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...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Now, watch this... Israel's going to say, "I told you so..." [UPDATE]

[UPDATE and BUMPED]

predicting an "i told you so" response from israel was a serious understatement on my part...

Israeli airplanes attacked targets in the Gaza Strip early Friday in response to a Palestinian rocket attack that killed a foreign worker in southern Israel, witnesses said.

At least four targets in Gaza were hit during the air strikes that started shortly after midnight, including a smuggling tunnel, two open areas and a metal foundry near Gaza City.

Israel believes that the metal workshop was used to produce rockets that Gaza factions fire on Israel.

There were no immediate reports about casualties during the strikes.

helpless, stateless, rights-less, jailed, starving, beaten, maimed, and wantonly murdered, promised a "two-state" solution for countless years, all the while watching israel gradually but very methodically eat up the rest of their land, destroy their houses, and commit war crimes with impunity, the palestinians and the residents of gaza can't do a damn thing to help themselves except fire the occasional smuggled rocket into israel just to remind the israelis that they're there and incredibly pissed off...

Palestinian militants fired a rocket at Israel from the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing a Thai farm worker, Israeli medics said, in the first death from a rocket attack since Israel's Gaza offensive last year.

[...]

Thousands of crude rockets launched from Gaza at Israel over a seven-year period sparked the Israeli military's three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip. The brief war devastated the Palestinian territory, killing 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians. Thirteen Israelis were killed.

[...]

Thousands of homes were razed or damaged during Israel's offensive, but reconstruction is on hold because building supplies, including cement, cannot reach Gaza. International aid officials have offered to guarantee that the materials would be used only for civilian purposes, but Israel believes that cement and pipes could be diverted by Hamas to build rockets and bunkers.

[...]

Last year, the international community pledged some $4.5 billion for Gaza's reconstruction, but little has been spent because of the blockade, aid officials say.

a militant group has claimed responsibility but ya gotta stop and think... how much of the militancy is caused by israel's genocidal behavior...? how much attention does one person killed inside israel by a militant group in gaza get vs. one person killed in gaza by israelis...? the answers are a no-brainer...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

The Prez asks GM CEO to step down and also reportedly intervened to stop the massacre in Gaza

hmmmm... maybe there's more going on behind the scenes than i thought...

general motors...

The chief executive of struggling US car company General Motors - Rick Wagoner - has agreed to step down.

He will leave his post immediately at the request of the White House, a government official confirmed.

[...]

In an interview with US broadcaster CBS, President Obama said the firms must do more to justify further aid, saying "they're not there yet".

"We think we can have a successful US auto industry," the president said.

"But it's got to be one that's realistically designed to weather this storm and to emerge - at the other end - much more lean, mean, and competitive than it currently is.

"
seymour hersh on obama's role in gaza...

Even before his inauguration, Hersh notes,"the Obama transition team also helped persuade Israel to end the bombing of Gaza and to withdraw its ground troops."

and that step in the right direction, naturally, didn't please the dark lord...

When former Vice President Dick Cheney learned that Obama had been putting pressure on the Israelis, he angrily disparaged him as "pro-Palestinian" and described him as someone who would "never make it in the major leagues."

hersh also thinks obama is going to play a major role in moving things forward in that benighted region...

"The differences between Obama’s Syria policies and those of the Administration of George W. Bush have attracted relatively little attention," Hersh writes, recalling Bush's long list of preconditions for any improvement in US-Syrian relations and mockery of Syrian President Bashar Assad for believing that he holds the key to peace in the region.

According to Hersh's sources, Syria is eager for peace with Israel and is backed in this by "Arab leaders who are invested in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process." In addition, the failure of Israel's campaign in Gaza to dislodge the Hamas government has given Assad room to negotiate without seeming to be appeasing Israel.

Assad himself emailed Hersh last winter to say, "We still believe that we need to conclude a serious dialogue to lead us to peace" and to note that he believes a personal meeting with President Obama would be essential. Obama, for his part, has expressed a willingness to meet with Assad without preconditions.

some cause for cautious optimism...? let's fervently hope so...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Watch Jon Stewart on Gaza

and then send him a thank you...

