Hat tip to Lenin’s Tomb.
Tag: Gaza
Erroneous analogies
Kudos to the Washington Times for publishing this viewpoint which makes mince meat of analogies that are floating around government circles in the US and Israel about the genocide which took place in Gaza. I’m encouraged to see that the author, himself Jewish, places the analogies in proper context.
In the wake of Israel’s invasion of Gaza, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak made this analogy: “Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico.”
Within hours scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Barak’s comparisons almost verbatim. In fact, in this very paper on January 9 House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an opinion piece by saying “America would never sit still if terrorists were lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana.” But let’s see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy.
Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters, but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the baseball players.
What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns, creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I may be called anti-Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I’m Jewish and the scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza. But this analogy is just getting started.
What if the United Nations kept San Diego’s discarded minorities in crowded, festering camps in Tijuana for 19 years? Then, the United States invaded Mexico, occupied Tijuana and began to build large housing developments in Tijuana where only whites could live.
And what if the United States built a network of highways connecting American citizens of Tijuana to the United States? And checkpoints, not just between Mexico and the United States but also around every neighborhood of Tijuana? What if we required every Tijuana resident, refugee or native, to show an ID card to the U.S. military on demand? What if thousands of Tijuana residents lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their children, their sense of self worth to this occupation? Would you be surprised to hear of a protest movement in Tijuana that sometimes became violent and hateful? Okay, now for the unbelievable part.
Think about what would happen if, after expelling all of the minorities from San Diego to Tijuana and subjecting them to 40 years of brutal military occupation, we just left Tijuana, removing all the white settlers and the soldiers? Only instead of giving them their freedom, we built a 20-foot tall electrified wall around Tijuana? Not just on the sides bordering San Diego, but on all the Mexico crossings as well. What if we set up 50-foot high watchtowers with machine gun batteries, and told them that if they stood within 100 yards of this wall we would shoot them dead on sight? And four out of every five days we kept every single one of those border crossings closed, not even allowing food, clothing, or medicine to arrive. And we patrolled their air space with our state-of-the-art fighter jets but didn’t allow them so much as a crop duster. And we patrolled their waters with destroyers and submarines, but didn’t even allow them to fish.
Would you be at all surprised to hear that these resistance groups in Tijuana, even after having been “freed” from their occupation but starved half to death, kept on firing rockets at the United States? Probably not. But you may be surprised to learn that the majority of people in Tijuana never picked up a rocket, or a gun, or a weapon of any kind.
The majority, instead, supported against all hope negotiations toward a peaceful solution that would provide security, freedom and equal rights to both people in two independent states living side by side as neighbors. This is the sound analogy to Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza today. Maybe some day soon, common sense will prevail and no corpus of misleading analogies abut Tijuana or the crazy guy across the hall who wants to murder your daughter will be able to obscure the truth. And at that moment, in a country whose people shouted We Shall Overcome, Ich bin ein Berliner, End Apartheid, Free Tibet and Save Darfur, we will all join together and shout “Free Gaza. Free Palestine.” And because we are Americans, the world will take notice and they will be free, and perhaps peace will prevail for all the residents of the Holy Land.
They’re baaaacccckkkk!!
The timing couldn’t be more accurate. We’ve pointed out how the Israelis are usually the first to kill after conflict pauses that last more than one week. In fact the empirical evidence says over 90% of the time the Israeli government acts provocatively to end truces with its Palestinian neighbors/prisoners but less than one week after announcing a unilateral truce the Israelis are at it again this time in the West Bank, kidnapping civilians from Jenin and Qaryut as well as shelling Gaza from naval boats off the coast. Both actions are nothing more than a provocation designed to get the Palestinians to respond in a way that will justify a disproportionate military response on the order of a week ago.
If that doesn’t work, the Israelis are quite content to sit back, tighten the screws on their already strangling blockade and let the Palestinians starve until they try to break the blockade, at which point they’ll return militarily.
“This war and the ceasefire have not brought about a lifting of the siege on Gaza. People might not be dying by gunfire, but they may still starve to death or succumb to easily treatable ailments. This brutal siege has crippled Gaza and most importantly the children”, he ( Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP) emphasised, referring on the siege policy that Israel has heavily imposed on the Gaza Strip for 14 months.
Of course the Israelis will say the blockade is to restrict the flow of arms to Hamas, but much needed supplies are being denied to the few remaining civilians of Gaza and the blockade has become a political tool to ratchet up pressure on Hamas or Gazans in general. The Israelis are offering the excuse that they want the people of Gaza to disavow their elected officials, but that’s not happening anytime soon.
“Hamas is now our army, the only ones fighting to defend the Palestinian people,” said Gaza resident Ahmed al-Sultan, standing outside the rubble of the north Gaza City home his family has lived in for 40 years. “I saw how they fight, their courage and their sacrifice, and so I’ve changed my opinion about them.”
After it won control in Gaza, Hamas sentenced Mr. Sultan to death. He won a reprieve through a connected relative. Today, he calls the Palestinian Authority leaders he once served, who are based in the West Bank, “donkeys” and says Hamas, his onetime nemesis, are “rightful defenders of the Palestinian people.”
