LISTEN ISRAEL: THE WORLD WILL NEVER FORGET OF WHAT YOU'RE STILL DOING!

Israel holds fire in Gaza but no end to disputes

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel began a unilateral ceasefire in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, ending a three-week offensive against the Hamas Islamist movement in the Palestinian enclave.
A few minutes after the truce was due to take effect at 2 a.m. (7 p.m. ET), live television pictures from the city of Gaza showed a shower of flares and a fire on the ground.
No sound of gunfire or explosions could be heard, however, and the fire appeared to go out after a few minutes.
Israeli reconnaissance drones could be heard but the city was quieter than for many nights.
However, Hamas has said it will not recognize Israel's unilateral ceasefire. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said fighting could resume if the guerrillas, who have vowed to fight on until Israel removes its troops from Gaza and eases a trade blockade, fire more rockets or attack Israeli soldiers.
An Israeli military spokesman said shortly before the cessation was to begin that Israel "will respond to any attack against Israeli civilians or soldiers."

Ron Paul: US Will Be Blamed for Israeli Killings

Israel's critics and enemies will see the United States as the side to be blamed for the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip, believes Congressman Ron Paul. He says the US should review its unconditional support of the Jewish state.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C756NOPyDA

Jew - Warner Co - Martin S. Davis
Jew - Dreamworks - Spielberg
Jew - Walt Disney Television, Touchstone Television, Buena Vista Television - Micheal D. Eisner
Jew - VIACOM - Sumner Murray Redstone, real name Rothstein
Jew - MTV - Murray Rothstein
Jew - Nickelodeon - Murray Rothstein
Jew - Universal Pictures - Stacey Snider
Jew - Universal Studios - Ron Meyer
No "news" coverage at all of Millions of people protesting against israel in major cities around the world. Surprised?
Jew - New York Times - Sulzberger
Jew - BBC - Michael Ian Grade, Mark Thompson
Jew - Sirius Satellite Radio - Mel Karmazin, Scott Greenstein
Jew - ITV - Murdoch, Grade
Jew - Paramount Pictures - Bradley Alan Grey
Jew - 20th Century Fox - Sherry Lansing
Jew - News Corporation - Peter Chernin
Jew - Columbia Pictures - Kaufman
Jew - Warner Brothers - Barry M. Meyer
Jew - Clear Channel - Lowry Mays, Andrew Levin
"Funny that Russian and Arab TV shows more stuff than CNN, Fox, NBC,"Do you want to know why?
Presidents and/or owners:
Jew - CBS - William S. Paley, Leslie Moonves
Jew - NBC - Jeffrey Zucker
Jew - ABC - Stuart Bloomberg and George W. Bodenheimer
Jew - ABC News - David Westin
Jew - CNN - Gerald Levin, Reese Schonfeld (co-founder)
Jew - FOX - Gail Berman, Rupert Murdoch (mother is jewish)
Jew - MBS - Ronnessen
Jew - Daily News - Maxwell, real name Hoch
Jew - US News - Zuckerman
Does the world need an armed to the teeth, and heaven help us allnuclear armedracist apartheid state in the Middle East?

Democrats Are Cowards in the Face of Israel's Brutality

Democrats Are Cowards in the Face of Israel's Brutality

By Stephen Zunes, AlterNet.

Democrats have silenced dissent and offered unflinching support for Israeli actions, including gross violations of international law.

