Gaza Running on Near Empty
GAZA CITY - Ayman Eid stands as motionless as his orange Hyundai taxi. Never mind taking a passenger somewhere, Ayman has no idea how he will ever get home.
The queue at the petrol station seems endless. Drivers have run out of petrol even to queue up in their cars; they just queue up themselves, empty cans in hand. Only the lucky leave with a full can by the end of a day.
Others park near petrol stations and sleep in their cars, in hope that an oil truck will turn up some time. The roads are desolate, emptied of transportation and life.
Gaza needs 850,000 litres of fuel every week, says Mahmoud al-Khozendar, vice-president of the Petrol Station Owners Association in Gaza. Israel allows in just 70,000 litres of it. He said Gaza also needs 2.5 million litres of coal gas a week. Only 800,000 litres per week comes in.
Israel has cut fuel and electricity supply since Hamas took control of Gaza strip from the Fatah party in June last year. That was after winning a democratic election in 2006. The cuts have been made more severe after firing of home-made rockets from Gaza into Israeli territory.
For Eid, the waiting has gone on longer than the new Israeli siege. “We have been appealing to the world for 40 years, and for 40 years our daily suffering has gone on. It is endless.”
But it has become much harder now. “These days, when the price of every single item is inflated due to the Israeli siege, the gas cuts hurt even more.”
And it hurts in all sorts of ways. The students have disappeared from al-Talatini Street by the university. It is hard now to get to the university campus, and if you do, it can be harder getting back home. Thousands of students have not been to class for weeks, particularly those living far south and north.
And at home, there is little study possible in darkness and stink. Without fuel to power it, the sewage system has stopped functioning. Sewage continues to pile up on the streets. The stench gets more unbearable by the day, and health and environmental concerns are mounting.
“We met with the Israelis, and they said that Gaza is a hostile entity,” said al-Khozendar. He said that his organisation told Israeli officials that their fuel embargo policy is a violation of the Geneva Convention (in which Article 4 guarantees the rights of a people living under occupation). He said he was reminded that they are better off than are Iraqis under U.S. occupation.
Members of the Petrol Station Owners Association are planning to go on strike, al-Khozendar said. He is meanwhile appealing to the international community to put pressure on Israel to reverse its policies.
A glimmer of hope has arisen from a report in the Egyptian daily al-Ahram that Egyptian oil minister Sameh Fahmi has issued urgent directives for Egyptian gas to be provided to Gaza.
The minister was also reported as saying after a meeting with Omar Kittaneh, the Palestinian Authority official responsible for energy and natural resources, that Egypt would help develop Palestinian gas fields discovered off Gaza’s shores. Few in Gaza believe that Israel will let that happen in a hurry. There has been talk of this for two years now, with little action.
Not many miss the irony of this situation. And certainly not a man who walks up to join Ayman Eid in his idleness. “Israel takes Arab oil,” he says. “And then refuses to sell it to Arabs.”
Copyright © 2008 IPS-Inter Press Service
And so, Obama progressives, you have to ask yourself, Why is Obama so ardently on the side of the Israelis, and against helping the Palestinians finally achieve justice?
The extermination of a people proceeds apace, and the world reacts with indifference, and complicity ranging from tacit to outright sponsorship.
Alas! Such a thing has never happened before in the history of nations– otherwise, decent people would surely intervene to oppose, deter, and ultimately shut down this heinous horror show. And declare a self-evident policy: Never again!
Obama is a faker
His view is black-n-white - that conflicts in the Middle East has nothing to do with the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam. As if the Israeli blockade in Gaza is virtual !!!
Let’s concentrate on one thing at a time. Obama is far from perfect but we have no one better…
As for Israel he’ll never get elected if he tells the truth, if he knows it. The American people don’t know what Israeli has done, the coverage is too slanted.
Some things slip through like the play about Rachel Corrie, but it wasn’t allowed to be presented at a high school. It had to go off campus.
What Israel is doing to Gaza is what the Germans did to the Jews in Warsaw. Speak out…to everyone you know…get the truth out person by person…
“Death by a thousand cuts”, doesn’t make for a winning strategy in the long run, as Isreal and America will eventually see, while everyone else has to suffer along with these theocratic idologues in control.
ccrajarshi
- stick to reading your right wing hate rags. This is a progressive site in which we care about our fellow “human beings”, whether they be black, white, yellow, or green. “stalwart allies”? Where did you get these words, from the latest republicrat talking point memo?
“We met with the Israelis, and they said that Gaza is a hostile entity,” said al-Khozendar. He said that his organisation told Israeli officials that their fuel embargo policy is a violation of the Geneva Convention (in which Article 4 guarantees the rights of a people living under occupation). He said he was reminded that they are better off than are Iraqis under U.S. occupation.”
We are totally complicit in trying to erase entire peoples from the face of the earth. We are all committing Genocide! When our country supports what Israel is doing and then do the same or worse in Iraq, we are criminals. The entire Israeli and US administrations need to be tried for Crimes against Humanity.
I hope Obama does not mean that he will support the Israelis in this genocide.
Majority of our politicans are bought and paid for by AIPAC. Time to wake up Americans and demand that your gov’t be accountable to America 1st, 2nd, and 3rd!!!
jpbreeze, I think you need to read the post by ccrajarshi again. The grammar was a little tricky in the post but I read it as intending to be sarcastic throughout, and the last line is obviously sarcastic:”as if the Israeli blockade in Gaza is virtual!!!”
kittylady oregon: “I hope Obama does not mean that he will support the Israelis in this genocide.”
Hope away, that’s what the candidate of “hope” is about; but don’t hold your breathe. If in doubt on his one-sided support for Israel, read the e-mail that his new “liaison” to Jewish community, Eric Lynn. sent out shortly after Lynn’s appointment. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Eric_Lynn_email_on_Middle_East Of course Obama wouldn’t “support genocide” but he supports strongly Israel’s “right to defend itself” which is that country’s justification for the Gaza genocide.
