Pick an Israeli soldier, any Israeli soldier, and make a scapegoat outta him

and cross your fingers and hope to heaven this takes the pressure off...

The Israeli military indicted a soldier Tuesday on a charge of manslaughter during last year's war in the Gaza Strip — the most serious criminal charge to come out of an internal investigation into the devastating offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory.

The soldier was among three troops, including a field commander, to face new disciplinary action stemming from their conduct during the offensive, which has drawn international condemnation for its civilian death toll. An Israeli human rights group praised the announcement, but said the disciplinary measures announced by the army so far were insufficient.

The steps against the soldiers were linked to four specific incidents during the offensive, which Israel launched to halt years of rocket fire from Gaza.

indicting and/or disciplining a few israeli soldiers for participating in the wholesale, slow-motion genocide of the gazans is hardly an adequate response to atrocities and war crimes... i'm sure israel will tout this as adherence to accountability and the rule of law but it ain't, not by a long shot, any more than the fact that israel is now allowing basic construction materials and foodstuffs in to gaza will erase the years of malnutrition, infant deaths, disease and abject misery the gaza siege has inflicted on many thousands of innocent people...

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How rage becomes a virus - Chris Hedges on the Israeli genocide in Gaza

the sad reality is that it isn't just israel that's perpetrating this kind of atrocity... there's a very simple, straightforward reason that israel and the united states are so closely allied... how can the u.s. speak out against what it practices in its own foreign policy...?

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Of COURSE, Israel is willing to work with Washington

why wouldn't israel want to work with virtually its LAST uncritical ally in the world...?

Israel rejects UN call for international inquiry into flotilla raids

Ambassador to US dismisses Ban Ki-moon's suggestion but says Israel is willing to work with Washington

the cheese stands alone... well, almost...

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As long as we're talking about Israel and the attack on the Gaza peace flotilla

here's a two-fer from al jazeera...

Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal has been released by Israeli authorities following Monday's deadly raid on the Mavi Marmara aid ship that was destined for Gaza.

Our producer, who reported from the ship as Israel launched the raid, was on the top deck when the ship was attacked.

Here, he tells his account of what happened.

next up, glenn greenwald...

Though international criticism has been mounting against Israel's raid on civilian aid ships bound for Gaza, reaction from the United States has been cautious.

Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional lawyer and civil rights litigator, said this muted response is due to the "huge political price" US politicians must pay for being seen as adversarial to Israel.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Greenwald, a contributing editor for Salon.com, said what is clear is that the Obama administration has given its full support to the Israeli government once again.

none of this, of course, will be aired on u.s. news outlets...

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Do you suppose Israel has finally screwed the pooch...?

i had a bad feeling when i first read about the Gaza relief flotilla...

Israeli naval commandos stormed a flotilla of ships carrying aid and hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists to the blockaded Gaza Strip on Monday, killing at least 10 passengers in a predawn raid that set off worldwide condemnation and a diplomatic crisis.

Israel said its commandos were attacked by knives, clubs and live fire from two pistols wrested from soldiers after they rappelled from a helicopter to board one of the vessels.

Dozens of activists and at least 10 Israeli soldiers were wounded in the bloody confrontation in international waters. [emphasis added]

now the fallout...

Reaction was swift and harsh, with a massive protest breaking out in Turkey, Israel's longtime Muslim ally, which unofficially supported the mission. Ankara announced it would recall its ambassador and call off military exercises with the Jewish state.

[...]

Israel's prime minister has called off a planned visit to the White House to deal with a crisis over a botched naval raid that killed 10 pro-Palestinian activists.

Netanyahu, who is in Canada, was set to travel to Washington to meet with President Barack Obama on Tuesday. But his office says he decided to return home early after Monday's commando raid.

[...]

Around 10,000 Turks marched in protest from the Israeli consulate in Istanbul to a main square, chanting, "Murderous Israel you will drown in the blood you shed!" The protesters earlier tried to storm the Consulate building but were blocked by police. The flotilla of six ships, carrying some 700 activists, was sponsored in part by a Turkish organization.

Around 1,000 protested in Jordan's capital, Amman, calling for their government to cut diplomatic ties with Israel. Smaller protests erupted in capitals across the Middle East as well as in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, the Greek city of Thessaloniki and the Pakistani city of Karachi.

Palestinian youths protesting the raid scuffled with Israeli soldiers, throwing bottles and stones at them, at a checkpoint north of Jerusalem, as senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called the Israeli raid a "war crime."

where do these vicious, crazed bastards think they can get off attacking an aid convoy in INTERNATIONAL WATERS and then trying to blame the aid activists...? it's way past time to deal with israel's on-going genocide of the palestinian people...

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Need something to give you bad dreams...? Check this latest gizmo for the Israel Defence Forces...

oh, yay... three cheers for the idf...



i guess such technology will just help things like this to continue to happen...

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Of course... Israel goes over the top in reprisal with at least 13 air strikes in Gaza...

i believe it's israel's unwritten policy that at least 100 palestinians have to die for every israeli...

Israeli warplanes have carried out at least 13 air strikes on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources have told the BBC.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Four of the strikes took place near the town of Khan Younis, where two Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes with Palestinian fighters last week.

The Israeli strikes are the most serious for more than a year, says the BBC's Jon Donnison from Jerusalem.

Palestinian news agencies reported that Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets over parts of Gaza on Thursday warning residents of retaliation for last Friday's killings of the soldiers in Khan Younis.

They were the first Israeli soldiers to be killed in hostile fire in Gaza in over a year. The military wing of Hamas claim responsibility for those attacks.

Hamas said police stations and training facilities were among the targets of Israel's overnight raids.

Tensions in the region are running high after a recent Israeli government announcement of plans to build 1,600 new homes for Jewish people in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as a capital of a future state.

the biblical eye-for-an-eye just doesn't cut it for israel...

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Gaza, right on the Mediterranean, has to buy imported fish

and our pompous, navel-gazing news media continues to ignore the human rights disaster perpetrated by israel's genocidal policies that continues day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year in palestine and gaza...

Under a sea blockade, the coastal Gaza Strip has now become a seafood importer. Its desperate fishermen — cut off from plentiful fishing grounds by Israeli patrol boats — have turned to sneaking into Egyptian waters in tiny motorboats to buy their catch and bring it home.

Others bring in fish by land, in ice-packed plastic foam boxes pulled through smuggling tunnels from Egypt. And even though the Mediterranean is right on Gaza's doorstep, locals are creating fish ponds to provide Gaza's 1.5 million people their key source of protein.

patético...

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Jordan's Queen Rania speaks out on Gaza

during four trips to jordan over the past nine months, i learned a lot about a country i didn't really know at all...

among the things i learned is that the jordanian people are some of the most hospitable, likable people imaginable... i also learned that king abdullah, like his father, king hussein, is a smart, decent, visionary leader who presides over an islamic country that takes great pride in its tolerance, solidity, prosperity, many generations of relative peace, and the respect it has gained for its leadership in the middle east and the arabic and islamic worlds...

queen rania, king abdullah's beautiful wife, is no slouch either, leading the way for human rights, the alleviation of poverty, equality for women, and, last but far from least, championing an end to the on-going, unconscionable genocide being inflicted on the palestinians by israel, in particular the nightmare that israel has created in gaza...

queen rania tells it like it is...

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Consider adding your voice in support of one Jewish man who's trying to stop the Israeli effort to exterminate Palestinians

from supportezra.net...

His crime? He tried to stop a military bulldozer from destroying the homes of Palestinian Bedouins in the South Hebron region.

Ezra Nawi, a Jewish Israeli of Iraqi descent, is a threat to the settlers and the Israeli government because he has brought international attention to efforts to illegally remove Palestinians from the Hebron region. He will be sentenced in July.

from you tube...

Ezra Nawi is seen trying to stop a military bulldozer from destroying the homes of Palestinian Bedouins from Um El Hir in the South Hebron region. These Palestinians have been under Israeli occupation for almost 42 years. They still live without electricity, running water and other basic services, and are continuously harassed by the Jewish settlers and the military who are working hand-in-hand in order to seize their land. Notwithstanding the evidence in the film, Nawi has been found guilty by an Israeli court of assaulting an officer. Please support Nawi by sending emails protesting his imminent imprisonment to the Israeli embassy in your country.

i think it's stunning that the world, strongly aided and abetted by u.s. dollars and political support, continues to allow israel to engage in its 60+ year campaign to wipe palestinians off the map... i was right across the border from israel in jordan during the most recent gaza horror show and i could hardly believe the extent of what can only be described as the worst sort of war crimes that were being perpetrated against an entire population with no regard for women, children, the elderly, the sick, or the disabled... it was, simply, wholesale death and destruction both preceded and followed by an unending blockade of any and all goods and services necessary to even sustain life... what's happening in palestine is inexcusable and must be stopped and to support the efforts of a jewish-israeli mensch like ezra nawi is the very least we can do...

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Israel and Gaza - an asymmetrical response added to an already long list of Israeli war crimes

i am at a total loss to explain this without resorting to the most despicable of terms: genocide and war crimes...



juan cole...

Israel blames Hamas for primitive homemade rocket attacks on the nearby Israeli city of Sederot. In 2001-2008, these rockets killed about 15 Israelis and injured 433, and they have damaged property. In the same period, Gazan mortar attacks on Israel have killed 8 Israelis.

Since the Second Intifada broke out in 2000, Israelis have killed nearly 5000 Palestinians, nearly a thousand of them minors. Since fall of 2007, Israel has kept the 1.5 million Gazans under a blockade, interdicting food, fuel and medical supplies to one degree or another. Wreaking collective punishment on civilian populations such as hospital patients denied needed electricity is a crime of war.

The Israelis on Saturday killed 5% of all the Palestinians they have killed since the beginning of 2001! 230 people were slaughtered in a day, over 70 of them innocent civilians. In contrast, from the ceasefire Hamas announced in June, 2008 until Saturday, no Israelis had been killed by Hamas. The infliction of this sort of death toll is known in the law of war as a disproportionate response, and it is a war crime.

and we wonder why the islamic world breeds fundamentalists intent on destroying the u.s. and israel... can you even imagine our response if this kind of atrocity was committed against us...? what about 9/11 you say...? consider this...

America is involved, up to its eyeballs actually. Today, after Israeli air-strikes that killed over 200 Palestinians in Gaza, the Middle East is again seething with rage. Recruiters to the most radical of causes are again cashing in. If Osama Bin Laden is indeed a cave-dweller these days then U.S. intel should be listening out for a booming echo of laughter. Demonstrations across the Arab world and contributors to the ever-proliferating Arabic language news media and blogosphere hold the U.S., and not just Israel, responsible for what happened today (and that is a position taken, for good reasons, by sensible folk, not hard-liners).

while i totally understand the rage in the islamic world, i completely fail to grasp how the rest of the world can stand by and allow atrocities like this to continue unchallenged...

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