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Strip Maul

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence – it’s a war crime

from the london sunday times via juan cole...

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence – it’s a war crime

ISRAEL has sought to justify its military attacks on Gaza by stating that it amounts to an act of “self-defence” as recognised by Article 51, United Nations Charter. We categorically reject this contention.

The rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas deplorable as they are, do not, in terms of scale and effect amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self-defence. Under international law self-defence is an act of last resort and is subject to the customary rules of proportionality and necessity.

The killing of almost 800 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and more than 3,000 injuries, accompanied by the destruction of schools, mosques, houses, UN compounds and government buildings, which Israel has a responsibility to protect under the Fourth Geneva Convention, is not commensurate to the deaths caused by Hamas rocket fire.

For 18 months Israel had imposed an unlawful blockade on the coastal strip that brought Gazan society to the brink of collapse. In the three years after Israel’s redeployment from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. And yet in 2005-8, according to the UN, the Israeli army killed about 1,250 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children. Throughout this time the Gaza Strip remained occupied territory under international law because Israel maintained effective control over it.

Israel’s actions amount to aggression, not self-defence, not least because its assault on Gaza was unnecessary. Israel could have agreed to renew the truce with Hamas. Instead it killed 225 Palestinians on the first day of its attack. As things stand, its invasion and bombardment of Gaza amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s 1.5m inhabitants contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law. In addition, the blockade of humanitarian relief, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and preventing access to basic necessities such as food and fuel, are prima facie war crimes.

We condemn the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel and suicide bombings which are also contrary to international humanitarian law and are war crimes. Israel has a right to take reasonable and proportionate means to protect its civilian population from such attacks. However, the manner and scale of its operations in Gaza amount to an act of aggression and is contrary to international law, notwithstanding the rocket attacks by Hamas.

Ian Brownlie QC, Blackstone Chambers
Mark Muller QC, Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales
Michael Mansfield QC and Joel Bennathan QC, Tooks Chambers
Sir Geoffrey Bindman, University College, London
Professor Richard Falk, Princeton University
Professor M Cherif Bassiouni, DePaul University, Chicago
Professor Christine Chinkin, LSE
Professor John B Quigley, Ohio State University
Professor Iain Scobbie and Victor Kattan, School of Oriental and African Studies
Professor Vera Gowlland-Debbas, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
Professor Said Mahmoudi, Stockholm University
Professor Max du Plessis, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck College
Professor Joshua Castellino, Middlesex University
Professor Thomas Skouteris and Professor Michael Kagan, American University of Cairo
Professor Javaid Rehman, Brunel University
Daniel Machover, Chairman, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights
Dr Phoebe Okawa, Queen Mary University
John Strawson, University of East London
Dr Nisrine Abiad, British Institute of International and Comparative Law
Dr Michael Kearney, University of York
Dr Shane Darcy, National University of Ireland, Galway
Dr Michelle Burgis, University of St Andrews
Dr Niaz Shah, University of Hull
Liz Davies, Chair, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyer
Prof Michael Lynk, The University of Western Ontario
Steve Kamlish QC and Michael Topolski QC, Tooks Chambers

since i happen to be sitting here, a mere 15 minutes from the israeli border, i am particularly interested in what's happening in gaza... the jordanians, i can tell you, are watching this with great interest, as well they should...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Israeli ground forces invade Gaza

i am completely fed up with israel... the ones calling the shots in that country are running a terrorist state and one week from today, i will be in jordan, a stone's throw from israel's southeastern-most border and the israeli city of eilat... the jordanians are pretty upset with israel anyway over the latest gaza attacks and this is just going to make things that much worse...

Israeli ground forces moved in the northern Gaza Strip Saturday evening, on the eighth day of a massive Israeli offensive against militants in the salient.

The ground operation was preceded by an artillery barrage which lasted for hours, and reports said the troops were backed by air support.

There was no immediate indication how far into the salient the troops had penetrated, or what type of resistance they were meeting.

An Israeli Army spokeswoman declined to discuss the operation.

and my country is supporting this campaign of death and destruction...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

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...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Peace in Gaza...? An end to the siege...?

some good news amidst the gloom of the world situation in general and the fact that george w. bush is still president of the united states...

The Gaza Strip's ruling Hamas militant group said Tuesday it has reached a cease-fire with Israel meant to halt a cycle of deadly Palestinian rocket attacks that rained hundreds of rockets on Israel in the past year and Israeli reprisals that have killed hundreds of Palestinians.

The accord, set to go into effect at 6 a.m. Thursday (11 p.m. EDT Wednesday), has the bigger aim of ending Israel's yearlong economic blockade of Gaza and bringing home a captive Israeli soldier.

But the phased approach is prone to pitfalls, and past truces have quickly broken down. Israel cautiously promised a "new reality" if the rocket fire ends.

please, lord, let it stick and let the criminal siege of gaza be at an end...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Will the condemnation of the Holocaust by Hamas get any media coverage and, if not, why not?

now, goddamit, THIS is news, or at least it SHOULD be...

[I]t should be made clear that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian government in Gaza denies the Nazi Holocaust. The Holocaust was not only a crime against humanity but one of the most abhorrent crimes in modern history. We condemn it as we condemn every abuse of humanity and all forms of discrimination on the basis of religion, race, gender or nationality.

And at the same time as we unreservedly condemn the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jews of Europe, we categorically reject the exploitation of the Holocaust by the Zionists to justify their crimes and harness international acceptance of the campaign of ethnic cleansing and subjection they have been waging against us - to the point where in February the Israeli deputy defence minister Matan Vilnai threatened the people of Gaza with a "holocaust".

Within 24 hours, 61 Palestinians - more than half of them civilians and a quarter children - were killed in a series of air raids. Meanwhile, a horrible crime against humanity continues to be perpetrated against the people of Gaza: the two-year-old siege imposed after Hamas won the legislative elections in January 2006, which is causing great suffering. Due to severe shortages of medicines and food, scores of Palestinians have lost their lives.

It cannot be right that Europeans in general and the British in particular maintain a virtual silence toward what the Zionists are doing to the Palestinians, let alone supporting or justifying their oppressive policies, under the pretext of showing sympathy for the victims of the Holocaust.

The Palestinian people aspire to freedom, independence and peaceful coexistence with all their neighbours. There are, today, more than six million Palestinian refugees. No less than 700,000 Palestinians have been detained at least once by the Israeli occupation authorities since 1967. Hundreds of thousands have so far been killed or wounded. Little concern seems to be caused by all of this or by the erection of an apartheid wall that swallows more than 20% of the West Bank land or the heavily armed colonies that devour Palestinian land in a blatant violation of international law.

The plight of our people is not the product of a religious conflict between us and the Jews in Palestine or anywhere else: the aims and positions of today's Hamas have been repeatedly spelled out by its leadership, for example in Hamas's 2006 programme for government. The conflict is of a purely political nature: it is between a people who have come under occupation and an oppressive occupying power.

needless to say, this appeared in the guardian... if anybody sees this in u.s. media, please post the link in the comments...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Question... Why does a former U.S. president have to turn to foreign media to be heard...?

jimmy carter in the uk guardian...

The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world. An entire population is being brutally punished.

This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. The election was unanimously judged to be honest and fair by all international observers.

Israel and the US refused to accept the right of Palestinians to form a unity government with Hamas and Fatah and now, after internal strife, Hamas alone controls Gaza. Forty-one of the 43 victorious Hamas candidates who lived in the West Bank have been imprisoned by Israel, plus an additional 10 who assumed positions in the short-lived coalition cabinet.

Regardless of one's choice in the partisan struggle between Fatah and Hamas within occupied Palestine, we must remember that economic sanctions and restrictions on the supply of water, food, electricity and fuel are causing extreme hardship among the innocent people in Gaza, about one million of whom are refugees.

Israeli bombs and missiles periodically strike the area, causing high casualties among both militants and innocent women and children. Prior to the highly publicised killing of a woman and her four children last week, this pattern had been illustrated by a report from B'Tselem, the leading Israeli human rights organisation, which stated that 106 Palestinians were killed between February 27 and March 3. Fifty-four of them were civilians, and 25 were under 18 years of age.

the players...


United States

Israel

vs.


Palestine

Fatah

and


Gaza

Hamas

there are so many unconscionable tragedies going on in this world and what's happening in gaza is certainly one of the worst...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Jimmy Carter: "The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with someone who must be involved"

i'm watching an interview with jimmy carter in jerusalem conducted a short while ago by al jazeera...

Jimmy Carter, the former US president, has called for Hamas to be included in peace negotiations, saying they are willing to "live as a neighbour next door in peace" with Israel if Palestinians approve a deal.

Carter said on Monday that Hamas leaders told him they would accept a negotiated peace agreement, if voted for by the Palestinian people.

His comments, delivered in an address to the Israel Council on Foreign Relations and a subsequent news conference at the King David Hotel in West Jerusalem, came after he met several Hamas leaders, including Khaled Meshaal, the group's exiled political bureau chief, in Syria last week.

Carter said Hamas leaders had told him they would accept a peace agreement negotiated by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president whose Fatah faction controls the West Bank, if Palestinians approved the deal in a vote.

carter doesn't beat around the bush when describing the worthless duo of george and condi, who coupled with israel, have zero intention or desire to seek peace...

Carter, who has angered Israel by meeting Hamas, also said the peace efforts had "regressed" since a US-hosted conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in November.

"The problem is not that I met with Hamas in Syria," he said.

"The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with someone who must be involved."

and that's to say nothing of the fact that israel continues to flip the middle digit to palestine, despite the agreements of annapolis a few months ago...

The Israeli Housing and Construction Ministry yesterday [April 18] published construction bids for 100 homes in two Jewish settlements, one of them deep inside the West Bank, in violation of its pledge to freeze settlement expansion.

Palestinian officials said the new construction in the settlements of Ariel and Elkana is undermining US-backed effort to reach a peace deal by the end of 2008. According to the bids, 52 new residential units will be built in Elkana and 48 in Ariel.

The Housing Ministry said that the 52 housing units in Elkana would replace the old ones built there when the settlement first began, while in Ariel 48 units would be built within an existing neighborhood. Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman said the residential units had been approved for construction eight months ago.

According to Nachman, the plots are in the center of the settlement and some of them are intended for the construction of permanent residences for settlers evacuated from Gush Katif settlement in 2005.

Since a US-hosted Mideast peace conference in November, Israel has announced several new building projects in areas of Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinians for their future state. However, yesterday’s announcement marked the first time the Israeli government approved construction deep in the West Bank.

i'm increasingly of the opinion that, after he passes on, jimmy carter should be considered for sainthood...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Using an anti-personnel tank shell, Israel murders a Reuters cameraman and makes Carter's case

carter, rightly, calls the gaza situation an atrocity...


Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter
delivers a speech at the American
University in Cairo April 17, 2008

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called the blockade of Gaza a crime and an atrocity on Thursday and said U.S. attempts to undermine the Islamist movement Hamas had been counterproductive.

Speaking at the American University in Cairo after talks with Hamas leaders from Gaza, Carter said Palestinians in Gaza were being "starved to death," receiving fewer calories a day than people in the poorest parts of Africa.

"It's an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. it's a crime... I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on," Carter said.

Israel has been blockading Gaza most of the time since Hamas took control of the impoverished coastal strip in June last year, allowing only basic supplies to enter.

ever-helpful, israel manages to strengthen carter's denunciation by killing a reuters cameraman using one of those horrific, flechette-loaded shells that, upon explosion, shreds everything and everybody within a broad diameter...

note - this video clip is NOT for the squeamish...

The editor-in-chief of Reuters demanded that Israel launches a "thorough and immediate investigation" into the killing of one of its cameramen in the Gaza Strip yesterday (David Byers writes).

Footage of Fadel Shana, 23, being killed by a tank shell in the Gaza Strip has been released by the news agency, which said that the cameraman was hit despite clear markings that showed him to be a journalist.

After medical examinations of Shana's body, Reuters said that Israel had used a controversial type of tank shell which scatters metal darts, or flechettes, around the surrounding area after exploding, risking civilian casualties. Israel refused to comment on the report, but stated that the weapons were not illegal.

how can this insanity be allowed to continue...?

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

"No collective punishment:" Israel prevented from cutting electricity to Gaza

Palestinian officals say Israel already cut
fuel supplies by 30 percent on Sunday, though
Israeli officials say supply was only reduced
by between 5 and 11 percent. Palestinians rely
on Israel for all of their fuel and more than
half of their electricity.

i've been posting about my ever-increasing upset with israel (here and here), an upset recently aggravated by israel's plan to cut fuel and electricity supplies to gaza (see previous posts here and here)... evidently, i'm not alone...

Israel Criticized for Power Cuts to Gaza

Israel's attorney general has thwarted government plans to cut electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip on humanitarian grounds. The EU and UN are warning Israel not to impose "collective punishment" on the Palestinian people.

Israel's attorney general has prohibited the government from cutting electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip, arguing that there needs to be a full evaluation of the humanitarian consequences first.

The ruling by Attorney General Menahem Mazuz came late on Monday after 10 human rights groups petitioned Israel's supreme court to stop the cutbacks, arguing that they amounted to collective punishment. Israel had announced Sunday that it was cutting back fuel supplies and electricity to the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

this story came from germany's spiegel online... no surprise, a quick search only turned up one u.s.-based media source reporting on it, an ap story being carried on newspapers outside the u.s....

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

When is the U.S. going to censure Israel for crimes against humanity?

Municipality of Gaza

i've been getting increasingly pissed with israel (gratuitous, horrific, and totally unwarranted violence against palestinians and carpeting lebanon with cluster bombs, among other things)... it's not like i've exactly been happy with them before but, goddam it, when is there going to be some accountability for punishing an entire people, the elderly, women, children, the disabled, the poor...? and, yes, i know the palestinians have done their share, although nowhere near as systemically as the israelis... and, yes, i totally understand that the israeli government is no more representative of the israeli people than the u.s. government is of the american people, but that doesn't mean i can't be just as torqued off with the israeli government as i am with our own...

i posted just the other day about israel's plans to cut off fuel and electricity to gaza, and, sure enough, they've gone and done it...

Israel began cutting vital fuel shipments to the Gaza Strip on Sunday, following through on a promise to step up pressure on the area's Hamas rulers in response to months of Palestinian rocket attacks.

Dor Alon, the Israeli energy company that sells fuel to Gaza, confirmed it had received instructions from the Israeli Defense Ministry to reduce shipments. The move drew harsh condemnation from Palestinians in Gaza, which relies on Israel for almost all its fuel and gasoline and more than half of its electricity.

"step up pressure on the area's Hamas RULERS...?" that's a goddam friggin' LIE... you and i know damn good and well that it won't be the RULERS that are going to take the brunt, it's going to be the ordinary schmoes - kids, women, the elderly, the disabled, the poor - that will be hurting the worst...

let's also keep in mind that, as of LAST DECEMBER, this was already how bad things were in gaza...

89 percent of the population is poverty-stricken, living on less than $2 a day. Over 60 percent are unemployed, and since the election of the Hamas government in January, international aid has dried up. It had been used to pay the salaries of public officials. Now, even those who have jobs have been thrown into poverty, meaning that over 860,000 people in the Gaza Strip are now living on food parcels distributed by the UNRWA. Over half of the population.

this is wrong, dead wrong...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Israel to worsen an already critical human rights disaster in Gaza

Municipality of Gaza

following the hamas victory in the january 2006 election in palestine, the strategy of israel, supported by the "quartet" - US, EU, Russia and the UN - has been to punish the ordinary people of palestine so severely that they would move to overthrow their government... when fatah leader mahmoud abbas dismissed the hamas-led government in june and began ruling by decree, hamas seized control of gaza, leaving fatah in control of the west bank... the israeli "punishment" strategy toward gaza continued and is now being ratcheted up... it's criminal and nobody is moving to stop it...

Israeli military experts have formulated a plan to gradually cut off electricity and fuel to the Gaza Strip in response to ongoing rocket fire from the Palestinian area, officials said Wednesday.

The plan, formulated by a senior team lead by Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai, is expected to be approved by Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Thursday, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. It was not immediately clear when the decision would take effect.

"It's clear that we have to cut off ... the supply of electricity and the supply of fuel," Vilnai told Army Radio. "We will dramatically reduce the flow of electricity from Israel over several weeks."

Israel's government last month declared the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip a "hostile territory," clearing the way for Israel to impose sanctions against the territory. The cutoff in power is part of Israel's hardening stance toward Hamas, which violently seized control of Gaza in June.

Israel has severely restricted the flow of cargo and people through Gaza's borders since the takeover by Hamas, which Israel, the U.S. and the European Union consider to be a terrorist group.

the strategy of punishing the people is clearly articulated by noam chomsky...

There was a free election in Palestine, but it came out the wrong way. So instantly, the United States and Israel with Europe tagging along, moved to punish the Palestinian people, and punish them harshly, because they voted the wrong way in a free election. That's accepted here in the West as perfectly normal. That illustrates the deep hatred and contempt for democracy among western elites, so deep-seated they can't even perceive it when it's in front of their eyes. You punish people severely if they vote the wrong way in a free election.

cutting off electricity and fuel will only exacerbate the already serious situation, a situation that was already critical as of last december...

89 percent of the population is poverty-stricken, living on less than $2 a day. Over 60 percent are unemployed, and since the election of the Hamas government in January, international aid has dried up. It had been used to pay the salaries of public officials. Now, even those who have jobs have been thrown into poverty, meaning that over 860,000 people in the Gaza Strip are now living on food parcels distributed by the UNRWA. Over half of the population.

keep in mind, the number one u.s. client state relationship is with the israeli goverment...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Bush has divided the Palestinian people into two governments

george looks to re-start the middle east peace process... (seems to me iraq could benefit from having one in the first place...)

President Bush launched a diplomatic effort yesterday to revive the long-moribund Middle East peace process, announcing aid to the Palestinian government and calling for an international conference this fall aimed at paving the way for the creation of a Palestinian state side by side with Israel.

Five years after becoming the first president to fully embrace a "two-state solution," Bush acknowledged that it remains distant after violent clashes that have politically sundered the Palestinian territories. But Bush called this a "moment of choice" for the region and renewed his commitment heading into his final 18 months in office.

"Recent days have brought a chapter of upheaval and uncertainty in the Middle East," Bush said in a speech in the main foyer of the White House. "But the story does not have to end that way. . . . In the face of terror and cynicism and anger, we stand on the side of peace in the Holy Land."

now, for a slightly different take on bush's "revived" approach...

The President continued to base his policy on deepening the division among Palestinians, on pre-conditions to a two-state solution, and on an unwillingness to outline his own parameters for an Israeli-Palestinian endgame deal. Even the $190 million dollars of money pledged to the new PA government is mostly a repackaging of old commitments.

In most respects today was a rehash of his speech five years ago, albeit under less propitious circumstances. That speech encouraged a regime change that eventually (and one imagines inadvertently) brought Hamas to power -- the new speech may well drive Palestinian politics towards a period of even greater chaos that could create a space for al-Qaeda look-a-likes to gain a foothold.

The President continued to mistakenly conflate Hamas with al-Qaeda and the Taliban and, in so doing, almost guarantees the failure of his approach. In Iraq American policy is belatedly focusing on internal political reconciliation, but in Palestine it is still, sadly, all about deepening divisions.

and still ANOTHER take... (as a side note, i think it's highly debatable that internal political reconciliation has become a focus in iraq... that may be the official verbiage, but bush administration actions don't support it in any way...)

Israeli officials welcomed Bush's conference plan yesterday, but Hamas mocked the notion. "The promise to form a Palestinian state is old," said Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, according to the Associated Press. "It will not be implemented. The opposite, instead, has happened. Instead of two states, he has divided our people into two governments."

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

NeoCons and Israelis Attack Carter, Abbas is Bush Junior

I always thought Jimmy Carter was a less than spectacular President. In his defense, I don't think anyone would have been able to do a good job at the time.
Carter is, without doubt, our nations best expert on the Middle East. He was pissed after the elections in the occupied territories because Bushco, the NeoCons, and the Israeli hardliners refused to recognize the outcome of a democratic election.
I didn't like it either, but that's how the Palestinian people voted.
Now, the obvious outcome has transpired, Palestinian civil war. Carter is speaking out, and the Administration has immediately set to work to discredit Carter as being "out of touch" in the Middle East.
Unbelievable.

Jimmy Carter says U.S. aims to split Palestinians
19 Jun 2007 16:36:40 GMT
Source:Alertnet & Reuters

Israeli-Palestinian conflict
More By Jonathan Saul

DUBLIN, June 19 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said on Tuesday Washington's support for the Palestinian Fatah group and the blocking of aid to Gaza were part of a mistaken policy aimed at dividing Palestinians.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah dismissed Hamas from the government last week and formed a new cabinet in the occupied West Bank after gunmen from the Islamist group took over the Gaza Strip.

Abbas violated the results of a monitored election and Palestinian authority law by doing this. He is becoming a wonderful NeoCon.

In a bid to shore up Abbas, the United States and the European Union pledged on Monday to lift a 15-month old embargo on the Palestinians imposed after Hamas won elections and rejected their calls to recognise Israel and renounce violence.

My, they moved fast, like they were expecting this to happen.

Carter, on a visit to Dublin, said the United States and Israel had done "everything they could to prevent accommodation between Hamas and Fatah".
[...]
Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas has said he still considers a 3-month-old unity coalition, in which he is prime minister, as the legitimate Palestinian government and accuses Abbas of participating in a U.S.-led plot to overthrow him.

The criminal traitors in the White House and a small group of Israeli Likud racists just put Haniyeh and Hamas on the moral high ground. Shows how much they understand. Once again, they make the terrorists stronger.

Fatah has rejected a Hamas overture for "dialogue" and banned all contacts with the group.
[...]
"This effort to divide Palestine into two peoples now, I think it is a step in the wrong direction," Carter said.

"There is no effort being made outside to bring the two together."

BUSH CRITICISED

U.S. President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met in Washington on Tuesday and pledged to work together to strengthen Abbas against Hamas Islamists.

Carter, who was president from 1977-1981 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his charitable work, has been highly critical of Bush's Middle East policies. In May he described Bush's presidency as "the worst in history".
[...]
"This departure on human rights is completely incompatible with all the predecessors in the White House," he said.

Actually, I disagree with this statement with only one word---CHINA.

"It's excused inadequately by the aftermath of 9/11 that the terrorism threat is so great that we can abandon our basic American principles on human rights," he said. "I strongly disagree with that(emphasis added)."

That last passage alone puts Carter in direct conflict with the traitors in D.C.
I have been watching the "think tank" gang, Benjamin Netanyahu(former Likud P.M.), and the whole Bush/NeoCon machine lash out at Carter. Carter knows more about what's going on over there than all of those crooks combined.
I'm not Jewish, but I did grow up in a half Jew, half protestant household. I don't know any American Jews who think Israel should be getting such a blank check from the U.S. Most of my family have become more and more uncomfortable with the behavior of Israel at the expense of the U.S. They are a strange group of Jews, they think that they are Americans first, Jews second.
There are also a lot of Jews, here and in Israel, that remember the man who brought Israel the greatest wave of peace and security in its' history, Jimmy Carter.
Keep that in mind as you hear all of the Carter bashing in the days ahead.
If I can stick up for Old Jimmy, you can too.

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments