March 29, 200830 random things about me30 random things about me ! Mypunketterromance tagged me ! 30 Random facts about me |
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March 28, 2008 |
arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2008/03/back-in-timeor-making-of-hero.html
March 28, 2008
Flowers, Strawberries, and Missiles
Flowers, Strawberries, and Missiles
Mohammed Omer
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BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza, Mar 27 (IPS) - Just 300 yards from the hidden eyes in the Israeli tank, Ahmed Felfel picks his strawberries. But it isn't the Israelis in the tank who worry him as much as those others who will not let him sell them. Earlier, it was flowers grown in Gaza and then fed to camels because the Israeli blockade would not let them through. Now it is strawberries grown and wasted. It is Gaza's irony that the most desperate conditions produce some of the finest people seek. Nature itself has been kind to Gaza; the soil is rich, there is plenty of sunshine, and predictable rainfall. All that produces strawberries of a quality that the best restaurants in Europe like to serve. After Gaza elected Hamas, Israel moved swiftly with U.S. backing to isolate the 23-mile long strip of land with Israel on one side and the Mediterranean on the other. It's a siege that will not let even flowers and strawberries through. "I am alive but I feel dead," says Ahmed Felfel. He is expecting losses of 35,000 to 45,000 dollars as a result of the Israeli blockade. That is above more direct losses. "Israeli tanks and bulldozers demolished my irrigation system, my greenhouses, my equipment." Beit Lahiya is close to the Israeli border, and just a few miles from the Israeli town Siderot which has been within reach of home-made rockets fired from within Gaza. Israel, in turn, has launched deadly missile attacks on Gaza. The Israelis come in and simply bulldoze any place they think can hide a launching pad for rockets. When they find nothing, no compensation is offered. In an average year, Gaza's 6,000 strawberry farmers harvest nearly 2,000 tonnes of the fruit that sell altogether for about 10 million dollars. Two-thirds is normally shipped out through Agrexco, the agriculture exchange half-owned by the Israeli government that Gaza's fruit and flower growers are required to use. In November two trucks carrying flowers and six carrying strawberries were allowed through by the Israelis. Then the blockade came down again. Agrexco vice-president Malachy J. Malinovich has said "Palestinian producers have decided not to continue shipping." That could be partly true, because many Palestinian farmers have decided not to grow fruits and flowers rather than spend all that time and money only to see their produce rot. Ahmed al-Shafi, director of Gaza's Agriculture Cooperative, says that one shipment of 12 tonnes of strawberries was destroyed in December last year because it was held up at the Karem Shalom crossing (Hebrew for what the Palestinians call Karm Abu Salem). Gaza has an airport and sea port, but Israel prevents their use. On the other hand the border crossing at Rafah into Egypt is sealed by Egypt, under heavy U.S. pressure. "We used to sell a kilo of strawberries for 4.50 dollars," says al-Shafi. "Now it sells for 50 cents here." Two years ago, he said, 40 to 45 tonnes of strawberries were exported from Gaza daily in season. This year, no more than 100 tonnes have been exported so far. And this may do long-term damage. Europe could simply get used to importing from elsewhere. And Gaza could face an "emigration of experience" because the best farmers are heading out to Egypt. Al-Shafi has been privileged enough to be allowed out of Gaza. He has spoken to EU representatives and to U.S. officials in Tel Aviv. "We Palestinians and Israelis are neighbours and farmers," he said. "We should seek a way to co-exist." Particularly now, and particularly Israelis. It's the year of Shimita that comes every seven years, when Orthodox Jews are required to eat foods produced by non-Jewish sources. Some, at least, of the Israeli blockade is against Israelis. (END/2008) |
March 27, 2008
An Interesting Article About Tibet
Tibet, History and the CIA
By Gary Wilson
Published Mar 19, 2008 10:03 PM,
Original title : Tibet and the March 10 commemoration of the CIA's 1959
'uprising'
<http://www.workers.org/2007/world/tibet_0327/>http://www.workers.org/2007/world/tibet_0327/
Has Tibet become the front line of a new national liberation struggle? Or
is something else happening there?
The U.S. news media are filled with stories about events unfolding in
Tibet. Each news report, however, seems to include a note that much of what
they are reporting cannot be confirmed. The sources of the reports are
shadowy and unknown. If past practice is any indicator, it is likely that
the U.S. State Department and the CIA are their primary sources.
One frequently quoted source is John Ackerly. Who is Ackerly? As president
of the International Campaign for Tibet, he and his group appear to work
closely with the U.S. government, both the State Department and Congress,
as part of its operations concerning Tibet. During the Cold War, Ackerly's
Washington-based job was to work with "dissidents" in Eastern Europe,
particularly Romania in 1978-80.
A private international security agency in Washington, Harbor Lane
Associates, lists Ackerly and the International Campaign for Tibet as its
clients, along with former CIA Director and U.S. President George H.W. Bush
and former Pentagon chief William Cohen.
AP, Reuters and the other Western news agencies all quote Ackerly as a
major source for exaggerated reports about the clashes that have just
occurred in Tibet. For example, MSNBC on March 15 reported:
"John Ackerly, of the International Campaign for Tibet, a group that
supports demands for Tibetan autonomy, said in an e-mailed statement he
feared 'hundreds of Tibetans have been arrested and are being interrogated
and tortured.'"
