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We Have No Words Left
"I will play music and celebrate what the Israeli air force is doing." Those chilling words were spoken on al-Jazeera on Saturday by Ofer Shmerling, an Israeli civil defense official in the Sderot area adjacent to the Gaza Strip. For days Israeli planes have bombed Gaza. Almost 300 Palestinians have been killed and a thousand injured, the majority civilians, including women and children. Israel claims most of the dead were Hamas "terrorists". In fact, the targets were police stations in dense residential areas, and the dead included many police officers and other civilians. Under international law, police officers are civilians, and targeting them is no less a war crime than aiming at other civilians.
Palestinians are at a loss to describe this new catastrophe. Is it our 9/11, or is it a taste of the "bigger shoah" Matan Vilnai, the deputy defense minister, threatened in February, after the last round of mass killings?
Israel says it is acting in "retaliation" for rockets fired with increasing intensity ever since a six-month truce expired on 19 December. But the bombs dropped on Gaza are only a variation in Israel's method of killing Palestinians. In recent months they died mostly silent deaths, the elderly and sick especially, deprived of food, cancer treatments and other medicines by an Israeli blockade that targeted 1.5 million people - mostly refugees and children - caged into the Gaza Strip. The orders of Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, to hold back medicine were just as lethal and illegal as those to send in the warplanes.
Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, pleaded that Israel wanted "quiet" - a continuation of the truce - while Hamas chose "terror", forcing him to act. But what is Israel's idea of a truce? It is very simple: Palestinians have the right to remain silent while Israel starves them, kills them and continues to violently colonize their land.
As John Ging, the head of operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, said in November: "The people of Gaza did not benefit; they did not have any restoration of a dignified existence ... at the UN, our supplies were also restricted during the period of the ceasefire, to the point where we were left in a very vulnerable and precarious position and with a few days of closure we ran out of food."
That is an Israeli truce. Any act of resistance including the peaceful protests against the apartheid wall in the West Bank is always met by Israeli bullets and bombs. There are no rockets launched at Israel from the West Bank, and yet Israel's extrajudicial killings, land theft, settler pogroms and kidnappings never stopped for a day during the truce. The western-backed Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas has acceded to all Israel's demands. Under the proud eye of United States military advisers, Abbas has assembled "security forces" to fight the resistance on Israel's behalf. None of that has spared a single Palestinian in the West Bank from Israel's relentless colonization.
The Israeli media report that the attack on Gaza was long planned. If so, the timing in the final days of the Bush administration may indicate an Israeli effort to take advantage of a moment when there might be even less criticism than usual.
Israel is no doubt emboldened by the complicity of the European Union, which this month voted again to upgrade its ties with Israel despite condemnation from its own officials and those of the UN for the "collective punishment" being visited on Gaza. Tacit Arab regime support, and the fact that predicted uprisings in the Arab street never materialized, were also factors.
But there is a qualitative shift with the latest horror: as much as Arab anger has been directed at Israel, it has also focused intensely on Arab regimes - especially Egypt's - seen as colluding with the Israeli attack. Contempt for these regimes and their leaders is being expressed more openly than ever. Yet these are the illegitimate regimes western politicians continue to insist are their "moderate" allies.
Diplomatic fronts, such as the US-dominated Quartet, continue to treat occupier and occupied, colonizer and colonized, first-world high-tech army and near-starving refugee population, as if they are on the same footing. Hope is fading that the incoming administration of Barack Obama is going to make any fundamental change to US policies that are hopelessly biased towards Israel.
In Europe and the Middle East, the gap between leaders and led could not be greater when it comes to Israel. Official complicity and support for Israel contrast with popular outrage at war crimes carried out against occupied people and refugees with impunity.
With governments and international institutions failing to do their jobs, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee - representing hundreds of organizations - has renewed its call on international civil society to intensify its support for the sanctions campaign modeled on the successful anti-apartheid movement.
Now is the time to channel our raw emotions into a long-term effort to make sure we do not wake up to "another Gaza" ever again.
- Posted in
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93 Comments so far
Show AllHave fear and hatred grown so strong in Israel that all it can think of is to destroy its neighbors? Let's see, bomb Lebanon, bomb Syria, bomb Iraq, bomb Iran (on its wish list). Where does this madness end??
