israelis in Gaza, like the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, are foolishly breeding the next generation of militants and Islamic radicals. Jihadists, enraged by the injustices done by Israel and the United States, seek to carry out reciprocal acts of savagery, even at the cost of their own lives. The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel.
source
by Chris Hedges
Editor’s note: In light of the recent fighting in Gaza, Truthdig asked Chris Hedges, who covered the Mideast for The New York Times for seven years, to update a previous column on Gaza.
Can anyone who is following the Israeli air attacks on Gaza—the buildings blown to rubble, the children killed on their way to school, the long rows of mutilated corpses, the wailing mothers and wives, the crowds of terrified Palestinians not knowing where to flee, the hospitals so overburdened and out of supplies they cannot treat the wounded, and our studied, callous indifference to this widespread human suffering—wonder why we are hated?
Our self-righteous celebration of ourselves and our supposed virtue is as false as that of Israel. We have become monsters, militarized bullies, heartless and savage. We are a party to human slaughter, a flagrant war crime, and do nothing. We forget that the innocents who suffer and die in Gaza are a reflection of ourselves, of how we might have been should fate and time and geography have made the circumstances of our birth different. We forget that we are all absurd and vulnerable creatures. We all have the capacity to fear and hate and love. “Expose thyself to what wretches feel,” King Lear said, entering the mud and straw hovel of Poor Tom, “and show the heavens more just.”
Privilege and power, especially military power, is a dangerous narcotic. Violence destroys those who bear the brunt of its force, but also those who try to use it to become gods. Over 350 Palestinians have been killed, many of them civilians, and over 1,000 have been wounded since the air attacks began on Saturday. Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, said Israel is engaged in a “war to the bitter end” against Hamas in Gaza. A war? Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely crowded refugee camps and slums, to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command and control, no army, and calls it a war. It is not a war. It is murder.
The U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, former Princeton University law professor Richard Falk, has labeled what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza “a crime against humanity.” Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as “a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” He has asked for “the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.”
Falk’s unflinching honesty has enraged Israel. He was banned from entering the country on Dec. 14 during his attempt to visit Gaza and the West Bank.
“After being denied entry I was put in a holding room with about 20 others experiencing entry problems,” he said. “At this point I was treated not as a U.N. representative, but as some sort of security threat, subjected to an inch-by-inch body search, and the most meticulous luggage inspection I have ever witnessed. I was separated from my two U.N. companions, who were allowed to enter Israel. At this point I was taken to the airport detention facility a mile or so away, required to put all my bags and cell phone in a room, taken to a locked, tiny room that had five other detainees, smelled of urine and filth, and was an unwelcome invitation to claustrophobia. I spent the next 15 hours so confined, which amounted to a cram course on the miseries of prison life, including dirty sheets, inedible food, and either lights that were too bright or darkness controlled from the guard office.”
The foreign press has been, like Falk, barred by Israel from entering Gaza to report on the destruction.
Israel’s stated aim of halting homemade rockets fired from Gaza into Israel remains unfulfilled. Gaza militants have fired more than 100 rockets and mortars into Israel, killing four people and wounding nearly two dozen more, since Israel unleashed its air assault. Israel has threatened to launch a ground assault and has called up 6,500 army reservists. It has massed tanks on the Gaza border and declared the area a closed military zone.
The rocket attacks by Hamas are, as Falk points out, also criminal violations of international law. But as Falk notes, “... such Palestinian behavior does not legalize Israel’s imposition of a collective punishment of a life- and health-threatening character on the people of Gaza, and should not distract the U.N. or international society from discharging their fundamental moral and legal duty to render protection to the Palestinian people.”
“It is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe that each day poses the entire 1.5 million Gazans to an unspeakable ordeal, to a struggle to survive in terms of their health,” Falk has said of the ongoing Israeli blockade of Gaza. “This is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Gazan children need thousands of hearing aids. Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Gazans. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people without the will to live. Over 50 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live.”
Before the air assaults, Gaza spent 12 hours a day without power, which can be a death sentence to the severely ill in hospitals. Most of Gaza is now without power. There are few drugs and little medicine, including no cancer or cystic fibrosis medication. Hospitals have generators but often lack fuel. Medical equipment, including one of Gaza’s three CT scanners, has been destroyed by power surges and fluctuations. Medical staff cannot control the temperature of incubators for newborns. And Israel has revoked most exit visas, meaning some of those who need specialized care, including cancer patients and those in need of kidney dialysis, have died. Of the 230 Gazans estimated to have died last year because they were denied proper medical care, several spent their final hours at Israeli crossing points where they were refused entry into Israel. The statistics gathered on children—half of Gaza’s population is under the age of 17—are increasingly grim. About 45 percent of children in Gaza have iron deficiency from a lack of fruit and vegetables, and 18 percent have stunted growth.
“It is macabre,” Falk said of the blockade. “I don’t know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times.”
“There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances,” the rapporteur added. “The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable.”
The point of the Israeli attack, ostensibly, is to break Hamas, the radical Islamic group that was elected to power in 2007. But Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. During the last cease-fire, established through Egyptian intermediaries in July, Hamas upheld the truce although Israel refused to ease the blockade. It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel.
“This is a crime of survival,” Falk said of the rocket attacks by Palestinians. “Israel has put the Gazans in a set of circumstances where they either have to accept whatever is imposed on them or resist in any way available to them. That is a horrible dilemma to impose upon a people. This does not alleviate the Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, for accountability for doing these acts involving rocket fire, but it also imposes some responsibility on Israel for creating these circumstances.”
Israel seeks to break the will of the Palestinians to resist. The Israeli government has demonstrated little interest in diplomacy or a peaceful solution. The rapid expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank is an effort to thwart the possibility of a two-state solution by gobbling up vast tracts of Palestinian real estate. Israel also appears to want to thrust the impoverished Gaza Strip onto Egypt. Dozens of tunnels had been the principal means for food and goods, connecting Gaza to Egypt. Israel had permitted the tunnels to operate, most likely as part of an effort to further cut Gaza off from Israel. This ended, however, on Sunday when Israeli fighter jets bombed over 40 tunnels along Gaza’s border with Egypt. The Israeli military said that the tunnels, on the Gaza side of the border, were used for smuggling weapons, explosives and fugitives. Egypt has sealed its border and refused to let distraught Palestinians enter its territory.
“Israel, all along, has not been prepared to enter into diplomatic process that gives the Palestinians a viable state,” Falk said. “They [the Israelis] feel time is on their side. They feel they can create enough facts on the ground so people will come to the conclusion a viable state cannot emerge.”
The use of terror and hunger to break a hostile population is one of the oldest forms of warfare. I watched the Bosnian Serbs employ the same tactic in Sarajevo. Those who orchestrate such sieges do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse. A father or a mother whose child dies because of a lack of vaccines or proper medical care does not forget. A boy whose ill grandmother dies while detained at an Israel checkpoint does not forget. A family that loses a child in an airstrike does not forget. All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of family members do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who, eventually, stumble out into the daylight. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a “martyr”?
The Israelis in Gaza, like the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, are foolishly breeding the next generation of militants and Islamic radicals. Jihadists, enraged by the injustices done by Israel and the United States, seek to carry out reciprocal acts of savagery, even at the cost of their own lives. The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel.
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