The Democratic leadership's strident support for the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip underscores how the Democrats suffer from the same illusions as the outgoing Republican administration: that placing an Arab territory under debilitating sanctions that punish the population as a whole, bombarding heavily populated civilian areas -- resulting in widespread casualties among innocent people -- and invading and occupying territories with a long history of resistance to outsiders will somehow lead to greater moderation from those afflicted.
The reality is that Israel's war against Hamas and the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip is no more likely to result in more rational and compromising positions from the Palestinian side than the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel will lead to more rational and compromising positions from the Israelis.
As a result, the hard-line militaristic position of the Democratic Party does not bode well for a more enlightened Middle East policy after eight disastrous years under President George W. Bush.
On Capitol Hill, resolutions are being prepared in the House and Senate to defend the Bush administration's policy of unconditional support for the Israeli assaults, which as of this writing have led to the deaths of 500 people, at least one-quarter of whom were civilians. Unless there is widespread public opposition, it appears that the overwhelming majority of congressional Democrats will vote along with their Republican colleagues in favor of these resolutions, thereby giving Israel a blank check to continue the carnage and, as a result, give Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups the excuse to continue their attacks against Israeli civilians as well.
Democrats Goad Israel Into War
In June, 38 of 49 Democratic senators -- including Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton of New York -- wrote a letter (PDF) to President Bush that Americans for Peace Now, a moderate Zionist group, warned would build "a defense, in advance, for a large Israeli military offensive in Gaza." The letter also urged the Bush administration to block any U.N. Security Council resolution critical of Israel, claiming that United Nations opposition to Israeli attacks against crowded urban areas constituted a refusal to "acknowledge Israel's right to self-defense." An almost identical letter in the House, drafted by House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., received the signatures of 150 of the body's 230 Democrats.
Americans for Peace Now noted that such an Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip would likely result in large-scale civilian casualties. In apparent anticipation of the large numbers of Palestinian deaths that would result from such military operations in the Gaza Strip, the House passed a resolution (PDF) in March, during an outbreak of fighting, that claimed, "Those responsible for launching rocket attacks against Israel routinely embed their production facilities and launch sites amongst the Palestinian civilian population, utilizing them as human shields." The resolution goes on to specifically condemn "the use of innocent Palestinian civilians as human shields by those who carry out rocket and other attacks" and yet again makes note of Palestinians who "continue to be utilized as human shields by terrorist organizations."
But according to Joe Stork of the Middle East division of Human Rights Watch, while Hamas failed to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians in the densely populated Gaza Strip, the watchdog group had found no instances of Hamas actually using human shields in the legally defined sense of deliberately using civilians as a means of deterring counterattacks. Despite my contacting the offices of more than a dozen Democratic members of Congress who supported the resolution -- all of whom are members of the so-called Progressive Caucus -- none of them could provide any examples of Hamas actually using human shields. It appears that the Democrats' goal in pushing through this resolution was to convince their constituents that it was the Palestinians, not the Israelis who were attacking them, who were responsible for civilian casualties and who would likewise be responsible for the far greater number of civilian casualties that would inevitably result from the Israeli bombardment and invasion which was to commence later that year.
The resolution also gave unqualified support for the Israeli government's attacks against the Gaza Strip, even as Amnesty International condemned Israel's "reckless disregard for civilian life" in its bombing and shelling of civilian population centers. The AI report also noted how the attacks by Palestinians against civilian-populated areas in Israel, which the report also roundly condemned, "does not make it legitimate for the Israeli authorities to launch reckless air and artillery strikes which wreak such death and destruction among Palestinian civilians."
Not a single one of the 230 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted against the resolution. (There were four abstentions, and 12 did not vote.) This sent a clear signal that there would be no opposition in Congress -- which provides over $4 billion annually in unconditional military and economic aid to the Israeli government -- for an even larger military assault against the Palestinian population of the enclave.

In order to read the complete article HERE.

Top 5 Lies about Israel's Assault on Gaza

Top 5 Lies about Israel's Assault on Gaza

Jeremy R. Hammond

Lie #1: Israel is only targeting legitimate military sites and is seeking to protect innocent lives. Israel never targets civilians.

The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated pieces of property in the world. The presence of militants within a civilian population does not, under international law, deprive that population of their protected status, and hence any assault upon that population under the guise of targeting militants is, in fact, a war crime.Moreover, the people Israel claims are legitimate targets are members of Hamas, which Israel says is a terrorist organization. Hamas has been responsible for firing rockets into Israel. These rockets are extremely inaccurate and thus, even if Hamas intended to hit military targets within Israel, are indiscriminate by nature. When rockets from Gaza kill Israeli civilians, it is a war crime.Hamas has a military wing. However, it is not entirely a military organization, but a political one. Members of Hamas are the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people. Dozens of these elected leaders have been kidnapped and held in Israeli prisons without charge. Others have been targeted for assassination, such as Nizar Rayan, a top Hamas official. To kill Rayan, Israel targeted a residential apartment building. The strike not only killed Rayan but two of his wives and four of his children, along with six others. There is no justification for such an attack under international law. This was a war crime.Other of Israelʼs bombardment with protected status under international law have included a mosque, a prison, police stations, and a university, in addition to residential buildings.Moreover, Israel has long held Gaza under siege, allowing only the most minimal amounts of humanitarian supplies to enter. Israel is bombing and killing Palestinian civilians. Countless more have been wounded, and cannot receive medical attention. Hospitals running on generators have little or no fuel. Doctors have no proper equipment or medical supplies to treat the injured. These people, too, are the victims of Israeli policies targeted not at Hamas or legitimate military targets, but directly designed to punish the civilian population.

Lie #2) Hamas violated the cease-fire. The Israeli bombardment is a response to Palestinian rocket fire and is designed to end such rocket attacks.

Israel never observed the cease-fire to begin with. From the beginning, it announced a "special security zone" within the Gaza Strip and announced that Palestinians who enter this zone will be fired upon. In other words, Israel announced its intention that Israeli soldiers would shoot at farmers and other individuals attempting to reach their own land in direct violation of not only the cease-fire but international law.Despite shooting incidents, including ones resulting in Palestinians getting injured, Hamas still held to the cease-fire from the time it went into effect on June 19 until Israel effectively ended the truce on November 4 by launching an airstrike into Gaza that killed five and injured several others.Israelʼs violation of the cease-fire predictably resulted in retaliation from militants in Gaza who fired rockets into Israel in response. The increased barrage of rocket fire at the end of December is being used as justification for the continued Israeli bombardment, but is a direct response to the Israeli attacks.Israel's actions, including its violation of the cease-fire, predictably resulted in an escalation of rocket attacks against its own population.