Grown men love to kill and call it sport. Then they teach it to their children.
Ursa
Ali, I cry for Palestine!
The Nazis, considered themselves a 'Master Race' Nazis made all Jews over the age of twelve years were forced to identify themselves by wearing a Star of David on their sleeve. These first measures were just the start of a long process however, and with more edicts issued every month it wasn't long before the Jews were reduced to the status of slaves and chattel. They were forbidden to work in either key industries or government institutions, to bake bread, to earn more than 500 zloty a month, to travel by train or trolley-bus, to leave the city limits without special permits, to possess gold or jewellery, plus all Jewish shops and enterprises had also to be marked with the Star of David. In addition to these official oppressions, Jews were summarily humiliated, beaten or even executed for little or spurious reason. In short they lived their lives in a state of constant fear.
It is Inconcievable that Israel, USA, The UN can justify this!!!!
ursa:yes. There is some kind of disconnect. Chomsky has talked about nation states. State power. In my words, governments do, what they can "get away with", to stay in power, to gain power,etc. Who will stop the Israeli government? The US government can, and ...look at the US government policies in the middle east. I suspect the surviving individuals from the European Holocaust are in terrible pain over what the Israeli government is doing. Some have spoken. There is no mainstream media coverage of the Israelis who are protesting in Israel. Not going to repeat comments made elsewhere. Thanks for your specificity. It reminds me of William L. Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", a great book.
ursa/NYCartist
Do either of you know why Egypt is blocking Gazan's from crossing the border?
Because Egypt is a dictatorship supported by our government, and no Arab countries want to deal with the refugees.
zmann
Thanks!
Egypt brokered the last cease fire.
Egypt is the conduit by which Israel and Hamas interact.
Egypt is the conduit by which the US and Hamas interact.
The Peace agreement between Egypt and Israel is the bedrock of the peace between Israel and the other Arab nations.
The government of Egypt:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/eg.html#Govt
A Republic it seems
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
And the courageous man who brokered that ceasefire was gunned down by his own people, just as Rabin was. And I hope you don't seriously consider Egypt to be a Republic. It is only by the standards of the Bush State Department, in which any selection is a free and fair election in a well-functioning democracy. Unless Hamas wins it, of course.
Thomas More:have you done your homework on the other thing we had been talking about? You know I like you, but ursa and I are very right. Want more homework? The other comment from zmann answers re Egypt. I have known Egyptian coptics in this country. One thing does not erase the other truth. Warsaw ghetto comparison is close enough. Would you rather use apartheid in South Africa as Archbishop Desmond Tutu compares the treatment of Palestinians? Or Jimmy Carter? But why quibble? There is no question that Israel is being disgusting in its attack on Gaza, very much like the US was in Fallujah. I will not be diverted into side arguments with ye. Have a happy New Year and remember, what I like about you is that you have a flexibility in changing your mind on some things. (Chuckle, the things where we disagree. We agree on some things.) And why are you ignoring answers to you and asking a different question?
NYCartist
My homework is well in hand.
And why are you ignoring answers to you and asking a different question?
Could you be more specific as I don't know what you are referring to?
You may call it a quibble, but I don't think the Warsaw Ghetto analogy is even close. But maybe I'm not informed enough or not current enough on Gaza. Others have said it was occupied and I thought it was not. I keep trying.
The Palestinian question is something I have changed my mind about. earlier this year a poster gave me a lot of information about what was happening in Gaza. Most of it was true and I changed my opinion.
But I still see both sides of the coin, there is blame enough to go around.
Thomas More:what did I ignore? The basis of Ali Abunimah and others arguments is that it is not an equal two-sided "fight". Just like Iraq and the United States is not an equal two sided "war". The mainstream media is awful in this country on what's happening. I don't think the big question is whether or not it's the same in Gaza or Warsaw. It's about people being "locked in" (which is true for both)(and locked out) and bombs raining down on a locked in people. That is true for both. I understand where you are "coming from". It took me decades to start to look, listen and learn about Palestine and Israel. As an American, I didn't want to have to deal with it. But, as an American, I do. As a Jew, it pains me so very much what Israel government policy is doing in the name of "protecting the state":protecting its citizens as it claims, is propaganda. Doesn't it sound Bush-like? I have so many comments, that I don't want to repeat, because I just don't have the stamina.