Most nationalist movements are not motivated or moved by outside pressure while their country is occupied. The US tried it with Iraq after the first Gulf war, with little or no results, despite the thousands of deaths and the utter ruin of the Iraqi economy, and it’s really foolhardy to think Gazans will reject Hamas or vote them out of power. What the Israelis have done rather successfully is a play on the old divide and conquer philosophy, where they have pit one group of Palestinians against another. Hamas is a by product of this strategy and the Israelis will perpetuate the lie that Hamas doesn’t recognize the state of Israel as a a casus belli for any military action against Palestinians, prolonging the conflict, keeping the region unstable, while appealing for and getting massive military and economic aid from the US.
President Obama should know all this. The patterns are really very clear and well discernible. The Israelis can go on with this game of abuse and genocide as long as they are enabled by the US specifically and western powers generally. The pressure to change will have to come from the citizens of America and the west on their elected officials who are, for the moment anyway, in the back pocket of the Lobby.
News you won’t see on American television
A letter from Mahathir bin Mohamad, Former Prime Minister of Malaysia to US President Barack Obama
January 1, 2009
Dear Mr. President,
I did not vote for you in the Presidential Election because I am Malaysian. But I consider myself one of your constituents because what you do or say will affect me and my country as well.
I welcome your promise for change. Certainly your country, the United States of America needs a lot of changes.
That is because America and Americans have become the most hated people in the world. Even Europeans dislike your arrogance. Yet you were once admired and liked because you freed a lot of countries from conquest and
subjugation.
It is the custom on New Year’s day for people to make resolutions. You must have listed your good resolutions already. But may I politely suggest that you also resolve to do the following in pursuit of Change.
1) Stop killing people. The United States is too fond of killing people in order to achieve its objectives. You call it war, but today’s wars are not about professional soldiers fighting and killing each other. It is about killing people, ordinary innocent people by the hundreds of thousands. Whole countries will be devastated.
War is primitive, the cavemen’s way of dealing with a problem. Stop your arms build up and your planning for future wars.
2) Stop indiscriminate support of Israeli killers with your money and your weapons. The planes and the bombs killing the people of Gaza are from you.
3) Stop applying sanctions against countries which cannot do the same against you.
In Iraq your sanctions killed 500,000 children through depriving them of medicine and food. Others were born deformed.
What have you achieved with this cruelty? Nothing except the hatred of the victims and right-thinking people.
4) Stop your scientists and researchers from inventing new and more diabolical weapons to kill more people more efficiently.
5) Stop your arms manufacturers from producing them. Stop your sales of arms to the world. It is blood money that you earn. It is un-Christian.
6) Stop trying to democratize all the countries of the world. Democracy may work for the United States but it does not always work for other countries.
Don’t kill people because they are not democratic. Your crusade to democratize countries has killed more people than the authoritarian Governments which you overthrew. And you have not succeeded anyway.
7) Stop the casinos which you call financial institutions. . Stop hedge funds, derivatives and currency trading. Stop banks from lending non-existent money by the billions.
Regulate and supervise your banks. Jail the miscreants who made profits from abusing the system.
8 ) Sign the Kyoto Protocol and other international agreements.
9) Show respect for the United Nations.
I have many other resolutions for change which I think you should consider and undertake.
But I think you have enough on your plate for this 2009th year of the Christian Era.
If you can do only a few of what I suggest, you will be remembered by the world as a great leader. Then the United States will again be the most admired nation. Your embassies will be able to take down the high fences and razor-wire coils that surround them.
May I wish you a Happy New Year and a great Presidency.
Yours Sincerely,
Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad
(Former Prime Minister of Malaysia)
Palestinian civilians: An expendable commodity
They left behind their own unique detritus: bullet casings, roasted peanuts in tins with Hebrew script, a plastic bag containing a “High Quality Body Warmer”, dozens of olive-green waste disposal bags, some empty, some stinking full – the troops’ portable toilets.
But most disturbing of all was the graffiti they daubed on the walls of the ground floor. Some was in Hebrew, but much was naively written in English: “Arabs need 2 die”, “Die you all”, “Make war not peace”, “1 is down, 999,999 to go”, and scrawled on an image of a gravestone the words: “Arabs 1948-2009”.
There were several sketches of the Star of David flag. “Gaza here we are,” it said in English next to one.
The genocidal nature of the Israeli invasion of Gaza was designed to kill, intimidate or humiliate the civilian population. Any Hamas killed would probably be considered an unintended consequence; the primary target was the civilian population and the Israelis would use any means necessary. Those means meant that many were, are, illegal.
On 17 January, a number of white phosphorous shells struck the yard of an UNRWA school in Beit Lahia, causing panic among the 1,600 civilians who had taken refuge there. While evacuating the shelter, an explosive shell struck the third floor of the school, killing two brothers, aged five and seven, and injuring 14 others including the boys’ mother. UNRWA has demanded an independent investigation into this incident. A total of more than 50 UN facilities have sustained damaged since 27 December. There are no bomb shelters in the Gaza Strip, and no alarm systems to warn of impending bombardment.