From what I’ve read, seen in films and heard on talk radio, Gaza is one big Warsaw Ghetto.
dlnelson7 “What Israel is doing to Gaza is what the Germans did to the Jews in Warsaw.” Exactly! In what universe is this treatment now acceptable? What possible justification would wash? How can a people who know what this feels like do this to someone else? Do all the fine treaties, agreements and guidelines that arose from the atrocity of 1940-45 not also apply to Israel? Is Israel an exception to all rules of humanity and decency? There is no exception to the law of treating people fairly. None. Palestine - nakba doesn’t begin to convey the abhorrence - obscenity, atrocity - they must sound familiar to many, yes?
On the other hand, we have to remember that the allies didn’t get into WWII to save Jews. Nobody cared about the Jews at the time. And nobody cares about the Palestinians now. It’s unbearable.
Israel is a cancer on this planet with a deeply sick victim-collective-consciousness which has born a monster. Sadistic And Murderous.
Like Adolph Hitler, Israel pursues Ethnic Cleansing, and a pure master (chosen people) (superior) race.
Thus bombing children and women and men becomes fun, becomes necessary, is God’s Will.
This sickness is without depth. May Palestine be born again on Israel’s ashes.
MikePeters.
Strong words, Mike, but true. Imperialistic Israelis, deranged by their religion, are sowing a harvest that they won’t wish to reap. America is encouraged by Israel’s ’success’ and is now following suit.
If we could ‘Save America’ we might be able to put Israel back in the box where it belongs. Check my blog.
www.dangerouscreation.com
Humanity should not be so dependent on petroleum. The spectacle of people lined up for gasoline in an area the size of Gaza is a sad one. Gaza lies in a desert. What is the carrying capacity of desert for human beings? Certainly, the fact is that billions do depend on gasoline to conduct their (our) lives, and to deny them is cruel and revolting. But it’s healthy to step back and contemplate what is happening to our civilization and our natural world. Israel and Palestine comprise a total population of over ten million people.
dlnelson7 April 6th, 2008 12:43 pm:
“Let’s concentrate on one thing at a time. Obama is far from perfect but we have no one better…”
—————————————————–
Actually, “we” can vote for whomever we want to.
And as long as that vote is for a real, living, born-a-citizen U.S. citizen over 40 years old, that vote will count.
(Please no technical arguments here. If 50 million people or whatever “wrote-in” Al Gore, for example, I very much doubt this could be wholy ignored do to some “technicality”. At least not with Civil Order maintained.)
So “we” have many millions of choices, and surely some of them are “better” in whatever way we can think of than Mr. Obama.
The whole “we just have 2 Dem and 1 GOP choices left” idea comes to us not from objective reality, but from the TeleKnowledge Hive-Mind that many of the People have so casually turned their Indiviual Selves over to.
Even on many of the actual, physical ballots, there will be several other parties’ Candidates listed, let alone the “write-in” space usually provided, I’m sure many of these might seem “better” to some voters.
Of course, The Electoral College is the true “we” that determines which candidate is “better”, but this extra layer of subverting the will of the demos only signifies for those who refuse to accept that by the time the College’s delegates vote Democracy is already deader than a Dodo.
As on the industrial farm, the problem isn’t with the final sprayings of chemicals, but with the FIRST.
In the political realm, this first killing blow is contained within the structures of the system itself: the Executive Beauracracy, the National Security Complex, the Commitee structures of the Congess, the Financing of Elections, the Conduct of Elections, the Methods of Capital Movement, the Distrubution of Wealth, the Work and Livelihood of the People, etc. etc. etc.
——————————————————-
So, for the benefit of any who have read this far with maintained Interest, let’s face the first part of -dlnelson7’s- quote:
“Let’s concentrate on one thing at a time.”
Yes, by all means let’s do just that.
But this begs the question, what “one thing” should that BE exactly?
On the face of it, -dlnelson7’s- implication that this “one thing” should be the same as the focus of the Article under which we write, seems both reasonable and straitforward.
But looked at a little deeper -and through the squinted gaze of Skepticism, perhaps- it seems that the result of this thinking will be what we too often see, both “here” in this psuedo-place and in the physical World, which is stunted, half-finished discussion of either TOO MANY “one thing”s or impossibly incoherent debate over an ever-amorphous single “one thing”.
-IF the State of Israel’s position is determined by the “aid” funding for their military that they receive from the Government of the State of the United States,
-AND the position of the Government of the State of the Unites States is determined by the various personal and Structural Corruptions that I have partially listed above,
-AND that the means and details of these Corruptions are of utmost importance to the People in their decision between Reforming this system, Revolting against it, or Abandoning it in favor of better things,
-THEN it is entirely possible that the “one thing” “we” should be “concentrat(ing) on” IS NOT the persecution of the Palestinian People directly, but the greater issues of power, control, and freedom that are preventing us from effective action on this and many other injustices.
————————————————————-
I think “we” have been ignoring our real “better” choice for FAR too long, that choice not between Leaders to best tell us what too do, but between accepting responsablity, not just for our Individual Selves or Souls, but also for our Individual Lives.
Maybe only a small few of the People will ever be ready to make this choice, and others will sadly fall to the wayside.
Maybe this choice will seem easier and easier for the People, if they are merely given Time and Generations to ease into it.
Maybe the arrival of Storm will shock the People into a superior Awareness, thus allowing them to make the choice for the true “better”
Maybe. May-be. May be.
But what is certain is that this choice MUST be made in order to participate in the next Age, whether we admit this too ourselves or not.
Maybe.
-matti.
nellemason is right about my comment. jpbreeze might have misunderstood. Phrases like “stalwart allies like Israel” - that comes from neoliberal experts and also phrases like “perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam”. The sarcasm is for neoliberals including Mr. Obama. And we all know that power structures like the US and/or Isralei Govts doesn’t like any uprisings. In Gaza suffering finds no vent in action - this is painful and tragic!
fuel embargo policy is a violation of the Geneva Convention
“So?”
Obama needs to grow some balls and we the people must put the starch in his spine.
On January 23, 2008, Senator Obama sent a letter to Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, about a proposed Security Council resolution on the situation in Gaza.
Obama focused on condemning Palestinian rocket attacks against Israel, but made no mention of the ongoing Israeli bombardments and raids that have killed hundreds of innocent residents of Gaza, as well as the calculated Israeli policy of denying the necessities of life - food, clean drinking water, medicines, medical care, school supplies, and the energy needed to power sewage treatment plants and hospital operating rooms - to the 1.5 million open air prisoners, of whom more than half are children.
Obama wrote that “Israel is forced to do this.” Obama denounced Hamas as a terrorist organization, but ignored its repeated offers of a long-term truce with Israel - offers the Israeli government has repeatedly immediately rejected, although polls show that more than 60 percent of Israel’s own population favors negotiations with Hamas.
Not Obama, not McCain and not Clinton have offered even a word of criticism of Israel, or of sympathy for the people of Gaza.
Where are ALL the candidates on Gaza?
Where are ALL the candidates on Jerusalem? The rights of refugees?
The Wall? The ongoing settlements? The over 500 checkpoints that deny the indigenous people of that land the right to access their land, jobs and holy sites?
Where is Obama and ALL the candidates in this the 60th anniversary year of Israel, Nakba and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights- upon which Israel’s statehood was contingent upon upholding.
Having witnessed life in occupied Palestine, I attest that Military Occupation dehumanizes the occupied and will reap many without hope. Only a person without hope that things will improve could even consider strapping on a bomb and killing themselves.
“Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all…and passionate attachments for others should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave…a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.”-George Washington’s Farewell Address – 1796
Eileen Fleming,Reporter and Editor WAWA Blog
Author “Keep Hope Alive” and “Memoirs of a Nice Irish American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory”
Producer “30 Minutes With Vanunu” and “13 Minutes with Vanunu”
Until it becomes common Public Knowledge who has dual citizenship in our leadership and their cronies —- Nothing will change. These bastards control the information stream— that gives them power and control. Most people are struggling so hard to survive under the onslaught
of this REPUG and Corp. juggernaut that they have no resources or energy to fight it.
I think that it has been planned that way, but I am heartened by the numbers participating in the Caucuses and the primaries. Now if we can just keep the bastards from stealing this election —— if it is ever held…………………
Here is Ralph Naders article written recently. Know his views…
http://www.nader.org/index.php?/archives/1261-Gaza-Under-Siege.html
March 17, 2008
Garza Under Siege by Ralph Nader
.
matti
Your post is intriguing, moving, and deeply felt.
i feel this is getting a bit off topic but, if americans were to vote for one of the many independents matti was talking about, isn’t there a greater chance we’re in for another four years of republicanism? sure they may get the ‘message’ that the voters weren’t happy with the candidates but i think you guys need to behave a bit more pragmatically.
certainly people outside of the US would rather see a flawed, female or ethnic minority from the democratic party than another republican hard-liner. and i truly think that this may happen if too many ‘liberals’ take their votes away from the dems for the sake of protesting the system.
this would be highly unwelcome in the middle east, among many other regions of the world.
I imagine next it will be Red Crecents sewn on their clothing, tattos on their arms, and off to the “showers”
Seems the Zionists learned a lot from the Nazis…
Klimt April 6th, 2008 7:48 pm
You’re on topic. No, the sky will not fall if we don’t vote for a Democrat. That is precisely what we need to do. And when enough of us do then we can start to take our country back. As long as voters are voting in fear for the lesseroftwoevils we will get precisely what we have gotten; nothing but one Democratic rollover after another.
We all need to dump the Dims and get our friends and allies to do the same. Both parties are bought and paid for by the same powerful interests. A vote for a Democrat (Hillary or Obama) is a vote for the status quo. If they were a threat to the powers that be they wouldn’t have gotten this far and would have met the same fate as Kucinich, Nader, Gravel and even Ron Paul. Any speaking out against the “system” results in getting shut out or being discredited.
I will not vote for a Democrat because they have defied the will of the people that put them in office and refused to both end the illegal/immoral war against Iraq and impeach Bush/Cheny. To talk about Democrats is to talk about some kind of double cross. Screw them!
The quicker we all dump the Dims and move on to another party the better we will all be.
On Mondays the Israelis are called to live in covenant with their neighbors. On Tuesdays the Israelis are called to steal all of the Palestinians’ property. These are a schizophrenic pair of demands. If I were an Israeli I would follow King Solomon’s example and ask first for wisdom.
- - - -
“Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know. Am I supposed to take care of my brother?”
“Why have you done this terrible thing? Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground, like a voice crying for revenge.”
–Good News Bible, Genesis 4:9-10. With slight variants in the wording, God’s confrontation with Cain is common to both the Torah and the Koran. The only remaining question is whether all men are brothers.
The devil for president! The lesser of evils! He might have never met his match before! At least the devil is a true christian!
dlnelson wrote:
“What Israel is doing to Gaza is what the Germans did to the Jews in Warsaw. Speak out…to everyone you know…get the truth out person by person…”
I would suggest you go to http://yad-vashem.org.il/exhibitions/warsaw_ghetto/stroop_collection/stroop_4.html
to see exactly what the Nazis did to the Jews in Warsaw.
Your comment actually lessens the remembrance of the evil that was done. You’re attempting to equate the politics of war, which our own government is guilty of many times over (and I would guess you live in a home that is the result of the politics of war, unless you’re a Native American) with the politics of genocide.
Genocide is NOT what the Israelis are doing, despite the now-fashionable attitude that it is. What is happening in Sudan is genocide. What happened in Bosnia was genocide. What happened (and is happening again) in Rwanda was and is genocide.
Can you even tell the difference, or are you neo-progressives (sorry, but that is what I feel you are) too far gone to tell?
Change will never come from statements like “Israel is a cancer on this planet”. All countries are a cancer on this planet. All people are a cancer on this planet. All countries and people are a blessing on this planet. That is reality. The hate filled rhetoric I see here serves no purpose, other than to serve the agendas of people and governments that are no strangers to hatred, intolerance, and murder.