(I suggested you read Tim Wise on "White Like Me"
was my h.w. reference. We don't have to continue any of that.) Happy New Year. One of my problems as a Jew,or strengths, is lifelong identification with those on the receiving end of oppression. And being progressive, I hope. It is not a coincidence that Harold Pinter's parents were Jews, in re his political point of view. There's a long list of Jews who have leaned progressive, left or whatever you want to call it. My European Orthodox Jewish grandmother was socialist leaning, without labels, although always a Democrat. That, in part, is why so many Jews are upset at what Israel is doing. Too tired to continue... Happy New Year.
"The basis of Ali Abunimah and others arguments is that it is not an equal two-sided "fight"
Ah-Ha! I understand. No, I meant that there are more than one side to the argument in the who is right area. The Palestinians have been handed a bad deal, but I don't think for a minute its all Israels fault.I didn't mean equal force at all. Israel could wipe them from the face of the earth militarily.
Some people here don't seem to know that Palestne was Jewish land, not arab before the Egyptians and Romans came. They don't even seem to know that it was the Arabs that attacked Israel just hours after the UN voted. Seems they don't know that it was America that stopped the Israeli at the Suez canal.
It seems that if you question the accepted story, you are "defending Israel"
Most of my Jewish friends are progressive, well liberals anyway. Almost every woman (notice-woman!) is a feminist. I was talking about ladies and women that you pointed out in my posts and Linda whacked me with her napkin and said "you better not do that again. The "woman" is right." I'm scared of Linda, so be sure I won't.
"Some people here don't seem to know that Palestne (sic) was Jewish land"
According to a handbook of religious delusion and dogma, YES.
According to archaeological and real historical records, NO.
Many Palestinians in fact, are the descendants of the tribes who remained behind when others left for economic and social reasons. Nobody was kicked out.
How long does a land deed from a mythical deity last anyway??
I would that thought that any claim was well extinguished after 2000 years.
The "Law of Aliya" is a deceit, a con, that encapsulates Zionist Racism for all to see. Many have no connection whatsoever with the Middle East and many are new or recent "converts". Many were small and insignificant in their original home countries but now they can swagger around and lord it over the hapless Palestinians, stealing their land, destroying their crops, killing them and generally abusing a weaker people, all the while under the protection of the machinery of the Zionist state and the criminals of the IOF.
Thomas More: let's put the tangled mess of history of the region aside for a moment. The basic problem at this instance is that Israel is bombing Gaza and civilians to little shards and people are dying, children.... The issue at hand is stopping Israel from this state terrorism. If you don't like labels, then, stopping Israel from this bombing and bombing and threatening invasion. It is not coincidence that it looks like Fallujah in re US military. It's being done with our American-made weapons. Some day, when I'm not so symptomatic, (feeling rotten physically), I'll play with your about your feminist women friends. Tell Linda hello from your CD screen "pal" in NYC. Happy New Year. I've typed my wee fingers "to the bone" over these last 2 days about Israel...........art is percolating below my conscious brain level.........
A post of Ardee's, an article by Pat Buchanan and the discovery that I knew nothing about the Mecca accords, rejected by both Israel and the US are changing my opinion a bit.
"let's put the tangled mess of history of the region aside for a moment"
Thats a great idea!
I'm not sure I should comment further on this without further research.
This is Buchanan's article and I think its mostly fair comment. What do you think?
Unwilling to control its fighters, who fired scores of missiles into Israel at the end of their six-month ceasefire, Hamas gave Israel the provocation it needed to deliver a savage blow to the Palestinian enclave in Gaza.
Saturday was the bloodiest day in the history of the Palestinian people since being driven from their homes in the War of 1948. One thousand were killed or wounded, as the Israeli Air Force conducted over a hundred strikes -- on graduation ceremonies for Hamas fighters, police stations and storage sites for rockets.
About Israel's right and duty to defend its border towns, there is no dispute. When Hamas permits Gaza to be used as a launch pad for rockets, it must expect retaliation. Nor can Hamas claim some right to dictate the limits of that retaliation.
Yet the wisdom of so savage a retribution for rockets that killed not one Israeli is open to question. And crass Israeli politics seems to be behind this premeditated and planned blitz.
With Likud's hawkish "Bibi" Netanyahu ahead in the polls for the Feb. 10 election, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Labor's candidate, had to show that he, too, could be ruthless with Hamas.
Kadima Party candidate and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has an even greater need than the highly decorated Barak to show toughness. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, departing in scandal, wants to exit in a blaze of glory, to blot out the memory of a botched war against Hezbollah that he launched in the summer of 2006.
However, while Israel's politicians all seem to have a stake in these devastating strikes, Israel herself will pay the price.
Given the casualty toll, over 300 dead and 1,300 wounded as of this writing, Hamas will have to exact its pound of flesh. The Hamas wing that seeks renewed war with Israel will now shout into silence the wing working with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak on a new ceasefire.
The moderate Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas, who has been talking to Israel, testifying to her good faith, has been made to appear the puppet and fool. A new intifada spreading to the West Bank, with suicide attacks inside Israel, is now possible.
Moderate Arabs, who have recognized Israel or backed peace, will now be seen by the Arab street as appeasers impotent to stop the public suffering of the Palestinian people.
As for President Bush's hopes of midwifing a peace that would create a Palestinian state, they are as dead as the Annapolis process he set in train. In advancing peace in the Middle East, Bush's eight-year record is now a near-absolute failure.
For four years, Bush refused to talk to Yasir Arafat, though Bill Clinton had negotiated with him, as had four Israeli prime ministers, two of who shared a Nobel Prize with Arafat. In his second term, Bush, after insisting Hamas be included in free elections in Palestine, refused to recognize Hamas when it won those elections.
Arafat was a terrorist and Hamas is a terrorist organization, declared Bush, and we don't negotiate with terrorists. Yet, Bush de-listed Libya as a state sponsor of terror and sent Condi Rice to chat up Col. Gadhafi, though Gadhafi still has on his hands the blood of scores of American school kids from the Lockerbie massacre of 1989 that Libya and Gadhafi engineered
For eight years, like the "dummy" in a hand of bridge, Bush has sat mute as his Israeli partner, Sharon or Olmert, played America's cards as well as their own. The Bush response to Saturday's carnage, as anticipated, was to blame Hamas for causing it and urge Israelis to be careful about civilian casualties as they go about their reprisals.
Whatever Israel decides, we support. For eight years that has been the most reliable guide to U.S. Middle East policy.
And Barack Obama? Forty-eight hours after the Israeli blitz began, he and his national security team remain silent.
Hopefully, Obama will bring with him a new Mideast policy, one made in the U.S.A., for the U.S.A. Hopefully, just as Israel has its private links to Syria through Turkey, to Hamas through Egypt and to Hezbollah, Obama will establish independent U.S. channels to all three, and adopt a separate U.S. policy toward all three, as Israel does.
While the United States must support Israel's right to defend her towns and to strike bases from which Israelis are being attacked, Obama should denounce the collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, by Israel's cutting off their electricity in the dead of winter and denying them the food and medicine many need to survive.
For us to remain silent in the face of this comports neither with our interests or our values. Israel's policy of withholding from the weak and innocent of Gaza, women and children, the necessities of life, to punish the guilty who rule at the point of a gun, is a policy that Obama should declare the United States will no longer support with tax dollars."
"A post of Ardee's, an article by Pat Buchanan and the discovery that I knew nothing about the Mecca accords, rejected by both Israel and the US are changing my opinion a bit."
.I am blushing...Usually I work for the dark side of the force but I chose to make an exception in your case....By the by, this post may very well be your best work here on this forum, seriously, its been a long time since you have stretched your mental legs, and good for you!
Coincidentally I was thinking today that this massive retaliatory effort by Israel comes on the eve of the elections there. I have pondered this war for a very long time, as a boy I collected money to plant trees in Israel to make the desert flower and, as did my entire family ( and about every Jew in America) delighted in the existence of the State of Israel.
It has been a long time since I thought of Israel with delight, sadly. It is so difficult to rationally debate this war, so many see only the one side, and, with the suffering so unbalanced, and the odds so uneven, it is even more difficult to accept the single minded defenders of Israel here. I think Israel has a duty that it abrogates with each bomb dropped, with each bullet fired. As a nation founded after a holocaust of such enormous evil the people of that nation should be expected to find some compassion for the downtrodden and persecuted neighbors that they themselves made such.
