Author: miscellany101

So you might know who they are……


…the dead of Gaza, children, under the age of 18. I wish I could put a face to each of their names.

27/12/2008
Ibtihal Kechko Girl 10
Ahmed Riad Mohammed Al-Sinwar Boy 3
Ahmed Al-Homs Boy 18
Ahmed Rasmi Abu Jazar Boy 16
Ahmed Sameeh Al-Halabi Boy 18
Tamer Hassan Al-Akhrass Boy 5
Hassan Ali Al-Akhrass Boy 3
Haneen Wael Mohammed Daban Girl 15
Khaled Sami Al-Astal Boy 15
alaat Mokhless Bassal Boy 18
Aaed Imad Kheera Boy 14
Abdullah Al-Rayess Boy 17
Odai Hakeem Al-Mansi Boy 4
Allam Nehrou Idriss Boy 18
Ali Marwan Abu Rabih Boy 18
Anan Saber Atiyah Boy 13
Camelia Al-Bardini Girl 10
Lama Talal Hamdan Girl 10
Mohammed Jaber Howeij Boy 17
Nimr Mustafa Amoom Boy 10
29/12/2008
Ismail Talal Hamdan Boy 10
Ahmed Ziad Al-Absi Boy 14
Ahmed Youssef Khello Boy 18
Ikram Anwar Baaloosha Girl 14
Tahrier Anwar Baaloosha Girl 17
Jihad Saleh Ghobn Boy 10
Jawaher Anwar Baaloosha Girl 8
Dina Anwar Baaloosha Girl 7
Samar Anwar Baaloosha Girl 6
Shady Youssef Ghobn Boy 12
Sudqi Ziad Al-Absi Boy 3
Imad Nabeel Abou Khater Boy 16
Lina Anwar Baaloosha Girl 7
Mohammed Basseel Madi Boy 17
Mohammed Jalal Abou Tair Boy 18
Mohammed Ziad Al-Absi Boy 14
Mahmoud Nabeel Ghabayen Boy 15
Moaz Yasser Abou Tair Boy 6
Wissam Akram Eid Girl 14
30/12/2008
Haya Talal Hamdan Girl 8
31/12/2008
Ahmed Kanouh Boy 10
Ameen Al-Zarbatlee Boy 10
Mohammed Nafez Mohaissen Boy 10
Mustafa Abou Ghanimah Boy 16
Yehya Awnee Mohaissen Boy 10
Ossman Bin Zaid Nizar Rayyan Boy 3
Assaad Nizar Rayyan Boy 2
Moaz-Uldeen Allah Al-Nasla Boy 5
Aya Nizar Rayyan Girl 12
Halima Nizar Rayyan Girl 5
Reem Nizar Rayyan Boy 4
Aicha Nizar Rayyan Girl 3
Abdul Rahman Nizar Rayyan Boy 6
Abdul Qader Nizar Rayyan Boy 12
Oyoon Jihad Al-Nasla Girl 16
Mahmoud Mustafa Ashour Boy 13
Maryam Nizar Rayyan Girl 5
01/01/2009
Hamada Ibrahim Mousabbah Boy 10
Zeinab Nizar Rayyan Girl 12
Sujud Mahmoud Al-Derdesawi Girl 10
Abdul Sattar Waleed Al-Astal Boy 12
Abed Rabbo Iyyad Abed Rabbo Al-Astal Boy 10
Ghassan Nizar Rayyan Boy 15
Christine Wadih El-Turk Boy 6
Mohammed Mousabbah Boy 14
Mohammed Iyad Abed Rabbo Al-Astal Boy 13
Mahmoud Samsoom Boy 16
Ahmed Tobail Boy 16
Ahmed Sameeh Al-Kafarneh Boy 17
Hassan Hejjo Boy 14
Rajeh Ziadeh Boy 18
Shareef Abdul Mota Armeelat Boy 15
Mohammed Moussa Al-Silawi Boy 10
Mahmoud Majed Mahmoud Abou Nahel Boy 16
Mohannad Al-Tatnaneeh Boy 18
Hani Mohammed Al-Silawi Boy 10
01/01/2009
Ahmed Al-Meshharawi Boy 16
Ahmed Khodair Sobaih Boy 17
Ahmed Sameeh Al-Kafarneh Boy 18
Asraa Kossai Al-Habash Girl 10
Assad Khaled Al-Meshharawi Boy 17
Asmaa Ibrahim Afana Girl 12
Ismail Abdullah Abou Sneima Boy 4
Akram Ziad Al-Nemr Boy 18
Aya Ziad Al-Nemr Girl 8
Ahmed Mohammed Al-Adham Boy 1
Akram Ziad Al-Nemr Boy 13
Hamza Zuhair Tantish Boy 12
Khalil Mohammed Mokdad Boy 18
Ruba Mohammed Fadl Abou-Rass Girl 13
Ziad Mohammed Salma Abou Sneima Boy 9
Shaza Al-Abed Al-Habash Girl 16
Abed Ziad Al-Nemr Boy 12
Attia Rushdi Al-Khawli Boy 16
Luay Yahya Abou Haleema Boy 17
Mohammed Akram Abou Harbeed Boy 18
Mohammed Abed Berbekh Boy 18
Mohammed Faraj Hassouna Boy 16
Mahmoud Khalil Al-Mashharawi Boy 12
Mahmoud Zahir Tantish Boy 17
Mahmoud Sami Assliya Boy 3
Moussa Youssef Berbekh Boy 16
Wi’am Jamal Al-Kafarneh Girl 2
Wadih Ayman Omar Boy 4
Youssef Abed Berbekh Boy 10
