I do what I want - You do what you're told

Systemic destruction of lives and infrastructure was not an unintended consequence

By Aditya Ganapathiraju

Why are people on Gaza so unhappy? Well, if you had to live in a prison, wouldn't you be unhappy?— Former CIA officer Robert Baer

It’s the most terrifying place I’ve ever been in… it’s a horrifyingly sad place because of the desperation and misery of the way people live. I was unprepared for camps that are much worse than anything I saw in South Africa.– Professor Edward Said 1993

They may be living but they're not alive. – Journalist Philip Rizk

The situation on the ground in Gaza has continued to deteriorate since January. One of the most densely populated areas in the world, this small coastal strip is home to a million and a half Palestinians, many of them refugees for over 60…

Memo From the Wretched: Enough About Nonviolence

by Steven Salaita

 

September 9, 2009

No people has been the recipient of more unsolicited advice than the Palestinians. The exemplars of barbarity to neoconservatives and the subjects of anguished progressive reprimands, the Palestinians often serve as a pretext for blowhards of all political affiliations to dust off their soapboxes. A particularly egregious form of sermonizing to which the Palestinians are subject is the admonition that they undertake nonviolent modes of resistance. I would like to argue that this sort of…

ISRAEL ATTACKS JUSTICE BOAT; KIDNAPS HUMAN RIGHTS WORKERS; CONFISCATES MEDICINE, TOYS AND OLIVE TREES
 
For more information contact:
Greta Berlin (English)
tel: +357 99 081 767 / friends@freegaza.org

Caoimhe Butterly (Arabic/English/Spanish):

tel: +357 99 077 820 / sahara78@hotmail.co.uk
www.FreeGaza.org

[23 miles off the coast of Gaza, 15:30pm] - Today Israeli Occupation Forces attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries, including Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (see below for a complete list of passengers). The passengers and crew are being forcibly dragged toward Israel.

“This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip,” said Cynthia McKinney, a former U.S. Congresswoman and presidential candidate. “President Obama just told Israel to…

Netanyahu's "brilliant" peace plan

Hasan Abu Nimah and Ali Abunimah

 

17 June 2009

The Har Homa settlement in the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu defied calls for a halt to settlement expansion in his speech on Monday. (ActiveStills)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a peace plan so ingenious it is a wonder that for six decades of bloodshed no one thought of it. Some…

With the lack of medical services in Gaza, critically ill patients must travel into Israel for treatment. Many are asked to collaborate with Israeli intelligence services before they receive aid. It has been alleged that if they refuse to become informers they are refused medical treatment. Inigo Gilmore reports http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video...

As part of their racist campaign against the indigenous Palestinians, Israeli lawmakers are now insisting upon making the commemoration of the Nakba illegal. Recently a number of Israeli cabinet and Knesset Members proposed a "draft law" that would criminalize the remembrance of 1948 Palestinian holocaust (Nakba) by Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship. Interestingly enough, the Jewish state that sets its raison d'être around the remembrance of Jewish suffering is attempting to ban Palestinians from doing exactly the same with their own.

 

As we know, Israel had wiped out every possible remnant of Palestinian existence on the ground.  Palestinian villages, towns, orchards, fields and cultural assets had been erased soon after 1948. Currently, the Israeli lawmakers are taking the war against the Palestinian heritage one step further. It is not just a physical expulsion and erasure of facts on the ground, it is not just racially motivated ethnic cleansing, starvation, land confiscation, house demolition, bombing schools or spreading white phosphorous…

 

 

 

Palestinian fisherman collecting his nets in Rafah.
Image Credit: Mohammed Omer, Rafah Today 2007-03-26.

May 23, 2009

GAZA: INTERVIEW OF FISHERMAN WOUNDED BY ISRAELIS



GAZAN FISHERMAN, SAMI AL GOAGA, DESCRIBES HOW HE LOST HIS HAND IN ATTACK BY ISRAELIS.




GAZA: INTERVIEW OF FATHER OF FISHERMAN KILLED BY ISRAELIS