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Topic: Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp (Read 14739 times) |
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Hermit
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Re:Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp
« Reply #75 on: 2009-01-21 17:57:00 » |
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Now we've all seen through the Israeli government's excuses
If the Hamas rockets are so lethal, why doesn't Israel swap an F-16 for some?
Source: The Independent
Authors: Mark Steel
Dated: 2009-01-25
The worrying part about whether the ceasefire in Gaza can hold together will be whether the international community can stop the flow of arms to the terrorists. Because Israel's getting their planes and tanks and missiles from somewhere and until this supply is cut off there's every chance it could start up again.
The disregard for life from these terrorists and their supporters is shocking. For example Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, wrote that the purpose of the Israeli attack must be to "inflict a heavy death toll and heavy pain on the Gaza population".
Replace "Gaza" with "western", and that could have been written by al-Qa'ida. Maybe this is the problem: the Israelis are writing their policies by downloading statements from an Islamic Jihad website and just changing the place names. Also, if the Israelis think the Hamas rockets are as lethal as they say, why don't they swap their F-16 fighters and Apache helicopters for a few of them?
These things are capable of terrorising a whole nation for years apparently, yet the Israelis have neglected to buy any, wasting their money on gunboats and stuff. Given that their annual arms budget is $7.2bn plus $2.2 bn in "aid", they'd save enough to buy a selection of banks in every country in the world.
The military advantages would be enormous because the Israelis' complaint about Hamas is the use of tunnels to smuggle arms. But if Israel gave Hamas a few planes and tanks and helicopters, they could probably be persuaded to shut down those tunnels that seem to be the cause of such bad feeling.
Whatever you say about Israel, at least it moves its weapons about legally – except for when it secretly built a nuclear arsenal against an array of international agreements. But they did it above ground and not in a tunnel and that's the main thing.
Watching the reports from Gaza, another reason why the ceasefire may break down becomes apparent. The Israelis might claim that their satellite pictures now show Palestinians in possession of huge mounds of rubble – lethal if thrown over the border. Luckily these weapons are easy to spot. Most of them are next to women howling, "Look what they've done to my house," but perhaps the airforce should bomb them again – just in case. The Israelis say they fear Hamas will once again break the ceasefire by sending over those rockets. But the whole point of the operation was to make that impossible. Because they must have asked themselves the question, "If we slaughter 1,300 people, including 300 children, is that likely to make people: A. less cross or B. more cross?" And presumably they concluded it will make them much less likely to grow up full of hatred and determination to retaliate. Perhaps they saw medical research that shows when someone is suffering from anxiety and bouts of irascible ill-tempered behaviour, the best treatment is to pen them in with no food or medicine and then kill some of them, and that calms them down a treat.
Another way to allay their worries about Hamas breaking the ceasefire is to read the report from their government's own Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre. This states that during the ceasefire "Hamas did not take part in any rocket fire and sometimes prevented other organisations from attacking." Still, with all that's been going on I suppose they haven't had time for reading.
Despite all this there might be one cheery sign, which is that never before have so many people seen through the Israeli government's excuses for handing out mass destruction. The demonstrations in support of Palestinians have been bigger than ever before, and even the United Nations and the Wall Street Journal have suggested Israel has committed war crimes. One poll in America suggested that 60 per cent of people opposed the bombardment, and the change of opinion reached the point that an Israeli diplomat has admitted that "The harm to civilians in Gaza is causing us huge damage."
Maybe, best of all, was genetics expert Steven Rose who appeared on Radio 4's Today programme to talk about a new study that's located "morality spots", the part of the brain that deals with our morality. Asked how we could know whether this was true, he said in a marvellously posh academic Radio 4 voice "Well we could test the brains of the Israeli cabinet and see if they've got no morality spots whatsoever."
And the most immoral part of all is the perfectly cynical timing, as if three weeks ago Bush shouted: "Last orders please. Any last bombing, before time's up? Come along now, haven't you got homes to demolish?"
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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letheomaniac
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Re:Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp
« Reply #76 on: 2009-01-23 02:44:07 » |
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[letheomaniac] Ha! Apologies to Mermaid. I think that the fumes of lead solder I have been breathing in at work all week is starting to affect my higher functions. 
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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker
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Blunderov
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Re:Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp
« Reply #77 on: 2009-01-23 03:08:34 » |
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Quote from: letheomaniac on 2009-01-23 02:44:07 | [letheomaniac] .. the fumes of lead solder I have been breathing in at work all week ... |
[Blunderov] Not to digress but you really ought to wear a surgical mask preferably one supplied by your employer. They are cheap, come in large packs and are readily available at pharmacies. <end sermon>
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Hermit
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Re:Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp
« Reply #78 on: 2009-01-23 13:09:50 » |
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This is one of those times when I recommend contacting NOSA and checking on current regulations. http://www.nosa.co.za/
AFAIK there is no safe skin, lung or ingestion exposure level. Which is why the EU has banned the use of lead in electronic devices and glassware. In the mid 1990s, when setting up a memory assembly line in ZA, the workers were positioned at fume cabinets with fast extractors and wore safety gloves, masks and glasses. What has happened since then?
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp
« Reply #79 on: 2009-01-27 00:09:09 » |
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Sky joins BBC in ban on Gaza aid appeal
Source: The Independent
Authors: Not Credited (Press Association)
Dated: 2009-01-26
Sky News announced today that it was joining the BBC in refusing to broadcast an emergency appeal for Gaza.
The broadcaster said in a statement that it had informed the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), an umbrella organisation for 13 humanitarian aid agencies, of its decision.
John Ryley, head of Sky News, said: "The conflict in Gaza forms part of one of the most challenging and contentious stories for any news organisation to cover.
"Our commitment as journalists is to cover all sides of that story with uncompromising objectivity."
The decision comes after BBC Director-General Mark Thompson today defended the corporation's decision not to broadcast the appeal in spite of more than 10,000 complaints.
He said the BBC was "passionate" about defending its impartiality.
Speaking on Sky News, the channel's head of foreign news, Adrian Wells, said: "Passions are raised on this story, passions are raised in this country and that is only a small reflection of the passions raised in the Middle East. And that is part of the backdrop of why we've made the decision we've made.
"We have to, as an international channel, focus on our primary role and that is to report the story and not become the story."
Asked why Sky had decided not to broadcast the appeal but Channel 5, for whom they provide news coverage, will show it, he said: "The dynamics for Sky News are different. Channel 4, 5 are not international news channels - they are broad channels showing all sorts of programmes. The dynamics about what is right for us are different to what is right for them.
"Let me say to those people who might be angry, people who might be passionate about this, there is no question about Sky's commitment to reporting the region. We've had our reporters there since the gates of Gaza opened. There is absolutely no question of Sky viewers not being aware of the humanitarian crisis."
He said that Sky had "no problem with the good intentions of the DEC appeal".
Mr Ryley continued in his statement: "We have provided, and we will continue to provide, extensive coverage from Gaza and from the wider region on the conflict and its human consequences for people on both sides.
"Our team is on the ground in the region and will continue to cover the story in the coming days and weeks.
"The absolute impartiality of our output is fundamental to Sky News and its journalism.
"That is why, after very careful consideration, we have concluded that broadcasting an appeal for Gaza at this time is incompatible with our role in providing balanced and objective reporting of this continuing situation to our audiences in the UK and around the world.
"It is important to state that this decision is not a judgment on the good intentions of the appeal.
"No-one could fail to be touched by the human suffering on both sides of the conflict, which has been the focus of much of our own reporting in the region."
The decision by Sky comes after the BBC came under intense pressure over its decision not to broadcast the appeal.
More than 10,000 complaints have been received about the BBC decision and it has been urged by a series of public figures including the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to reconsider its decision.
A parliamentary motion also urging the BBC to screen the appeal was backed by more than 50 MPs from across the Commons.
Terrestrial broadcasters ITV, Channel 4 and Five said they would show the advert from today.
Over the weekend, thousands of people demonstrated against the decision outside the BBC's Broadcasting House in central London and, last night, about 50 protesters "occupied" the lobby of BBC Scotland's headquarters in Glasgow.
The DEC - which brings together several major aid charities including the British Red Cross, Save the Children and Oxfam - wants the appeal to be broadcast on TV and radio to help raise millions of pounds for people in need of food, medicines and shelter following Israel's three-week assault on the Palestinian territory.
Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander told Sky News that the BBC was, "a treasured national institution" and that their coverage of the conflict, in common with Sky's, had been "exemplary".
But he said: "My appeal is a much more straight forward one. People are suffering right now, many hundreds of thousands of people are without the basic necessities of life. That for me is a very straight forward case and I sincerely hope that the British people respond with characteristic generosity.
He said that the government is today sending armoured cars to Gaza to help the UN deliver aid and was donating money to the mine clearance effort.
"We are matching our words of concern with practical actions. We are getting on with the job this week to distribute money on behalf of the British people to British organisations."
Defending the BBC decision, Mr Thompson said potentially many millions of people would find out about the appeal through BBC news programmes.
Asked how he could justify refusing a request made on behalf of major charities such as the Red Cross, Save the Children and Christian Aid, Mr Thompson told BBC Breakfast: "When they first contacted us they absolutely acknowledged that the particular nature of what was going on in Gaza might well cause a problem for the BBC's impartiality.
"Right from the start, the DEC knew because this is not a new policy, the idea that the BBC would take really quite a strict view about impartiality, especially in a story as complex and contentious as Gaza and the broader Israel/Palestine story, that is not news and wasn't a surprise to the DEC either."
He added that if the situation was the "other way round" and the principal humanitarian concern was in Israel and not Gaza, the view of the corporation would be "exactly the same".
He said the BBC understood the "absolutely good intentions" behind the appeal.
Other public figures to criticise the BBC decision include Samantha Morton, the Golden Glob- winning actress, who said she would never work for the BBC again if it failed to change its decision.
The advert was not a political message but "about raising money for children who are dying", she said.
The early day motion to be tabled by Labour's Richard Burden has received the support of 51 MPs from across the Commons.
Mr Burden, a member of the Commons' International Development Committee, said he had written to Mr Thompson to press for an explanation for the BBC's decision, calling those given so far "both unconvincing and incoherent".
"This is not about taking sides in the conflict. It is about providing urgent help to people in desperate need," he said.
"More than 400 children have died, thousands are homeless and nothing short of a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Gaza.
"The important thing is to get aid into Gaza. This is recognised by almost everyone - including the Government. The BBC appears to be the only one who has a problem seeing this."
Hermit Comments (Posted to the comments section - page 4):
On the one hand you have well in excess of a billion dollars worth of damage, over 5000 casualties and 1.5 million people who are attempting to subsist on charity in the worlds largest concentration camp. On the other you have some 20 casualties among 4.5 million people with incomes greater than a number of EU countries living on the land from which their and their ancestor's terrorism and successful programs of ethnic cleansing has displaced the victims.
Where the hell is the balance here?
Given that many people of the world refused to succor the victims of ethnic cleansing, and their media refused to cover the horror of returning refugee ships with their cargoes of victims in the 1930s, this may be a perfect opportunity to explore the concept that perhaps we need to repeat history until we learn from it. I can just imagine a plummy voiced announcer asserting that the rumors of ill-treatment in the ghettos of Warsaw would be covered as soon as journalists were permitted to enter, but that aid appeals couldn't possibly be entertained as it might upset "impartiality" and "balance".
Is there anything wrong with these pictures?
It feels a little strange to watch this particularly brutal propaganda being promulgated by people that appear perfectly ordinary (though perhaps slightly better fed and dressed than the average Palestinian) without wondering how well they sleep at night or if they are substantially different in their effect from Julius Streichner. Of course, Streichner was them, not us, and while he appears to have been remarkable persuaded of the morality of his position, maybe he was slightly more virtuous than those who hold impartiality to be the highest good today irrespective of the undoubted harm they are supporting through their inaction.
Perhaps we should ask why these impartial organs are not insisting on balance in other areas, for example maybe we should supply the Palestinians with F16s, phosphorus shells, guided bombs, tanks and armored bulldozers - or demand that Israel attack them with fertilizer fueled fireworks posing more danger to those lighting the fuses than any conceivable targets. Or we might demand that Israel stop the blockades or suffer from one themselves. Given that the starving Palestinians are primarily firing at land that the UN has repeatedly affirmed belongs to them; and only after the Israelis conspired with the USA for the PA to attempt a coup against their representatives, in elections certified as free and fair; and after Israel repeatedly trampled such lop-sided agreements as were put in place, such measures wouldn't really balance things, they would just make the disparity less worse.
Still, those claiming to seek "balance" while reporting the effectively unopposed devastation of a nation would look just a little bit less like hypocrites.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp
« Reply #80 on: 2009-01-27 06:06:56 » |
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Thus Sprach Barack: Pouring Acid on Gaza's Wounds
Source: Baltimore Chronicle
Authors: Chris Floyd
Dated: 2009-01-23
Yesterday, we wrote of our eager anticipation of Barack Obama's long-suppressed opinion on the mass slaughter in Gaza. As we all know, the most eloquent, forthright and morally concerned orator of the age kept a demure silence on this subject for weeks, because, he said, "we have only one president at a time," who alone should speak about foreign policy. Of course, that didn't keep the morally concerned orator from speaking freely on almost every other aspect of foreign policy -- Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. But consistency, as they say, is the hobgoblin of small minds, and the brain of the new president -- who has set the world aflame with rhetoric that has never been heard in Washington before, soaring phrases of penetrating uniqueness about freedom, hope, peace, and the enduring greatness of the American people -- is famously large.