05/01/2009
Ibrahim Rouhee Akl Boy 17
Ibrahim Abdullah Merjan Boy 13
Ahmed Attiyah Al-Semouni Boy 4
Aya Youssef Al-Defdah Girl 13
Aya Al-Sersawi Girl 5
Ahmed Amer Abou Eisha Boy 5
Ameen Attiyah Al-Semouni Boy 4
Hazem Alewa Boy 8
Khalil Mohammed Helless Boy 12
Diana Mosbah Saad Girl 17
Raya Al-Sersawi Girl 5
Rahma Mohammed Al-Semouni Girl 18
Ramadan Ali Felfel Boy 14
Rahaf Ahmed Saeed Al-Azaar Girl 4
Shahad Mohammed Hijjih Girl 3
Arafat Mohammed Abdul Dayem Boy 10
Omar Mahmoud Al-Baradei Boy 12
Ghaydaa Amer Abou Eisha Girl 6
Fathiyya Ayman Al-Dabari Girl 4
Faraj Ammar Al-Helou Boy 2
Moumen Alewah Boy 9
Moumen Mahmoud Talal Alaw Boy 10
Mohammed Amer Abu Eisha Boy 8
Mahmoud Mohammed Abu Kamar Boy 15
Marwan Hein Kodeih Girl 6
Montasser Alewah Boy 12
Naji Nidal Al-Hamlawi Boy 16
Nada Redwan Mardi Girl 5
Hanadi Bassem Khaleefa Girl 13
06/01/2009
Ibrahim Ahmed Maarouf Boy 14
Ahmed Shaher Khodeir Boy 14
Ismail Adnan Hweilah Boy 15
Aseel Moeen Deeb Boy 17
Adam Mamoun Al-Kurdee Boy 3
Alaa Iyad Al-Daya Girl 8
Areej Mohammed Al-Daya Girl 3 months
Amani Mohammed Al-Daya Girl 4
Baraa Ramez Al-Daya Girl 2
Bilal Hamza Obaid Boy 15
Thaer Shaker Karmout Boy 17
Hozaifa Jihad Al-Kahloot Boy 17
Khitam Iyad Al-Daya Girl 9
Rafik Abdul Basset Al-Khodari Boy 15
Raneen Abdullah saleh Girl 12
Zakariya Yahya Al-Taweel Boy 5
Sahar Hatem Dawood Girl 10
Salsabeel Ramez Al-Daya Girl 6 months
Sharafuldeen Iyad Al-Daya Boy 7
Doha Mohammed Al-Daya Girl 5
Ahed Iyad Kodas Boy 15
Abdullah Mohammed Abdullah Boy 10
Issam Sameer Deeb Boy 12
Alaa Ismail Ismail Boy 18
Ali Iyad Al-Daya Boy 10
Imad Abu Askar Boy 18
Filasteen Al-Daya Girl 5
Kamar Mohammed Al-Daya Boy 3
Lina Abdul Menem Hassan Girl 10
Unidentified Boy 9
Unidentified Boy 15
Mohammed Iyad Al-Daya Boy 6
Mohammed Bassem Shakoura Boy 10
Mohammed Bassem Eid Boy 18
Mohammed Deeb Boy 17
Mohammed Eid Boy 18
Mustafa Moeen Deeb Boy 12
Noor Moeen Deeb Boy 2
Youssef Saad Al-Kahloot Boy 17
Youssef Mohammed Al-Daya Boy 1
07/01/2009
Ibrahim Kamal Awaja Boy 9
Ahmed Jaber Howeij Boy 7
Ahmed Fawzi Labad Boy 18
Ayman Al-Bayed Boy 16
Amal Khaled Abed Rabbo Girl 3
Toufic Khaled Al-Khahloot Boy 10
Habeeb Khaled Al-Khahloot Boy 12
Houssam Raed Sobeh Boy 12
Hassan Rateb Semaan Boy 18
Hassan Ata Hassan Azzam Boy 2
Redwan Mohammed Ashoor Boy 10
Suad Khaled Abed Rabbo Girl 6
Samar Khaled Abed Rabbo Girl 2
Abdul Rahman Mohammmed Ashoor Boy 12
Fareed Ata Hassan Azzam Boy 13
Mohammed Khaled Al-Kahloot Boy 15
Mohammed Samir Hijji Boy 16
Mohammed Fareed Al-Maasawabi Boy 16
Mohammed Moeen Deeb Boy 17
Mohammed Nasseem Salama Saba Boy 16
Mahmoud Hameed Boy 17
Hamam Issa Boy 1
08/01/2009
Anas Arif Abou Baraka Boy 7
Ibrahim Akram Abou Dakkka Boy 12
Ibrahim Moeen Jiha Boy 15
Baraa Iyad Shalha Girl 6
Basma Yasser Al-Jeblawi Girl 5
Shahd Saad Abou Haleema Girl 15
Azmi Diab Boy 16
Mohammed Akram Abou Dakka Boy 14
Mohammed Hikmat Abou Haleema Boy 17
Ibrahim Moeen Jiha Boy 15
Matar Saad Abou Haleema Boy 17
09/01/2009
Ahmed Ibrahim Abou Kleik Boy 17
Ismail Ayman Yasseen Boy 18
Alaa Ahmed Jaber Girl 11
Baha-Uldeen Fayez Salha Girl 5
Rana Fayez Salha Girl 12
Rola Fayez Salha Girl 13
Diyaa-Uldeen Fayez Salah Boy 14
Ghanima Sultan Halawa Girl 11
Fatima Raed Jadullah Girl 10
Mohammed Atef Abou Al-Hussna Boy 15

Hat tip to Robin@Sabbah blog.

A letter from Gaza


Asaalam Alaykum,

My dear sisters and brothers I wanted to take this opportunity to send you a message from the sisters in Gaza. Please hear about our situation, and convey it to everyone who you know and do not know.

Our situation is dire but our eman is strong alhamdulillah, even though we have no water to speak of. When we do [have water] it is polluted, and we have no money to buy mineral water. When we obtain money, then those that sell it [the water] tell us that it is too dangerous for them to travel out to get new supplies. We have no gas, and have not had for the last four months. We cook the little food we have on real [wood] fires that we have learned to light.

Our men have lost all their jobs. They spend their days at home now. My husband can end up spending a day just going from place to place in search of the bare necessities, like water. He usually returns empty handed. There are no schools and no banks; hardly any hospitals are open. You are constantly aware that you risk your life when you go out and when you are indoors. We are under a curfew [imposed by the Israeli army-IDF] between 1-4pm. We can go out, they [IDF] say, in safety to get our supplies, but that is a lie. They have often used that opportunity to add more shuhada [martyrs] to their list.

We eat rice one day and bread one day. Meat and milk are luxuries. They are using chemical warfare upon the areas close to the borders.

All this and we are being told that people demonstrate all over the world. Masha Allah. The fact that you go to the embassies, leaving your homes, makes us truly feel that we are not alone in our struggle.

But you go home at night and lock your door. We cannot do that. I have to leave my home on the second floor every night and stay with my sister on the ground floor. Should there be an attack, it’s quicker to leave from the ground floor.

Yes we are tired. When we hear rockets and bombs and see planes that fly too close to our building, I scream with my young son, while my husband feels helpless.

In all this there is no one but Allah (swt) that can save us. But the ummah is asking, “where are the armies?”, “where is the victory?”

Don’t forget us because you are all that we have now. Your kind sadaqaat are not reaching us, and when they open the borders, it only reaches a few. Keep up the work of Allah and pray that the victory will come soon insha Allah.

wasalam
Your sister Umm Taqi

Hat tip to MuslimMatters.org for this.

And then along comes this bit of news from the UN to underscore Umm Taqi’s letter.

ISRAEL deliberately blocked the United Nations from building up vital food supplies in Gaza that feed a million people daily before the launch of its war against Hamas, according to a senior UN official in Jerusalem.

In a scathing critique of Israeli actions leading up to the conflict, the UN’s chief humanitarian co-ordinator in Israel, the former Australian diplomat Maxwell Gaylard, accused Israel of failing to honour its commitments to open its border with Gaza during several months of truce from June 19 last year.

“The Israelis would not let us facilitate a regular and sufficient flow of supplies into the Strip,” Mr Gaylard said.

The chief spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Yigal Palmor, said the claims were “unqualified bullshit”.

“At no time was there a shortage of food in Gaza over the past three weeks,” Mr Palmor said.

Mr Gaylard, who is the UN Special Co-ordinator’s Office’s most senior representative in Israel, told the Herald that when Israel launched its surprise attack on Gaza on December 27, the UN’s warehouses in Gaza were nearly empty, with all food and equipment sitting in nearby port facilities. “The food was in Israel but we couldn’t get it in. This is before. The blockade was very tight.”

Finally when there was aid available this is what happened.
GAZA UN TRUCE EFFORTS

Israeli forces shelled areas deep inside Gaza City on Thursday, hitting the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and wounding at least three people among the hundreds taking shelter in the compound, UN officials and witnesses said.

Are these the best allies we, the United States, can come up with in the Middle East?

By way of deception thou shalt wage war


The entire Gaza operation has been one of deception, from the thousands of rockets launched into southern Israel which have caused the most potently armed country in the region to become afraid, to the attacks on sanctuaries for civilians because they harbored terrorists, the Israelis have used every trick in the book to justify their bloodbath and it has all been built on deception.

The foreign minister, a former Mossad agent knows too well about deception and thousands of people have lined up to help promote the state of Israel at the expense of the Palestinians, and it bears mentioning now some who have participated in this ruse.

First off there is the IDF itself.  False flags are common in warfare and work pretty good until the perpetrators get caught, and it seems some of the IDF have been caught passing themselves off as Hamas members while they ransacked the streets of Gaza.  Could it be they also fired on their own colleagues as well as the Palestinian civilians, medics, doctors, UN relief staff, all to make a point that Hamas is a terrorist organization?  Or how about merely using the image of Hamas killing its own to destroy the will people have for the government they elected two years ago,  and rise up to overthrow and replace them.  Such hopes are the stuff unfulfilled dreams are made of, like the hope the Iraqis would do the same to Saddam in ’91 and in all the years thereafter as they were starved and plagued to death by way of international sanctions.  Yet they did not revolt and left the work of getting rid of their dictator to us, despite the hardship he and inevitably we put them through.  Surely, those who sent IDF out as Hamas know it would be the same with the Palestinians.

The deception of war was also fought on the cyber  front where people and in particular one “terrorism expert” passed himself as someone he wasn’t and got caught inciting people who had no desire for violence to commit to a way he thought they should act.   Glen Jenvy became abuislam and encouraged people on ummah.com‘s forum to threaten and harm Jewish members of British society.  He then used the forum that he posted to to point out how evil British Muslims are, when the only evil was that emanating from his keyboard.

It’s sad the once “chosen” people of God have turned to deception and wars to ensure the safety of their existence among neighbors, when all they need is dialogue with and respect for them.  It is necessary therefore for all concerned to be diligent in becoming informed.  Old folks once said it best, don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.  Better advice can’t be found, when it comes to Israel’s relationships in the Middle East.

Venezuela and moral authority


There’s an interesting discussion going on over at Lenin’s Tomb about whether Israel is a nation in decline.  I think the tense is wrong on the supposition for I think Israel’s descent into the abyss occurred  during the 1967 war, a war which even some of Israel’s staunchest supporters back then said was not one necessary to have fought. In other words Israel is a declined nation.

Yediot Aharonot of April 27 has published an 1976 interview with Moshe Dayan (which was not previously published). Dayan, who was the defense minister in 1967, explains there what led, then, to the decision to attack Syria. In the collective consciousness of the period, Syria was conceived as a serious threat to the security of Israel, and a constant initiator of aggression towards the residents of northern Israel. But according to Dayan, this is ‘bull-shit’ – Syria was not a threat to Israel before 67. Just drop it – he says as an answer to a question about the northern residences – I know how at least 80% of all the incidents with Syria started. We were sending a tractor to the demilitarized zone and we knew that the Syrians will shoot. If they did not shoot, we would instruct the tractor to go deeper, till the Syrians finally got upset and start shooting. Then we employed artillery, and later also the air-force… I did that… and Itzhak Rabin did that, when he was there (as commander of the Northern front, in the early sixties).

And what has led Israel to provoke Syria? According to Dayan, this was the greediness for the land – the idea that it is possible to grab a piece of land and keep it, until the enemy will get tired and give it to us. The Syrian land was, as he says, particularly tempting, since, unlike Gaza and the West bank it was not heavily populated.

From then on Israel’s war were fought because of greed, not for the security of its citizens but rather to take from its neighbors land and resources that they, the Israelis, coveted; Israel is too arrogant to negotiate with its neighbors whom it feels are inferior to them.  However taking a page from Lenin’s book, I would like to tie the decline of the American empire to that of the Israeli one.  For at the same time that Israel was attacking its neighbors and even its allies, a la the USS Liberty, the United States was fighting a war of aggression in a faraway land for reasons that had nothing at all to do with its security, and that war too was fought on the basis of deceit.

Over the years the US-Israeli alliance seemed to take divergent paths, even though there were very strong relations between the two countries, but the 90’s and the rise of neoconservative thought seemed to return the two countries to a common theme; they could fight whoever they wanted under whatever guise they wanted and expect there would be no consequences for their aggression.  That convergence to me is the beginning of the end for America, which was a light among nations and a moral leader as we began to  abandon our  racist ideology of Jim Crowism.

With the rise of the neoconservative school of thought, threats were inflated in importance and our country became a victim in the face of these threats, many if not most of them imagined.  There was an evil Soviet empire that at every turn meant to do us harm and there was the fifth element among us who worked for that evil empire that we had to expunge from our society.

This evolution in American politics mirrors what the Israelis have done to their own citizens and to their neighbors.  The only difference between us is the close proximity of Israel’s threats compared to ours; Israel’s enemies were its immediate neighbors, whereas our enemies were oceans removed from our borders.  Slowly however our enemies’ borders began to shift, move and became the very same enemies as Israel’s and that’s when our demise was sealed, because we accepted the Israeli rules of deception, we drank the kool-aide of lies and false flags in order to justify aggression, and threw away the notion of our national self interest and tied it with Israel’s interests.  In effect we became the tail that Israel wagged.

Gaza is proof of that, and the brazen statements of Ehud Olmert, that we were shamed into accepting the Israeli position, as if  theirs  was the only position we could reasonably take is one of the nails in our coffin.  The other nail is the response of other world countries to the Gaza atrocities; those other countries like Venezeula and Boliva, places we once called banana republics have assumed a moral stance that the slaughter of civilians won’t be tolerated, a position America can no longer take because of it’s skewed view of what’s in its interests.  Bolivia went so far as to say ‘the country’s authorities are to bring a formal complaint against the Israeli state to the International Criminal Court regarding the attacks on the Gaza Strip..’  By breaking off diplomatic relations with Israel, the very least a country can do in the face of this onslaught against international law by the Israelis, Bolivia, Venezeula, Qatar and Mauritania, two new players to object formally to Israel’s genocide, have taken a high road abandoned by the US after its moral decline.

The question for me now becomes can we recover, be resuscitated to where we once were?  As long as we rubber stamp Israel’s selection of leaders who are 20 times more homicidal than Ahmadadijad could ever hope to be, I don’t think we can restore the luster. When we can no longer muster the moral courage to support UN resolutions that we helped write because of our convoluted interests with Israel we are hopeless.  It’s a path we went down of our own volition; what’s troublesome is our “ally” watched us, encouraged us to take it, knowing where it would lead us.  That “ally” has had far more experience in human history with the deceit and betrayal of confidences than the young republic of America.  Perhaps the old saying ‘misery loves company’ is indeed true.  Speaking of Iran, I chuckled when I read the headline, ‘US condemns stoning executions’, and asked myself ‘on whose authority?’


The great divide among Iraq’s ethnicities continues


iraqi_christian_churchI am appalled at the hand modern day Europe and the US played in the destruction of Iraqi culture.  A society centuries old, a lot older than ours in America, was destroyed in 5 years of death and destruction and perhaps the biggest and worst destruction was in the ability of the Iraqis to live together.

That characteristic has been further exacerbated by Germany’s desire to house only Iraqi Christian refugees.  It is a passive way of destroying the social character of a country by encouraging all those of one ethnic persuasion to take advantage of an opportunity only available to them, at a time when the entire society is beset with the problem of social disintegration through occupation.  While I encourage any and all to seek whatever legal means they have at their disposal for safety and prosperity, Iraqi Christians are pawns in the new social order being imposed on Iraq.

No doubt there are large problems that Iraq has between the different religions, sects, and tribes, but those problems have to be sorted out by Iraqis who are interested in social cohesion for themselves, not by outsiders who want to divide communities and take them from their homes.  Moreover, reading between the lines of news reports coming from Iraq about religious persecution, many people there think it’s a direct result of occupation. Mark Glenn’s blog talks about  Christian Iraqis and the issues they face in a post Saddam Iraq.  One interesting tidbit he points out is Iraq has one of  the largest number of Christians of any Arab country, numbering 1 million or more.

The point to this piece is Germany is not offering a solution to religious persecution in Iraq.  What Iraq needs is a stable government that is representative of its citizens, and working within parameters defined by those citizens, and more importantly, in the absence of a foreign occupying force!  My wish would be that  Germany’s desire would be to end occupation of Iraq and help them in the manner Iraqis request, rebuild their country, but offering one group of people a free get out of jail card doesn’t serve the interests of either country, Iraq or Germany, in the long run.

The seductive Tzipi Livni- NOT!


livniIsraeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni is coming to Washington, DC ostensibly to talk to members of the Bush administration about Gaza, but that’s obviously a  lie, since there is now no longer a Bush administration.  Rather what she’s coming to do is to read the Obama administration the riot act, using the carrot and stick approach.

The Israelis would probably like to have a little more time destroying the infrastructure of Gaza and Egypt as well as make a case for their more ambitious goals for the Middle East, but they want to see if Obama is “down with the program” so she’s coming to test the waters and see what she finds.  On the eve of the inauguration, she’ll probably find indifferent Bush people who wanna’ get the hell out of town, and inebriated Obama people who are ready to paaaaaarrrrtyyyyyyy, except the loyalists to her cause who are always alert to every opportunity and available to undermine US interests for Israeli interests.

She probably is also coming to smooth out the Olmert-Rice rift which is still going on.  Rice has said Olmert’s account of being able to manipulate Bush to essentially embarrass her is fictional while for his part, Olmert hasn’t backed down from what he’s reported to have said, that Rice was shamed into her abstention vote at the UN.  That’s certainly the mood  he meant to convey to his Israeli audience, that he has the power to get whatever he wants from his American client state.  However, Livni is the “good” cop in the power politics taking place between the two countries so she’s coming to make nice with Rice before she leaves so Rice won’t  make problems for the Israeli  “program” further down the road.

Livni is a former Mossad operative so she’ll brief them about what she finds in the Obama crowd that Israel can exploit to further their plans.  She’s packaged nicely, a far cry from the frumpy Golda Meir, but equally as deadly and dangerous.  ‘All that glitters ain’t gold’ and Livni is no exception to that rule.   The timing of her visit to Washington to this observer is far more foreshadowing and ominous than it appears.

Beware the Lord of Israel


Listening to Him can make one a war criminal!

He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand.

2And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brasen altar.

3And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer’s inkhorn by his side;

4And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.

5And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:

6Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.

7And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city. – Ezekeil 9:1-7

The death toll keeps rising, much to the glee of the IDF.  They’ve got to have something to show for all the military hardware they’ve managed to squeeze into a 125 square mile area filled with over one million people.  Here’s the dicey part if you’re true, blue  and red blooded: we only have Palestinian or UN or Red Cross sources to rely on since the Israelis have either blocked or killed everyone else who could verify the numbers, but regardless the figures are startling. Over one thousand people killed in three weeks, several hundred are children and scores are women.  Surely the Israelis will dispute these numbers, but how can they since they haven’t allowed anyone in Gaza to see nor do they seem too interested in providing a count of the numbers of people they’ve slaughtered.   The point is however, the Jewish state which takes its mandate from scripture shouldnot  have, and they don’t it seems, any guilt about killing anyone that’s not a member of their fraternity.  The scripture and the numbers piling up in Gaza bear that out. The ‘religion of peace’ doesn’t have anything over this crowd.

Crocodile tears


crying_crocodileThe Israelis have ceased being innovative in their slaughter of Palestinians and have become rather predictable instead. Perhaps they are that way because their methods have always worked; they have always gotten away with murder, literally, and yet maintained their status as the world’s ultimate victim. However that said, this latest atrocity among the many they have committed today is the one easiest to see develop and make a parody of.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the military fired artillery shells at the U.N. compound after Hamas militants opened fire from the location. Three people were wounded.

“It is absolutely true that we were attacked from that place, but the consequences are very sad and we apologize for it,” he said. “I don’t think it should have happened and I’m very sorry.”

Ging, who was in the compound at the time, dismissed the Israeli account as “nonsense.”

Israeli shells first hit the courtyard filled with refugees, then struck garages and the U.N.’s main warehouse, sending thousands of tons of food aid up in flames, Ging said. Later, fuel supplies went up in flames, sending a thick black plume of smoke into the air.

“It’s a total disaster for us,” Ging said, adding that the U.N. had warned the Israeli military that the compound was in peril from shelling that had begun overnight. U.N. officials say they have provided Israel with GPS coordinates of all U.N. installations in Gaza to prevent such attacks.

Of course the Israelis will cloud the issue about whether there were any militants, their location in regard to the UN compound, etc., etc., much like they did with the UN supported school which they shelled and killed scores of people last week.  Perhaps the only saving grace between today’s  shelling and that of a week ago is the absence of a large body count.  The Israeli strategy is to kill civilians, but it’s also to terrorize them and to the extent that they can shell at will UN shelters where refugees are supposed to feel safe but aren’t means they’ve also accomplished a goal.  So the absence of large numbers of dead aren’t a blow to their battle plans as long as they can make their enemy feel insecure.

It should be noted too that this attack took place while the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was in the region trying to negotiate a ceasefire.  How’s that for an in your face moment brought to you by the IDF. There is no shame with this lawless regime, and recognizing that, false statements of regret are no more than crocodile tears.

Israelis are above the law


I watched this really interesting video of what it’s like to be regarded in such low regard by Israeli authorities while in that country and the treatment people receive at their hands is appalling.

The next time someone talks about Israel being the only democratic ally we have in the Middle East, point them to this video, or remind them how they discriminate against their own Arab citizens by banning political parties that  give voice to Arab Israelis.

Politics vs. Integrity: No Brainer!


I remember all the brouhaha surrounding Keith Ellison’s run for the House of Representatives; people were afraid he would institute Islamic Shariah law and therefore felt he was a threat to the security of the US.  He handled himself well throughout all the racist diatribe he faced and prevailed and won election and reelection last fall as well.  Meanwhile another American Muslim was elected to Congress from Indiana named Andre Carson, albeit with a lot less fanfare.  Now I know why.  Politics as it stands today is a business, and congressmen are business people, not representatives in a Republican form of government.  How else can you account for the fact these two Muslims of African-American descent voted either present or for House Resolution 34, which says in part:

expresses vigorous support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security, and survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state……reiterates that Hamas must end the rocket and mortar attacks against Israel…believes strongly that the lives of innocent civilians must be protected to the maximum extent possible…lay(s) blame both for the breaking of the ‘calm’ and for subsequent civilian casualties in Gaza precisely where blame belongs, that is, on Hamas….reiterates its strong support for a just and sustainable resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict achieved through negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

There’s a lot wrong with the wording of the Resolution and many of the “facts” have been disputed worldwide, and on some of the pages here at Miscellany.  What’s disturbing is that ANYONE could vote for such a lame document that is so  factually inaccurate and easily documented as such, but it passed overwhelmingly, with the votes of 2 Muslim American congressmen…or rather 1.5 votes of the two. Keith Ellison said in part:

Israeli citizens living near the Gaza border have been repeatedly harassed and live daily in fear. Hamas, a terrorist organization founded with the goal of destroying Israel, has launched more than 6,000 rockets and mortars into Israel since 2005.

We need to have compassion for the people of Gaza and the tremendous human suffering there.

That is why I will vote “present” on this resolution concerning the current conflict in Gaza.

There are no recorded remarks for Carson regarding this resolution.  On the one hand this vote dispels the notion that Muslim congressmen are monolithic and contrary to American foreign policy, but it also points out how political office in America tends to foster myopic vision of world events when it comes to Israel.  What I would have liked to see is a more compassionate and reasoned voice like the one offered by Dennis Kucinich, Democrat from Ohio, who said:

In Gaza, the United Nations gave the Israeli army the coordinates of a UN school, and the school was then hit by Israeli tank fire, killing about forty. The UN put flags on emergency vehicles, coordinating the movements of those vehicles with the Israeli military, and the vehicles came under attack, killing emergency workers. The Israeli army evacuated 100 Palestinians to shelter, and then bombed the shelter, killing thirty people.

Emergency workers have been blocked by the Israeli army from reaching hundreds of injured persons. Today’s Washington Post: 100 survivors rescued in Gaza from roads blocked from Israelis. Relief agencies fear more are trapped, days after neighborhood was shelled…Today, the U.S. Congress is going to be asked to pass a resolution supporting Israel’s actions in Gaza. I’m hopeful that we don’t support the inhumanity that has been repeatedly expressed by the Israeli army. The U.S. abstained from a UN call for a ceasefire. We must take a new direction in the Middle East, and that new direction must be mindful of the inhumane conditions in Gaza.

Ellison and Carson could learn a thing or two from Kucinich.  Or there is this even more eloquently expressed opinion from an ordinary citizen, Sarah Shields.

I accuse you, the US Congress, of having voted for US House Resolution 34 by an overwhelming margin, 390-5. In the name of protecting Israel’s security, this Resolution instead protects Israel’s “right” to hold a whole population accountable for the violations of a few. By condoning Israel’s behavior over the past two weeks as self-defense, HR 34 condemns one and a half million Gazans to capital punishment without trial for crimes they have not committed. By publicly acknowledging and approving Israel’s behavior, you now share responsibility for the outcomes.

I accuse you of violating the laws made by the Congress of the United States, laws like the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, which insist that American-made weapons may not be used against civilian populations.I accuse you of supporting flagrant violations of human rights. The combatants you voted to support are required by international law to care for civilian victims of war. Yet the Israeli government denied the International Committee of the Red Cross access to the sites they bombed for four days.

I accuse you of transgressing international law. The United States, as one of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, is required to protect civilians in war, and to call to account anyone who targets them. You have instead voted to support behavior considered criminal according to international law.

I accuse you of putting politics before humanity, of condoning the slaughter of innocents, of supporting war crimes instead of standing up for the most basic human right: the right to live without the terrifying fear of immediate death.

I hold you responsible, each of these 390 members of America’s 111th Congress. I accuse you of complicity in the most serious transgressions that humans can commit.

This is the type of passion we need in American politics, the fervor for going against the “status quo” no matter the stakes, if your position is right.  I salute the Dennnis Kucinichs and Sarah Shields of today who place their humanity before politics or religion or nationality, who make principled positions based on facts that are readily discernible and not on public relations brochures and junkets, and  I ask,  Keith, Andre, where were you when it counted?


A funny

So the next time anyone tells you it’s an urban legend, or anti-semitic to say Israelis are the dog that wags the American tail….just laugh and congratulate them for their chutzpah!


People say the damndest thing!

“Mr. Olmert is wrong,” the official said.

Even if everything had gone according to plan, “she would have abstained. That was the plan,” said the official. “The government of Israel does not make US policy.”

Hilarious!  This from a news article recounting the embarrassing US abstention  of a resolution it originally helped produce! It’s in response to Olmert’s interpretation of how that abstention came about.

“She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour…In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favour,” Olmert said.

“I said ‘get me President Bush on the phone’. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care. ‘I need to talk to him now’. He got off the podium and spoke to me.

“I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour.“

and shows the disregard Israeli leaders have for Americans…. Americans are to serve every Israeli whim at the drop of a hat and drop what they’re doing to do so, and how Israelis paint their picture of that relationship among themselves.  That this story found its way in an English medium shows Israelis don’t care we know they have such disdain.  So, while the Ariel Sharon quote following 911 has been cast in doubt, literally spun into non-existence, the “I didn’t care. ‘I need to talk to him now’. He got off the podium and spoke to me.” quote is alive and sourced.  So the next time anyone tells you it’s an urban legend, or anti-semitic to say Israelis are the dog that wags the American tail….just laugh and congratulate them for their chutzpah!

Black gold


I blogged how Israel wants the natural resources of its neighbors but didn’t know about this!

…..the invasion of Gaza was in part motivated by vital energy resources, too. According to an article by Jake Bower, “Why It Rains: Hamas holding Israeli gas reserves hostage”:

“GAZA: Plans for proposed $400,000,000 offshore natural gas field development project….The deposit reportedly contains an estimated 50 to 60 billion cubic meters of natural gas. The field… is considered to be the largest in the area north of Egypt….

Estimated at 100 billion cubic meters of proven reserves, these discoveries potentially offer enough gas to meet Israel’s goal of supplying 25% of its energy needs for more than 20 years – even without further imports. The discovery has also raised realistic expectations of locating oil deposits beneath the gas fields.

Unfortunately for Israel, 60% of these reserves are in waters controlled by the Palestinian Authority, which has signed a 25-year contract with British Gas for further exploration in the area…. Keen to secure the gas for its domestic market but unwilling to submit its sensitive energy supplies (and their profits) into the hands of the Palestinians, Israel has for the past 6 years pursued a policy of non-commitment, stalling and obstruction.” (Jake Bower, “Why It Rains: Hamas holding “sraeli” gas reserves hostage”) http://tinyurl.com/7y2bcf

The natural gas deposits are just one more reason why Israel plans to remove Hamas and replace them with Mahmoud Abbas and the corrupt Palestinian Authority (PA).

The Middle East is being reshaped according to the ideological aspirations of Zionists and the exigencies of a viciously-competitive energy market. That’s a combo that makes peace nearly impossible.

Go figure.

Will Israel open up a front in Lebanon?


The Israelis have already started their false flag operations in the south of Lebanon.

Lebanese army and international forces bolstered troop numbers, stepped up patrols and declared a state of alert Thursday after an early-morning rocket attack on Israel from southern Lebanon threatened to widen the ongoing Gaza Strip conflict.

The rocket fire, which struck a nursing home and slightly injured at least two civilians, resurrected memories of the destructive 2006 war between Israel and the Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah, an ally of the Gaza-based militant group Hamas.
There was no claim of responsibility for the rocket attack. Hezbollah and the major Palestinian organizations based in Lebanon denied any role. Only one small group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command, would neither affirm nor deny any part in the attack.

The area the missiles were launched from is outside the sphere of influence of  Hezbollah, well south of the Litani River, the line of demarcation setup in UN Resolution 1701. The rabid politicians of the Israeli government want to involve Lebanon in order to strike at Hezbollah and Iran.  Of course they want the US to do the latter…..Iran is far too formidable for Israel alone.  They also want to discredit the UN by underscoring how ineffective it is in preventing the missile attacks from Lebanese soil and avoid having to deal with the Lebanese government which is the party responsible for southern Lebanon.  Israel always seems to demand recognition from others, while not giving it to its neighbors and it wants to blunt criticism from the UN because of the crimes being committed in Gaza.  Curious that…

Meanwhile, Israel true to form, continues to violate Lebanese airspace, and this is no doubt an attempt to get the Lebanese to open fire on Israeli aircraft, while claiming Hezbollah has “rearmed”.   There’s no question Israel will attack Lebanon.  Whether it will be of the same magnitude as 2006 will probably depend on the US response to Gaza.  Already there is talk of how the US had to resupply the Israeli war machine and if the killing continues there forcing more supplies in the face of international opposition, the US may decide to stop the resupply to curb Israel’s appetite for blood.

On second thought


protestiiProfessor Juan Cole, whose blog I read constantly comes out swinging against street demonstrations in opposition to what’s going on in Gaza.

I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t matter if tens of thousands of people demonstrate in Paris. Oh,it might put a little pressure on Sarkozy to remonstrate a little harder with the Israeli government, but in the larger scheme of things it isn’t very significant.

Europe has ceded dealing with the Israelis to the United States.

The people of the United States have ceded dealing with the Israelis to the US Congress.

All of the above is true, but the fault lies in the last statement, the people have given up their power to control politicians by allowing themselves to be easily manipulated and not throwing the scoundrels out of office if they are not in lock step with the wishes of their constituents.   For example, the mood of the people in 2008 was against the deployment of US forces in lands that have posed little or no threat to US vital interests, or even US allies, yet the likes of Nancy Pelosi,  and John Conyers,  just to name a few, were reelected inspite of this public backlash.  Why?

Later in his piece Cole describes how the Israeli lobby is able to effectively influence members of Congress, and I submit so can We the people.  Professor Cole does offer up an excellent suggestion of how that can be done, and I’ll leave it up to the reader to read what is written in Cole’s own words.  My contention to Professor Cole’s piece is this: people the world over need to see there is an active opposition in America to  government tyranny, even if the opposition is not effective in changing policy.  It’s the one way we are able to show the international community that our government may be rotten in its foreign policy but America is still a good place to live and its people are still imbued with the spirit of freedom  and liberty.  In the absence of such images people can easily justify their rhetoric of hate and fear towards Americans and their form of government.  Believe me, the distinction between America’s government  and its people  is known, recognized and appreciated the world over.

I remember how the placards and card board signs influenced America during the era of civil rights and Vietnam.  They were not solely responsible for  positive change, but they certainly played a part in that change.  When we can synchronize the protest on the streets with the protest at the ballot box, we will return America to a truly representative form of government envisioned by the “Founding Fathers”.   Until that time, I really like seeing and hearing the voices of  dissent and hope they will flourish.  When they stop being raised is when everyone should be afraid!

Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask


A Robert Fisk excerpt, which I think is entirely relevant today.

So once again, Israel has opened the gates of hell to the Palestinians. Forty civilian refugees dead in a

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

Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead – almost all civilians, most of them children and women – in Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same 2006 bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians?

What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. “Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties,” yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. And every president and prime minister who repeated this mendacity as an excuse to avoid a ceasefire has the blood of last night’s butchery on their hands. Had George Bush had the courage to demand an immediate ceasefire 48 hours earlier, those 40 civilians, the old and the women and children, would be alive.

school, three more in another. Not bad for a night’s work in Gaza by the army that believes in “purity of arms”. But why should we be surprised?

Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead – almost all civilians, most of them children and women – in Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same 2006 bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians?

What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. “Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties,” yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. And every president and prime minister who repeated this mendacity as an excuse to avoid a ceasefire has the blood of last night’s butchery on their hands. Had George Bush had the courage to demand an immediate ceasefire 48 hours earlier, those 40 civilians, the old and the women and children, would be alive.

What’s clear to most observers of the Middle East is this latest attack on Gaza is a pattern of Israeli behavior that rears its ugly head in an attempt to assert Israeli domination over its neighbors and their total humiliation.  Fortunately for humanity the Israelis have forgotten their own historical lessons, the proof  of which is in their existence today, that a people cannot be destroyed and wiped off the face of the earth, even by the greatest super power.  Our silence however, implicates us along with Israel in their criminal behavor.

Give a brother a break? I don’t think so!

There is more than enough proof that crimes were committed by Bush officials over the last 8 years….some of those were of the same magnitude as ones we prosecuted the war on terror over


I really wanted to wait before jumping on Obama’s case, but there’s very little he’s done to let himself off the hook with me.  This latest bit of news really has my hackles up because there is a legitimate ground swell of opinion that has now become focused that says some officials in the Bush administration should be held accountable for their illegality on behalf of the US government while they were in office.  There is more than enough proof that crimes were committed by Bush officials over the last 8 years….some of those were of the same magnitude as ones we prosecuted the war on terror over, yet Obama doesn’t seem inclined to pursue the matter?!?!  What’s going on?

The debate as to whether Bush administration officials have broken international and federal torture laws has played out over the past month in a series of interviews with major media in which Vice President Dick Cheney admitted that he “signed off” on requests by CIA interrogators to waterboard three alleged high-level terrorist detainees. Cheney has staunchly defended the decision and maintained that it was not illegal.

*snip*

Obama has been under intense pressure, as a result Cheney’s public statements, by numerous human rights and civil liberties organizations since he was elected president last November to aggressively probe the Bush administration’s torture and domestic surveillance policies and to prosecute officials who may have violated anti-torture and civil liberties laws. Obama has selected some outspoken critics of the Bush administration’s torture policies for positions at the Department of Justice and the CIA.

On Friday, in officially announcing retired admiral Dennis Blair as his director of national intelligence and former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to head the Central Intelligence Agency, Obama vowed to break with past practices that took place under Bush.

“I was clear throughout this campaign, and have been clear throughout this transition that under my administration, the United States does not torture, we will abide by the Geneva conventions, that we will uphold our highest values and ideals,” Obama said.

But that’s as far as Obama intends to go.

Perhaps, Obama’s handlers think the image make-over he is responsible for will not be tarnished by this bit of news and that there are other things they deem more important to the US’ image than torture prosecutions.  Perhaps, but if the US is to regain its stature as a democracy that’s pursuing a moral tract, it should start with its own housecleaning, which should mean getting rid of those who’ve tarnished our image.