Lie #3) Hamas is using human shields, a war crime.

There has been no evidence that Hamas has used human shields. The fact is, as previously noted, Gaza is a small piece of property that is densely populated. Israel engages in indiscriminate warfare such as the assassination of Nizar Rayan, in which members of his family were also murdered. It is victims like his dead children that Israel defines as "human shields" in its propaganda. There is no legitimacy for this interpretation under international law. In circumstances such as these, Hamas is not using human shields, Israel is committing war crimes in violation of the Geneva Conventions and other applicable international law.

Lie #4) Arab nations have not condemned Israelʼs actions because they understand Israelʼs justification for its assault.

The populations of those Arab countries are outraged at Israelʼs actions and at their own governments for not condemning Israelʼs assault and acting to end the violence. Simply stated, the Arab governments do not represent their respective Arab populations. The populations of the Arab nations have staged mass protests in opposition to not only Israel's actions but also the inaction of their own governments and what they view as either complacency or complicity in Israel's crimes.Moreover, the refusal of Arab nations to take action to come to the aid of the Palestinians is not because they agree with Israelʼs actions, but because they are submissive to the will of the US, which fully supports Israel. Egypt, for instance, which refused to open the border to allow Palestinians wounded in the attacks to get medical treatment in Egyptian hospitals, is heavily dependent upon US aid, and is being widely criticized within the population of the Arab countries for what is viewed as an absolute betrayal of the Gaza Palestinians.Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been regarded as a traitor to his own people for blaming Hamas for the suffering of the people of Gaza. Palestinians are also well aware of Abbas' past perceived betrayals in conniving with Israel and the US to sideline the democratically elected Hamas government, culminating in a counter-coup by Hamas in which it expelled Fatah (the military wing of Abbas' Palestine Authority) from the Gaza Strip. While his apparent goal was to weaken Hamas and strengthen his own position, the Palestinians and other Arabs in the Middle East are so outraged at Abbas that it is unlikely he will be able to govern effectively.

Lie #5) Israel is not responsible for civilian deaths because it warned the Palestinians of Gaza to flee areas that might be targeted.

Israel claims it sent radio and telephone text messages to residents of Gaza warning them to flee from the coming bombardment. But the people of Gaza have nowhere to flee to. They are trapped within the Gaza Strip. It is by Israeli design that they cannot escape across the border. It is by Israeli design that they have no food, water, or fuel by which to survive. It is by Israeli design that hospitals in Gaza have no electricity and few medical supplies with which to treat the injured and save lives. And Israel has bombed vast areas of Gaza, targeting civilian infrastructure and other sites with protected status under international law. No place is safe within the Gaza Strip.-Jeremy R. Hammond is the editor of Foreign Policy Journal

(http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com), a website dedicated to providing news, critical analysis, and opinion commentary on U.S. foreign policy from outside of the standard framework offered by government officials and the mainstream corporate media, particularly with regard to the "war on terrorism" and events in the Middle East. He has also written for numerous other online publications.
News, analysis, and opinion of U.S. foreign policy, particularly with regard to the war on terrorism and the Middle East.
Do watch this video:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Israel_posts_video_of_Gaza_bombings_1230.html
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=31077779968&topic=7205

Open Letter to Sir John Holmes, UN Undersecretary- General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

Open Letter to Sir John Holmes, UN Undersecretary- General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

Khalid Amayreh

Dear Sir: Greeting
You must be aware of the nightmare now unfolding in the Gaza Strip. Gaza is simply dying a slow and painful death at the hands of the children and grandchildren of the Holocaust. This is not an overstatement or exaggerated description of a people long tormented by a sinister occupying power that is hell- bent on decimating them, using the basest and most inhumane of means, such as preventing food and other basic needs from reaching them.
I could go on and one and on describing and explaining the catastrophic situation in Gaza where on any given day, children and other civilians succumb to their illnesses because Israel and other neighboring countries wouldn’t allow them to leave the blockaded territory for adequate medical care.
I don’t know if your office is receiving daily and accurate reports from the Gaza Strip. But in case it doesn’t, a quick glance at news reports from that tormented land would suffice to give you a fair idea of what is happening there.
True, some food stuff and a few other commodities are being allowed to reach Gaza. However, these are utterly inadequate to meet the minimal needs of more than 1.4 million beleaguered human beings, the vast bulk of whom are unemployed, thoroughly impoverished and desperately hopeless.
Besides, Gazans, like the rest of humanity, need more than bread and tea. They need to live a dignified life. This is their God-given right as humans. This right must not be compromised by political cannibalism that is brazenly practiced by a world claming to be civilized and enlightened when in reality its actions and behavior are millions of light years apart from civility and enlightenment.
I am not going to blame Israel and the United States and their allies and friends for this unfolding tragedy. The Quran states “wala Yas’alu ‘an thunoobihemol Mujrimun” meaning that “criminals are not much concerned about their sins.”
This Quranic verse, which I am sure has Biblical equivalents, obviously applies fairly and squarely to child-killing and child-starving states and armies that kill children and innocent people knowingly and deliberately for political reasons.
However, as a UN official whose responsibility includes overseeing the situation in Gaza and preventing a Nazi-like catastrophe from taking place in any part of the world, you are called upon in the strongest terms to immediately take pro-active and tangible measures to save Gaza’s helpless inhabitants from what looks a certain looming disaster, especially if the current draconian blockade continues.
There is no doubt that the firing by Palestinian guerillas of homemade Qassam projectiles onto Israeli settlements in the area is a problem. But it is a problem made in Israel since the Jewish state stubbornly refuses to stop killing innocent Palestinians and destroying their homes and bulldozing their farms. Israel wants to keep up the killing of Palestinian children regardless of whether the Palestinian guerillas observe a ceasefire or not.
This sufficiently explains Israel’s adamant rejection of Palestinian ceasefire proposals made on several occasions by Prime Minister Haniya and other Gaza officials.
The reason for this may not be sufficiently clear for all, especially in the West where pro-Israeli media often turn the black into white and the big lie into a “virtually reality” glorified by millions.
Well, Israel simply doesn’t view herself as humanly equal to Palestinians and non-Jews in general. That is really the crux of the matter and the mother of all sins in the Middle East.
Today, the people of Gaza nearly completely rely on the good will of the international community for their physical survival, which they have come to no longer take for granted, given the indifferent silence and brutal callousness of the international community towards their enduring plight.
Unfortunately and regrettably, the UN, too, is watching the tragedy in Gaza with passivity and a great modicum of indifference. This passivity, unethical and incompatible with UN Charter and ideals, serves only to embolden Israel to tighten its barbaric grip on that tormented region further and exacerbate the suffering of its people.
I am saying that because I am convinced that Israel, under whose harsh occupation we have been languishing for over 40 years, would refrain from taking more pornographic acts of genocide against our people only if the international community made it clear that such behavior would be unacceptable. Otherwise, Israel would continue to test the will of the world so that if the world’s conscience slumbered or looked the other way, Israel would commit the unthinkable.
This is not far-fetched at all. A state that only last year dropped 2-3 million bomblets on Lebanon, could commit a similarly monstrous crime against the more vulnerable and utterly unprotected Palestinians.
This week, many members of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, vociferously protested their army’s failure to “completely paralyze Gaza,” with some lawmakers asking their government “why there is still life in Gaza, why there is still electricity in Gaza. We must make sure to them who are the masters!”
This shows that were it not for the international public opinion, Israel would emulate the Third Reich. We are talking after all about a state without conscience, without morality.
So, Israel won’t relent as long as the international community plays blind, deaf and dumb and looks the other way, while Gazans and other Palestinians are being killed, starved and brutalized.
Sir: Don’t you ever count on regional states. These failed regimes prefer the legitimacy that comes from pleasing and appeasing the United States more than that which comes from doing the right thing.
Now what are you going to do to put an end to this nightmare ? As a fellow human being, I urge you again in the name of the voiceless and the helpless in Gaza, ordinary people, un-politicized and nearly totally preoccupied with making ends meet, to take a meaningful action now to end this obscenity, the criminal blockade of the Gaza Strip.
I hope and pray you will deal with this matter with the urgency it deserves. Gaza is really really facing a grave danger of collapse and demise, and we must never allow this to happen.
Gaza is already a replica of Ghetto Warsaw. For God’s sake, we must not allow Israeli criminality, American acquiescence and international impotence to turn it into another Auschwitz.

Traduction in Spanish:

Gaza es ya una réplica del gueto de Varsovia

Carta abierta a Sir John Holmes, Subsecretario General de Naciones Unidas para Asuntos Humanitarios :