Anyway, we have waited, and at last Obama has spoken. Here's what he had to say today, while welcoming Hillary Clinton to the State Department and appointing Establishment grandee George Mitchell as his special envoy to the Middle East:
Let me be clear: America is committed to Israel's security. And we will always support Israel's right to defend itself against legitimate threats. For years, Hamas has launched thousands of rockets at innocent Israeli citizens. No democracy can tolerate such danger to its people, nor should the international community, and neither should the Palestinian people themselves, whose interests are only set back by acts of terror.
To be a genuine party to peace, the quartet has made it clear that Hamas must meet clear conditions: recognize Israel's right to exist; renounce violence; and abide by past agreements. Going forward, the outline for a durable cease-fire is clear: Hamas must end its rocket fire; Israel will complete the withdrawal of its forces from Gaza; the United States and our partners will support a credible anti-smuggling and interdiction regime, so that Hamas cannot rearm.
Yesterday I spoke to President Mubarak and expressed my appreciation for the important role that Egypt played in achieving a cease-fire. And we look forward to Egypt's continued leadership and partnership in laying a foundation for a broader peace through a commitment to end smuggling from within its borders.
There you have it. The invasion of Gaza -- which began after Israel broke the ceasefire, launched provocative and deadly raids inside Gaza, and had also tightened its death-grip blockade to a level quite legitimately comparable to the Warsaw Ghetto -- was actually the fault of (wait for it, wait for it).... the Palestinians. Thus sprach Barack.
But do let's be fair. The new president also feels the pain of the Palestinians in Gaza. He feels it so much that he is going to ensure that any reconstruction in Gaza is controlled by the kleptocracy known as the Palestinian Authority -- the same faction that tried -- with American and Israeli backing -- to overthrow the legitimate, democratically elected government of Palestine, instigating a vicious civil war that, lo and behold, left Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation weak and splintered. Now hear the words of the Compassionate One:
Now, just as the terror of rocket fire aimed at innocent Israelis is intolerable, so, too, is a future without hope for the Palestinians. I was deeply concerned by the loss of Palestinian and Israeli life in recent days and by the substantial suffering and humanitarian needs in Gaza. Our hearts go out to Palestinian civilians who are in need of immediate food, clean water, and basic medical care, and who've faced suffocating poverty for far too long.
Now we must extend a hand of opportunity to those who seek peace. As part of a lasting cease-fire, Gaza's border crossings should be open to allow the flow of aid and commerce, with an appropriate monitoring regime, with the international and Palestinian Authority participating.
Relief efforts must be able to reach innocent Palestinians who depend on them. The United States will fully support an international donor's conference to seek short-term humanitarian assistance and long-term reconstruction for the Palestinian economy. This assistance will be provided to and guided by the Palestinian Authority.
At every point, the control of the "Palestinian Authority" -- which means, of course, the Israeli government -- is stressed. Even Obama's dramatic call to open the crossings that Israel has imposed on the open-air prison of Gaza, where many thousands of people have been living in refugee camps for 60 years, and where the entire 1.5 million-strong population is kept stateless and imprisoned, is carefully hedged: the crossings will require "an appropriate monitoring regime" -- i.e., the same regime that has been monitoring the crossings for years on end: the Israeli government. Of course, the PA -- the former insurgent group that has turned itself into the Judenrat of the occupation, doing the Israeli government's dirty work for them -- is to be cut in on the action, along with unspecified "international participation." Of course, the recent deadly attack on UN buildings in Gaza has given us yet another in a long string of demonstrations of how Israel treats "international participation" within its domains and targeted territories.
[color=yellow]Now we can see why Obama kept silent on Gaza while Bush was still in the White House: because he held precisely the same views as Bush on the subject. There is nothing in Obama's statement that could not have been said -- or was not actually said -- by Bush. You couldn't slide a piece of onion-skin paper between the stances of the two men on Gaza.[/yellow]
Meanwhile, Professor As'ad AbuKhalil, the "Angry Arab," takes an equally dim view of today's developments:
Well, it took two longs days before Obama dispelled any notions of a change in US Middle East policy. For some reasons, many Arabs and many American leftists I know (you know yourselves) have wanted to believe so bad that Obama will deviate from the Zionist path of US foreign policy. I knew that it would be a matter of weeks that he would prove me right, but I did not know that he would prove me right in a matter of hours. His speech on the Middle East today could have easily been written by Benjamin Netanyahu....
Obama's speech was quite something. It was like sprinkling sulfuric acid on the wounds of the children in Gaza--those who survived the Israeli terrorist festival of butchery and massacres. His remarks leave you with the impression that there are two sets of problems in the holy land: that there was terrorism against civilians in "southern Israel" and then there is some undefined civilian suffering in Gaza from some undefined natural disaster--an earthquake or hurricane.... He then followed the Zionist line that all aid should pass through the transparent gangs in Ramallah--but that is important because Fatah has a very long record of integrity, transparency, merit, and high ethical standards--along with collaboration with Israel.
AbuKhalil also points us to this analysis of Obama's chosen partner in Middle East peace, the man who was in fact the first foreign leader the new president called upon taking office: Palestinian "president" Mahmoud Abbas. (The quote are required because Abbas' term has actually ended, but he is still somehow president of a rump Palestinian Authority.) From The National:
The reasons for Abbas’s demise are few, and they predate the Israeli attack on Gaza: he long ago placed all of his eggs in the Israeli-American basket. Acting as if his chickens had already hatched, his inability to deliver any tangible achievement has instead meant they came home to roost with a vengeance.
Key to this is Abbas’s relationship to his people: simply put, it never existed. Arafat saw the Palestinians as the ace in the deck to be played when all else failed, and understood that his leverage with outside actors derived from their conviction that he represented the Palestinian people. If he consistently failed or refused to properly mobilise this primary resource, he at least always held it in reserve.
Abbas has by contrast been an inveterate elitist, who seems to have regarded the Palestinian population as an obstacle to be overcome so that the game of nations could proceed – there are after all only so many seats at the table where great statesmen like George Bush and Ehud Olmert together create the contours of a new Middle East....
Cursed with exceptional self-regard, Abbas has always shown disinterest in the opinions of others. From the moment he convinced himself of the sincerity of Bush’s visions, which put the onus on the Palestinians to prove they qualify for membership in the human race and are worthy of being spoken to by Tsipi Livni and Condoleezza Rice, there was no turning back. Henceforth the Palestinian security forces would point their weapons exclusively at their own people, and only Saeb Erakat would be aimed at Israel. At the United Nations, once a primary arena for the Palestinian struggle, Abbas’s emissary Riad Mansour was too busy drafting a resolution declaring Hamas a terrorist entity to deal with more trivial Palestinian concerns. It was simply impossible to steer Abbas towards a change of course, let alone a national dialogue that could produce a genuine strategy.
