Month: February 2009

Israel and human shields

“Israel had a policy in the past called the ‘neighbor policy,’ where soldiers would ask neighbors to persuade terrorists to come out of their houses,” he said. “The Supreme Court reviewed this procedure and ruled that this was unlawful. The answer is very clear: It is illegal.


shieldAs abominable as the idea is human shields are used to protect one group of combatants from another.  The accusation is usually hurled from defenders of western ideologies towards their enemies, i.e. Saddam, Hamas, et.al. so before this gets lost in the memory hole I thought I’d post this article.  It’s one of several that have been printed since the Gaza genocide.

The Israeli soldiers outside Majdi Abed Rabbo’s home were after the three Hamas fighters holed up next door, and they wanted Abed Rabbo to be their point man.

For the next 24 hours, Abed Rabbo said, the soldiers repeatedly forced him to walk through the battle zone to see whether the militants were dead or alive.

Abed Rabbo wasn’t alone. Eight other residents in this northern Gaza Strip neighborhood told McClatchy in separate interviews that Israeli soldiers had conscripted them to check homes for booby traps, to smash holes in the walls of houses so that soldiers could use them as escape routes or to try to pull dead Palestinian militants from the rubble.

The Israeli military told McClatchy that it’s investigating a variety of allegations about its Gaza operation but it categorically rejected suggestions that soldiers forced any Palestinians to work for them.

“Of course we don’t use human shields,” Israeli military spokesman Capt. Elie Isaacson said. “Just the opposite. We do everything in our power to avoid harm to civilians, bearing in mind that we know Hamas purposely puts them in harm’s way.”

U.S. and Israeli human-rights groups dispute that.

“There is powerful evidence that Israel used the tactic that they are accusing Hamas of using,” said Fred Abrahams, a Human Rights Watch senior researcher who’s investigating what happened in Gaza during the recent Israeli military offensive, which killed more than 1,200 Palestinians.

“The testimony seems pretty extensive and presents grave suspicions that Israeli soldiers forced Palestinians to perform dangerous tasks,” said B’Tselem spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli. “And the fact that we’re seeing these allegations on such a wide scale leads us to suspect that this was policy and not the decisions of one or two random soldiers.”

Not much will come of this revelation; Israel is rarely rebuked for its human rights abuses and this will be no different, however, the next time you hear the Israelis comment on human shields being used by their opponents you can reply they, the Israelis, probably taught them the technique.

Clothing is now a WMD


After the Gaza genocide, immediately following the truce, Israel bombed northern and southern Gaza saying they were interdicting weapons being smuggled by way of the mass tunnel system.  It doesn’t matter that those very same tunnels were also used to smuggle in much needed medicine and foodstuffs to the people of Gaza, since even they are no longer allowed to farm their fields nor fish in the waters off the shores of Gaza.  The youtube video shows the daily pressures Palestinian fisherman go through for mere subsistence level fishing.

Now comes word that not even clothes  are  allowed in to Gaza anymore and is considered contraband. The Brotherhood, an aid ship destined for Gaza was intercepted by the Israeli navy and taken to an Israeli port because it was carrying food and medical supplies in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.  No weapons were found.

Israel removed cloths and shoes from the list of goods that were allowed into Gaza Strip after Egypt brokered a ceasefire there, a Palestinian official said on Wednesday.

Ali al-Hayek, head of Industries Federation, said the Israeli occupation prevented these sorts of goods from entering Gaza Strip “since they could be used in producing military uniforms.”

So how is it that a ship going to Gaza and  carrying humanitarian supplies is taken by the Israelis?  What legal right do the Israelis have in seizing humanitarian aide?  The Israelis look upon Gaza as their own territory and have set up strict limits on what the Palestinians can and cannot do there.

Israel continues to maintain complete control over the air and sea space of the Gaza Strip. Control of the air space provides Israel with the ability to effectively and easily control actions on the ground, and to interfere with radio and television broadcasts. Control of the coastal area and territorial waters enables Israel , among other things, to restrict the activity of Palestinian fishermen.