Oh no its never a genocide when we do it…I’m sure this is what the Sudanese, Rwandans and Germans told themselves. Whatever Therealex stop being an apologist for Israeli genocide.
So you want to dump the Dems and start from scratch? Good Luck.
You Want you want but the reality is and you know this unless You are nuts is that you help McCain.
I think you want that….Go ahead.
I don’t think Israel or the USA has the right to exist as they are now but dumping the Dems will make it much worse …. You really want that? go ahead.
These articles and letters about Obama are from last year… He is layin low on Gaza now!
Nader is right about what we are doin to Gaza and we all know that but Ralph and each one of us could not get a vote counted between us even if we could by some miracle of God agree to take some action at the polls in the next election.
Obama does talk about peace and I think he can get Hamas to start acting in their own best interests.
Here is the reality.
Hamas sending thousands of rockets and killing less people than daily murders in any American city is just stupid ignorant try at psy ops and does have to change before we can have peace….
Of course it is all one sided… that is why these rocket attacks are senseless and of course war is senseless….
You guys deserve McCain!
Not gonna be mister nice guy no more….
If there is anybody that can get the job done, If anybody can, Obama is the Man…. and only shot we got.
A write in for Ralph is a vote for McCain… do the math…. Oh yea its the lesser of evil… Obama is not Evil, he is just our best shot before it is too late for all of us critters.
Now that I have calmed down a bit, I’ll repeat…
I read the letter Obama wrote to the Ambassador to Israel and now I found this quote:
“All of us are concerned about the impact of closed border crossings on Palestinian families,” wrote Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, in his letter to Khalilzad. “However, we have to understand why Israel is forced to do this. Gaza is governed by Hamas, which is a terrorist organization sworn to Israel’s destruction, and Israeli civilians are being bombarded on an almost daily basis.”
——
Now Knowing that our media is very heavily owned by pro Israel policy corporations, his not taking up the Palestinian cause means he still has the best chance of anyone to help bring peace.
Israel’s own Prime minister, Rabin, was Assassinated for trying to bring peace too.
Here is another good one.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/barack_obama_and_israel.html
Do we want Obama to be killed too?
“Too many Martyrs and too many Deaths and too many angry words that have been said”
From my Buddy, Phil Ochs
NO CHANGE if a Dem is in place or not is something I have said for months now. Wake up america ( small “a”) it is to late. The second the first brick from the WTC hit the ground the war the take over your country was already won. There is only one option left but why do you think your own Gov has clamped down so hard on human rights and protesters, even to removal of your own weapons in your homes and has the highest percent of its own people ( americans) in jails than any other country in the world?
AND THE HOME OF THE SHEEP. So put on your sports and Hollywood gosip open a beer hope you don’t ever get sick and just worry about keeping the roof over your own head. Hay stay in line back there, your turn for a number or implanted chip will be here soon.
Good Luck
You do have a black and white way of looking at things and I fear you maybe right. That is the reason I took my only chance to turn me back on American and move north to Canada with my job. Your last line is my real reason. Health care and I do have a very nice roof over my head. They have a little GB up here in Steven Harper who I hope to vote against next election.
They use paper ballots up here in Canada. Only the number of votes that are crossed off a list of voters for that area, has to equal the number of ballots in the box. No electronic BS up here. Reps from each party or elections Canada are at each polling station so they have more than one person counting the votes. Nice quick no BS simple system that is fast and easy to count, and leaves a paper trail.
PS, went to the hospital the other day, didn’t cost me a thing. The cost is about a X Large cup of coffee a day for anything from brain surgery to a broken leg. If I may copy you GL, wake up America
Klimt; your logic is sound. But here on Common Dreams democrats are slammed harder than republicans-kinda weird huh?-but there are a few who agree w/ you. And you are right.
But the CD ThreadPolice will Attack if one says anything positive re. the democrats. anything at all…..well f* the ThoughtPolice.
Obama ‘08.
‘”We met with the Israelis, and they said that Gaza is a hostile entity,” said al-Khozendar. . .He said he was reminded that they are better off than are Iraqis under U.S. occupation.’
See? Things could always be worse: Israel could start treating Gaza like Americans treat Iraq. That should scare the piss out of the Gaza’ns.
tailcap.
well, i didn’t say the sky would fall- just that you’d get another republican regime. it is true that the dems haven’t had a great track record in office, but tell me, how has nader fared?
let me say i much much prefer nader to obama, or clinton, or any other democrat. but i like mccain less than all of them.
i am not an american, so the voting process is out of my hands entirely. but from a foreign policy perspective, trust me when i say most of the world wants to see a democratic usa! no candidate outside of the system that you rightly call corrupt will garner more than 5% of the vote- so why not go for one of the best democratic candidates your country has had in ages? obama’s hands will be fettered but it couldn’t be worse than another republican term. i agree that the system needs change but i disagree with your strategy.
mikepeters.
interesting… is it thought police or wishful thinking? or naiveté?
at any rate it does seem like the dems have little love here on cd.
i guess that’s the rebublican party’s biggest asset- the splintered, dizzy opposition.
Gaza is one giant concentration camp. The shame is world-wide. Complaint after complaint has been filed against Israel to no avail. Israel must be made to answer to these complaints. No one is above the law. Justice delayed is justice denied.
therealex,
So it is not genocide? Then what is it? A picnic on a sunny day? What do you call it? Collective punishment of a people is inhuman too. There are not excuses for the occupiers, you should be ashamed of your post.
Ladybug,
I didn’t say what Israel is doing is right. Many Israelis do not agree with it. I said it is not genocide, and I stand by that.
And this constant refrain of “occupiers” would be amusing, coming from America and Europe, if it wasn’t so deranged. For example, my fellow Americans have occupied Native American territory for two centuries, after a REAL campaign of genocide (mass executions, intentional smallpox infections, etc.) and relegated the native people to small, poor, overcrowded “reservations” - or perhaps “refugee camps” would be a better term.