That it is a complicated issue made even more so by the interests of the USA in having a well armed power in that region, and by Israel's appearing to be single mindedly seeking the destruction of Hamas, not only its militant wing but the entirety of its entity. I do believe that Israel seeks an anarchistic state for the people of Palestine as it makes their imperialistic ambitions easier to achieve.
I also fear that the continued barbaric actions by Israel invite reprisals from far more than Hamas and a few outmoded rockets.
Anyway, Thomas, great to see you so involved , we desperately need minds like yours grappling with the issues that face us. ( I wonder if my post to you on another thread had an inspirational value?)
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Ardee
A. Usually I work for the dark side of the force but I chose to make an exception in your case
Come into the light, disavow the dark side, besides we have better doughnuts.
B. "this post may very well be your best work here on this forum"
The second half of that post was PB's column. You didn't mistake it for mine did you? I put "here is Pat Buchanans column"
C. ( I wonder if my post to you on another thread had an inspirational value?)
It did.
D. Anyway, Thomas, great to see you so involved , we desperately need minds like yours grappling with the issues that face us.
I'd be blushing if I didn't think you misdtook PB's column as my work.
.A. Yes but I prefer "Devils" Food Cake
.B. Nope I caught the cut and paste, its the effort that I applaud.
.C. Happy you were not insulted, it was meant to enlighten after all....
.D. Blush away.....
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
.B. Nope I caught the cut and paste, its the effort that I applaud.
I was sure you did, you don't miss much, but couldn't see why you felt I was doing better.
C. Happy you were not insulted, it was meant to enlighten after all....
Never happen. I'd no more hesitate to tell you that you were completely off track than you would me. Disagreement is never an insult. Of course your IQ is higher when you agree with me.
I just discovered why I was having such a hard time getting a handle on this. I was looking at both sides of the question and there are actually three. Israel, the Palestinians and Hamas. Working on that now.
.Only three sides? You are limited by your imagination, Thomas. What about the interests of this nation , our own? We give billions in aid ( mostly military in nature) to Israel and we do not do so for altruistic reasons. China , Russia all the Arab nations have interests here and they pull in several directions.
Even the fundamentalists who believe the conflict in the Middle East is leading to the Rapture have an axe to grind in this ....
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
"Only three sides? You are limited by your imagination, Thomas"
True, there are many, but only three that count. Israel, Hamas and the Palestinians that are caught in between.
I don't believe for one moment that we want this dust up. Frankly I can't see Israel does either. They didn't have to hand Gaza over in the first place. Looked back and it was Hamas, in every instance that started firing missles into Israel first.
Are they looking to expand? Possibly. Are they looking for peace, I believe so, at least the people are. The Palestinians certainly want peace. It seems Hamas and Syria are the real sticking points. I doubt Saudia Arabia would want it stirred up that much as long as they were left alone.
We certainly do not help them for altruistic reasons. They are our one sure ally, our one sure base in the middle east that we can use if need be. And we are not going to stop the aid, nor are we going to allow anyone to attack them. Militarily we need them (and Turkey)
The end result though is that the Palestinians keep getting the shaft.
The real problem I find in exploring this or trying to discuss it is the rheturic used. Like genocide. Its been pointed out to me that its technically correct, but I experimented with in on a couple of righty friends and got the same reaction I had...are you kidding? They added "thats just liberal BS talk". Darfur is genocide, there was genocide in Africa and the Balkans, this is not genocide. Using highly charged words like this harm the conversation I think. Its like comparing the cops at the convention to Nazi Stormtroopers. And its not a bit of hyperbole I think. They actually think that...I think.
.Thomas, there are degrees of guilt.
Of course any violent action by any group, whether Hamas or the IDF, is to be condemned. But there are, in Gaza, 1.5 million people trying to live their lives. Israel is blockading their supplies of foodstuffs, medicines, all humanitarian aid and even their own savings locked in Israeli banks. .They continued to do this during the latest cease fire.
