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US Congressmen Visit Aid Projects, Ruins in Gaza
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Two U.S. congressmen made a rare visit to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, meeting with aid workers and touring scenes of destruction left by Israel's military offensive.
U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., center, and Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, D-Mass, left, visit the American International School compound, destroyed in the Israeli military offensive in Gaza, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip Tuesday, April 7, 2009. The two U.S. congressmen made a rare visit to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, meeting with aid workers and touring scenes of destruction left by Israel's military offensive. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa) Reps. Bob Inglis and Stephen F. Lynch pointedly avoided contact with the Hamas militant group, which rules Gaza and which the United States, European Union and Israel consider a terrorist organization.
Lynch, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said the world must find a way to address a "legitimate humanitarian crisis" in Gaza.
"We need to act with some urgency here. There is a humanitarian crisis going on and we can't dawdle," Lynch told the Associated Press.
Israel launched the three-week offensive in December with the aim of ending rocket fire on southern Israel by Hamas militants. Palestinian human rights groups say more than 1,400 people were killed, including more than 900 civilians. Thousands of buildings and much of Gaza's infrastructure were destroyed or damaged.
Israel says the death toll was lower, and most of those killed were Hamas militants.
Lynch said he and Inglis, a Republican from South Carolina, visited a project run by Catholic Relief Services in a heavily damaged neighborhood and a tent camp where displaced Gazans have been living since the war ended on Jan. 18. They also visited the grounds of the American International School of Gaza, a U.S.-style school the Israeli army flattened during the offensive, saying militants launched rockets from its grounds.
Lynch said the destruction in Gaza was worse than he expected.
Since Hamas violently seized the territory from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in June 2007, Israel and Egypt have maintained tight border control. Restrictions on cement and other building materials _ which Israel says could benefit Hamas _ have greatly hampered the reconstruction effort.
"It is problematic having the checkpoints closed," Lynch said.
He said aid could be brought into Gaza through the U.N. and other organizations, and that safeguards could be put in place to make sure resources were used properly. But the U.S. will not work with Hamas until it changed its policy toward Israel and rejected violence, he said.
Tuesday's visit followed a similar tour earlier this year by Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, and two Democratic congressmen, Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Brian Baird of Washington.
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Show AllClueless in Gaza...
"We need to act with some urgency here. There is a humanitarian crisis going on and we can't dawdle," Lynch told the Associated Press.
It is not a humanitarian crisis; it's a crime!
One or two congressmen visiting Gaza and decrying the death and destruction have absolutely no effect when their views are confronted by the nefarious AIPAC
War Crimes have been committed. Crimes Against Humanity. Israel must pay for its offenses. Nothing less will do.
How can Hamas violently seize control of something they are legitimately in control of? Someone please explain that to me. The author needs to get his facts right about who seized control of Palestine.
Exactly
Hamas is the democratically elected government of Palestine (Occupied Gaza and Occupied West Bank). As we all know it was Abbas who tried to overthrow them and Hamas finding out before the action took place seized everything in relation to Abbas, and we all read also that the coup was engineered by the US.................
From a recent interview of Seymour Hersh on Democracy Now:
Obama told the Israelis, “I do not want bombing in Gaza or Israeli troops in Gaza at the time of my inauguration.”
"which was that the Israelis would stop short, as Obama wanted; in return, the Obama administration, once in office, would not interfere with a prearranged flow of arms that was going to Israel."
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/31/seymour_hersh_on_syria_calling_the
And we expect change?
"Lynch said the destruction in Gaza was worse than he expected."
That Lynch was caught unprepared (I am sure he saw the same media reports we all did) means that the news that did come out of Gaza during the attack was not as extensive as we thought.
The Zionists will hate this, as they claim that all the media reports that came from Gaza was propaganda.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins - Native American proverb.
Cynthia McKinney did more than say "tut-tut" to the latest Israeli colonial massacre, which is why her relief-supplies carrying boat was rammed by an Israeli warship:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvhBv2JQl2U
Written for Iraq, but apropos for Gaza, Palestine, Afghanistan and Pakistan as well.
-------------------------------------------
Perhaps it is Time to Break the Wheel
Blood, burned bodies hanging.
Outrage! Revenge! Barbarians! Savages!