Ud. tiene que ser consciente de la pesadilla que va extendiéndose y envolviendo la Franja de Gaza. Gaza está sencillamente muriendo en una lenta y penosa agonía a manos de los hijos y nietos del Holocausto. Estas palabras no son ninguna magnificación ni descripción exagerada de la situación en que se halla un pueblo largamente atormentado por una siniestra potencia ocupante empeñada en diezmarle y dispuesta a utilizar para ello los medios más infames e inhumanos, como impedir que les lleguen alimentos y productos necesarios para satisfacer las necesidades más básicas. Podría seguir y no acabar nunca de describir y explicar la situación catastrófica de Gaza, donde todos y cada uno de los días hay niños y civiles sucumbiendo ante las enfermedades porque Israel y otros países vecinos no les permiten salir del bloqueado territorio para recibir atención médica adecuada. No sé si su oficina recibe diariamente informes precisos sobre la Franja de Gaza. Pero en caso de que no sea así, una rápida ojeada a las noticias de esa tierra atormentada sería suficiente para que adquiera una idea exacta de lo que está pasando allí. Es verdad que algunos productos alimenticios y algunas cosas más están llegando a Gaza. Sin embargo, lo que está entrando es completamente insuficiente e inadecuado para satisfacer las necesidades mínimas de 1,4 millón de seres humanos asediados, cuya inmensa mayoría están desempleados, totalmente empobrecidos y desesperados. Además, los habitantes de Gaza, como el resto de la humanidad, necesitan algo más que pan y té. Necesitan vivir una vida digna. Este es el derecho que como seres humanos Dios les ha concedido. Este derecho no puede verse comprometido por el canibalismo político que descaradamente practica un mundo que declara ser civilizado e ilustrado, cuando en realidad sus acciones y conducta están a millones de años luz de la civilización y la ilustración. No voy a culpar a Israel y a los EEUU y a sus aliados y amigos por esta inmensa tragedia. El Corán afirma “wala Yas’alu ‘an zunubihemol muyrimum”, que significa que “los criminales no se preocupan mucho por sus pecados”. Este verso coránico, que estoy seguro tiene equivalentes bíblicos, se aplica obviamente con toda justicia y exactitud a los estados y ejércitos que intencionada y conscientemente matan de hambre a niños y gente inocente por razones políticas. Sin embargo, como funcionario de Naciones Unidas, cuya responsabilidad incluye supervisar la situación en Gaza e impedir que una catástrofe similar a la nazi tenga lugar en cualquier parte del mundo, apelamos a Ud. en los términos más firmes para que tome inmediatamente medidas tangibles y eficaces para salvar a los indefensos habitantes de Gaza del desastre que se avecina, especialmente si el draconiano bloqueo actual sigue adelante. No hay duda de que suponen un problema los lanzamientos de cohetes caseros Qassam que la guerrilla palestina lanza hacia los asentamientos israelíes en la zona. Pero es un problema creado por Israel, ya que el estado judío rechaza obstinadamente detener la matanza de palestinos inocentes o parar de destruir sus hogares o de arrasar sus campos de cultivo. Israel está decidido a continuar matando niños palestinos con independencia de que la guerrilla palestina observe o no el alto el fuego. Esto explica suficientemente el inflexible rechazo de Israel ante las propuestas palestinas de alto el fuego hechas en diversas ocasiones por el Primer Ministro Haniya y otras autoridades de Gaza. La razón de esta posición puede que no esté suficientemente clara para todos, especialmente en Occidente, donde los medios de comunicación pro-israelíes a menudo convierten lo blanco en negro y la gran mentira en una “realidad virtual” glorificada por millones. Bien, sencillamente, Israel no se considera a sí mismo humanamente igual a los palestinos y a los no judíos en general. Este es realmente el quid de la cuestión y la madre de todos los pecados en Oriente Medio. Hoy en día, el pueblo de Gaza depende casi completamente de la buena voluntad de la comunidad internacional para poder sobrevivir físicamente, y ni siquiera esto está ya garantizado dado el silencio indiferente y la insensibilidad brutal de esa denominada comunidad internacional ante su inacabable tragedia. Desgraciada y lamentablemente, también las Naciones Unidas están observando la tragedia de Gaza con pasividad y sin un ápice de interés. Esta pasividad, totalmente falta de ética e incompatible con los ideales de la Carta de Naciones Unidas, sirve sólo para que Israel se envalentone y apriete más brutalmente la tenaza sobre la atormentada región exacerbando el sufrimiento de su gente. Digo esto porque estoy convencido de que Israel, bajo cuya cruel ocupación llevamos pudriéndonos cuarenta años, se contendría de llevar a cabo más actos pornográficos de genocidio contra nuestro pueblo tan sólo con que la comunidad internacional dejara claro que esa conducta es inaceptable. De lo contrario, Israel continuará sometiendo a prueba la voluntad del mundo para ver si la conciencia mundial se duerme o mira hacia otro lado, y entonces cometer lo inconcebible. Esto no es algo poco probable en absoluto. Un estado que tan sólo en el pasado año arrojó 2-3 millones de bombas de racimo sobre el Líbano, podría cometer un crimen monstruosamente similar contra los más vulnerables y completamente indefensos palestinos. Esta semana, muchos miembros del parlamento israelí, la Knesset, protestaron vociferantes contra el fracaso de su ejército a la hora de conseguir “paralizar completamente a Gaza”, con algunos diputados preguntando a su gobierno: “¿Cómo es que aún hay vida en Gaza? ¿Cómo es que todavía hay electricidad en Gaza? ¡Tenemos que dejarles muy claro quiénes son los amos!” Esto demuestra que si no fuera por la opinión pública internacional, Israel emularía al Tercer Reich. Después de todo, estamos hablando de un estado sin conciencia ni moralidad. Por eso, Israel no cederá mientras la comunidad internacional siga ciega, sorda y muda y mire hacia otro lado cuando los gazanos y otros palestinos están siendo asesinados, están muriendo de hambre y están siendo tratados brutalmente. Sir: No cuente con los Estados de la región. Esos regímenes fallidos prefieren la legitimidad que viene de complacer y aplacar a los Estados Unidos más que la que se deriva de hacer las cosas de forma justa. Entonces, ¿qué va a hacer Vd. para poner fin a esta pesadilla? Como ser humano, le urjo de nuevo en nombre de los sin voz, e indefensos, habitantes de Gaza, de la gente normal, de los que no están politizados y únicamente les queda sobrevivir, a emprender una acción significativa que ponga fin a esta obscenidad: al criminal bloqueo de la Franja de Gaza. Confío y rezo para que se ocupe de esta situación con la urgencia que requiere. Gaza está realmente enfrentando un grave peligro de colapso y desaparición y no debemos permitir nunca que esto suceda. Gaza es ya una réplica del Gueto de Varsovia. Por el amor de Dios, no podemos permitir que la criminalidad israelí, la aquiescencia estadounidense y la impotencia internacional la conviertan en otro Auschwitz.

Fuente: Jalid Amayreh, The People’s Voice
(Traducido del inglés por Sinfo Fernández de "Tlaxcala" red de traductores por la diversidad lingüística.)

Occupation 101 new trailer

Citizen fighting for freedom from occupation. Spread the word.

Avance del Documental Occupation 101.

La operación contra Gaza es solo un episodio mas de una guerra de baja intensidad para exterminar árabes por parte de los Israelíes, el mundo mira con horror el atrevimiento de los judíos radicados en Israel para iniciar una masacre sin el menor temor de la respuesta de todo el mundo, que atado por los compromisos, los arreglos y quien sabe tal vez por la inhumanidad que ya nos domina no impide el holocausto de un pueblo aterrorizado, así como chillan los israelíes cada vez que alguien les recuerda la segunda guerra, ellos claman por el derecho a asesinar, el derecho a violar los derechos de cientos de miles, claman por el derecho "soberano" de defensa a costa de niños que lanzan piedras contra los temidos tanques israelíes.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuoKwAHmJo4

HEROIC GAZA

Find more photos like this on Palestinian Mothers

America's Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power

By Stephen Zunes, AlterNet.

No one in the mainstream media or government is willing to acknowledge America's sordid role interfering in Palestinian politics.

Editor’s note: In the U.S., the claim that the actions of Hamas forced Israel to launch a massive assault on the impoverished population of Gaza is almost universally accepted. But, as scholar Stephen Zunes explains below, the picture of Hamas as an organization of wide-eyed radicalism without electoral legitimacy or the support of a significant portion of the Palestinian population is simplistic. In this important piece, Zunes examines the ways in which Israeli and American policy-makers encouraged the rise of the conservative religious group Hamas in an effort to marginalize secular and leftist elements within the Occupied Territories.

The United States bears much of the blame for the ongoing bloodshed in the Gaza Strip and nearby parts of Israel. Indeed, were it not for misguided Israeli and American policies, Hamas would not be in control of the territory in the first place.
Israel initially encouraged the rise of the Palestinian Islamist movement as a counter to the Palestine Liberation Organization, the secular coalition composed of Fatah and various leftist and other nationalist movements. Beginning in the early 1980s, with generous funding from the U.S.-backed family dictatorship in Saudi Arabia, the antecedents of Hamas began to emerge through the establishment of schools, health care clinics, social service organizations and other entities that stressed an ultraconservative interpretation of Islam, which up to that point had not been very common among the Palestinian population. The hope was that if people spent more time praying in mosques, they would be less prone to enlist in left-wing nationalist movements challenging the Israeli occupation.
While supporters of the secular PLO were denied their own media or right to hold political gatherings, the Israeli occupation authorities allowed radical Islamic groups to hold rallies, publish uncensored newspapers and even have their own radio station. For example, in the occupied Palestinian city of Gaza in 1981, Israeli soldiers -- who had shown no hesitation in brutally suppressing peaceful pro-PLO demonstrations -- stood by when a group of Islamic extremists attacked and burned a PLO-affiliated health clinic in Gaza for offering family-planning services for women.
Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya (Islamic Resistance Movement), was founded in 1987 by Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who had been freed from prison when Israel conquered the Gaza Strip 20 years earlier. Israel's priorities in suppressing Palestinian dissent during this period were revealing: In 1988, Israel forcibly exiled Palestinian activist Mubarak Awad, a Christian pacifist who advocated the use of Gandhian-style resistance to the Israeli occupation and Israeli-Palestinian peace, while allowing Yassin to circulate anti-Jewish hate literature and publicly call for the destruction of Israel by force of arms.
American policy was not much different: Up until 1993, U.S. officials in the consular office in Jerusalem met periodically with Hamas leaders, while they were barred from meeting with anyone from the PLO, including leading moderates within the coalition. This policy continued despite the fact that the PLO had renounced terrorism and unilaterally recognized Israel as far back as 1988.
One of the early major boosts for Hamas came when the Israeli government expelled more than 400 Palestinian Muslims in late 1992. While most of the exiles were associated with Hamas-affiliated social service agencies, very few had been accused of any violent crimes. Since such expulsions are a direct contravention to international law, the U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned the action and called for their immediate return. The incoming Clinton administration, however, blocked the United Nations from enforcing its resolution and falsely claimed that an Israeli offer to eventually allow some of exiles back constituted a fulfillment of the U.N. mandate. The result of the Israeli and American actions was that the exiles became heroes and martyrs, and the credibility of Hamas in the eyes of the Palestinians grew enormously -- and so did its political strength.
Still, at the time of the Oslo Agreement between Israel and the PLO in 1993, polls showed that Hamas had the support of only 15 percent of the Palestinian community. Support for Hamas grew, however, as promises of a viable Palestinian state faded as Israel continued to expand its colonization drive on the West Bank without apparent U.S. objections, doubling the amount of settlers over the next dozen years. The rule of Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority President Yassir Arafat and his cronies proved to be corrupt and inept, while Hamas leaders were seen to be more honest and in keeping with the needs of ordinary Palestinians. In early 2001, Israel cut off all substantive negotiations with the Palestinians, and a devastating U.S.-backed Israeli offensive the following year destroyed much of the Palestinian Authority's infrastructure, making prospects for peace and statehood even more remote. Israeli closures and blockades sank the Palestinian economy into a serious depression, and Hamas-run social services became all the more important for ordinary Palestinians.

To read more HERE.

Gaza Update: No Truce

Posted by Siun , Firedoglake

AlterNet

Latest reports indicate that Israel has rejected the French call for a 48 hour truce to allow humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza.

Latest reports indicate that Israel has rejected the French call for a 48 hour truce to allow humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza but may consider other cease fire options later. While there were fewer Israeli air strikes overnight- in part due to bad weather, more details of civilian casualties in Gaza are appearing:
On the fourth day of airstrikes in Gaza Tuesday, one of Israel's many targets was a Hamas military commander's home within the teeming Jabaliya refugee camp. He wasn't there, but seven civilians died as a result of that attack...
Israelis claim the high ground by arguing that even though they fight terrorists who deliberately target civilians, they try to uphold a spirit of "purity of arms" by avoiding civilian casualties as much as possible.
Critics counter that by putting Palestinian towns under blockade and going after militants in civilian areas, Israel makes noncombantants targets.
For Ziad Koraz, whose nearby home was damaged in the attack on the government compound Tuesday, that violence gratuitously puts Gazan civilians at risk, the Associated Press reported.
"More than 17 missiles were directed at an empty government compound, without regard for civilians who lived nearby," Mr. Koraz said. "If someone committed a crime, they should go after him, not after an entire nation."
Sunday, we had Time magazine’s reports of Israelis gathering to watch and cheer the air strikes on Gaza. Today we learn of more:

ALONG THE ISRAEL-GAZA STRIP BORDER — In a muddy field overlooking the smoke-blackened Gaza Strip skyline on Tuesday, young soldiers from an Israeli tank unit linked arms with euphoric civilians and joined them in the hora, a circular dance, in anticipation of a possible ground invasion of the Palestinian territory.
Far overhead, a pair of Israeli Apache helicopters fired on a target inside Gaza, unleashed diversionary flares and disappeared to the north. Elsewhere in the autonomous Palestinian region, Israeli jets, helicopters and ships pummeled the area with new strikes against dozens of targets.
The Jerusalem Post this morning advises “Forget about those rockets - it's time for a laugh!,” an article by Gil Sasson about "Eretz Nehederet (A Wonderful Country), the nation's top TV satire show - and top television show in general [which] interrupted the grim news from the South with a special wartime edition last night."
Sasson suggests that some Israelis may have questioned whether laughing at at time like this was appropriate - then he assures us:
But, in fact, Eretz Nehederet did not veer from good taste in that respect, setting its sights mainly on other, easier targets, as it did in a similar broadcast during the Second Lebanon War.
Roni Daniel was all gung-ho, happy that "we're beating 'em 380-4," and excitedly declaring that we are "few versus many - that is, a few jets versus many Gazans."
A very different view is that of Julia Chaitin, a Negev resident who teaches at a college in range of the Hamas rockets. Her essay in the Washington Post today is a brave and beautiful call for peace and deserves to be read:
When people are in the midst of war, they are not open to voices of peace; they speak (and scream) out of fear and demand retribution for the harms they have suffered. When people are in the midst of war, they forget that they can harness higher cognitive abilities, their reason and logic. Instead, they are driven by the hot structures of their brains, which lead them to respond with fear and anger in ways that are objective threats to our healthy survival. When people are in the midst of war, voices calling for restraint, dialogue and negotiations fall on deaf ears, if their expression is allowed at all.
We need more Julia Chaitin's in the world - and fewer dances and guffaws at the thought of hundreds dying.