Israel continues to control the joint Gaza Strip-West Bank population registry. Formal authority for administering the population registry was transferred under the second Oslo Agreement, of 1995, to the Palestinian Authority, but in practice, Israel continued to hold most of the powers regarding the registry. Almost every change in the registry made by the Palestinian Authority, except for the registration of children whose two parents are residents of the Occupied Territories , requires the prior approval of Israel . Israel does not recognize changes made by the Palestinian Authority without its approval.

Israel continues to maintain complete control of the movement of people and goods between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank . This is the case also when the movement does not take place across Israeli territory. Israeli control is based on a military order that classifies the entire West Bank as a “closed military area,” as to which entry and exit requires a permit issued by the military. Residents of Gaza who are caught in the West Bank without a permit, even if they have lived in the West Bank for years and established families there, are considered to be staying illegally in the area and are expelled to the Gaza Strip.

Israel continues to exercise complete control over the movement of goods into the Gaza Strip. The three crossing points designated for this purpose   – Karni, Sufa, and Kerem Shalom – are under Israel ‘s sole control. Rafah Crossing, the administration of which was handed over to the Palestinian Authority, has a terminal for the crossing of goods, but according to the November 2005 agreement, the crossing is limited to exports.

It is easy to see why the Palestinians resist  such regulations as those imposed on them by the Israelis and why they have set up ways of insuring  their own self-reliance. The living conditions in Gaza aren’t independence they are slavery and everyone who is aware of them knows that!


Stunning words from the mainstream


Paul Craig Roberts is a maverick of sorts, ever since he left the Reagan administration and began writing editorials about current events.  He still reflects fondly on Reagan, the conservative most modern day conservatives like to pattern themselves after, but speaks disdainfully of GW Bush and the people who surrounded him, calling them ‘brownshirts with the same level of intelligence and morals as Hitler’s enthusiastic supporters.’ Amen to that.  However, he has written a damning editorial on the war on terror, written by the way, at about the same time as Dick Cheney’s rather high treasonous remarks, which speaks volumes on how that war has been carried out and whether it’s real.  I’d like to produce exercepts of it below. He does a far better job of saying it than I ever could.

According to US government propaganda, terrorist cells are spread throughout America, making it necessary for the government to spy on all Americans and violate most other constitutional protections. Among President Bush’s last words as he left office was the warning that America would soon be struck again by Muslim terrorists.

If America were infected with terrorists, we would not need the government to tell us. We would know it from events. As there are no events, the US government substitutes warnings in order to keep alive the fear that causes the public to accept pointless wars, the infringement of civil liberty, national ID cards, and inconveniences and harassments when they fly.

The “war on terror” is a hoax that fronts for American control of oil pipelines, the profits of the military-security complex, the assault on civil liberty by fomenters of a police state, and Israel’s territorial expansion.

There were no al Qaeda in Iraq until the Americans brought them there by invading and overthrowing Saddam Hussein, who kept al Qaeda out of Iraq. The Taliban is not a terrorist organization, but a movement attempting to unify Afghanistan under Muslim law. The only Americans threatened by the Taliban are the Americans Bush sent to Afghanistan to kill Taliban and to impose a puppet state on the Afghan people.

Hamas is the democratically elected government of Palestine, or what little remains of Palestine after Israel’s illegal annexations. Hamas is a terrorist organization in the same sense that the Israeli government and the US government are terrorist organizations. In an effort to bring Hamas under Israeli hegemony, Israel employs terror bombing and assassinations against Palestinians. Hamas replies to the Israeli terror with homemade and ineffectual rockets.

Hezbollah represents the Shi’ites of southern Lebanon, another area in the Middle East that Israel seeks for its territorial expansion.

The US brands Hamas and Hezbollah “terrorist organizations” for no other reason than the US is on Israel’s side of the conflict. There is no objective basis for the US Department of State’s “finding” that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. It is merely a propagandistic declaration.