The Israelis knew where everyone of the UN facilities were and who was in them….civilian refugees fleeing the bombardment or advancing Israeli army. The claim that white phospherous was used was responded to by the Israelis that the use of all military munitions was in accordance with international conventions. A rather dastardly response which further indicates how Israelis view Palestinians in general as all being terrorists.
1. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects the object of attack by incendiary weapons.
2. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.
3. It is further prohibited to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by means of incendiary weapons other than air-delivered
incendiary weapons, except when such military objective is clearly separated from the concentration of civilians and all feasible precautions are taken with a view to limiting the
incendiary effects to the military objective and to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.
Israel agreed to the above conditions when it signed the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, but obviously doesn’t abide by it, or has a very loose definition of what is a civilian. In the case of Palestinians there are none.
An impressive list of people
have lined up to show their support for the beleaguered people of Gaza, and I salute them for their moral courage. Quite an array of academics from across the British spectrum have signed the letter which appears below. I hope to publish an equally challenging list/petition originating from the US, but for now take a look at what citizens from other parts of the world are saying about the atrocity that took place in Gaza over the last three weeks.
The massacres in Gaza are the latest phase of a war that Israel has been waging against the people of Palestine for more than 60 years. The goal of this war has never changed: to use overwhelming military power to eradicate the Palestinians as a political force, one capable of resisting Israel’s ongoing appropriation of their land and resources. Israel’s war against the Palestinians has turned Gaza and the West Bank into a pair of gigantic political prisons. There is nothing symmetrical about this war in terms of principles, tactics or consequences. Israel is responsible for launching and intensifying it, and for ending the most recent lull in hostilities.
Israel must lose. It is not enough to call for another ceasefire, or more humanitarian assistance. It is not enough to urge the renewal of dialogue and to acknowledge the concerns and suffering of both sides. If we believe in the principle of democratic self-determination, if we affirm the right to resist military aggression and colonial occupation, then we are obliged to take sides… against Israel, and with the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
We must do what we can to stop Israel from winning its war. Israel must accept that its security depends on justice and peaceful coexistence with its neighbours, and not upon the criminal use of force.
We believe Israel should immediately and unconditionally end its assault on Gaza, end the occupation of the West Bank, and abandon all claims to possess or control territory beyond its 1967 borders. We call on the British government and the British people to take all feasible steps to oblige Israel to comply with these demands, starting with a programme of boycott, divestment and sanctions.
Some of the signatories of the above letter, their numbers are in the hundreds, include, Professor Gilbert Achcar, Development Studies, SOAS,Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Politics and International Studies, SOAS, Dr. Nadje Al-Ali, Gender Studies, SOAS, Professor Eric Alliez, Philosophy, Middlesex University,Dr. Jens Andermann, Latin American Studies, Birkbeck,Dr. Jorella Andrews, Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths
Professor Keith Ansell-Pearson, Philosophy, University of Warwick
John Appleby, writer,Dr. Claudia Aradau, Politics, Open University
Dr. Walter Armbrust, Politics, University of Oxford, Dr. Andrew Asibong, French, Birkbeck, Professor Derek Attridge, English, University of York, Burjor Avari, lecturer in Multicultural Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, Dr. Zulkuf Aydin, International Development, University of Leeds, Dr. Claude Baesens, Mathematics, University of Warwick ,Dr. Jennifer Bajorek, Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, Professor Mona Baker, Centre for Translation Studies, University of Manchester, Jon Baldwin, lecturer in Communications, London Metropolitan University ,Professor Etienne Balibar, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Dr. Trevor Bark, Criminology, WEA Newcastle, Dr. Susan Batchelor, Sociology, Glasgow University.
A group of people mostly in the entertainment field had this to say about what is taking place in Gaza.
We regard Israel’s indiscriminate killing in Gaza as a crime against humanity. We protest against Israel’s exterminating tactics and offer our wholehearted support to the people of Gaza.
Among them are, just to name a few, Stephen Frears – Film Director – UK, Nigel Kennedy – Musician, Poland/UK, Miriam Margolyes – Actress UK,Brian Eno – Musician and producer UK, Robert Wyatt – Musician UK
William Dalrymple – Writer and historian,Dhafer Youssef – Musician France and Dave Robinson – Producer & pioneer of Stiff Records, UK
What absolutely amazes me is how governments can ignore the voices of their people without consequences? While I’m not all that familiar with the British parliamentarian system of government, our own Congress seems hell bent on pursuing a course that has nothing at all to do with why its members were elected. The present Gaza genocide and Congressional resolutions supporting it is just one example among many where the representatives of the people are anything but that! Every two years the House should turn over a new leaf if its members aren’t supporting the wishes of the electorate…but that’s for another blog post. For now, I hope you add your voice to those who are protesting the Gazan Holocaust.
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.
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.
No comment
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 seductive Tzipi Livni- NOT!
Israeli 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
The 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.
No Comment
I have to set this up and it will be the only comment I make. This video is of a medic sent to pick up a dead/wounded body in the streets of Gaza who was shot by the IDF.
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.
Miscellany101's Weblog 