Israel's Actions Are Irrational, No Matter How Much U.S. Politicians Try to Cast Them As Normal

By Wallace Shawn, The Nation.

AlterNet

It is not rational to think that the Palestinians will be terrorized by force, starvation or slaughter into a docile acceptance of the occupation.

Jews, historically, have been irrationally feared, hated and killed. Given that background, it's not surprising that the irrationality which surrounded them for so long, the fire of irrationality in which they were almost extinguished, has jumped across and taken hold of the soul of many Jews and indeed dominates the thinking of today's Israeli leaders and their American supporters.
Recent history shows that the Jews, as a people, have found few friends who are honest and true. During World War II, when Hitler's anti-Semitism was responsible for the murdering of the millions of Jews, the world and the United States expressed their own anti-Semitism by refusing to house and welcome the tortured race, preferring instead to let it be exterminated if need be. After the war, the world felt it owed the Jews something -- but then showed its lack of true regard for the tormented group by "giving" them a piece of land populated and surrounded by another people -- an act of European imperialism carried out exactly at the moment when non-European peoples all over the world were finally concluding that European imperialism was completely unacceptable and had to be resisted. And now we have the spectacle of American politicians encouraging and financing Israeli policies which will ultimately lead to more disaster and destruction for Jews.
It is not rational to believe that the Palestinians in the occupied territories will be terrorized by force and violence, by cruelty, by starvation or by slaughter into a docile acceptance of the Israeli occupation. There is no evidence that that could possibly happen and mountains of evidence to the contrary.
Many right-wing Israelis and American Jews clearly believe that Jews have always had enemies and always will have enemies -- and who can be shocked that certain Jews might think that? To these individuals, a Palestinian throwing stones at an Israeli soldier, even if his life has perhaps been destroyed by the Israeli occupation, is simply part of an eternal mob of anti-Semites, a mob made up principally of people to whom the Jews have done no harm at all, as they did no harm to Hitler. The logical consequence of this view of the world is that in the face of such massive and eternal opposition, Jews are morally justified in taking any measures they can think of to protect themselves. They are involved in one long eternal war, and a few hundred Palestinians killed today must be measured against many millions of Jews who were killed in the past. The agony the Israelis might inflict on a Palestinian family today must be seen in the perspective of Jewish families in agony all over the world in the past.
It is irrational for the Israeli leaders to imagine that the Palestinians will understand this particular point of view -- will understand why Jews might find it appropriate, let us say, to retaliate for the death of one Jew by killing a hundred Palestinians. If a Palestinian killed a hundred Jews to retaliate for the killing of one Palestinian -- for that matter, if a Thai killed a hundred Cambodians to retaliate for the killing of one Thai -- which, from the point of view of the Israeli leaders, would of course be unjust, that would be racist, as if one Palestinian or one Thai were worth a hundred Israelis or a hundred Cambodians. But if a Jew does it, it's not unjust and it's not racist, because it's part of an eternal struggle in which the Jews have lost and lost and lost -- they've already lost more people than there are Palestinians. Well, it's not surprising that certain Jews would feel this way, but no Palestinian will ever share that feeling or be willing to accept it. What the Palestinians see is an implacable and heartless enemy, one that considers itself un-bound by any rules or principles, an enemy that can't be reasoned with but can only be feared, hated and, if possible, killed.
As poor and oppressed people around the world are very well aware of the events in the occupied territories, and as they strongly identify with the Palestinian struggle and point of view, the future of the Jews looks increasingly dim.
Consequently it is disgraceful and vile and no favor to the Jews for American politicians -- for narrow, short-term political advantage, for narrow, short-term global-strategic reasons and, yes, also in expiation of the residual guilt they feel over what happened to the Jews in the past -- to pander to the irrationality of the most irrational Jews.
Actions based on irrational premises inevitably fail in their purposes -- they fail, and if the premises don't change, then the actions are inevitably repeated, in forms which are more and more grotesque. It is unbearable to think that the new American administration would begin with more American dollars being poured into what is unjustifiable. It is also unbearable to think that among the first words we would hear from our new, clearly rational president would be preposterous sentences trying to persuade us that Israeli policies which seem to be appalling are actually quite normal and acceptable. Certainly nothing our new president could do would be of greater value to the world -- and greater value to the Jews -- than to abruptly end the sickeningly patronizing habit of supporting an irrationality which was born in tragedy and will end in more tragedy.