The retired American generals who serve as war propagandists for Fox “News” are forever claiming that Iran arms the Iraqi and Afghan insurgents and Hamas. But where are the arms? To deal with American tanks, insurgents have to construct homemade explosive devices out of artillery shells. After six years of conflict the insurgents still have no weapon against the American helicopter gunships. Contrast this “arming” with the weaponry the US supplied to the Afghans three decades ago when they were fighting to drive out the Soviets.

The films of Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza show large numbers of Gazans fleeing from Israeli bombs or digging out the dead and maimed, and none of these people are armed. A person would think that by now every Palestinian would be armed, every man, woman, and child. Yet, all the films of the Israeli attack show an unarmed population. Hamas has to construct homemade rockets that are little more than a sign of defiance. If Hamas were armed by Iran, Israel’s assault on Gaza would have cost Israel its helicopter gunships, its tanks, and hundreds of lives of its soldiers.

The great mystery is: why after 60 years of oppression are the Palestinians still an unarmed people? Clearly, the Muslim countries are complicit with Israel and the US in keeping the Palestinians unarmed.

The unsupported assertion that Iran supplies sophisticated arms to the Palestinians is like the unsupported assertion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. These assertions are propagandistic justifications for killing Arab civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure in order to secure US and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.


Take that!


dr-ezzeldeen-abu-al-aish1The Palestinian doctor who reported from Gaza for Israeli television was told the death of three of his daughters was “reasonable“.  If you remember the story, he was on the air reporting about the fighting in Gaza when he received a phone call that his daughters and a niece, ages 22, 15, 14 and 14 were killed by the IDF.  This doctor was trained in Israel and spoke Hebrew and had been enlisted by the Israelis to report on what was going on during the Gazan conflict when he was informed of the death of his family members.  Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish, is also a peace activist Palestinian who was known for treating Israelis as well as Palestinians, but that wasn’t good enough to save him from the wrath of the Israeli government who after investigating why his family was killed decided it was reasonable to have killed the four civilian females. That wasn’t all that would befell Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish.  Check out this youtube video where at a press conference in which he pleaded for peace he was met with a chilly and hostile reception by Israelis, who as I’ve said before, are not interested in peace with their Palestinian neighbors, even those who treat and offer them comfort.

Giving aid and comfort to the enemy


cheneyDick Cheney has gone off the deep end of things in ways that are really unfathomable.  In an interview on “friendly” territory where hard questions don’t exist and he can get away with the most inflammatory language that only Dick Cheney can spew he said, ‘that there is a “high probability” that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama administration’s policies will make it more likely the attempt will succeed.’  That’s pretty strong language coming from a member of the Republican party that spent the last eight years challenging anyone  and everyone’s patriotism who questioned the direction of the Bush Administration.  You can go here to see a very long list of such accusations of treason against Bush policy, but here are some of the juicier remarks.

“while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats’ manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief.” Zell Miller, D. Ga.

“[T]he liberal leadership have put politics ahead of sound fiscal and national security policy. And what they have done is cooperated with our enemies and are emboldening our enemies.” – Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY)

“divisive comments have the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies by allowing them to exploit divisions in our country.”- Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA)

What Cheney has done is far more egregious than give aid to an enemy, he’s practically incite it to violence towards the US by implying it should happen because of Obama’s policies.

“When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry…”

This is Cheney at his best, using the politics of fear from afar, he almost seems to challenge terrorists to strike an America that is preoccupied with ‘reading them their rights’ rather than with killing them.  Those are the only two choices to Dick Cheney and his collection of  backyard warriors who watched others  fight wars they managed to miss, and who enlisted still more to fight wars built upon lies and misleading information.  He lives in his  testosterone induced haze where everything is do or die, you are either with us or against us, “us” being he and his circle of friends that languish in think tanks scattered around Washington who alone can determine who the real enemy is, and you’d better damn well fight them their  death or else you are guilty of treason.

I think the very same language used against Bush/Cheney detractors the last eight years  should be used against Cheney himself.  He is inciting the enemy to acts of violence against America and thereby giving aid and comfort to those who seek to do us harm….in the over inflated language of W. Bush and everyone should take the opportunity to say that.  Mr. Cheney, you are a traitor.