Where is the outrage? Where is the concern? Is it because they aren’t being attacked daily? They would be, if they were to fight back - the National Guard, police, and army would be all over them.
Where is the outrage?
Where is the concern for indigenous people of Brazil, particularly the Yanomami? Oh, it’s not as politically fashionable as ripping Israel, but can’t you spare one crocodile tear?
Where is the outrage?
I said I won’t defend Israeli policies, and I won’t. But if you don’t see that the Palestinians are being used as pawns by the world, and that their own leaders have betrayed them, you are not looking closely at the history - even the tainted ones that only take one side. As long as both sides commit atrocities, there will be a continual stalemate with the population caught in the middle. It is as simplistic to say “Israel is wrong” as it is to say “Hamas is pure evil”.
Progressives are supposed to be able to look beyond the hyperbole and find the answers that are not visible to those with the usual agendas. When it comes to Israel, I’ve seen nothing here that I wouldn’t find on a white supremacist site - and yes, I’ve looked. Maybe you should, too, and see who supports your positions.
We in the UK of course, never see any news from Gaza, we are too preoccupied with China, and their treatment of the Tibetan people. I wonder, could it be because we are Israel’s ally, and we never question or criticize them?
I think a lot of problems would be solved if the Palestinians used all the ingenuity and capacity for productive work they have shown and instead of building Al-Khassam rockets with it, used it for something more productive - Say hardening their infrastructure and making it independent of the Irsraelis. Possibly linking it up with their Arab brothers in Egypt? Can anyone on this forum tell me why this is not possible?
Me thinks its time for the Palestinians to blow a few more holes in the Egypt border.
What a waste of US tax dollars–going as welfare to Israel and Egypt(to leave Israel alone).
While Israel repays it by attacking US communications ships and running over Americans with bulldozers.
Nothing lasts forever though.
Kendpotter: “I think a lot of problems would be solved if the Palestinians used all the ingenuity and capacity for productive work they have shown and instead of building Al-Khassam rockets with it, used it for something more productive - Say hardening their infrastructure and making it independent of the Irsraelis. Possibly linking it up with their Arab brothers in Egypt? Can anyone on this forum tell me why this is not possible?”
Response:
I think the author of the article on which this forum is based has already answered your question. Harden their infrastructure? Using what? They can’t even get enough gas for college students to get to college; in another recent article, it’s noted that they can’t sell their famous strawberry and flower crops because Israel closes the border against their export, as does Egypt (one of those “Arab” countries with which they would have to deal) because of (get this) “pressure from the United States.” Their only “hope,” if you can call it that, would be if Hamas meekly stopped their attacks and waited for Israel and the “international community” to lift their situation of “isolation” (a term used specifically by Obama as his belief in what should be done with Hamas). In the globalized economic system that the U.S. and the E.U. have worked so hard to develop…well I turn the question back on you: how could one country possibly “harden its infrastructure” when it is isolated from the rest of the globe?
Tailcap: well said!
Bye bye, (D) party! I’m gone! I’ve suffered through your abetting (via Truman, JFK, Carter, and - maybe the worst of the lot - Clinton) the (R) dismantling of all that FDR accomplished.
I’m a progressive, and I am SO sick and tired of all the liberal radio personalities & O-Clinton supporters who have usurped the mantle of progressive when, in reality, they are (D) party stalwarts. And unfortunately, Air America has become the DBS - Democratic Broadcasting System.
These so-called progressive democrats’ allegiance to the PARTY takes precedence over any commitment to progressive values & issues. The (D) party has abandoned its conscience, its principles, and its ethical value system, as it triangulates and shifts to the right. Well, voting for the lesser of two evils is still casting your vote for evil. Talk about wasting your vote!
The issues of justice, animal and human rights, the environment, and (the hub at the center of them all) corporate power are more important than the continued employment and good fortunes of Steny Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid and the rest of their ilk.
The (D)s have ignored progressives since regaining control of Congress in ‘06, and they want us to believe that they’ll start listening to us once they’re given the WH as well? Hah! Dream on. They know that liberals are faced with this dilemma: who else they gonna vote for? The (D) & (R) parties have colluded for decades to make sure 3d, 4th, and 5th parties, so common throughout the first half of the 20th century, are excluded from the ballot and from the “debates.” Still, on occasion, some brave people like John Anderson, Ross Perot, and Ralph Nader, emerge to challenge them and their corporate bosses.
The quandary, of course, is abetting a McBush presidency. Well, I feel it wouldn’t be ALL that much different from an O-Clinton presidency, except for agency appointments and judgeship nominations. I have come to terms with this by providing the (D) party with a “pathway to redemption”: you are responsible for people like Michael Mukasey, Clarence Thomas, ‘leeza Rice, John Roberts, Robert Alito, Antonin Scalia, ad nauseum. You passed on all of them! Well, with an even stronger grip on Congress predicted for post-’08 election, if McBush does get the white house, you can challenge his appointments to the bench. You can stop the war NOW; stop the torture; tear up NAFTA, get a divorce from the WTO, and shift from make-believe “free trade” to a more-just fair trade; withhold all aid to Israel until it complies with UN resolution 242 and returns to its pre-1967 borders, dismantles its illegal settlements, tears down its ghetto walls, guarantees the “right of return”, and begins to negotiate in good faith with democratically-elected Palestinian representatives; repeal Taft-Hartley; apologize to Castro for the 630+ assassination attempts and restore relations with Cuba; restore the estate tax (and undo Bush’s self-serving tax cuts for him, his family, and his friends; initiate single-payer health care (kicking the profit-driven finance-insurance sector out of the profession); undo the Reagan-Clinton deregulation of commerce; halt media conglomerations; resurrect Glass-Steagal and properly staff federal watchdog agencies; insure net neutrality; and, oh yeah, begin impeachment hearings and issue some inherent contempt citations!
In other words, grow a pair!
Criminal acts and war crimes are not duly punished by allowing government officials, who do this shit in our name and are paid salaries with our labor/taxes, to simply leave office and get some higher-paying gig at a lobbying firm or, in John (what’s-a-little-torture-among-friends) Yoo’s case, a UC Berkeley job teaching law (TEACHING LAW!). Great! Henry Waxman and John Conyers and Patrick Leahy are holding hearings, but that’s the extent of it. So what? Nothing comes from the hearings! No indictments, no punishment. You think having these guys use the revolving door is good enough? It’s not! They’ll be back (check John Poindexter’s current job status, if you’re unsure of what i mean). Send their asses to jail and let ‘em learn to sing the blues!
But really, this quandary shouldn’t even exist, because if half of these self-described progressive (D)s had voted their conscience in the primaries, we’d be looking at a two-way race between, say, Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards (or maybe even a three-way with Mike Gravel in there, as well).
Hey, we can all fantasize now and again, can’t we?
So, farewell (D) party. You’ve failed me for too long.
I’ll be voting for Ralph Nader and so should anyone who cares about these issues and votes their conscience. And if McBush-O-Clinton gets into the WH instead, then the (D)s (and Bernie Sanders) will have to start earning their fat paychecks and do a better job than they have been doing in “advising and consenting”.
Otherwise, we’re just putting the milk turned sour back into the refrigerator to get it a little colder.
Kevin Garry
Washington, DC
“no gods, no masters” — Margaret Sanger
kgarry,
I agree with most of your demands of the Dems.
I hope Ralph can deliver for you…. too bad your vote won’t get counted.
Jim Glover:
Thank you. Yeah, the fix is probably already in. Besides, as a resident of the unrepresented colony of D.C., safely in the (D) machine’s pocket, my vote wouldn’t matter that much anyway. Still, I’ll sleep better. And commit even more to doing what I can to open up ballot access and hold whomever rules accountable.
Then, on the other hand, I remember Thoreau wrote that by casting a vote you are, in fact, expressly agreeing to participate in a game that has rules, one of them being that the majority wins. He then said that, consequently, those that DO vote have no right to complain after the election, since they are the ones who agreed to go along with the majority.
Just another wrinkle in my thoughts to go along with the wrinkles on my brow.
Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid. We have given them about $140 billion since WWII. On average, the U.S gave more than $6.8 million to Israel each day and gave $0.3 million to the Palestinians each day during Fiscal Year 2007.
I’m sure glad we don’t assist or promote terrorism. We’d have to attack ourselves.
I just got sent this… it looks like there might be some differences between the two big parties.
http://www.republicanoffenders.com/index.html
So, then what you’re saying is that it is a better thing to use the metal, and chemical assets to produce rockets to attack Israel rather than creating productive infrastructure independent of Israel. It is a better thing to use their intellectual capacity/ingenuity for improving these rockets rather than say, figuring out how to get Egypt out from under the US’s thumb and break the blockade or perhaps finding a way to sway public opinion in the US itself. Sderot is such a crucial part of Israel that it is worth throwing all of your political, intellectual, and idustrial capital into creating pockmarks in the landscape and killing the occasional Jew? Is this the great creative capacity of Hamas?
Is there not a single other person here that thinks that is stupid beyond all belief?
** He said he was reminded that they are better off than are Iraqis under U.S. occupation.”**
Not far from the truth!!!
**We are totally complicit in trying to erase entire peoples from the face of the earth. We are all committing Genocide! When our country supports what Israel is doing and then do the same or worse in Iraq, we are criminals.**
Very close to the truth!!!
** The entire Israeli and US administrations need to be tried for Crimes against Humanity.**
Very true!!!
Jerry D. Rose,
I don’t honestly pretend to know all the answers. One thing I do know, if it hurts when I stick an ice-pick in my eye, I stop sticking the ice-pick in my eye.
Since their (Hamas) current tactics have been such a dismal failure for the people of Gaza, isn’t it rational to try something else?
For all of you who love to throw the word genocide around, you quite apparently don’t know what it means. I personally think what is happening in Gaza is a crime, but hyperbole and exaggeration do not help the conversation. The Jews haven’t even committed “decimation” which is to kill every tenth person, let alone genocide.
Comparisons to the Warsaw ghetto are demeaning to the people of Poland. 200,000 Poles died in the Warsaw uprising and the Germans destroyed 85% of the city.
So, be more careful in your rhetoric. It really doesn’t help.
Israel’s behaviour is totally shameful.
It sure is Kenpotter,
OK I admit I am an Obamamaniac.
It was stupid for those who want peace (so far not Israel) to not talk with Hamas since they won the election fairly.
It is also stupid for Hamas to allow firing of rockets because it gives Israel the excuse to collectively treat them like shit and because of that they are forced to live in the Shit.
If Obama keeps his promise to talk to the “enemy”… that would be a first for the USA and Hamas.
Now if Obama flip flops on that, I will write in Ralph or Cynthia as a protest vote.
I might even do somethin radical for a change.
Hi Jim,
I have to vote for Obama, because I am fairly certain that he is the only electable candidate that will get us the hell out of Iraq as fast as possible. Anything else will be icing on the cake. It is pretty difficult for us to be looked upon as anything other than imperialists while we occupy that country. It poisons everything else we do.
**I would suggest you go to http://yad-vashem.org.il/exhibitions/warsaw_ghetto/stroop_collection/stroop_4.html
to see exactly what the Nazis did to the Jews in Warsaw.**
Your link is a mirror of what’s happening in AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, and Palestinians TERRITORY.
It’s ironic that the Isralis/Jews thought Hitler’s Nazis were evil; but now are using the same script. And the USA? Well, it supports and commits the most gruesome crimes and terrorist acts possible, against humanity and labels them as self-defense. And what’s most disturbing is that the rest of the world stands by and does nothing, or, join in (so-called coalition).
The UN refused to OK the Iraq invasion, but still went in and set up office (joined in the crimes) after the attack.
Kendpotter and Jim (my “Obamaniac” friend—you said it). I certainly don’t disagree with “trying something different” and did not advocate Hamas continuing its rocket attacks which are indeed counter-productive (wanna talk about exaggeration and comparison of atrocities: the Hamas attacks are nowhere on the same scale of the genocide—oops, call it something else!—that has been practiced on Gaza and the West Bank by Israel and her “staunch allies.” All of which doesn’t justify those attacks but can’t you have at least a tiny bit of understanding of the desperation of folks who can’t “call in air strikes” or bring down international sanctions against their enemy? Just that understanding would be “something different” that might help. And then, speaking of scale, do you really think the metal and chemicals that goes into making mortars could do anything significant to Gaza’s “superstructure?” And as for Obama’s “talking with” Hamas, well talk’s cheap and I’d talk to George Bush if I thought it would do any good but the question is what are you prepared to DO about the situation: like lifting sanctions or saying “excuse me please, Mr. Olmert, stop doing that stuff. maybe stop building those separation walls, those apartheid highways?” Can you imagine what the Israel lobby would do to him, when it practically crucified him even for suggesting some degree of “sympathy” for the Palestinians?
Jerry,
I am pretty sure Martin Luther King Jr. and Ghandi couldn’t (and wouldn’t have) called in air strikes either, yet somehow they managed. Apartheid was not defeated by the armed struggle of the ANC. Violence, whether Israeli or Hamas sponsored, is not the answer.
I look at what happened to the violence in Northern Ireland. It was primarily based on economics. Once the country of Ireland decided to get its house in order, the success was rapid and violence become passe’.
The first thing the Palestinians need to do is get their own house in order. Fatah is corrupt and Hamas is dedicated to the Jews extinction. Why would Israel negotiate with someone that specifically states that the main reason for their existence is the erasure of Israel? The Israeli lobby would have a much more difficult time in this country if they weren’t given so much ammunition (rational and realistic, or not) to use against the Palestinians.
All of the Palestinians I have met and worked with in this country are intelligent, well educated, thoughtful. Do all the smart ones leave? Is that why it seems like a bunch of idiots is running the place?
I would have thought after 40+ years of pissing around, someone would have stepped up (at least somebody better than that corrupt louse, Arafat) and shown themselves to be the MLK, the Ghandi, the Saladin, the George Washington. Recognize that the Israelis are not going to just march arm in arm into to sea because that would be convenient. Recognize that somehow they are going to have to share this land. But no, apparently they enjoy shooting themselves in the foot too much.
OK Jerry Rose, talk is cheap but War is expensive. Like churchill (no peace man) said something like Jaw Jaw is better than War War.
Just talking with Hamas is now forbidden…. like Dylan sang, Even Jesus would never forgive the Masters of War.
I feel since the USA is bankrupt and goin deeper in debt, the Zionists will even realize that the free lunch cannot go on for much longer.
If Obama could stand up to his preacher and Chicago’s Black Muslims, I don’t think he is gonna take orders from anyone including the Israel Lobby.
Time is on the side of peace…
By the way are you the same Jerry Rose I met who edited the JFK 3rd Decade magazine?
Time out for some Peacefultainment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuuesBhOR9g
” kittyladyoregon April 6th, 2008 1:43 pm
…
We are totally complicit in trying to erase entire peoples from the face of the earth. We are all committing Genocide! When our country supports what Israel is doing and then do the same or worse in Iraq, we are criminals. …”
NO, KITTYLADYOREGON! You may be among those people, those U.S. (et al) citizens you describe, but you don’t describe all of us. Or maybe disneyland USA has rendered you so surrealist that you think we can stop the superpower USA gangster govt we have and by only wishing it’d stop.
There’s certainly no way that I can stop the beast, and I’m against all of its crimes, freely saying as … little; and that’s all I can do, the little voicing of my view. I can’t do more, the U.S. needs a real People’s Army and … good luck trying to form one, for it’s not … but improbable, and the beast govt continues its crimes.
“We are totally complicit …” is BS; because ‘we’ is NOT made up of ‘we’. After all, I’m not part of that ‘we’.
kittyladyoregon is part of that ‘we’ though; apparently.
And the U.S. govt crimes against the Palestinians are also crimes against the USA. Most “Americans” have been lullaby-asleep though; apparently kittyladyoregon and her ‘we’ bunch lot of “Americans”, f.e.
So I C.O., conscientiously object, to KLO’s blaming all USA’ns.
Notice that that is the only thing I disagree with in what KLO said; not saying that I disagree about the case for Palestinians is, or not, genocide, and so on. Palestine is being genocided, and I think references to WWII Nazis gencoding some millions of Jews compares lightly, for people then did not have WWW access to information, while we do today, f.e. And there are other … purported facts about WWII and Nazi … that are … odd, say; needing to read about a letter sent by a traditional Jewish rabbi to zionist elites at the time, about their very direct contribution to the holocaust of Jews; $$$ and power, imperialism, this pathology, again. Similarly, what’s done by the state of Israel is not of true Judaism; and the similarity is … strong. There’s … this identical insanity in both cases; a satanic like insanity.
The letter by a Jewish rabbi questioned the zionists, asking if they actually worked to prevent Hitler from being able to relocate the Jews who were holocausted. According to that version of history, Hitler tried and Britain was an accepting govt, but zionists intervened with their demand that all relocated Jews needed to go to Palestine, for the then new establishment of Israel.
Well, we know for fact that such establishment is how known Israel came to be. After all, it didn’t previously exist and has been growing by robbing Palestinians of their land and means of income.
The Zionists are probably most guilty of all for the Jewish holocaust during WWII; while they sideline the historic fact that around 20mn Russians died, France and other European countries were invaded and … made hell on earth enough. “Funny” how 6mn Jews makes a bigger story than much of Europe and then Russia, combined; and that this world has therefore gone through human population explosion since, or else there’s another problem with the “logic”.
There’s something smelling of rotten fish. Maybe Zionist Hollywood or Disney will tell you the (a, some) truth. It’ll be a seller with the ‘we’ KLO speaks of.
Palestine is genocide; Iraq is genocide; Congo is genocide; Haiti … enough, close anyway; North American and other indigenous peoples of planet Earth (which includes Palestinians and Iraqis, as well as Afghans) … genocide; genocide [and] omnicide aren’t lacking.
I’m not part of the KLO-branded ‘we’ though.
Tried to edit my above post, but neither of the reasons CD states for blocking applied, and I was still unable to edit the post for some … obviously different (and apparently new) reason.
Anyway, I made some typo. errors in the above post; like ‘WWII Nazis gencoding some millions of Jews’ should be ‘genociding’, not ‘gencoding’, f.e.
I want to make that “typo” clear, for some people might want to refer to the holocaust of the Jews by Nazi-Germany (which Germany of today resembles too much, btw) as gencode’ing, instead of genocide’ing. I suppose we can understand some intent for some wicked sort of gen. coding, but I would not refer to what’s been done to any people in this way; unless gen. coding was specifically involved. It seems to have been involved in WWII, but not in terms that we see references of ‘gen. coding’ for. White Supremacy nonsense is ‘gen. coding’, sort of anyway, but WWII was about … more. Most of Europe was ‘white’, but Nazi Germany still invaded, etc.
Anyway, ‘gencoding’ is not what I meant.
And why is CD preventing editing of posts [immediately] after posting? Or is that because I haven’t logged off my PC for a few days? Maybe the latter, given MS (Multiply-Sclerosed) is not a good OS to begin with; ideally rebooted daily, while, Linux, say, whenever you feel like rebooting, “take your time, no hurry”.
If the Palestinians would stop attacking Israel they might find their lives a lot easier and better.
Gaza has a border with Egypt - Why is it Israel who is blamed for not allowing goods into Gaza? The Egyptians could certainly do it. Let them provide the gasoline.
I am sorry, but I will not blame Israel for not wanting to help those who continually attack her.
Hamas Charter:
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).”
This Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), clarifies its picture, reveals its identity, outlines its stand, explains its aims, speaks about its hopes, and calls for its support, adoption and joining its ranks. Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps. The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realised.
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).
Peaceful Solutions, Initiatives and International Conferences:
Article Thirteen:
Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.
The Palestinians could have had independence and their own country years ago if Arafat had not walked away from the Camp David Accords and if the Palestinians would stop the senseless and continual attack upon Israelis even now they would find their plight far better, but to expect Israel to assist their ability to wage these attacks by supplying power, fuel, money or anything else to Hamas is insanity.
Hamas must amend its charter and seek peace. If it did so, it would make a world of difference for the Palestinians.
” Dump Bush April 8th, 2008 10:31 am
If the Palestinians would stop attacking Israel they might find their lives a lot easier and better.”
BS! The Palestinians attack not of aggression, but reaction. The aggressor is Israel, though really Israel, the U.S., and all other allies (or more) of Israel or (and more accurately) U.S.-Israel.
“Gaza has a border with Egypt - Why is it Israel who is blamed for not allowing goods into Gaza?”
It evidently is due to Israel (and U.S., and permissive UNSC) that Palestinians are plighted. U.S. is majorly culprit in this, it is superpower (for a little while longer anyway), etc., and both Israel and Egypt rule as allies of U.S. Egypt does not have to side with evil, so with the U.S. and Israel, but Egypt does; as do also many other govts that are recipients of … plenty from the U.S.
Gangsterism, ya know.
U.S. is more at fault than Israel and Egypt, for it’s the U.S. constantly applying criminal vetoes in the UNSC, while the U.S. has proven en masse to act unilaterally when not agreed with; this is why and how Israel continues without any real intervention. If it wasn’t for this evil of the U.S. ruling elites, and which NO other country should ever support, but many do, then Israel could have been seriously stopped many decades ago. But no country’s willing to stand and firmly so against the U.S. superpower.
“The Egyptians could certainly do it. Let them provide the gasoline.
I am sorry, but I will not blame Israel for not wanting to help those who continually attack her.”
It’s not a question of who’s to provide for gasoline, etc. Israel also wouldn’t be provider of MOST things Palestinians need. Israel has very little for natural resources and is stealing those of Palestinians.
Israel needs to provide cessation of its hellbent criminality against Palestinians and other non-Jews; it needs to stop stealing Palestinians’ lands and demolishing their homes; it needs to stop preventing international (note that ‘international’ does not mean ‘Israel’!) food and medical aid for Palestinians; it needs to stop cutting off access to safe drinking water; …; etcetera. Israel does this and only because the U.S. constantly vetoes UNSC actions; well, because of that [and] the SC allow such criminal vetoes to stand as if not criminal at all (only imaginable by evil … “thinkers”). That means that many enough govts are criminally complicit in the crimes against Palestinians.
Only Saddam Hussein had the honourable ability to stand [for] the Palestinians; and that’s one reason why his likes need to be removed, according to Zionists’ proven objectives. He tried to help the Palestinians, but was … stopped.
Given that that is proven history, maybe Egypt’s leaders don’t want to risk doing anything special to try to help the Palestinians; knowing what Saddam’s actions led to for his govt.
No one is forcing Israel to be evil, a choice the Israeli (and U.S., and … so on) elites make entirely for and by themselves, no arm-twisting needed; because they [lust] for evil, including making life such a sick, insane “enterprise” that some of us want to … cut it short, to fight, or else to … exit asap.
And it’s hilarious that anyone who refuses to see obvious reality chooses to name him or her self ‘Dump Bush’. Zionists have finally decided that Bush isn’t particularly useful anymore and are moving on for the next U.S. puppet, evidently. Oh well, we can and should know that evil has no real allegiances; that it only seeks to exploit. Hence, a Zionist ‘Dump Bush’; instead of a sane, informed, … ‘dump bush’. As the saying goes, wolves sometimes try to disguise themselves as if sheep. Many may be for dumping Bush, and likes, but evidently not for common reasons.
So ‘Dump Bush’ is a liar and a Zionist now looking for the next U.S. “president” to exploit. Bush has been used about as much as he profitably can be, so now it’s time to throw away that no-longer useful tool, puppet, to move on for the next-in-line.