Qiangba Puncog
Qiangba Puncog, a Tibetan who is chair of the Tibet Autonomous Regional
Government, described the situation quite differently at a March 17 press
briefing in Beijing.
According to china.org.cn, China's state Web site, the Tibetan leader said
that allies of the exiled Dalai Lama on March 14 "engaged in reckless
beating, looting, smashing and burning and their activities soon spread to
other parts of the city. These people focused on street-side shops, primary
and middle schools, hospitals, banks, power and communications facilities
and media organizations. They set fire to passing vehicles, they chased
after and beat passengers on the street, and they launched assaults on
shops, telecommunication service outlets and government buildings. Their
behavior has caused severe damage to the life and property of local people,
and seriously undermined law and order in Lhasa.
"'Thirteen innocent civilians were burned or stabbed to death in the riot
in Lhasa on March 14, and 61 police were injured, six of them seriously
wounded,' said Qiangba Puncog.
"Statistics also show that rioters set fire to more than 300 locations,
including residential houses and 214 shops, and smashed and burned 56
vehicles. ...
"Qiangba Puncog also claimed that security personnel did not carry or use
any lethal weapons in dealing with the riot last Friday. ...
"The violence was the result of a conspiracy between domestic and overseas
groups that advocate 'Tibet independence,' according to Qiangba Puncog.
'The Dalai clique masterminded, planned and carefully organized the riot.'
"According to Qiangba Puncog, on March 10, 49 years ago, the slave owners
of old Tibet launched an armed rebellion aimed at splitting the country.
That rebellion was quickly quelled. Every year since 1959, some separatists
inside and outside China have held activities around the day of the
rebellion. ...
"Any secessionist attempt to sabotage Tibet's stability will not gain
people's support and is doomed to fail, he said."
Meeting in New Delhi
Whatever is taking place in Tibet has long been in preparation. A
conference was held in New Delhi, India, last June by "Friends of Tibet."
It was described as a conference for the breakaway of Tibet.
The news site phayul.com reported at the time that the conference was told
"how the Olympics could provide the one chance for Tibetans to come out and
protest." A call was issued for worldwide protests, a march of exiles from
India to Tibet, and protests within Tibet--all tied to the upcoming Beijing
Olympics.
This was followed by a call this past January for an "uprising" in Tibet,
issued by organizations based in India. The news report from Jan. 25 said
that the "Tibetan People's Uprising Movement" was established Jan. 4 to
focus on the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The beginning date for the "uprising"
was to be March 10.
At the time the call was issued, U.S. Ambassador to India David Mulford was
meeting with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. U.S. Undersecretary of
State Paula Dobriansky made a similar visit to Dharamsala last November.
Dobriansky is also a member of the neocon Project for a New American
Century. She has been involved in the so-called color revolutions in
Eastern Europe.
Phayul.com reports that the Tibet "Uprising" group's statement says they
are acting "in the spirit of the 1959 Uprising."
The 1959 uprising
Knowing more about the 1959 "uprising" might help in understanding today's
events in Tibet.
In 2002 a book titled "The CIA's Secret War in Tibet" was published by the
University Press of Kansas. The two authors--Kenneth Conboy of the Heritage
Foundation and James Morrison, an Army veteran trainer for the CIA--proudly
detail how the CIA set up and ran Tibet's so-called resistance movement.
The Dalai Lama himself was on the CIA payroll and approved the CIA's plans
for the armed uprising.
The CIA put the Dalai Lama's brother, Gyalo Thodup, in charge of the bloody
1959 armed attack. A contra army was trained by the CIA in Colorado and
then dropped by U.S. Air Force planes into Tibet.
The 1959 attack was a CIA planned and organized coup attempt, much like the
later Bay of Pigs invasion of socialist Cuba. The purpose was to overthrow
the existing Tibetan government and weaken the Chinese Revolution while
tying the people of Tibet to U.S. imperialist interests. What does that say
about today's March uprising, that's done in the same spirit?
March 21, 2008
I'M OFF
I’ll be away for some days.
So if you see I don’t answer to messages, notes and
bulletins you know what’s goin’ on.
Hope Pallukka will take care of Gods, Puppies, Puppies
of the puppies and of the beast while I’ll be away.
I wanted to write something inspirational but…blab la bla….
So Goodbye My Dears, See You Soon.
Don’t send me “happy easter” messages because I don’t
believe in them.
Love, Tessa.
March 19, 2008
CHILDHOOD MEMORIES
As if the Israelis well practiced the devices and techniques to kill the hope inside us the Palestinians, the last operation in Gaza, proves that the killing machine of the Israelis is now created to put more pain and bitterness on the people of Gaza by targeting their small tiny buds, the innocent children, from infants up to toddlers, to even teenagers, and the only reason is that they are Palestinians.
I still can not erase the images that stuck on my mind of the killed children of Dardouna family who were playing football in their house yard in Jabalia, like an addicted I was searching for the story details, as if the images with all its sorrow, grieve, and bloody color was not enough for me, "I was playing with my cousins" said Yehya" suddenly we were targeted, Ahmed’s head was far away from his body, I did not feel my legs, I was screaming as well as the other kids, we were not kids anymore" "I saw parts of my cousins bodies flies around me" the boy continued. Unlike other fathers who mourn the death of their children, Ali’s father can not show his grieve nor can he cries the death of his 8 years child, the father is deaf and dumb, all what left to him is a piece of his son cloth covered with blood that he holds tightly.