By the expiration of his presidency on January 9, his constitutional status had become the least of his problems. Each and every one of his policies had failed. In the West Bank, settlement expansion was proceeding at an unprecedented pace while the Wall neared final completion, rendering talk of a two-state settlement all but moot.
After Hamas triumphed in the 2006 parliamentary elections, Abbas’s ceaseless scheming to remove the Islamists from office and overturn the election’s results – characteristically in active partnership with outside forces rather than the Palestinian electorate – was a veritable carnival of folly and incompetence. When Hamas acted first in 2007, it took the Islamists only several days to dispose of those few forces still prepared to fight for Mohammed Dahlan [the PA's ruthless "security" enforcer and much-beloved Washington favorite].
This then is the broken reed upon which Obama proposes to build "a lasting peace in the Middle East." An unconstitutional, totally compromised puppet leader rejected by his people, whom he disdains.
What, wasn't Ahmad Chalabi available?
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp
« Reply #81 on: 2009-02-02 04:04:22 » |
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Robert Fisk’s World: When did we stop caring about civilian deaths during wartime?
The mere monitoring of bloody conflict assumes precedence over human suffering
Source: The Independent
Authors: Robert Fisk
Dated: 2009-01-29
I wonder if we are "normalising" war. It's not just that Israel has yet again got away with the killing of hundreds of children in Gaza.
And after its own foreign minister said that Israel's army had been allowed to "go wild" there, it seems to bear out my own contention that the Israeli "Defence Force" is as much a rabble as all the other armies in the region. But we seem to have lost the sense of immorality that should accompany conflict and violence. The BBC's refusal to handle an advertisement for Palestinian aid was highly instructive. It was the BBC's "impartiality" that might be called into question. In other words, the protection of an institution was more important than the lives of children. War was a spectator sport whose careful monitoring – rather like a football match, even though the Middle East is a bloody tragedy – assumed precedence over human suffering.
I'm not sure where all this started. No one doubts that the Second World War was a bloodbath of titanic proportions, but after that conflict we put in place all kinds of laws to protect human beings. The International Red Cross protocols, the United Nations – along with the all-powerful Security Council and the much ridiculed General Assembly – and the European Union were created to end large-scale conflict. And yes, I know there was Korea (under a UN flag!) and then there was Vietnam, but after the US withdrawal from Saigon, there was a sense that "we" didn't do wars any more. Foreigners could commit atrocities en masse – Cambodia comes to mind – but we superior Westerners were exempt. We didn't behave like that. Low-intensity warfare in Northern Ireland, perhaps. And the Israeli-Arab conflict would grind away. But there was a feeling that My Lai had been put behind us. Civilians were once again sacred in the West.
I'm not sure when the change came. Was it Israel's disastrous invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the Sabra and Chatila massacre by Israel's allies of 1,700 Palestinian civilians? (Gaza just missed that record.) Israel claimed (as usual) to be fighting "our" "war against terror" but the Israeli army is not what it's cracked up to be and massacres (Qana comes to mind in 1996 and the children of Marwahine in 2006) seem to come attached to it. And of course, there's the little matter of the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1988 which we enthusiastically supported with weapons to both sides, and the Syrian slaughter of thousands of civilians at Hama and...
No, I rather think it was the 1991 Gulf War. Our television lads and lasses played it for all it was worth – it was the first war that had "theme" music to go with the pictures – and when US troops simply smothered alive thousands of Iraqi troops in their trenches, we learned about it later and didn't care much, and even when the Americans ignored Red Cross rules to mark mass graves, they got away with it. There were women in some of these graves – I saw British soldiers burying them. And I remember driving up to Mutla ridge to show a Red Cross delegate where I had seen a mass grave dug by the Americans, and he looked at the plastic poppy an American had presumably left there and said: "Something has happened."
He meant that something had happened to international law, to the rules of war. They had been flouted. Then came Kosovo – where our dear Lord Blair first exercised his talents for warmaking – and another ream of slaughter. Of course, Milosevic was the bad guy (even though most of the Kosovars were still in their homes when the war began – their return home after their brutal expulsion by the Serbs then became the war aim). But here again, we broke some extra rules and got away with it. Remember the passenger train we bombed on the Surdulica bridge – and the famous speeding up of the film by Jamie Shea to show that the bomber had no time to hold his fire? (Actually, the pilot came back for another bombing run on the train when it was already burning, but that was excluded from the film.) Then the attack on the Belgrade radio station. And the civilian roads. Then the attack on a large country hospital. "Military target," said Jamie. And he was right. There were soldiers hiding in the hospital along with the patients. The soldiers all survived. The patients all died.
Then there was Afghanistan and all that "collateral damage" and whole villages wiped out and then there was Iraq in 2003 and the tens of thousands – or half a million or a million – Iraqi civilians killed. Once more, at the very start, we were back to our old tricks, bombing bridges and radio stations and at least one civilian estate in Baghdad where "we" believed Saddam was hiding. We knew it was packed with civilians (Christians, by chance) but the Americans called it a "high risk" operation – meaning that they risked not hitting Saddam – and 22 civilians were killed. I saw the last body, that of a baby, dug from the rubble.
And we don't seem to care. We fight in Iraq and now we're going back to fight in Afghanistan again and all the human rights and protections appear to have vanished once more. We will destroy villages and we will find that the Afghans hate us and we will form more criminal militias – as we did in Iraq – to fight for us. The Israelis organised a similar militia in their occupation zone in southern Lebanon, run by a crackpot Lebanese army major. But now their own troops "go wild". And the BBC is worried about its "impartiality"?
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp
« Reply #82 on: 2009-02-06 12:02:59 » |
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Israel Seizes Gaza Aid Freighter: No Arms Abroad, Aid Not Delivered
Archbishop of Jerusalem Captured, Sent to Syria
Source: http://news.antiwar.com/2009/02/05/israel-seizes-gaza-aid-freighter-no-arms-abroad-aid-not-delivered/
Authors: Jason Ditz (Compiler)
Dated: 2009-02-05
The Israeli Navy captured an aid ship bound for the Gaza Strip today, arresting those on board and towing the ship to the Israeli port of Ashdod for inspection. Early reports indicated that the ship was fired upon before its capture, though the military insists they were only “warning shots.”
The ship, called Brotherhood by the activists, contained no weapons nor does it appear to have contained any banned materials (the Israeli government has banned numerous goods, such as clothing and shoes, from the Gaza Strip citing their potential threat to the Israeli populace). The ship contained exactly what one would imagine an aid ship would carry: water, food and medicine, though since seizing the vessel the amount contained therein has mysteriously and precipitously fallen over that which the ship apparently left Lebanon with.
The passengers captured on board the ship appear to have all been released at this point, most of them sent to the Lebanese border. One of the captives, the Archbishop of Jerusalem Hilarion Capucci, was sent to Syria instead. The archbishop’s capture is likely to further inflame tensions between the Israeli government and the Vatican.
The Israeli government defended the move, saying the aid ship was violating the naval blockade [ Hermit : Which is of course an ongoing act of war against Gaza ] in trying to bring food and medicine to the people of the Gaza Strip. Arab League officials and regional governments have urged the United Nations Security Council to press Israel to release the cargo, and Arab League Envoy to the United Nations Yahya Mahmassani called the incident “an act of piracy.”
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Hermit
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Re:Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp
« Reply #83 on: 2009-02-06 12:18:23 » |
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US Sold Phosphorus Shells to Israel
Among Israel's Most Condemned Tactics in Gaza Was Enabled by Arkansas-Made Rounds
Source:
Authors: Jason Ditz (Compiler)
Dated: 2009-02-03
[url=http://www.pba.army.mil/]The Pine Bluff Arsenal, a United States Army installation in Arkansas, specializes in chemical and biological weapons. The military touts them as the only facility in the Northern Hemisphere which fills white phosphorus munitions. That’s the important point here, as it once again ties the US military directly into the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip, and one of its most unseemly practices.
State Department officials told the Associated Press that the United States provided Israel with white phosphorus rounds, and photos taken during the Israeli conflict show the military readying rounds with Pine Bluff Arsenal serial numbers.
The use of white phosphorus is not in and of itself a war crime, and is generally considered acceptable as a means of obscuring troop movements or illuminating areas. Its use in civilian areas however, even if not directed at the civilian population, is banned under the Geneva Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Preliminary investigations show indisputable evidence that Israel used white phosphorus in some of the most densely populated portions of Gaza, and still burning fragments were found after the war ended wedged into civilian buildings.
The Israeli military officially denied using such munitions during the war, though they eventually conceded to it. Their official story now is that the use was not illegal and that Hamas was the one committing war crimes by provoking such attacks. The treaty prohibits the use of such weapons against military targets in civilian regions however, and makes no exception allowing the nation violating it to transfer blame to others in case they really wanted to hit those targets. [ Hermit : Which of course means that the use by the USA of the same shells in Fallujah was also a war crime. Even so, tu quoque is not an effective defense, and the use by Israel of American supplied munitions in the commission of a war crime breaches US as well as International law. It would be interesting were somebody with standing to apply to American Courts for a Writ of Mandamus demanding that the Justice department act to enforce these laws. ]
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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letheomaniac
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Re:Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp
« Reply #84 on: 2009-02-12 01:34:25 » |
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Quote:| [Blunderov] Not to digress but you really ought to wear a surgical mask preferably one supplied by your employer. They are cheap, come in large packs and are readily available at pharmacies. <end sermon> |
[letheomaniac] Do my best I will. 
Quote:| [Hermit]AFAIK there is no safe skin, lung or ingestion exposure level. Which is why the EU has banned the use of lead in electronic devices and glassware. In the mid 1990s, when setting up a memory assembly line in ZA, the workers were positioned at fume cabinets with fast extractors and wore safety gloves, masks and glasses. What has happened since then? |
[letheomaniac] The regulations are indeed in place, but they are rarely enforced, I imagine because it would be too expensive to do so. I don't think that there is a ban on lead solder in place in SA although that would probably be a good idea, although it would definitely make my life more difficult because lead-free solder is very difficult to work with.
[letheomaniac] Here is some good news relating to both SA and Israel/Gaza. Convenient.
Source: http://www.axisoflogic.com/
Author: Palestine Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions and Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid
Dated: 8/2/2009
South African Transport Workers Refuse to Unload Israeli Ship
The BNC Salutes South African Dock Workers Action!
Palestine - The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, BNC, warmly salutes the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU), a member of COSATU, for its decision today not to offload an Israeli ship that is due to arrive in Durban, South Africa, on 8 February.
Coming weeks after the massive Israeli massacre in Gaza, this distinguished expression by SATAWU of effective solidarity with the Palestinian people in general, and with Gaza in particular, sets a historic precedent that reminds us of the first such action during the apartheid era taken by Danish dock workers in 1963, when they decided not to offload ships carrying South African products, triggering a similar boycott in Sweden, England and elsewhere.
Last week, endorsing the Palestinian Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), the Maritime Union of Australia (Western Australia) resolved to boycott all Israeli vessels and all vessels bearing goods arriving from or going to Israel. A few weeks before, Greek dock workers threatened to block a ship carrying weapons to Israel during its criminal war on Gaza. Those actions, together with the SATAWU decision today, will most likely usher in a new, qualitatively advanced phase of BDS that goes well beyond symbolism. We call on dock workers’ unions around the world to endorse similar sanctions against Israeli or Israel-bound cargo.
Support in South Africa for the Palestinian struggle against Israel’s colonial and apartheid policies and its war crimes is reaching new heights, with COSATU, the South African Council of Churches, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the Young Communist League and many grassroots organizations and networks leading diverse forms of BDS campaigns, informed by the long and ultimately successful struggle of South Africans against apartheid. The Palestinian and global BDS movement against Israel is indebted to the people of South Africa for their inspiring and morale-boosting solidarity.
If Gaza today has become the test of our universal morality and our common humanity, the fast spreading BDS movement around the world has passed the test with flying colors. In fact, worldwide support for BDS against Israel in reaction to its war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, has shown that international civil society fully recognizes that Israel must be held accountable before international law and must pay a heavy price for its atrocities and ongoing willful destruction of Palestinian society. In this context, the decision by each of Venezuela, Bolivia, Qatar and Mauritania to sever diplomatic ties with Israel was a particularly commendable way of challenging Israel’s impunity. The shift from traditional, mostly symbolic, solidarity to BDS in Norway, Sweden, Britain, Ireland, Turkey, Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, Spain, USA, Brazil, New Zealand, among others, is a resounding endorsement of effective, morally and politically sound action to end Israel’s multi-faceted oppression of the indigenous people of Palestine and to bring about a just peace to Palestine and the entire region.
The Palestinian civil society Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, launched in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian political parties, unions and organizations, offers the vehicle for all people of conscience, organizations and institutions around the globe to join the collective effort to reaffirm the primacy of international law, human rights and dignity. To replicate the strength and effectiveness of the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, the BNC urges civil society institutions and every concerned citizen around the world to:
Integrate BDS in every struggle for justice and human rights, by adopting wide, context-sensitive and sustainable boycotts of Israeli products, companies, academic and cultural institutions, and sports groups, similar to the actions taken against apartheid South Africa;
Ensure national and multinational corporations are held responsible and accordingly sanctioned for profiteering from Israel’s occupation and other violations of human rights and international law;
Work towards cancelling and blocking free trade and other preferential agreements with Israel, including the EU-Israel and the Mercosur-Israel trade agreements; and
Pressure governments to impose a direct and indirect arms embargo against Israel that guarantees end-user compliance with international law and human rights principles.
Our “South Africa” moment has arrived. The time for BDS is now!
Secretariat of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC)
[letheomaniac] Read the rest of the article here: http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_29594.shtml
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Hermit
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Re:Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp
« Reply #85 on: 2009-02-12 09:35:39 » |
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I think it helps to have seen Apartheid from up close and personal to recognize its ugly face, but the Jewish community of South Africa deserves massive kudos for their contributions in explaining why Israel's ethnic cleansing programs are worse than Apartheid ever was. The cargo handling unions of the world deserve thanks too. Fascinating that people in the lower echelons of society often seem to do a better job of recognizing fundamental inequities and rejecting weaseling and putative justifications of the unjustifiable than those we generally accept as providing leadership in this area.
Kindest Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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letheomaniac
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Re:Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp
« Reply #86 on: 2009-02-12 11:11:36 » |
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Hermit:
Quote:| I think it helps to have seen Apartheid from up close and personal to recognize its ugly face, but the Jewish community of South Africa deserves massive kudos for their contributions in explaining why Israel's ethnic cleansing programs are worse than Apartheid ever was. The cargo handling unions of the world deserve thanks too. Fascinating that people in the lower echelons of society often seem to do a better job of recognizing fundamental inequities and rejecting weaseling and putative justifications of the unjustifiable than those we generally accept as providing leadership in this area. |
[letheomaniac] The 'Not In My Name' campaign is brilliant. I must report that the Israeli propaganda machine is working overtime to try and counter bad press like the dockworkers union article. The Jewish Board of Deputies (some sort of creepy Israeli propaganda bureau that we have here in SA - I'm sure they have branches in other places as well) have been writing hysterical letters to the papers about how 'anti-semitism is on the rise in SA' or similar. This is patently utter BS because as anyone with a television set knows, when South Africans are feeling xenophobic, people get set on fire. I'm sure that Jews being burned alive on the streets of South Africa would have made the headlines. Case closed fuckers. 
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Fritz
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Re:Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp
« Reply #87 on: 2009-02-12 19:46:27 » |
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I found this an interesting and disturbing recap with commentary.
Fritz
Source: FreeGaza - Blog
Author: Shamai Leibowitz
Date: Thursday, February 12, 2009
Lincoln's Bicentennial and Healing the Wounds of Gaza
If you expected a discussion of the results of the Israeli elections - go somewhere else. This blogpost will not include one word about the elections, and my only comment, for now, is to quote Ecclesiastes (Kohelet in Hebrew): "The thing that has been, it is that which will be; that which was done is that which will be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."
But a relevant current event is today's celebration of Lincoln's bicenntenial. On this day, I want to refer to the report of two surgeons from the UK, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr. Swee Ang, who managed to get into Gaza during the Israeli invasion. In an article published in THE LANCENET (see full article below), they describe their experiences, provide a detailed summary of the horrific aerial, sea and land bombardments, and conclude with a call to action. In their concluding paragraph, they state:
The people of Gaza are extremely vulnerable and defenseless in the event of another attack. If the International Community is serious about preventing such a large scale of deaths and injuries in the future, it will have to develop some sort of a defense force for Gaza. Otherwise, many more vulnerable civilans will continue to die.
Considering that 2009 is the bicentennial of President Abraham Lincoln, and today, February 12, is Lincoln's 200th birthday, it is apt and fitting to make this call, and insure it resonates loud and clear.
It is high time to defend the people of Palestine and take inspiration from the 19th century's Underground Railroad movement, and, approxmiately 100 years later, the Freedom Riders movement. These movements did not wait for governments to voluntarily end slavery and segregation. They fought for justice and human rights by taking concrete actions, showing that citizens can make a difference if they commit their hearts and minds to the cause.
In the same vein, we need to organize communities worldwide to fight the Israeli oppression and injustice by providing a viable mechanism for the defense of Palestinians (which is also the only real guarantee for Israeli security). A modern-day Freedom Riders movement - in the context of Gaza - would embark on a campaign to send delegations to Gaza on a regular basis, without asking for Israeli permission. They would break open this prison, and bring freedom to the people of Gaza by bringing in materials and supplies and allowing Gazans to freely exit and enter the besieged enclave. If thousands of foreigners are present in every city and refugee camp in Gaza, the Israeli government will hesitate to launch another attack on the Strip. It might take time, but eventually this will lead to the dismantling this Israeli-made open-air prison where Gaza residents suffer conditions that are worse than what the 19th century slaves had to endure.
It is also apt that fair-minded Jews spearhead this campaign. They are best suited to formulate a strategy to join forces with Palestinians to protect them from Israeli butchery and brutality.
There is no substitute to on-the-ground work of Jews (including Israeli citizens of conscience) who will donate their time and money to work together with Palestinians, and advance basic human rights, build infrastructure, and promote a new model of equality and freedom. In this scenario, hundreds of Jews would come to Gaza on a weekly basis to provide aid, guidance and professional help in a panoply of issues, ranging from medicine to music, from engineering to genetics. True, it will demand that citizens confront, and sometimes even violate, the Israeli laws that oppress and segregate. But isn't that precisely what Underground Railroad activists and the Freedom Riders did?
This is more important than publishing progressive ads in newspapers condemning the occupation. Being there - in Gaza - with the Palestinian people is what will ultimately break free the chains of oppression and occupation in Palestine.
Last week, a fact-finding delegation of American lawyers sponsored by the National Laywers Guild visited Gaza, and published a report documenting executions of civilians, blocking of humanitarian aid, and destruction of civil property. Before that, the besieged Gazans hosted several missions of the Free Gaza movement which included Israelis who broke the Israeli segregation law that prohibits Israelis from visiting Gaza. Professor Jeff Halper, Gideon Spiro, jounalists Amira Hass and Shlomi Eldar and others bravely entered Gaza, and wrote extensively about their experiences.
But this needs to be multiplied a thousandfold. And not just by lawyers and human rights activists. Now is the time for every professional group to come to the aid of Gaza. This type of non-violent, grassroots-oriented standing up to oppression and breaking down walls and barriers is the proper way to move forward in the aftermath of the Gaza bloodbath. It is the best protection from the next Israeli bombardment or invasion. But it is also much more. It is the beginning of a process of decolonization of Israel/Palestine, and a building of a new strategm that will topple the Zionist model of slavery (of the indigenous population), oppression and segregation and replace it with a new Israeli-Palestinian model of equality and human rights.
__________________________________________________________
THE LANCENET article by Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr Swee Ang:
The Wounds of Gaza
The wounds of Gaza are deep and multi-layered. Are we talking about the Khan Younis massacre of 5,000 in 1956 or the execution of 35,000 prisoners of war by Israel in 1967? Yet more wounds of the First Intifada, when civil disobedience by an occupied people against the occupiers resulted in massive wounded and hundreds dead? We also cannot discount the 5,420 wounded in southern Gaza alone since 2000. Hence what we are referring to below are only that of the invasion as of 27 December 2008.
Over the period of 27 December 2008 to the ceasefire of 18 Jan 2009, it was estimated that a million and a half tons of explosives were dropped on Gaza Strip. Gaza is 25 miles by 5 miles and home to 1.5 million people. This makes it the most crowded area in the whole world. Prior to this Gaza has been completely blockaded and starved for 50 days. In fact since the Palestinian election Gaza has been under total or partial blockade for several years.
On the first day of the invasion, 250 persons were killed. Every single police station in Gaza was bombed killing large numbers of police officers. Having wiped out the police force attention was turned to non government targets. Gaza was bombed from the air by F16 and Apache helicopters, shelled from the sea by Israeli gunboats and from the land by tank artillery. Many schools were reduced to rubble, including the American School of Gaza, 40 mosques, hospitals, UN buildings, and of course 21,000 homes, 4,000 of which were demolished completely. It is estimated that 100,000 people are now homeless.
Israeli weapons
The weapons used apart from conventional bombs and high explosives also include unconventional weapons of which at least 4 categories could be identified.
Phosphorus Shells and bombs
The bombs dropped were described by eye witnesses as exploding at high altitude scattering a large canopy of phosphorus bomblets which cover a large area. During the land invasion, eyewitnesses describe the tanks shelling into homes first with a conventional shell. Once the walls are destroyed, a second shell - a phosphorus shell is then shot into the homes. Used in this manner the phosphorus explodes and burns the families and the homes. Many charred bodies were found among burning phosphorus particles.
One area of concern is the phosphorus seems to be in a special stabilizing agent. This results in the phosphorus being more stable and not completely burning out. Residues still cover the fields, playground and compounds. They ignite when picked up by curious kids, or produce fumes when farmers return to water their fields. One returning farming family on watering their field met with clouds of fumes producing epistaxis. Thus the phosphorus residues probably treated with a stabilizer also act as anti-personnel weapons against children and make the return to normal life difficult without certain hazards.
Surgeons from hospitals are also reporting cases where after primary laparotomy for relatively small wounds with minimal contamination find on second look laparotomy increasing areas of tissue necrosis at about 3 days. Patients then become gravely ill and by about 10 days those patients needing a third relook encounter massive liver necrosis. This may or may not be accompanied by generalized bleeding , kidney failure and heart failure and death. Although acidosis, liver necrosis and sudden cardiac arrest due to hypocalcemia are known to be a complication of white phosphorus it is not possible to attribute these complications as being due to phosphorus alone.
There is real urgency to analyze and identify the real nature of this modified phosphorus as to its long term effect on the people of Gaza. There is also urgency in collecting and disposing of the phosphorus residues littering the entire Gaza Strip. As they give off toxic fumes when coming into contact with water, once the rain falls the whole area would be polluted with acid phosphorus fumes. Children should be warned not to handle and play with these phosphorus residues.
Heavy Bombs
The use of DIME (dense inert material explosives) were evident, though it is unsure whether depleted uranium were used in the south. In the civilian areas, surviving patients were found to have limbs truncated by DIME, since the stumps apart from being characteristically cut off in guillotine fashion also fail to bleed. Bomb casing and shrapnel are extremely heavy.
Fuel Air Explosives
Bunker busters and implosion bombs have been used . There are buildings especially the 8 storey Science and Technology Building of the Islamic University of Gaza which had been reduced to a pile of rubble no higher than 5-6 feet.
Silent Bombs
People in Gaza described a silent bomb which is extremely destructive. The bomb arrives as a silent projectile at most with a whistling sound and creates a large area where all objects and living things are vaporized with minimal trace. We are unable to fit this into conventional weapons but the possibility of new particle weapons being tested should be suspected.
Executions
Survivors describe Israeli tanks arriving in front of homes asking residents to come out. Children, old people and women would come forward and as they were lined up they were just fired on and killed. Families have lost tens of their members through such executions. The deliberate targeting of unarmed children and women is well documented by human right groups in the Gaza Strip over the past month.
Targeting of ambulances
Thirteen ambulances had been fired upon killing drivers and first aid personnel in the process of rescue and evacuation of the wounded.
Cluster bombs
The first patients wounded by cluster were brought into Abu Yusef Najjar Hospital. Since more than 50% of the tunnels have been destroyed, Gaza has lost part of her lifeline. These tunnels contrary to popular belief are not for weapons, though small light weapons could have been smuggled through them. However they are the main stay of food and fuel for Gaza. Palestinians are beginning to tunnel again. However it became clear that cluster bombs were dropped on to the Rafah border and the first was accidentally set of by tunneling. Five burns patients were brought in after setting off a booby trap kind of device.
Death toll
As of 25 January 2009, the death toll was estimated at 1,350 with the numbers increasing daily. This is due to the severely wounded continuing to die in hospitals. 60% of those killed were children.
Severe injuries
The severely injured numbered 5,450, with 40% being children. These are mainly large burns and polytrauma patients. Single limb fractures and walking wounded are not included in these figures.
Through our conversations with doctors and nurses the word holocaust and catastrophe were repeatedly used. The medical staff all bear the psychological trauma of the past month living though the situation and dealing with mass casualties which swamped their casualties and operating rooms. Many patients died in the Accident and Emergency Department while awaiting treatment. In a district hospital, the orthopaedic surgeon carried out 13 external fixations in less than a day.
It is estimated that of the severely injured, 1,600 will suffer permanently disabilities. These include amputations, spinal cord injuries, head injuries, large burns with crippling contractures.
Special factors
The death and injury toll is especially high in this recent assault due to several factors:
No escape: As Gaza is sealed by Israeli troops, no one can escape the bombardment and the land invasion. There is simply no escape. Even within the Gaza Strip itself, movement from north to south is impossible as Israeli tanks had cut the northern half of Gaza from the south. Compare this with the situation in Lebanon 1982 and 2006, when it was possible for people to escape from an area of heavy bombardment to an area of relative calm - there was no such is option for Gaza.
Gaza is very densely populated. It is eerie to see that the bombs used by Israel have been precision bombs. They have a hundred percent hit rate on buildings which are crowded with people. Examples are the central market, police stations. Schools, the UN compounds used as a safety shelter from bombardment, mosques (40 of them destroyed), and the homes of families who thought they were safe as there were no combatants in them and high rise flats where a single implosion bomb would destroy multiple families. This pattern of consistent targeting of civilians makes one suspect that the military targets are but collateral damage, while civilians are the primary targets.
The quantity and quality of the ammunition being used as described above.
Gaza’s lack of defense against the modern weapons of Israel. Gaza has no tanks, no planes, no anti-aircraft missiles against the invading army. We experienced that first hand in a minor clash of Israeli tank shells versus Palestinian AK47 return fire. The forces were simply unmatched.
Absence of well constructed bomb shelters for civilians. Unfortunately these will also be no match for bunker busters possessed by the Israeli Army.
Conclusion
Taking the above points into consideration, the next assault on Gaza would be just as disastrous. The people of Gaza are extremely vulnerable and defenseless in the event of another attack. If the International Community is serious about preventing such a large scale of deaths and injuries in the future, it will have to develop some sort of a defense force for Gaza. Otherwise, many more vulnerable civilans will continue to die.
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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letheomaniac
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Re:Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp
« Reply #88 on: 2009-02-13 03:25:20 » |
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[letheomaniac] More bad news for the Zionists, this time from the USA! 
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_29640.shtml
<snip>Hampshire College becomes first college in U.S. to divest from Israeli Occupation!
Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, has become the first of any college or university in the U.S. to divest from companies on the grounds of their involvement in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
This landmark move is a direct result of a two-year intensive campaign by the campus group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). The group pressured Hampshire College’s Board of Trustees to divest from six specific companies due to human rights concerns in occupied Palestine. Over 800 students, professors, and alumni have signed SJP’s “institutional statement” calling for the divestment. The proposal put forth by SJP was approved on Saturday, 7 Feb 2009 by the Board. By divesting from these companies, SJP believes that Hampshire has distanced itself from complicity in the illegal occupation and war crimes of Israel.
Meeting minutes from a committee of Hampshire’s Board of Trustees confirm that “President Hexter acknowledged that it was the good work of SJP that brought this issue to the attention of the committee.” This groundbreaking decision follows in Hampshire’s history of being the first college in the country to divest from apartheid South Africa thirty-two years ago, a decision based on similar human rights concerns. This divestment was also a direct result of student pressure.
The divestment has so far been endorsed by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Rashid Khalidi, Vice President of the EU Parliament Luisa Morganitini, Cynthia McKinney, former member of the African National Congress Ronnie Kasrils, Mustafa Barghouti, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, John Berger, Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire, and Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, among others.<snip>
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Hermit
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Re:Starving a Nation: From the World's Largest Concentration Camp
« Reply #89 on: 2009-02-20 17:03:27 » |
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US congressmen express shock at Gaza devastation
[ Hermit : Shocked, I'm just shocked, too. Remember, these are some of the same clowns who gave Israel a green light to carry on with their program of ethnic cleansing. And now they are shocked to discover how Israel used their support. What is next? Asking for the return of the bombs, cannons, shells, aircraft, nuclear and weapons know how and billions of dollars we have given to this Apartheid state to oppress Palestinians?]
Source: AFP
Authors: Not credited
Dated: 2009-02-19
US Democratic representatives Brian Baird and Keith Ellison expressed shock at the plight of the war-shattered Gaza Strip during a rare visit to the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave on Thursday.
"The amount of physical destruction and the depth of human suffering here is staggering" Baird said in a statement issued jointly with Ellison during their visit which coincided with a similar trip by US Senator John Kerry.
The visits were the first by US lawmakers since Hamas, an Islamist movement Washington blacklists as a terrorist organisation, seized control of the overcrowded territory in June 2007. This statement is completely dishonest. Let me suggest a more accurate version. "The visits were the first by US lawmakers since Hamas, the government of Palestine elected in elections certified by multiple International monitoring organizations as free and fair, suppressed an American and Israeli supported attempted coup against it by the discredited and ousted Palestinian Authority during June 2007." Had this been used, the writing would not come across as a crude propaganda piece by somebody with little or no knowledge of the situation. ]
Ellison, a representative from Minnesota, harshly criticised restrictions on the delivery of desperately needed goods into the coastal strip that has been under a crippling Israeli blockade imposed after the Hamas takeover.
"People, innocent children, women and non-combatants, are going without water, food and sanitation, while the things they so desperately need are sitting in trucks at the border, being denied permission to go in," he said.
"The stories about the children affected me the most," said Ellison. "No parent, or anyone who cares for kids, can remain unmoved by what Brian and I saw here."
Baird, from Washington state, said the situation he saw was "shocking and troubling beyond words."
"The personal stories of children being killed in their homes or schools, of entire families wiped out, and relief workers prevented from evacuating the wounded are heart wrenching," he said.
Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the US Congress, hailed US President Barack Obama for acting "quickly to send much needed humanitarian funding to Gaza for this effort."
"However, the arbitrary and unreasonable Israeli limitations on food, and repair and reconstruction materials are unacceptable and indefensible," he added.
Ellison and Bair both stressed that their visit did not have the official sanction of the Obama administration.
They said they held talks with civilians and relief workers, while Palestinian officials stressed they did not meet with any representatives of Hamas.
During their visit, the pair visited Izzbet Abed Rabbo, a community in northern Gaza devastated during the deadly 22-day Israeli offensive that ended on January 18. [ Hermit : Israeli continues to bomb Gaza, and on most days sends in troops. Palestinians continue to be blockaded, starved, injured and killed on a daily basis. As they have been since 1948. This offensive is not "ended" it has merely changed intensity. ]
An estimated 14,000 to 20,000 homes and other buildings were damaged or destroyed during the military offensive in which more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed. [ Hermit : And where over 4,500 sustained life threatening wounds, many requiring amputation or leaving completely disabled people totally reliant on caregivers for the rest of their lives. ]
"The first and most urgent priority must be to help the people in Gaza. At the same time, the rocket attacks against Israeli cities must stop immediately," Baird and Ellison said in their joint statement.
"Just as the people of Gaza should not be subject to what they have experienced, the Israeli civilians should not have to live in fear of constant and indiscriminate rocketing," they added. [ Hermit : False equivocation. 20 Israelis died in an 8 year period. Meanwhile Israel caused over 10,000 Palestinian casualties and starved 1.5 million, having stolen their country, their water, and now their gas. Even those few Palestinians and Arabs now living in Israel live a worse than apartheid existence. While Israel continues to be protected and supported by the USA.]
On Friday, the two planned to tour the Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon, which are regularly targeted by the almost daily rocket attacks from Gaza. [ And where in 8 years of bombing, minimal damage was done to any buildings, and a total of under 20 people were killed. Pity the poor Israelis. They claim to be forced to commit genocide due to these fertilizer fueled rockets. But could the "two" kindly ask the Israelis why they think the Palestinians are engaged in this all but symbolic action. Clearly it harms the Palestinians more than it does the Israelis. Or does it? ]
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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