Kill them until they surrender!
Give them no quarter!
Music to Bush and Company’s ears,
This cry for revenge and destruction.
If this is the people’s mood,
His forces may kill at will.
What of the Iraqi, holding a burned body,
That represents his hopes and dreams?
He sits on the ground before a burned out home,
Cradling wife or child and watching the soldiers.
What may be passing through his mind?
Outrage! Revenge! Barbarians! Savages!
Kill them until they surrender!
Give them no quarter!
Thus is this horror perpetuated
In war after war, year after year,
From Richard Cœur De Lyon
To the current tragic bloodbath.
Steve Osborn
10 April 2004
-------------------------------------------
Now that even amateurs have the capability to remove or add people to photos and change written documents just like Winston did in the Ministry of Truth, history only exists in the memories of those who have lived through it. We have seen what passes for "history" today, spun, twisted and mangled beyond recognition or identification by the spinmeisters. We oldsters that remember can see what is going on. Sadly, we seem to be able to do little.
There are lots of people who argue that Israel "left Gaza" and that the Palestinians still would not stop firing rockets. Here's a refutation of the notion that Israel ever "left Gaza" in the first place:
http://www.closedzone.com
The more people see what happened, the better. The part I don't get is how they can go to Gaza and NOT interface with Hamas at all, Hamas IS the government of Gaza. This particular blindspot invalidates anything they are trying to do.
By the story they visited this site and that site and talked to aid workers -- it doesn't say they talked to or even saw any Palestinians at all.
the story also says that Hamas violently took control of the Gaza land from Abbas. What a complete lie. Whoever wrote that piece is a monster.
I think these two Zionists tampons, Inglis and Lynch will vote for more money and weapons for the murders in Tel Aviv. We can't change the world or America by sending the same bunch of scum bags to Washington year after year. Go to AIPAC payouts to see if your Congressman is a pimp for the Zionists.
what is "aipac payouts"?
James,
check out http://www.wrmea.com
and, aipac financial contributions to members of congress
James check this one out. ifamericansnew.org
AP Propaganda (talking points):
"Since Hamas violently seized the territory from forces loyal..." - This false talking point (as pointed out by others in this string) is being tagged to every news report about Gaza by mainstream media as though they need to repeat the lie enough times for it to become true. After Hamas won the election, Israel imprisoned Hamas elected leaders, strengthened the blockade creating further humanitarian problems and it was the US and Israel that tried to arm Fatah in Gaza to cause an uprising. Mainstream media reported it at the time but has conveniently forgotten it.
The article fails to provide any context to how bad the humanitarian crisis is and just makes a few quotes from the Congressman.
post this article a 1000 times on craiglist Tel Aviv
Why do we purposely keep ignoring the fact, that HAMAS was democratically elected by the Palestinians in Gaza!!!!????? We are all in favour of democracy...but only if the election results are to our liking. Democracy??? It hasn't been this for a long time already.
And HAMAS has the right to make the same demand: no dealings with Israel until it stops its brutal acts against Gaza. Good for the goose but not good for the gander, eh? Same old same.
Gaza is a 'problematic humanitarian crisis we need to act on with some urgency, we should not dawdle'
WOW. 1400 bodies, 5000 maimed, a starving POW popluation.
Stepping through blood & rubble, a war-zone where only one side had weapons, these A*****'* words make it sound like they are viewing an Unfortunate Problem as opposed to a Killing Field, a Slaughterhouse where Children by the hundreds were Butchered. Dawdle? What a cutesy little word. They'll get their names in their papers back home. Foreign Policy Experience.
Blues For Allah.
Gaza And The Warsaw Ghetto
same place
different time
while the world stood by
genocide
live
Dawdle? Since 1947 he world has dawdled on Palestine. Invited to come live in peace in Palestine by the population there instead a people victimized, came and assumed the role of their former captors. Aided and abetted by the only functioning military at the end of WWII, a systematic land grab and removal of a pre-existing population ensued. The abused child has continued the legacy of abuse and passed it on to their own children, abusing them. When does the cycle of violence stop? Who can remove the hatred in their own heart first? When will we understand that there are no Gods that would justify such slaughter? When will we understand that the slaughter is our own choice, the exercise of human free will? No God would ever justify this. Only humans can do that.