Anas Attalah, was the dessert for a one year marriage, his house received a missile from an F16, the boy lost his father, two aunts, both grandparents and the mother was injured, he was thrown away meters from his house, a three weeks old baby. I still remember how tiny, peaceful, dreamful they are in this age. "Nothing kept for Anas to remember his father, every thing was burned" the mother said "I just want to ask what did my three weeks baby did the Israelis, he is just a helpless baby". Anas is still in the hospital and doctors can not determine the size of damage that will affect Anas and his body for all of his life!!!!!!
Mohamed Al Buri five months old, was the light that added to his parents lives after five years of their attempts to have a child, their small house was full of toys even that needs years so the boy can play with, all were left covered with dust and questions, "why my son was killed, he was peacefully sleeping in his cradle, I only have the chance to hold him for five months, I was counting the days when he can say mother" the grieved mother said.
"The Israelis don’t think that I have suffered enough during the pregnancy and delivery time" "they wanted to put more sufferings and pain on me" said Amira’s mother, the 19 days old baby killed by shrapnel that hits her head in Khanyounis "I was holding her in my arms when the Israeli soldiers started to shoot at me, a bullet hit into my shoulder, they left me bleeding for three hours, I though my baby was sleeping in my arms" " I only knew a day after when I wake up at the hospital and asked to see her"
Unforgotten moments that were longer that the nine months of pregnancy, longer than the delivery pain, and longer than the 19 days of my daughter age!!!
These images are the last but not least, the circle of targeting what brought us happiness, hope and joy will continue, form Mohamed El Durra, to huda Ghalyia, to many other stories about children who are not children any more, and who are sentenced to death even before they are given the chance to grow up and to be what they are meant to be.
-###-
March 18, 2008 By Najwa Sheikh in Gaza
March 7, 2008
The right to equate Gaza with Auschwitz
Gilad Atzmon - Freedom of Speech: the right to equate Gaza with Auschwitz
(A talk
given on the First of March 2008 at Invitation to Learn’s weekend retreat) At the left, "Innocent"
by Ben Heine
“They (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust
because we will use all our might to defend ourselves” (Matan
Vilnai, Israeli Deputy Defence Minister, 29 February 2008)
It is clear beyond any doubt that the Israeli Deputy Defence Minister was far
from being reluctant to equate Israel with Nazi Germany when revealing the
genocidal future awaiting the Palestinian people, yet, for some reason, this is
precisely what Western media outlets refrain from doing. In spite of the facts
that are right in front of our eyes, in spite of the starvation in Gaza, in
spite of an Israeli official admitting genocidal inclinations against the
Palestinians, in spite of the mounting carnage and death, we are still afraid
to admit that Gaza is a concentration camp and it is on the verge of becoming a
deadly one. For some peculiar reason, many of us have yet to accept that as far
as evil is concerned, Israel is the world champion in mercilessness and
vengeance.
Liberty and Authority
In his invaluable text On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argued that struggle always
takes place between the competing demands of liberty and authority. In other
words, freedom and hegemony are set to battle each other. However, Western
egalitarian liberal ideology is there to introduce a political alternative. It
is there to nourish the myth that ‘authority’ and ‘freedom’ could be seen as
two sides of the same coin.
Today, I will try to elaborate on the structural dynamic of liberal discourse
and the different elements that are involved in maintaining the false image of
‘freedom’, ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘freedom of thought’. I will try to argue
that it is our alleged ‘freedom’ that actually stops us from thinking freely
and ethically. As you may notice I said ‘false image of freedom’ because I am
totally convinced that, as far as Liberal discourse is concerned, freedom is
nothing more than a mere image. In practice, there is no such a thing. The
image of ‘freedom’ is there to fuel and maintain our righteous self-loving
discourse so we can keep sending our soldiers to kill millions in the name of
‘democracy’.
Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Thought
I would like to introduce this with an elaboration of the distinction
between ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘freedom of thought’.
Freedom of speech can be realised as one’s liberty to expresses one's
own thoughts.
Bearing in mind that humans are expressive creatures, there is no easy policing
method to guarantee the silencing of the dissident voice. Since speaking is
inherent to human nature, any exercise of litigation to do with the curtailing
of such an elementary right is rather complicated: You ban one’s books? One
would then spread leaflets in the streets. You confiscate one’s flyers? One
would then agitate over the net. You cut one’s power, confiscate one’s
computer? One may start to shout one’s head off. You chop off one’s tongue? One
would then nod in approval when others are repeating one’s manifesto. You are
then left with no other option but chopping one’s head off, but even then, all you
do is make one into a martyr.
Two available methods are used by liberals to silence the dissident:
a. prohibition (financial penalty and imprisonment);
b. social exclusion.
However, it is crucial to mention that within the so-called liberal discourse,
any attempt to ban an idea or a dissident voice is counter-effective, if
anything it reflects badly on the liberal authority and the system. This is why
liberals try to facilitate some rather sophisticated methods of censorship and
thought policing that would involve very little authoritarian intervention. As
we will see soon, in liberal society, censorship and thought policing is mostly
self-imposed.
As much as it is difficult to curtail freedom of speech, suppressing freedom of
thought is almost impossible.
Freedom of thought could be realised as the liberty to think, to feel, to
dream, to remember, to forget, to forgive, to love and to hate.
As difficult as it may be to impose thought on others, it is almost unfeasible
to stop people from seeing the truth for themselves. Yet, there are some
methods to suppress and restrain intuitive thinking and ethical insight. I am
obviously referring here to guilt.
Guilt, inflicted mostly via a set of axioms conveyed as ‘political
correctness’, is the most effective method to keep society or any given
discourse in a state of ‘self-policing’. It turns the so-called autonomous
liberal subject into a subservient, self-moderated, obedient citizen. Yet, the
authority is spared from making any intervention. It is the liberal subject who
curtails oneself from accepting a set of fixed ideas that support the
egalitarian image of freedom and ecumenical society.
However, at this point I see the necessity to suggest that in spite of the
liberal claim for peace seeking, liberal societies in general and the
Anglo-American ones in particular are currently involved in crimes against
humanity on a genocidal scale. Consequently, the more horrid the West is
becoming, the greater is the gap between ‘freedom of thought’ and ‘freedom of
speech’.
This gap can easily evolve into a cognitive dissonance that in many cases
mature into some severe form of apathy. It is said that ‘all it takes for evil
to flourish is for good people to do nothing’. This summarizes perfectly well
the apathetic negligence of the Western masses. Not many care much about the
genocide in Iraq that is committed in our name or the mass murder in Palestine
that is committed with the support of our governments. Why are we apathetic?
Because when we want to stand up and say what we feel, when we want to
celebrate our alleged freedom and to equate Gaza with Auschwitz, or Baghdad
with Dresden, something inside us stops us from doing so. It is not the
Government, legislation or any other form of authority, it is rather a small
and highly effective self-inflicted ‘guilt microchip’ acting as policing
regulator in the name of ‘political correctness’.
I will now try to follow the historical and philosophical evolution that leads
us from the liberal-egalitarian-utopia to the current ethical and intellectual
self-castration disaster.
The Harm Principle
John Stuart Mill, the founder of modern liberal thinking, tells us that any
doctrine should be allowed the light of day no matter how immoral it may seem
to everyone else. This is obviously the ultimate expression of liberal
thinking. It ascribes absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all
subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, ethical, political, religious
or theological.
Though Mill endorsed the fullest form of liberty of expression, he suggested a
limitation attached to freedom set by the prevention of ‘harm to others’. It is
obviously very difficult to defend freedom of speech once it leads to the
invasion of the rights of others. The question to ask is therefore, “what types
of speech may cause harm?” Mill distinguishes between legitimate and
illegitimate harm. According to Mill, only when speech causes a direct and
clear violation of rights, can it be limited. But then, what kind of speech may
cause such violation?
Feminists, for instance, have been maintaining that pornography degrades,
endangers, and harms the lives of women. Another difficult case is hate speech.
Most European liberal democracies have limitations on hate speech. Yet, it is
debatable whether a ban of pornography or hate speech can be supported by the
harm principle as articulated by Mill. One would obviously have to prove that
such speech or imagery violates rights, directly and in the first instance.
Consequently, Mill’s harm principle is criticised for being too narrow as well
as too broad. It is too narrow for failing to defend the right of the marginal.
It is too broad because when interpreted extensively, it may lead to a
potential abolishment of almost every political, religious or socially
orientated speech.
The Offence Principle and Free Speech
Bearing in mind the shortcomings of the ‘harm principle’, it didn’t take
long before an ‘offence principle’ had been called into play. The offence
principle can be articulated as follows:
‘One’s freedom of expression should not be interfered with unless it causes
an offence to others.’
The basic reasoning behind the ‘offence principle’ is trivial. It is there
to defend the rights of the marginal and the weak. It is there to amend the
hole created by the far-too-broad harm principle.
The offence principle is obviously pretty effective in curtailing pornography
and hate speech. As in the case of violent pornography, strictly speaking, the
offence that is caused by a Nazi march through a Jewish neighbourhood cannot be
avoided and must be addressed.
However, the offence principle can be criticized for setting the bar far too
low. Theoretically speaking, everyone can be ‘offended’ by anything.
The Jewish Lobbies and the Liberal Discourse
There is no doubt that the vast utilization of the offence principle ascribes a
lot of political power to some marginal lobbies in general and Jewish lobbies
in particular. Counting on the premise of the ‘offence principle’, Jewish
nationalist ethnic activists claim to be offended by any form of criticism of
the Jewish state and Zionism. But in fact it goes further, in practice it isn’t
just criticism of Zionism and Israel which we are asked to avoid. Jewish
leftists insist that we must avoid any discussion having to do with the Jewish
national project, Jewish identity and even Jewish history. In short, with the
vast support of the offence principle, Jewish ethnic leaders both on the left
and right have succeeded in demolishing the possibility of any criticism of Jewish
identity and politics. Employing the offence principle, Jewish lobbies right,
left and centre, have managed to practically silence any possible criticism of
Israel and its crimes against the Palestinians. More worryingly, Jewish leftist
political activists and intellectuals outrageously demand to avoid any
criticism of the Jewish Lobby in the USA and in Britain.
As we can see, the ‘offence Principle’ regulates and even serves some notorious
Zionist as well as Jewish leftist political lobbies at the heart of the
so-called liberal democratic West. In practice we are terrorized into
submission by a group of gatekeepers who limit our freedom via an elastic
dynamic operator that is there to suppress our thoughts before they mature into
an ethical insight. Manipulation set by political correctness is the nourishing
ground of our shattering cognitive dissonance. This is exactly where freedom of
expression doesn’t agree with freedom of the thought.
Auschwitz Versus Gaza in the light of Political Correctness
We tend to agree that marginal discourses should be protected by the
offence principle, so the marginal subject maintains his unique voice. We
obviously agree also that such an approach must be applicable to the manifold
of Jewish marginal discourses (religious, nationalist, Trotskyite, etc.).
Seemingly, Jewish political lobbies want far more than just that, they insist
upon delegitmising any intellectual reference to current Jewish political
lobbying and global Zionism. As if this is not enough, any reference to modern
Jewish history is prohibited unless kosherly approved by a ‘Zionist’
authority. As bizarre as it may be, the Jewish Holocaust has now been
intellectually set as a meta-historical event. It is an event in the past that
won’t allow any historical, ideological, theological or sociological scrutiny.
Bearing in mind the offence principle, Jews are entitled to argue that any form
of speculation regarding their past suffering is “offensive and hurtful”. Yet,
one may demand some explanations. How is it that historical research that may
lead to some different visions of past events that occurred six and a half
decades ago offends those who live amongst us today? Clearly, it is not an easy
task to suggest a rational answer to such a query.
Plainly, historical research shouldn’t cause harm or an offence to the
contemporary Jew or any other human subject around. Unless of course, the
Holocaust itself is utilized against the Palestinians or those who are accused
as being the ‘enemies of Israel’. As we learn from Matan Vilnai recently, the
Jewish State wouldn’t refrain from bringing a Shoah on the Palestinian
people. The Israelis and their supporters do not stop themselves from putting
the holocaust into rhetorical usage. Yet, the Jewish lobbies around the world
would do their very best to stop the rest of us from grasping what Shoah
may mean. They would use their ultimate powers to stop us from utilizing the
holocaust as a critical tool of Israeli barbarism.
As one may predict by now, in order to censor historical research into Jewish
history and a further understanding of current Israeli evil, political
correctness is called into play. Political correctness is there to stop us from
seeing and expressing the obvious. Political correctness is there to stop us realising
that truth and historical truth in particular is an elastic notion. Yet, you
may wonder what exactly political correctness is.
Political correctness, for those who failed to understand it, is basically a
political stand that doesn’t allow political criticism. Political correctness
is a stand that cannot be fully justified in rational, philosophical or
political terms. It is implanted as a set of axioms at the heart of the liberal
discourse. It operates as a self -imposed silencing regulator powered by
self-inflicted guilt.
Political correctness is in fact the crudest assault on freedom of speech,
freedom of thought and human liberty, yet, manipulatively, it conveys itself as
the ultimate embodiment of freedom.
Hence, I would argue as forcefully as I can that political correctness is the
bitterest enemy of human liberty and those who regulate those social axioms and
plant them in our discourse are the gravest enemies of humanity.
I would argue as forcefully as I can that since the Palestinians are facing
Nazi-like State terrorism, the holocaust narrative and its meaning belongs to
them at least as much as it belongs to the Jews or anyone else.
I would argue as forcefully as I can that if the Palestinians are indeed the
last victims of Hitler, then the holocaust and its meaning do belong to them
more than anyone else.
Bearing all that in mind, equating Gaza with Auschwitz is the right and only
way forwards. Questioning the holocaust and its meaning is what liberation of
humanity means today and in the near future.
March 5, 2008
The Day the Earth and Sky Changed Places
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By Jennifer Loewenstein When the blast occurred that took out the Interior Ministry building across the street, there was no time to think about what to do. M flew into his children’s bedroom and threw himself over the sleeping body of his son, Basel , to shield the young boy’s body from the glass shattering in the windows beside his bed. Then after a matter of seconds the three young children, two girls and the boy, were taken to the windowless kitchen, all of them now fully awake and crying out in terror. M threw blankets and pillows around them where they huddled for the night in restless sleep and dreams of horror, their mother sobbing silently over them as she caressed their faces. M returned to the children’s room in time for the second deafening blast that made him put up his arms instinctively. When he let them down and looked out into the night sky, it was all brown, the earth from underneath the destroyed buildings was swirling around outside the bedroom windows and he could see nothing but flying debris, smoke and a wall of dirt. For some time he could not hear well. In the morning, no one went outside. “This is a black day in Gaza,” M wrote; “a holocaust” as (Israeli deputy defense minister Matan) Vilnai put it. There is an attack every five or ten minutes. It keeps our nerves on edge and our senses strained. There is so much rage at what is happening; especially the scenes of murdered children and babies. I am so busy I don’t know how to describe my feelings. I work to avoid feeling because right now that’s too unbearable. Watch as A, a Hamas soldier, runs for his life into his house. His pursuers miss shooting him so they launch three rockets into the house on the edge of Jabalya camp killing everyone inside (four family members). They are angry now so every house in the way gets the same treatment and without the ‘militant’ to guide their next moves: rockets fired into the interiors of homes with no knowledge of who is inside. Eye-witnesses report this and worse: a six month old baby girl becomes tiny body parts with her mother and brother. A small child is cut apart by shrapnel and screams that she doesn’t want to die just before leaving this world. The mothers and fathers cannot protect them so they weep and scream at the funerals that this side of the world never views, especially during basketball season. Who really cares about these children? Every Palestinian is a militant because everyone (sooner or later) wants Israel off their land, out of their lives, and forgotten like a horrible dream. It is for this reason that they are all equal targets: none of them is intelligent enough to understand that their land isn’t their land, their lives are not their lives, and their horrible dream is their present and future. Have no pity on those who don’t get it. The night strikes from F-16s and helicopter missiles continued throughout the day on Friday the 29th and into the first weekend in March, unceasing in their ferocity and indiscriminate killing revenge for the death early last week of an Israeli student at Sapir College outside Sderot. For every one Israeli life, scores of Palestinians must die. God help us now that two Israeli soldiers have been killed fighting on occupied land, against unwilling slaves; killing innocent people to maintain a 60-year-old injustice. Brace yourself, Gaza. You will pay dearly for the continuation of this crime. Let us not reflect too much on what all this means. How, for example, would the 47-year-old Sapir College student like to know that his death has been far more useful to his State than his life? For in death he provided another pretext to carry out mass murder of the Arab Untermenschen blocking the otherwise pleasant view to the sea in the southeastern Promised Land. His death challenged the Israeli rules of combat: the ‘We kill and You Die’ warfare, the only type allowed by the Zionist masters and their allies in the United States who have no intention of making a just peace with the lower forms of life in their midst. The sanctimonious demand that the Qassams must be stopped is a deliberate lie intended to make you forget that the Qassams provide a near fool-proof pretext for grabbing more of Gaza and setting more of it to ruin; and that the Qassams are the result of systematic national torture and evisceration, borne themselves of occupation, caused by it, improved upon by periods of siege, sadism and mass killing. Peace would require relinquishing regional hegemony. Peace would demand sharing the land and the resources equally. Peace might, heaven forbid, require democratic decision making in a region where the Israelis are not better, more entitled, more deserving of Their Way than everyone else in the neighborhood. Well, sorry, but these are not on Israel’s agenda. The leaders of the hapless Sderot student’s racially pure dreamland are grateful for his dying: Now the angry flames of intolerance can burn on feverishly. Into those flames the bodies of each dead Gazan man, woman or child should be flung, like books, to consecrate the ritual, the burnt offering, of those who owe the latter-day Israelites their Modern Day Zion. In Holy Victimhood shall We Reign Supreme. Surely this would satisfy Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit who bellowed that if it were up to him, Israeli soldiers going into Gaza should shoot ‘everything that moves’ like babies and toddlers, grandfathers and mothers, orange trees and wasted-away donkeys pulling cartloads of rotten vegetables; like flowers and seabirds, chickens and goats, rats and cockroaches. A scorched-earth policy will suffice. They’ll create their apocalyptic wilderness and will call it peace. No one needed Sheetrit to legitimize the strategy of creating oblivion from hell. Untermenschen who can be denied food, water, fuel, electricity, medical supplies, the right to leave and return home, the right to not to die in an ambulance that without the proper permits, the right to their own land and their own nationhood precisely because they are lesser human beings can also be picked off one by one or in groups or in families or because they are ‘militant’ or all of the above, who deserve no fair hearing, due process, photographs, names, headlines, stories, grief or televised tear-jerker funerals to commemorate their sacrifices. In such a world contexts are an insult to the intelligence of the policy-makers. Plea after plea from human rights organizations, legal organizations, religious charities and leaders, children’s welfare organizations, medical aid projects, refugee relief societies, international humanitarian agencies, celebrities, parliamentarians, foreign policy analysts and countless others go not only unheeded but unread, unheard, a waste of one’s time. Is there a reason why the carnage in Gaza is continuing before our very eyes and no State or Non-state actor strong enough to make a difference is bothering to step in? The shame is ours, for Israel and its US Master have long since resided in the lowest circle of Hell for betraying the name of humanity. -Jennifer Loewenstein is the Associate Director of the Middle East Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a freelance journalist and human rights activist. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. She can be reached at amadea311@earthlink.net | |||||
March 3, 2008
Welcome To The Blind/Deaf Freedom Of Press
Gaza Holocaust in ‘Free’ Media
Sabbah's blog
March 2, 2008
It is disgusting. Hardly anything was mentioned in the "free-press" of the democratic Western. In fact the coverage in some cases equals to partner-in-crime.
Here is some examples (click on thumbnail to enlarge. Highlights in blue):
USA media - newspapers:
New York Times: Not a single word!
LA Times: Not a single word!
USA media - online news:
New York Times: Under "More News" a very small line: "Israel Takes Gaza Fight to Next Level in a Day of Strikes"
The Washington Post: Hardly seen one line, "60 Gazans Killed in Incursion By Israeli Forces"
CNN: "Israeli airstrike hits Hamas premier office."
Not mentioning the civilian house, babes, children and civilians killed. Misleading the mass that Israel is attacking Hamas only. Nothing new!
LA Times: Hardly seen five words (marked in blue), "Israel launches offensive info Gaza."
Fox news: "54 killed in attack on Militant."
Doh… they have a discount on the numbers (at the time of their report, more than78 were killed).
At least two dozen Palestinian civilians, including a baby, were among those killed, and militants said 25 fighters died. Health officials said about 200 people were wounded, 14 of them critically.
Although more than 1/3 of the 78 killed were babies and children, Fox says only ONE baby was killed!!!
UK media - online:
BBC website:
Second headline from left (marked in blue): "UN Chief condemns Gaza violence."
Violence ha? No mention of babies, children and civilians killed!!!
UK - Newspapers:
The Daily Telegraph: Nota a single word!
The Guardian: Not a single word!
The Herald: Not a single word!
IHT: very small paragraph on the left side of the frontpage.
Germany - online news:
Spiegel: Hardly seen line at the bottom of the website
Welcome to the blind/deaf world of "human rights" and "freedom of press"!!!
March 2, 2008
60 Gazans Killed in Incursion By Israel
60 Gazans Killed in
Incursion By Israel
Operation
Follows Use of Longer-Range Rockets by Hamas
By Griff Witte
Sunday, March 2, 2008; Page A01
JERUSALEM, March 1 -- The
Israeli military launched a major operation against Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing 60 people --
about half of them civilians -- and sending in a large contingent of ground
troops to stop rockets streaming daily out of the territory into southern Israel.
The violence, which also
resulted in the deaths of two Israeli soldiers, imperiled an already fragile
peace process just days before U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to arrive to try to
jump-start the flagging talks. Both sides indicated Saturday that the
intensified conflict could cause the negotiations to collapse. That would mark
a heavy blow for the Bush administration, which has made Middle East peace a top priority for its final
year.
The fighting Saturday was
the worst yet following a significant escalation Wednesday. In the four days
since an Israeli missile destroyed a van carrying five Hamas members suspected
of plotting an attack inside
Palestinian leaders called
on the international community to step in to force
"It is beyond
comprehension," said Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki. "What
they are doing is pushing people beyond their limits. They are creating a very
strong reaction among the people, so the people will become more desperate and
hard-line.
Israeli officials have
warned that there will be more to come and that operations may intensify, as
long as Hamas continues to fire its rockets. Israeli officials say they are
especially concerned that Iranian-made rockets began landing in Ashkelon in the past week. The coastal city has a
population of 120,000, and with its center about six miles north of
"This escalation is
very dangerous," said Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "You can't overstate the
importance of the shooting on
Regev said the peace
negotiations had been "eclipsed" by the violence and called it
"a difficult weekend for
In
The most intense fighting
raged in a densely populated area east of the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. An
Israeli security official said Saturday night that "a big Israeli
force" had entered the area Friday and was waging "a wide ground
operation." The official would not disclose the number of troops involved.
But it was believed to be the largest incursion of Israeli forces into
Early Sunday, an Israeli
airstrike destroyed the office of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, although he was not there. He has
been in hiding for weeks.
The Israeli raids Saturday
began at
Television footage showed
desperate scenes at the hospitals, with doctors frantically treating incoming
patients and women wailing over dead children. In the streets, ambulances
whizzed by the remains of buildings that had been blown apart.
Tariq Dardona,
The family could not take
him to a hospital because it was too dangerous to leave the house, and no
ambulance would come near for fear of being fired on, he said. "They are
shooting every single minute," he said. "Whenever an ambulance comes
close, they shoot and it goes away." Dardona said four children in the
house were injured.
David Baker, an Israeli government spokesman,
blamed Hamas for the civilian casualties, saying, "Palestinian terrorists
are hiding behind their civilians."
Israeli defense officials
said they had targeted the area east of the refugee camp because it was one of
the primary areas for launching rocket strikes into
Hamas, a radical Islamic
movement that has a military wing and a network of social services, has not
participated in the peace process and has sharply increased the volume of
rocket fire from
Israeli politicians have
been hinting for weeks that there would be a major invasion of
Hamas and other Palestinian
leaders sharply criticized Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday for continuing the
negotiations while Israeli troops were killing civilians in
"Nothing is moving in
the talks," said Mustafa Barghouti, an independent Palestinian politician.
"They are just a cover for this terrible massacre in
Special correspondents
Islam Abdulkarim and Reyham Abdulkarim in
Jews and the GAZA HOLOCAUST
Khalid
Amayreh - Jews and the GAZA
In June,
Similarly, in March 1944, thirty-three German soldiers were killed when members
of an Italian resistance group set off a bomb close to a column of German
troops who were marching on via Rasella in
Numerous other ‘pacification operations’ were carried out by the Nazi armies
against civilians throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, in which men, women and
children were brutally killed to avenge the death of German occupation soldiers
by local resistance fighters.
Now what is the difference between these Nazi atrocities and what
In addition, when the number of victims, especially innocent victims, as in
In the final analysis, murdering knowingly
is murdering deliberately, regardless of the prevarication and the verbal
juggling.
Hence, Jews around the world, especially those who support Israel, should be
willing to bring themselves to recognizing that what their wonderful state is
doing to these helpless Palestinians is a virtual holocaust or at least a
holocaust in the making.
How else can any honest person relate to these phantasmagoric images that keep
coming from
True,
If Jews who support this satanic entity are not willing to call the spade a
spade and recognize a holocaust as a holocaust, then they should be viewed as
active accomplices in this wanton rampage of murder and terror.
This is not a war. Calling the current Israeli onslaught on
What is happening in
Indeed, when
It is conscionable that honest people around the world, including many
conscientious Jews who can’t bear watching the heinous crimes
Vilnai
Now, once again, human decency is being affronted and insulted by this reptile
terrorist
Speaking to the Israeli army radio Friday morning, 29 February, Vilnai
said “the more Qassam rockets fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer
range, the Palestinians will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because
we will use all our power to defend ourselves.”
Well, if
I think Jews should realize that this criminal state, with its manifestly
intransigence and bellicosity, is forcing them to make a moral judgment. In the
face of evil, and
Today, people around the world, including millions of Jews, are watching the
pornographic slaughter in
Finally, the people of the world will not be duped by the propagandistic lies
about so-called rocket attacks on Israeli towns, which are meant first and
foremost to create an artificial equation between the wanton extermination of
Gazans and the mainly psychological discomfort experienced by some Israeli
citizens as a result of the fall of these nearly innocuous fire-crackers, fired
by some desperate Gazans in order to deter Israel from killing more of their
children.
This is because Israel knows very well how calm and peace can be restored for both
the people of Gaza and Israelis across the border: Lift the criminal siege on
Gaza, allow Gazans to access food and to travel, allow them to export and
import, and stop these daily massacres. And then not a single Qassam will be
fired onto
Israeli Holocaust against Palestinians continues: 27 massacred today
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Israeli Holocaust against Palestinians continues: 27 massacred today
Heavy missiles, rockets, bombs, Apaches, F16 planes are being used against the innocent Palestinians. Gaza Strip, 1st, March 2008, (PCAS) - The last few hours witnessed a very dangerous stage in the Israeli war of Holocaust against Palestinians. On the early hours of today, Saturday, 27 children and freedom fighters have been killed by the new Nazis.
Vice Israeli defence (War) minister, Matan Vina, threatened of new Holocaust in the Gaza Strip. The call was quickly implemented on the ground as conveys of tanks invaded the northern-eastern area of Gaza Strip.
A Salya family which is comprised of 7 members was bombed by Nazis' Helicopter (American Apache) leaving 1 woman and 1 child dead. They were exposed to an air raid while having their breakfast!
About 27 freedom fighters and civilians have been killed by Israel - a father and his son, as well as two children - during an Israel Holocaust ground incursion in the northern Gaza Strip town of Jabaliya before dawn Saturday.
Two of the dead Palestinian children have been identified as Jacqueline Abu-Shbak, 12, and her brother Iyad Abu-Shbak.
Iyad ashram, 26 years old
Musbih abu Ali, 22 years old
Basam ubaid, 45 years old
His son, 15 years old
Hamza Al jamal, 40 years old
Iyad abu shbak, 14 years old
Abdalah abd rabu, 40 years old
An Israeli air strike on the Al-Farta neighborhood of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday afternoon left four Palestinians injured.
Muawiya Hassanain, the director of ambulance and emergency services in the Palestinian health ministry said that Beit Hanoun hospital received four people with shrapnel injuries caused by an Israeli missile.
This round of Israeli war against Palestinians came after Palestinian freedom fighters stopped firing some old home-made rockets. These rockets killed 1 Israeli only, while Israel retaliated and killed 57 persons!
In less than 3 days, the Israeli war of Holocaust killed 57 Palestinians and injured 250 most of them Children including 3 babies. The Israeli-Nazi holocaust comes in time of siege imposed in Gaza Strip.
Heavy missiles, rockets, bombs, Apaches, F16 planes are being used against the innocent Palestinians.
Israeli Airstrike in Gaza Destroys Medical Relief Head Office, Kills Baby
Israeli Airstrike in Gaza Destroys Medical Relief Head Office, Kills Baby
Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS)
 |
February 28, 2008 Ramallah, 28/02/2008. An Israeli airstrike aimed at the ministry of interior building in Gaza City also destroyed the nearby Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) head office in Gaza and killed a 5-month-old baby in a residential building in the same area.
The PMRS head office was housing the main PMRS clinic in the Gaza Strip, the main pharmacy, an ambulance, a loan centre for equipment for handicapped people and all the administrative offices. The ambulance, all the medicine and most of the equipment have been destroyed. The building itself is badly damaged and cannot be used again without extensive repairs. The attack also hit a nearby residential building, killing Mohammad Nasser Al-Borey, 5 months, in his family home. Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP, president of PMRS, declared "the collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza has reached unbearable levels. This latest attack destroyed a key part of the already badly hit Gazan health system. Israel has lost all sense of humanity, and the silence of the international community enables its murderous escalation against a people imprisoned in a giant jail. These relentless violations of international law must be put to an end. It is a war crime under the Geneva Convention to target medical personnel. Regional organisations and individual States have to take actions to protect the Palestinian people from Israel. This must stop, now". Dr. Abdel Hadi Abu Khussa, director of PMRS in the Gaza Strip, declared that "the destruction of the main clinic, pharmacy, office and one ambulance are a terrible blow to PMRS activities and will increase the suffering of the people of Gaza. We are victims of Israeli collective punishment".
Background: PMRS’ Work in the Gaza StripPMRS is one of the largest non-governmental health service providers in Palestine, reaching 1.4 million Palestinians in over 490 cities, towns and villages in 2007. This was achieved through the extensive physical and human network built in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the 29 years since PMRS was established. In Gaza, PMRS maintains four primary healthcare centres, two ambulances and two mobile clinics as well as an effective program to help people with disabilities, especially children. PMRS also runs an Individual Relief program for patients in need and a centre providing physiotherapy and assistive equipment to the disabled. In response to the complete Israeli blockade of Gaza since January 2008, PMRS had declared a status of emergency and was stepping up its emergency program to support the needs of the people of Gaza.
Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) – www.pmrs.ps – fax 00972 2 296 99 91 – phone 00972 5 99 |
Link: www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article318
Israeli Massive Attacks Open War Against Gaza Strip
Israeli Massive Attacks Open War Against Gaza Strip
Hiyam Noir, PalestineFreeVoice
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