We have a nation against a minority of militants , and even those militants have been pushed to the breaking point. The total number of Israeli dead is much less than a thousand while the Palestinian dead number close to five thousand. Many of the rockets fired at Israeli settlements were fired at illegal ones in fact. The violence does not come from the great majority of the Palestinian people but all the violence on Israel's part comes from a legally constituted govt. This is little more than a land grab by Israel and revenge for the Palestinian election of Hamas candidates to public office.
Every action by Israel should be viewed as provocative and an overwhelming response to Hamas actions that pale before the retaliatory measures of Israeli forces. When you have a desperately poor and oppressed people on the one hand, a people who were made homeless by the selfish disregard for human rights of a people who survived the worst sort of oppression and certainly should have known better than to dispossess three quarters of a million folks, and a legally constituted nation on the other hand one might expect the nation to act in a lawful and reasonable manner. Instead they agitate and provoke, murder and torture prisoners and escalate the violence at every turn.
The land of Israel was given under the auspices of the Balfour Declaration, as you know I am certain. The very first paragraph of that document notes that the land is given with the proviso that the indigenous population be treated well and fairly. They certainly were not. Nor are they to this day.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Damn....I love it when you make sense! Yes I'm very familiar with the Balfour declaration and I do remember that.
Frankly thats the most coherent description of this position I've seen. And it helps me, thank you very much. Many times I seem to assume someone will know what I mean without a clarifier, talking to gwNorth I left a clarifier out and on rereading it could very well have been read the way he read it. I am going to have to post a note above my head...re-read everything twice before posting.
I posted an answer on another string to a comment you made, no need repeating it here commenting on what you just said.
I read this article. I heard Ali Abunimah on DemocracyNow this morning. To answer someone who asked when will it end? In part, when we all insist it ends. When as Americans, we insist our government stop aiding and abetting Israeli militarily. When our government says, "Stop". When our government stops blocking the UN from saying, doing "Stop". www.democracynow.org
Gaza=Warsaw Ghetto
Silence is Consent.
Bladerunner
I would suggest to you that Gaza is nothing like the Warsaw Ghetto. It was occupied surrounded on all sides by brick walls and no one was free to leave or to communicate with the outside world, aside from the fact that the inhabitants were slowly being loaded on trains and sent to the ovens or slave labor.
But frankly I can't think of an example like Gaza.
Israel has built a wall. No food, medicine, or oil, and gas is let in for electricity. At the Egyptian border no one can cross. Even fishing boats are captured or blown up. The only thing missing are the trains.
Silence is Consent.
"At the Egyptian border no one can cross."
Why is that?
I read another article that said Egypt was controlled by Israel, news to Egypt I would think.
How many billions of dollars a year do the Egyptian dictators get from the US? This money is used to buy complicity with Israeli demands. In addition to the money wealthy Egyptians are allowed to send a limited number of family members to the US as emigrants or more properly, hostages.
Gaza is being kept as a hostage population to prevent Israel's neighbors from choking it off. There is no intention of letting the people either thrive or escape. They are kept as potential human sacrifices to ward off arab anger. Eventually Israel will fall when US sponsorship fades and the US is headed into a disaster notably promoted by Israel's allies on Wall Street.
Make peace or build boats Israelis.
Fighting the forces of rather dim lighting wherever they may be found!!
That confirms what others have said about Egypt. Thanks.
I doubt any of these folks are going anywhere so they better make peace.
Hosni Mubarak is complicit..
1) You can buy a lot of support with US dollars.
2) He is scared of Hamas and ties to the Muslim Brotherhood..
Better to be on side with them than against them, I would have thought.
He will never be forgiven for keeping the border closed, but that is how the Zionist work.. Divide and conquer.
Tragic.
isralei's are and have long been terroists; they are original terrorists in middle east.
That's funny, I thought the Assassins were...a heretical group of Muslims that terrorized the Middle East a long long time ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashshashin
zmann wrote:
That's funny, I thought the Assassins were...a heretical group of Muslims that terrorized the Middle East a long long time ago.
COMMENT:
I don't follow your comment: as sherman r lafollette said the Israelis were the original terrorists in the middle east.
You seem to be saying that Muslims were terrorists “a long, long time ago.” There were no Muslims prior to the life of Muhammad in the 6 th century CE.
ORIGINAL TERRORISM IN THE WESTERN HALF OF THE MIDDLE EAST BEGAN when the Hebrew tribe led by the patriarch Abraham began the reign of terror that slaughtered many thousands of people and stole the land that would became known eventually as Israel. Abraham's affluent and armed tribe came into Canaan/Palestine from Mesopotamia over two-thousand years before Muhammad and the Muslims existed.
Those people that became known as the Israelis were genocidists and terrorists, as their own history documents in quite some detail. The following gives just a taste of the Israeli blood lust:
Gen.12.4.5: Abram took his wife, Sarai, who was also his sister (20.12 "She is indeed my sister”)...set forth [from Ur in today's Iraq to go into the land of Canaanites. Gen.12.4.6 “At that time the Canaanites were in the land.”
The land called Canaan was renamed by the Turks "Palestine." Therefore the people there were Canaanites/Palestinians.
GW Bush says god talks to him and he said god told him to go to Mesopotamia/Iraq and it seems to have turned out George intended to take it, maybe keep it.
Well, it just happens that old Ab was from Mesopotamia/Iraq and when he got to the land of Canaan/Palestine he decided to settle down. But Canaan/Palestine wasn't all Abraham had his greedy eyes on.
Although Abraham was already a rich man (Gen.13.2), like George W. Bush who god talks to god also spoke to Abraham according to Abraham, and according to Abraham god told him his tribe could have all the land from "the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates."
Lest anyone think Israel will stop with taking only Canaan/Palestine, never forget they wanted all lands from Egypt to Iraq and unspecified lands north and south. In other words they wanted about half what we call the Middle East. Old forgotten story? Not forgotten by the most radical militant right-wingers of modern Israel by a long shot.
So now Abraham not only had his eyes on the land of the Canaanite/Palestinians, he also had plans to take over "the land of Kenites, Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, Rephamim the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites." (Gen.15.17)
And how did Abraham intend to do that? Terrorize the people into leaving? Or war against them - but isn't war a form of terror?
War was intended: Nbrs.13.27-28 [addressing Moses] "We came to the land to which you sent us; it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Yet the people who live in the land are strong, and the towns are fortified and very large..." The Canaanites, this time were able to drive the invaders away.
Nbrs.21.2 Then Israel made a vow to the Lord and said, "If you will indeed give this people into our hands, then we will utterly destroy their towns. The Lord listened to the voice of Israel, and handed over the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their towns...."
Utterly? Sounds like shock and awe genocide. Isn't that terrorism?
And so it went: Israel settled in the land of the Amorites and captured its villages (Nbrs 21.31)
Israel then went after King Og of Bashan and "KILLED HIM, HIS SONS, AND ALL HIS PEOPLE, UNTIL THEIR WERE NO SURVIVORS LEFT; AND THEY TOOK POSSESSION OF HIS LAND." (Nbrs.21.35)
And finally (Nbrs.22.3): Moab was overcome with fear of the people of Israel." Overcome with fear. THAT IS TERRORISM!
That is what the ancestors of today's Israel did to the peoples of the Middle East, to the peoples of Canaan, to the ancestors of today's Palestine, and that is what they did a bit over a half century ago, and that is what Israel is doing today: terrorizing the Canaanites/Palestinians, killing them and stealing their lands once again.
TERROR STARTED WITH MUSLIMS? HARDLY.
Palestine. "So far from God, and so close to the Israeli border." Gee. Where have I heard that before?
Don't blame the Israel government. They are just doing what the U.S. is paying them $15 million-a-day to do: Protect U.S. carbon industry interests in a carbon-rich region. If you want to do something about it, look out your window. See that thing parked at the curb? Let's change public policy and make the energy-wasting private auto obsolete.
http://freepublictransit.org
The west kills democratically elected govts. But go around kissing dictators and brutes.
Thomas Moore, the Egypt govt is one of those that the west props up to allow genocide like this.
Thanks, I got answers on Egypt that seem to check out. You are right. They don't want to lose our aid money and more importantly don't want Palestinians in Egypt. Nor do they want to confront Israel apparently. Makes perfect sense.
I'd hardly classify a few thousand deaths since 2000 as Genocide as I understand the word. Darfur would be Genocide to me or Rwanda. We've had more violence and murders on our Southern border than that this year. 4000+ killings and decapitations since 1-1-08.
"I'd hardly classify a few thousand deaths since 2000 as Genocide as I understand the word."
Me either, honestly, the death toll is relatively low compared to say Iraq or Afghanistan...but the Gaza population is similarly small, less than 2 million I think. But, I would call it a generations-long campaign of state terrorism by Israel.
But we agree I bet that one is too many. There are about 1.5 million there I just found out.
"I would call it a generations-long campaign of state terrorism by Israel."
I think I agree, but I also believe its not without provocation too.
I can't see why they would keep using rockets when the only practical result is massive retaliation by Israel unless thats what they want. What a mess.
Thomas More wrote:
Genocide as I understand the word.
COMMENT:
This is how I understand the word:
genocide: 1.: the use of deliberate systematic measures (as killing, bodily or mental injury, unlivable conditions, prevention of births) calculated to bring about THE EXTERMINATION OF A RACIAL, POLITICAL, OR CULTURAL GROUP or to destroy the language, religion, or culture of a group 2: one who advocates or practices genocide.
-from Webster's Third New International Dictionary. Unabridged, 1986, the most used reference for definitions in US courts of law.
Certainly the intent of Israel is to destroy a political group at least. Therefore, what they are doing is genocide.
By dictionary thats correct. I said as I undersood the word and to me it requires a bit more than a political group. Darfur, Rwanda are genocide to me.
In any event you are correct. I still feel that the term is misplaced her, so I'm wrong, but still feel the same way.
Thanks for your courtesy.
edit...I should have said I feel that though technically correct its far to strong a word for this situation.
Thomas Moore,
WTF? Why are you so immoral and everytime there is criticism against the US or Israel's crimes you have to justify it?
Frankly, I dont see any comment or question I've made is to justify anybody or anything. I do not just take things that are claimed as truth for truth, just because they are claimed to be truth.
Could you be more specific? Thanks. I think my morals are pretty darn good though. I don't cheat, lie or steal. Never have.
Edit...I went back and read my posts and I didn't see anything of what you are accusing me of.
"I'd hardly classify a few thousand deaths since 2000 as Genocide as I understand the word."
I think that would back up the immorality.
Because morality is a social construct, and the world governments have been functioning for 8 years with the Bush Doctrine that the thought, however derived, that someone might be thinking of attacking ones State justifies any form of killing, then More's beliefs are moral.
Of course if an organic economy of energy scale were used as the measuring stick of morality More's statement would be immoral; though the actions of Israel and those functioning under the mind set of the Bush Doctrine would still not be genocide...it's suicide.
unallied
You are welcome to your offensive opinion.
Israel is a blight and the most stupid country on Earth, but ther eis blame to go around.
Egypt is a monster in its own right, supported by the US, but still a monster.
Hamas should have bombarded the Egyptian border, but if i recall correctly, they helped Egypt reseal it.
They want to keep the focus on Israel.
This is a mistake.
You have to start looking at what arab governments are doing.
There are certainly enough wealthy arabs sympathetic to Palestine that could stir up trouble for arab regimes, but they dont.
Blasting the gaza border on the Egyptian side was one of the best actions they took, but they helped reseal it. As long as palestinians have that sort of leadership(along with the traitor Abbas) you can forget about any sort of change.
Another question, asked by Gandhi's grandson. Why werent palestinians sitting in front of the bulldozers in 2003 when Corrie was killed? I know--because Israel wouldnt have hesitated to run them over.
But...if you are willing to die as a martyr with a suicide vest, why not die in front of a bulldozer too?
But chances are the media would claim they were all terrorists.
Palestinians can start throwing flowers at jews and they wills till be called terrorists. Its all about arabs being seen as inferior to jews by the west-who dont want a jewish homeland in Europe.
BTW
Fisk is wrong when he tries to compare f 16 attacks to suicide bombings.
Jet pilots go home to their jobs and families, suicide bombers die.
Morally speaking, what the pilots do is far worse. If you go into a restaurant and see the faces of people you are going to kill--um, you are going to kill yourself too-somehow I doubt you are thinking too much about the feelings of others.
Anyway
the only hope is for the equivalent of some shoes be thrown at Israel.
You know its coming.
In the schoolyard in Brooklyn it was dangerous to express your disapproval to the mean guy about how he'd behaved. You'd get punched, kicked, and head split.
We fear Israel for this reason.