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TechnoratiAnd There Lie the Bodies
The legend, lest it be a true story, tells of how the late mathematician, Professor Haim Hanani, asked his students at the Technion to draw up a plan for constructing a pipe to transport blood from Haifa to Eilat. The obedient students did as they were told. Using logarithmic rulers, they sketched the design for a sophisticated pipeline. They meticulously planned its route, taking into account the landscape's topography, the possibility of corrosion, the pipe's diameter and the flow calibration. When they presented their final product, the professor rendered his judgment: You failed. None of you asked why we need such a pipe, whose blood will fill it, and why it is flowing in the first place.
Regardless of whether this story is legend or true, Israel is now failing its own blood pipeline test. As Israel has been preoccupied with Gaza throughout the entire week, nobody has asked whose blood is being spilled and why. Everything is permitted, legitimate and just. The moral voice of restraint, if it ever existed, has been left behind. Even if Israel wiped Gaza off the face of the earth, killing tens of thousands in the process, as a Chechnyan laborer working in Sderot proposed to me, one can assume that there would be no protest.
They liquidated Nizar Ghayan? Nobody counts the 20 women and children who lost their lives in the same attack. There was a massacre of dozens of officers during their graduation ceremony from the police academy? Acceptable. Five little sisters? Allowed. Palestinians are dying in hospitals that lack medical equipment? Peanuts. Whatever happened to the not-so-good old days of Salah Shahadeh? When we liquidated him in July 2002, we also killed 15 women and children. At least back then, moral qualms were raised for a moment.
Here lie their bodies, row upon row, some of them tiny. Our hearts have turned hard and our eyes have become dull. All of Israel has worn military fatigues, uniforms that are opaque and stained with blood and which enable us to carry out any crime. Even our leading intellectuals fail to speak out on what havoc we have wreaked. Amos Oz urges: "Cease-fire now." David Grossman writes: "Hold your fire. Stop." Meir Shalev wants "a punitive operation." And not one word about our moral image, which has been horribly distorted.
The suffering in the south renders everything kosher, as if the horrible suffering in Gaza pales in comparison. Everyone is hungry for revenge, and that hunger is excused by the need for "deterrence," after it was already proved that the killing and the destruction in Lebanon did not achieve it.
Yes, I know, war is war. After all, they brought this on themselves. They are a terrorist organization and we are not. They want to destroy us and we seek peace. Still, is there nothing here that will stop this blood pipeline? Even those whose hearts are hardened by "moral righteousness" will have to momentarily halt the bombing machine and ask: Which Israel do we have before us? What will become of its standing in the world, which is now watching the events in Gaza? What are we inflicting on the moderate Arab regimes? And what of the simmering popular hatred we are sowing throughout the world? What good will emerge from this killing and destruction?
It is doubtful whether Hamas will be cut down to size as a result of this wretched war. Yet, the face of the state has been cut down to size, as have civilian elites who are apathetic and scared. The "peace camp," if it ever existed, has been cut down to size. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz authorized the Ghayan killing, regardless of the cost. Haim Oron, the leader of the "new left-wing movement," supported the launch of this foolish war.
Nobody is coming to the rescue - of Gaza or even of the remnants of humanity and Israeli democracy. The statesmen, the jurists, the poets, the authors, academe, and the news media - pitch black over the abyss. When the time comes for reckoning, we will need to remember the damage this war did to Israel: The blood pipeline it laid has been completed.
96 Comments so far
Show AllThis is a very good article about the hidden responsibilities of being a technocrat.
Joe
"...After all, they brought this on themselves. They are a terrorist organization and we are not. They want to destroy us and we seek peace."
Does Mr. Levy honestly believe these statements? That the people of Gaza brought this on themselves? That Israel is not a terrorist organization itself, and genuinely seeks peace?
It is most disturbing that anyone could be so incredibly self deluding. But perhaps these are lies Mr. Levy must tell himself in order to cope with the reality of what Israel has become.
Israeli policies are genocidal in their attitudes, goals, and methods. The attitudes are racist presuming that Palestinians are an inferior people who do not belong in Palestine. The goals are to make Palestinians disappear, preferably by emigration, if not then by being walled-in and quiet in open-air prisons, and if not that, then a final-solution by extermination. We are now seeing the end of the quiet open-air prisons plan. The methods are violence, using bombs, bulldozers, and political bombast, whatever it takes to destroy things. Israel over and over says that it only wants to be a normal nation, living a normal life. Israel says that no nation would tolerate its citizens being rocketed. But Israel does not mention that it completely rejects such aspects of normal nations as compliance with international law or equal rights for all residents regardless of their religion. How many normal nations build settlements outside of their national boundaries? How many normal nations routinely fly military jets over their neighbors and bomb whatever they wish to bomb? Israel is perhaps the most abnormal nation on the planet, and it endangers all of us, since Israel controls the USA, including US wealth, weapons, and media.
It is absolutely terrible that we are subjected to the kind of media most Americans and other English speakers around the world are. It is constant pro-Zionist propaganda against those "terrorists". Now, I wonder, who would not, if faced with occupiers on their land, like the the Palestinias or Iraqis, hurl shoes or "makeshift" (I admit my ignorance here since I am not a technician and know next to nothing of warfare) missiles on their occupiers? Why can't they reach a consensus? why do interests that go beyong my comprehension have so much destructive power in their hands? why won't Americans rebel against this injustice? Sometimes I think conspiracy theorists are right. There must be some sort of evil going on in the world. Maybe a Clique that has complete control of the strings that control the Puppets, placed strategically in various parts of the Globe. God, if you are there, why have you turned your eyes away from such carnage? I cannot bear to turn the tv on, especially the American channels. BBC too has its share. My god, we are doomed. Help us.
Pan
For Israel continuous war is obtaining the Land and that is the long term goal , not bodies ,not peace,and not about saving others lives and ending suffering: only their own ,with the exception of the Peace groups some of which still want all the land and water and Arabs (All Arabs to be gone)
All else aside, the whole issue is Zionist theft of Palestinian lands and waters. Nothing more. Nothing Less.
The US has stymied every effort by the UN to put a stop to this.
We have aided and abetted the Zionist cause by helping them kill all the victims with US made weapons and helped with US dollars. Just like our treatment of Native Americans, The Zionists need to kill as many as they can and hope nobody is left to reclaim the land.
Because we have allowed this criminal(under US law) gifting to continue unabated, we as US citizens are guilty for all the death and destruction going on in Gaza and the west Bank.
My hat is off to Gideon. The main gist is the immorality of targeted assassinations of civilian (let alone, the fact it is a war crime.) He is the first journalist to point out the depth of inhumanity we all have reached. We are carrying out the same tactic in Pakistan.
But I could be wrong !
jonabark
I am troubled by the same passage that bothers clovis
"Yes, I know, war is war. After all, they brought this on themselves. They are a terrorist organization and we are not. They want to destroy us and we seek peace. Still.."
But I think there is good reason to interpret it as irony. What Israeli does not know the role of the Irgun("They are a terrorist organization and we are not") in Israel's history? How many Israelis buy the premise of an honest pursuit of peace, with no desire for the expulsion or destruction of the Palestinians? How peaceful were the many times Israel broke cease fires with targeted killings and the inevitable accompaniment of bystanders killed. I think he is saying, not that he concedes these points, but that he knows them well and all their elaborations. But even if one does concede these points, will the cost of the warfare be worth the "security" that comes at the expense of being despised and making Israel ever more subject to waning American tolerance? Is the strategy of earning respect and a homeland through "strength" really working? Can one do in multiplied force what one claims to despise and not become despicable. Is this how you become a respected and well thought of member of the neighborhood? Is there any way this can lead to a truly abiding peace?
He is being brutally honest and pragmatic, and the answers to these questions have profound implications.
These are the questions which we failed to ask before Iraq was invaded. Despite all the talk of incompetence, that was not the real problem. There is no competent way to get good results from mass murder. War is a self destructive paradigm. The problem is the mythology that war is God's or nature's way of sorting between chosen/unchosen, masters/servants, the civilized/uncivilized good-doers/ evildoers. The problem is the idea that these are real divisions and not primitive fears exploited for advantages of power and privilege. The earth has a long history of imperial or divinely empowered colonizers claiming divine or natural right to drive out the primitive, the unbelieving, the weak, the vulnerable so that something greater may be planted, but the greater thing has never shown itself. Once a people has been subjected to this process they know that it is cruel, and false, and that it embodies all of what we imperfectly, but with deep and proper revulsion, call evil. War does not make one civilized, or blessed, or good, or even powerful enough to stop inevitable demise. There is, despite all the crap to the contrary nothing we need that we cannot have without war.
The human race is at a turning point when it comes to this pattern. We have the power of unlimited apocalyptic destruction. All belief systems, all economic systems, all political systems founded in and rooted in war as the natural state of man, of spirit, and of nature, must be disengaged with, must be thrown on the dung heap, must be held up to the light and renounced. It is time to renounce the apocalyptic visions of the ancients and let in peace, cooperation, and fearless love. We have spent ten thousand years learning war and done great injury to the earth. Let's try some new ideas. We have nothing to be afraid of, if we have survived the paradigm of war, we can survive the paradigm of cooperation.
Peace is not a utopian dream. The dream is war. War is a dream that criminality can be glorious. War is a dream that criminal violence is the hand of God. Peace is practical.
I too am troubled by the same passage that bothers clovis
"Yes, I know, war is war. After all, they brought this on themselves. They are a terrorist organization and we are not. They want to destroy us and we seek peace. Still.." Even if it is tongue in cheek.
Hamas was elected by the Palestinian people in an election that wasw considered free and fair by international observers. The newly elected government was immediately subjected to a siege by the EU, the USA and Israel who refused torecognise it... thus Kissinger's moto of the 1970s applied again and I paraphrase, "If they vote for communists, why should they be allowed to vote at all..." the remark was madewith reference to South America, but it seems to be a global measure of the USA's commitment to democracy. The USA and its client states in Europe, and its proxies such as Israel seem to hold to this dictum.
The only terrorists are the armies of occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, those who resist this occupation are not terrorists, they are resistance and liberation movements.
As an atheist, I also lay much of the insanity going on at the door of the three Abrahamic religions - they are imperialist and violent in nature, and the sooner humanity shakes of the shackles of these violent belief systems the better.
Gideon Levy is writing with the irony of a poet and seer. He is not praising Israel by any means.
His last line: "When the time comes for reckoning, we will need to remember the damage this war did to Israel: The blood pipeline it laid has been completed."
"... the damage this war did to Israel" means, as the first paragraph of the essay begins, no one asked what the blood pipeline was all about. Instead there was just tribal acquiescence on the part of the mindless students to build it to specifications. No curiosity; just mindless obedience. "... the damage" to Israel from this "war" is built into the reckoning, the backlash that will come, and the total loss of any moral stature.
The danger for all of us, however, is the arsenal of at-the-ready nuclear missiles in Israel, estimated at between 200 minimal to 400. The U.S. has helped create a fearsome and fearful monster that it cannot control now, but the really stupid ones still occupying the U.S. presidential chambers undoubtedly don't get it at all ... unless it is God's voice that George Wanker Bush is still hearing, and then I would suspect he is pushing for Armageddon ASAP.
Now that's a legacy.
Until we the electorate take on the pols at the local and state levels and carry this onto the national level, the US will continue to aid and abet the criminals in Israel even as more Jews in addition to Palestinians speak out against the genocide in Gaza. It takes more money to back lies and wars than it does to back peace and truth. It is high time we the US citizens paid attention to our pols at the local and state levels so that in time, they could make it to federal level.
P.S.: I love Ritter's pick for the US Senate coming from a public school and being more in touch with people outside of Washington unlike most Senators in Washington being nothing more than out of touch Beltway elitists. And I hope Al Franken wins too.
No sane person with an ounce of humanity would recognize a terrorist barbaric entity that was established by TERROR, sustained by TERROR, and can only exist by practicing barbaric acts of TERROR
This zionist entity was established on the ruins of 531 annihilated towns and villages, and built-up on the flesh, blood and bones of hundreds of thousands of innocent murdered people, and maintained by the agony of millions of refugees who still languish in refugee camps in Gaza and elsewhere
This abhorrent entity has NO RIGHT TO EXIST in a world that aspires for peace and justice
With each drop of an innocent child’s blood sacrificed on the alter of greed of the “chosen”, the END of this CRIME against humanity called israHell is getting closer
This abhorrent entity is gasping for its final breath
The Glue That Holds Chaos Together
I see semantics and metaphors, in the news, on TV, from the White House.
Semantics and Metaphors. A pipeline of blood is very poetic, but I am sure that if our news would show nothing but endless pictures of crying women and limbless bodies in high definition then it may have more influence on a public that thinks of victims as metaphors.
>>srael never signed that treaty/law, nor did we. Frankly I can't see why someone would cede an advantage to a possible enemy by agreeing to it and I guess thats why Israel didn't.
Japan was not a signatory to the Geneva conventions. Japanese were still tried and convicted under those laws.
A good point. If the Israeli are defeated, they could meet the same fate at the hands of Iran.
How could Iran defeat Israel? They would have to send their armies through Iraq, Jordan, and Syria....none of which would allow that, not to mention all the troops we have inside Iraq.
Iran runs Hamas. If Hamas defeated the Israeli then Iran could decide.
Not too likely though is it? Damn I hope the Israeli get some sense here and stop.
Why bring Iran into this? I don't think Iran runs Hamas or has any capability equal to Israel's air force and nuclear weapons.
Joe
Oh Thomas, you live in cloud cuckoo land. It is this sort of reasoning that was sold to the US population before the USA invaded Iraq. The irony is that the USA created Saddam Hussein, just as they created and sponsored the Taliban and Al Quida. Israel created Hamas as a counter to the PLO.
Despite its questionable origins Hamas became a Frakenstein that challenged his master. Why is it that WASPS keep on seeing thed people of the rest of the planet as a threat? is it because the so caled "civilized world" is coming to the realisation that we in the Third World are sick of being exploited and trampled upon?
Why do I feel in my heart the root of all this carnage and madness extend back to Joshua and the battle of Jericho? What has happened to the Holy Land?
Because you are misinformed.
It is a myth that this conflict goes back hundreds or thousands of years.
It does not. The wars between Palestinians and Jews over the land we now call Israel and/or Palestine dates, at the earliest, from the late 19th Century.
Of course there has always been conflict in this region, but these two particular adversaries is a recent incarnation.
(You comment was flagged by mistake, by the way.)
Muslims and Jews had good relations before 1948 across the Middle East. Jews were an integral part of Arab societies. Egypt and Iraq had large Jewish communities for example. Andalusian Arab Spain is famous for its peaceful relations between Jews and Arab Muslims and Christians and was far more tolerant than the whole of Europe towards Jews. Europe has its pograms etc towards the Jews and after the reconquista of Spain by the Christians the Inquisition tortured Jews and Muslims who refused to convert to Catholicism. In Islam Jews and Christians are considered people of the book and Abraham and Jesus are important prophets within Islam. The Arab-Israeli conflict is a land dispute period. Its politics not religion. Its land people that's it.
In the Alhambra, a palace built by Muslims in Granada, Spain, from about 800 AD, there is a fountain that features twelve lions, one for each of the twelve tribes of Judaism. The Jews of Granada gave the fountain to the rather tolerant Muslim rulers, as a gift to commemorate their longstanding and continued good relationship.
Situated in a circle out from the inner pool of the fountain, each stone Lion spouted water at the appointed and well-calibrated hour of every day. This was cutting-edge technology of the time and for centuries afterward. The whole palace runs through with little streams, ponds and fountains that make various levels of noise, from absolute silence to riverine burbling and splashing. The system of streams, pools, and fountains were largely put in place to cool and beautify the palace rooms, halls and grounds. The water works designed and put in place to divert a river down the otherwise dry butte where the Alhambra stands, at the foot of the tallest mountains in Spain and second tallest in Europe, are still in use.
Queen Isabella and Kind Ferdinand chased the last of the Moorish Muslims from Spain (Granada was the final stronghold) at almost the exact time they sent Columbus to the "new world" to look for gold and slaves. The "Catholic Monarchs", as they were called, moved from their rather primitive quarters in Toledo to the Alhambra chiefly due to the fact that it had running water and their digs up north did not. They had promised to honor the spirit of tolerance that had happily held sway in Moorish Spain for quite some time. This of course, was not a perfect peace in any estimation from modern, progressive standards, but far surpassed almost any other civilizations’ efforts at coexistence in the same era, most certainly any Christian kingdom. Of course, we all know how long that lasted: soon the torture and murder of Jews and Muslims began in earnest. One wonders what the pressures of such evil did to the relationship between the Muslims and the Jews... and how it has evolved to this day.
In the meantime the Catholic Monarchs were curious about how the magnificent lion fountain worked and so they had their most advanced scientists dismantle it to see what made it tick. It never worked again.
There are very few genuine peace-loving israelis, and mostly they denounce their citizenship and move away from occupied Palestine; amongst them is Ilan Pappe and Gilad Atzmon
Read something more meaningful here
- Living on Borrowed Time in a Stolen Land
http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/01/03/gilad-atzmon-living-on-borrowed-time-in-a-stolen-land/
Please.
Awesome poem, bobv. Is it yours? Did you write it just now?
well... not just now... but almost. Thanks
"The statesmen, the jurists, the poets, the authors, academe, and the news media - pitch black over the abyss."
And who would listen to the poets?
The mothers of Gaza need bread and bandages
a place to sleep, food,
safe babies,
not poems... those deranged warriors
are mesmerized by songs of their own
and they are thunderous
and they sting and scald
and into the piles of rubble
they drive your prophets deep
to be with the bloodied children.
Silence is the preferred language
when the flesh-eaters careen and wail
above the ghettos of those they have starved.
We have no guns to induce peace here: they are stealing
from our purses
to arm their demons and the blasphemers
and soon they will all be marched into Babylon
with the rest of us: O Dark Time
upon us, who will wrestle with the sick bile
spouting from the breasts of that whore
war? Spectres of Warsaw denied
visited like a plague upon the wretched
dispossessed
in a land we still call holy.
And who have you asked to sit
beneath the withering vine
or moan from the belly of the whale?
Who would you propose whose songs
could be enough: such callous pipelines of blood
are circled around us all now. Blood ravens scream into the
cold sky. We see the red in the water.
We must fitfully slumber these seasons away I think
make our own caves and little fires
until the shadow kings and queens have sated themselves
and die from the abscesses and congenital
heartbreak passed like lies and pig fat
from their parents into the infections they call their children.
Gaza is everywhere now, prophets, kings,
or the rest of us, expendable as air.
Do not expect your lovely verses
will render you a restful place to sleep.
Whoa!
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
Sioux Rose
BOB V: Profound and moving, thank you for sharing it, although I wish its images were not as true as they feel (these days).
Comment on "And who would listen to the poets?"
Some days
even the worse
the light comes in the caves
after weeks of dim days
and the curtains of ice
shine like some broad god's eye
and a child runs to me through the dark
to stay near the fire, and holds on,
and something is still good.
Long after the wars have quenched the lights
and we can again point to the stars
we will remember these dim cave days
and we'll sing these songs to our kin
that we taught ourselves to sing
and draw pictures in the floor:
our plans for peace
and to study war no more
the initiate
I just saw Mayor Bloomberg on CNN. He tried to compare the situation to a crazy person banging on your door, trying to enter your apartment and asked, "Do you want us to send one policeman which is proportional, or do you want us to send...." forget exact quaote but -all the backup we can... He's saying proportional response is not the issue. Well, I must not understand the situation becuase the comparison doesn't make sense to me. It seems to me that the crazy person is Israel. I'm sorry, but why is it sooooo difficult for these two peoples to SHARE! I KNOW THERE IS MUCH HISTORY HERE BUT... Gaza is squashed into this tiny area and Israel keep pushing -pushing and not allowing the palestinians access to the city of Jeruselum in any practical sense...to the point of creating extreme hardship. Someone one tell me if I'm wrong.
I find it interesting that you would expect someone to level the playing field if someone attacks you.
"I'm sorry, but why is it sooooo difficult for these two peoples to SHARE!"
I sure wuish you or someone here could come up with the answer to that.
Any idiot knows what the parameters of a peace agreement must contain to end this, but when will they be able to reach that agreement?
Is Iran that desperate to exert its hegemony over the middle east?
Gee, Mayor, if one madman was trying to enter my apartment, why I'd just kill him, his family, all his friends, all his neighbors, and bomb the entire city he was born in!!!
Bloody hell.
How the hell did so many Americans ever get to be so damn stupid, anyways??? It can't all be blamed on George W. bUsh & his regime of stupids; that deeply stupid takes longer than 8 years.
True, but the conservatives have been screwing up this country for at least 30 years.
I generally like what Levy writes, and God knows Israel needs more people like him, but I am a little alarmed by statements like these:
"Yes, I know, war is war. After all, they brought this on themselves. They are a terrorist organization and we are not. They want to destroy us and we seek peace. Still, is there nothing here that will stop this blood pipeline?"
Is this just irony? Is Levy not, especially with the word "still," actually conceding these untruths to the countrymen he's trying to persuade?
I quibble, perhaps, but such subtle distinctions become important when the wanton and entirely avoidable slaughter of hundreds, perhaps soon to become thousands, is at issue.
"...We seek peace," he says. Oh? Since when? Not even during the relative calm of the post-Oslo years did Israel respect the terms of the peace, as settlement building not only continued, but actually increased.
And how, exactly, did the Gazans bring this on themselves? By existing? Thought crimes, perhaps? Wishing bad things would happen to Israel?
And finally, I can't help but point out that the first sentence in this article is an embarrassment to the English language. If not for my inherent respect for Gideon Levy, I would have stopped reading the piece right there. "Lest," Mr Levy--and Ha'aretz editors, if you read this--does not mean "unless." It means "for fear that." If you're going to write in English, know what the bloody words mean before using them.
jonabark
I am troubled by the same passage that bothers clovis
"Yes, I know, war is war. After all, they brought this on themselves. They are a terrorist organization and we are not. They want to destroy us and we seek peace. Still.."
But I think there is good reason to interpret it as irony. What Israeli does not know the role of the Irgun("They are a terrorist organization and we are not") in Israel's history? How many Israelis buy the premise of an honest pursuit of peace, with no desire for the expulsion or destruction of the Palestinians? How peaceful were the many times Israel broke cease fires with targeted killings and the inevitable accompaniment of bystanders killed. I think he is saying, not that he concedes these points, but that he knows them well and all their elaborations. But even if one does concede these points, will the cost of the warfare be worth the "security" that comes at the expense of being despised and making Israel ever more subject to waning American tolerance? Is the strategy of earning respect and a homeland through "strength" really working? Can one do in multiplied force what one claims to despise and not become despicable. Is this how you become a respected and well thought of member of the neighborhood? Is there any way this can lead to a truly abiding peace?
He is being brutally honest and pragmatic, and the answers to these questions have profound implications.
These are the questions which we failed to ask before Iraq was invaded. Despite all the talk of incompetence, that was not the real problem. There is no competent way to get good results from mass murder. War is a self destructive paradigm. The problem is the mythology that war is God's or nature's way of sorting between chosen/unchosen, masters/servants, the civilized/uncivilized good-doers/ evildoers. The problem is the idea that these are real divisions and not primitive fears exploited for advantages of power and privilege. The earth has a long history of imperial or divinely empowered colonizers claiming divine or natural right to drive out the primitive, the unbelieving, the weak, the vulnerable so that something greater may be planted, but the greater thing has never shown itself. Once a people has been subjected to this process they know that it is cruel, and false, and that it embodies all of what we imperfectly, but with deep and proper revulsion, call evil. War does not make one civilized, or blessed, or good, or even powerful enough to stop inevitable demise. There is, despite all the crap to the contrary nothing we need that we cannot have without war.
The human race is at a turning point when it comes to this pattern. We have the power of unlimited apocalyptic destruction. All belief systems, all economic systems, all political systems founded in and rooted in war as the natural state of man, of spirit, and of nature, must be disengaged with, must be thrown on the dung heap, must be held up to the light and renounced. It is time to renounce the apocalyptic visions of the ancients and let in peace, cooperation, and fearless love. We have spent ten thousand years learning war and done great injury to the earth. Let's try some new ideas. We have nothing to be afraid of, if we have survived the paradigm of war, we can survive the paradigm of cooperation.
Peace is not a utopian dream. The dream is war. War is a dream that criminality can be glorious. War is a dream that criminal violence is the hand of God. Peace is practical.
Click this You-Tube for a good visual juxtaposition and song: "Is It For Freedom? Mourning the Innocent Lives Lost in Gaza":
http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/diary/2404/is-it-for-freedom-mourning-the-innocent-lives-lost-in-g...
Those who can be made to believe absurdities can be made to commit atrocities. Voltaire
Click this You-Tube for a good visual juxtaposition and song: "Is It For Freedom? Mourning the Innocent Lives Lost in Gaza":
http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/diary/2404/is-it-for-freedom-mourning-the-innocent-lives-lost-in-g...
Those who can be made to believe absurdities can be made to commit atrocities. Voltaire
"The blood pipeline it laid has been completed." Gideon Levy
May that blood line that was initiated by blood-thirsty zionist; may it flood their fake entity to death, may the evil doers drawn in that blood pipeline forever
May the gates of hell fling open and burn the wicked ones who are pushing humanity to destruction, and shoving our beautiful planet to devastation and desolation as they sit on top of hundreds of nuclear missiles
Make no mistake; what is happening now in Gaza would happen in a neighborhood near YOU if those zionist, NWO-maniacs get their own way
Such evil entity was created on the theft of a whole country, obliteration of a whole people, the ethnic cleansing of an innocent nation, the annihilation of 531 villages, then occupying the rest by brutal force for over 60 years
Such monster was born by TERROR, by terrorizing of a peaceful farming community that had invaded no one, nor did it have anything to do with the holocaust
The days of evil are numbered
Hold your breath world, and watch
That evil criminal entity has no place in the land of purity
Nahida - it would be easy to compare what the Israeli soldiers are doing to the residents of Gaza to what Hurricane Katrina did to the residents of New Orleans - only it was not the wind itself, but the levies breaking later. Everyone knew that it was only a matter of time until the levies broke, but the land that they would flood were low lying lands with homes owned by poor Blacks - land that would be more valuable if you could just get rid of its inhabitants.
You should read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine.
Levy started with the well worn rationalizations for the actions of the Israeli army and with his "Still" blew them all to pieces. Writers start where the readers are to get them where we are already.
It may seem like it at the moment, but not all Jews are the enemy.
Genocide is wrong, no matter who perpetrates it. Those selling this extermination are good at making people fear those that they are exterminating. Fear is irrational. Fear makes excuses for one's own actions. Fear is the weapon used to make those not being exterminated go along with the greedy. Fear makes shame of this sort impossible.
There are those who won't be happy until Israel is wiped off the planet - but most Palestinians just want to live with dignity and peace. There are those who wont be happy until Palestine is wiped off the planet - and they gain support through a sort of manufactured fear - and these people don't want any journalists in Gaza. But there are also Israelites who figure that what their government is doing the the Palestinian people is wrong.
When one fears the media, one is up to no good - Hitler was no different.
BTW - What do you think of the children with one Jewish parent and one parent of Palestinian ancestry - they exist in Canada and they love both their parents.
The Blood Pipeline mentioned above already exists in the United States. There is a spigot in nearly every home in this country. The Pipeline ends in Washington, D.C and Wall Street. Not much is flowing through it these days because the Pipeline's owners have sucked nearly all the blood out of every household, short of what is needed simply to stay alive. And like the students who were asked to design it, we, too, never asked why it needed to be built in the first place.
and Dick Cheney uses it to thin his own blood so he'll suffer fewer heart attacks.
Those poor Israelis! All they ever wanted was for the Palestinean people to recognize the artifical theft of Palestine to create Israel (UNGA #181) and for the Palestinean people to agree to the massive theft of land and resourses by guile and force of arms and to lie down quietly while the Israelis take all the rest of their Palestinean birthright. Alas, the democraticly elected Hamas said "NO" thus leaving the poor Israelis and their American governmental lackies no choice but to put all of the Palestineans, men, women, children and their animals, to death.
The West Bank is next, maybe Iran too. Poor Israelis, so much blood, so little time.
It looks like the West Bank is now: Protester killed
In the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians rallied for a third day of protests, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a man, Palestinian medical sources said.
Mufid Saleh Walweel, 22, was shot in the head in the West Bank city of Qalqilya during a protest against Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip, they said.
You do know that all Arab countries were artificially created by occupying (or "mandated") powers right? The idea of separate Arab countries was thought up by Europeans. In which case, Israel takes up a tiny tiny fraction of Arab land. And those Arab countries have refused to give citizenship to Palestinians and allow them to resettle in their own, more or less, stable countries. Jordan was the exception, but that didn't last long. And Syria's Constitution guarantees citizenship to any Arab who wishes it..but they fixed that problem by saying Palestinians are not Arabs.
Interesting. Palestinians are not Arabs? Since when?
How else could Syria justify its refusal to grant citizenship to Palestinians, when their laws offer it to any Arab who wishes it? Then again, Syria is not quite a nation that puts much in the rule of law.
Can't argue with the truth!
It's not a war, Mr. Levy, it's an OCCUPATION!! The occupied have a right to fight back. The aggressors have no rights at all. Israel is a terrorist nation. It's time to end their madness; the experiment failed.
I understiood there were no Israeli soldiers in Gaza before this incursion? Where were they?
Manning the checkpoints in and out of Gaza.
Hey , we man checkpts with Canada and Mexico there called BORDER crossings everyone mans them. But, it's wrong for Israel to right? Why because Israel is the "Zionist entity." ( Hamas talk) LOL sounds like the Israelis are from Mars not earth. Is their any end to the dehumanization of Israel? Are not the ISRAELIS Men ?
Checkpoints between countries but not within them. There are checkpoints all inside the Palestinian territories blocking farmers from their fields and workers from towns. Checkpoints within countries only exist in Israel/Palestine and for one minority group only, the Arabs.
I just saw the Fatah (?) checkpoint in Egypt. It has two Egyptian checkpoints and one Palestinian...no Israeli. So Israel is not manning all the checkpoints apparently.
There are...or were Israeli soldiers manning checkpoins within Gaza, not just at the borders. Do I understand you correctly? Thanks.
No. Murderous thugs are not men, no matter where they're from.
What do you not understand about the obligations of an occupying army? Israelis and Americans simply believe the bullshit the zionists spew out.
Was there an Israeli army inside Gaza? Is that what you are saying?
Do you believe all the "bullshit" Hamas and the terroist organizations spew out?
The sentence above makes about as much sense as what you said. You can't believe a lot of what every side says right now. Haven't you been in a war?
"Was there an Israeli army inside Gaza? Is that what you are saying?"
There is now.
Unfortunately you are exactly correct. Damn them.
blutodog
Of course they have the right to man the checkpoints at their border or to close their border if they so choose. Thats the right of every country.
They have no right at checkpoints between Gaza and Egypt do they? They certainly don't have a right to blockade Gaza's seaports or airspace if Hamas is not attacking Israel do they?
Why do you think it is OK for racist Israelis to attack Gaza, but Gazans cannot defend themselves?
Why such hypocrisy?
If you favor Israel so much go join the IDF.
Propagandized fool.
DCBeltway1
Ah! Thanks. I'd call it a blockade not an occupation if they weren't inside the country. Thats what confused me.
I still don't know what the heck they were doing on the checkpoints between Gaza and Egypt.
Another word is "siege". That is when you prevent food and medicine from going in over a long period of time. You destroy water supplies, electricity, sanitation and transportation. You gradually starve the city or territory and reward any resistance with severe collective punishment.
This siege seems to be modeled after the siege of Leningrad in many respects. Like that siege, it will not work in the long run. The only question is how many innocents will die along the way.
Joe
There are checkpoints within the West Bank and checkpoints between Gaza's borders so they cannot get people or goods in or out.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1000197.html
Didn't Hamas cooperate with Egypt in sealing the border against the Palestinians?
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
They are stopping Ghazawis from getting in and out, medical supplies getting in and so on. They are also stopping other foreigners (like the UN rapporteur last week, journalists, people bringing relief supplies) getting in to see just what it's like in Ghaza. It's a process of determined humiliation and dehumanization. Think of the Warsaw Ghetto; that's the nearest equivalent I can think of.
Rainborowe
Gaza really is a ghetto, Thomas, and the people there have been starved of nearly everything but what they can smuggle in through the tunnels they've dug into Egypt.
If you haven't read Jimmy Carter's book, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, I highly suggest you do. It will paint a sobering picture of what Israel has done over the years.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
theinitiate
I think people are in shock. I think no one knows what to do. There should be a huge uprising -making it very plain this is not acceptable. No more supporting Israel with weapons and money... I'm just this average little person in the world. But tomorrow I will be in the little town next door, with my group. We WILL have something to say... From the U.S.
theinitiate:we're all regular people, and each can contribute in some way to make peace happen. Howard Zinn's wonderful speech at Binghamton,NY, the university of Nov 8,2008 was played on DemocracyNow on Friday, Jan 2,2009. He speaks to the issue. Another and myself have posted elsewhere urging others on CD to read/listen, Howard Zinn, "On War and Justice" www.democracynow.org The transcript will be online, free. If you haven't (I remember you are new to CD posting, but not what everyone says...although I remember the screen names of the seriously obnoxious), read "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train", Howard Zinn's autobio (some call it memoir), read it. You'll love it, even if you only read the intro he wrote for the 2003 edition (Boston, Beacon Press). It's a handbook for "what to do" to make change, in a way. He says that you never know what small thing you do will influence someone else. For those who can demonstrate, bravo and brava. Those of us who can't, find other ways to work for peace in Gaza and to make the US government "patriotic". Zinn says the US government is not patriotic when it doesn't follow the US constitution. The show is still online today, to be replaced by tomorrow's after tomorrow's show airs. The transcripts will remain online, free.
"...war is war",states the author. But is it? Is it war when the Israeli government attacks Gaza? Any more than is it "war" when the US attacks, occupies Iraq and Afghanistan? It's aggression, not war. It is illegal in international law. Who will uphold international law in all cases listed above?
You forgot to mention is it war when Hamas shoots rockets into Israeli civilian areas. Not targeting military areas, but civilian. There is plenty of blame on all sides here.
What International law?
Every Apache or F-16 carries a payload greater than the sum total of all the ineffective Qassam rockets fired at random areas in Southern Israel.
By your own reasoning, Israel is no better than a "terrorist organization".
Those "rockets" are not at all sophisticated weapons, can't be properly targeted and their range is just enough to get them over the border into the town the Israelis built there. Hitting anyone is pure luck. I daresay if the Israelis had a military installation in the same place that's what they'd hit. But they don't. Maybe Israelis shouldn't build towns on stolen land.
Rainborowe
Rainborowe
"Those "rockets" are not at all sophisticated weapons"
I'd suggest you get a map and see where they are coming down. They aren't the crude "homemade" devices as claimed. They are mostly of Chinese and Iranian manufacture. They have a nice range too.
And if you were right, thimk about that, just shoot it and you don't care who it hits?
Lets be real about this is all I'm saying.
Yes, Chinese and Iranian made Katyusha rockets...which were used by the Soviet Union in WW2. Somehow I don't think they're all that sophisticated.
Pretty damn accurate when you are on the recieving end and fairly accurate if you ask the Whermacht.
I would suggest that perhaps we shouldn't even consider how accurate the weapon's is considering its use.
Its use is laughable, just thank God they're not launching a new suicide bomber wave.
The people all these weapons have killed are unlikely to be laughing. I also expect that the dead Palestinians aren't laughing either.
I am surprised at the contention that its OK to fire these rockets into a neighboring country because they supposedly aren't to accurate and they don't kill too many people.
Don't you think this is out of hand?
I think it is a legitimate form of resistance to oppression.
STOLEN what? Maybe America shouldn't have built NYC or Denver either. Wake up and smell the roses. Israel is a fact it's not a stolen fact it's a fact. I'm tired of hearing how Israel is somehow not a real country just because the Arabs or a bunch of nitwit leftists in here think it isn't. Tell u what if u want it back try and take it asshole.
The soul of Israel is dead. Muselmanner rule.
Israel could have been a real country if those who govern[ed] remembered their humanity and the humanity of others. And if they stopped worshipping The Golden Calf and maybe paid a little more attention to that prophet who went up the mountain and came down with some commandments. The reckoning cannot help but come. One cannot mock God for too long.
Elie Wiesel:
What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference." A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil. What are its courses and inescapable consequences? Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable? Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it necessary at times to practice it simply to keep one's sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals?
Of course, indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the Other to an abstraction.
Over there, behind the black gates of Auschwitz, the most tragic of all prisoners were the "Muselmanner," as they were called. Wrapped in their torn blankets, they would sit or lie on the ground, staring vacantly into space, unaware of who or where they were -- strangers to their surroundings. They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it.
Rooted in our tradition, some of us felt that to be abandoned by humanity then was not the ultimate. We felt that to be abandoned by God was worse than to be punished by Him. Better an unjust God than an indifferent one. For us to be ignored by God was a harsher punishment than to be a victim of His anger. Man can live far from God -- not outside God. God is wherever we are. Even in suffering? Even in suffering.
In a way, to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony. One does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it.
Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.
Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment.
And this is one of the most important lessons of this outgoing century's wide-ranging experiments in good and evil.
In the place that I come from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killers, the victims, and the bystanders.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Zionist government, Palestinians, and The World.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
/cm
blutodog
There is absolutely no need of that kind of language here. Make your point decently.
Its not that hard. And listen to what others say before you reply, sometimes you mqay just misunderstand what they are saying. Thanks.
We will insha'allah :) and soon
U been saying that for 61 yrs. See how worried we are.
Who's this "we" you refer to? Are you an Israeli? And American? A Jew? Are you on the front line in Gaza?
You type this from the safe confines of your computer, hiding behind an anonymous handle, and you rub others' faces in your bile.
Tough guy.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
God willing what, Nahida? That you take Israel? Is that what God wills?
Sick, what religion does to people, isn't it?
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
Good come back brilliant bluto. Israel has more than enough warlike people, do they really need your help? Nitwit leftists, as opposed to deep thinking, realistic right wingers, like yourself, perhaps? Think you might be in over your head? Probably not behind the safety of your computer. Tough guy.
Israel has a lot less warlike people than this damn country.
If you want to see those "rockets" and their "fatal" and "catastrophic" effect you can find it here:
The Other Side of the Story!
http://palestinian.ning.com/forum/topics/the-other-side-of-the-story
Thomas More:reread some of the articles on CD for international law. "Blame" is irrelevant now, isn't it? (I've got to get offline.) Israel has to stop it's horrendous attack.
NYCartist Gotcha.
Blame is irrelevent now. But I keep seeing just one side blamed here so I mention it.
Glenn Greenwald had a sentence in his article that summed it up nicely I thought, so I pointed it out.
The International law is only what people will obey in effect. I kept hearing the Palestinian ambassador talk about proportional response and the Israeli were violating internaional law by their response and others here talking about that.
Israel never signed that treaty/law, nor did we. Frankly I can't see why someone would cede an advantage to a possible enemy by agreeing to it and I guess thats why Israel didn't.
Lets hope some sanity prevails here and Israel can be persuaded to stop its advance and to stop firing.
It's interesting to note, however, that there are laws of war. Within those, the use of such incredible asymmetry, as Israel is now using (and has used), is considered 4th generation warfare. When practiced outside the laws of war, it is considered terrorism.
Hairs may be split over whether Israel is acting outside the laws of war, not the least of which would be by Israel. I see such asymmetry, especially when civilians are targeted, as terrorism.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
laws of warfare? You will have to explain that one to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_war
"There are two different viewpoints on the relationship between asymmetric warfare and terrorism. In the modern context, asymmetric warfare is increasingly considered a component of fourth generation warfare. When practiced outside the laws of war, it is often defined as terrorism, though rarely by its practitioners or their supporters."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare
To tell you the truth Ted, when people are shooting at you and people are dying around you, those things don't mean too much. At least in my opinion.
That may be so, but it makes it even more imperative that the outside world see things as they are...and voice their opinions.
If this goes on this way, we will devolve into a new level of barbarity...same as them.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope