Gaza: Show No Mercy, Dispense No Justice

Gaza: Show No Mercy, Dispense No Justice

Stuart Littlewood

London, November 28, 2008 Who could have believed that by Christmas 2008 the West would still be unable to summon up courage to discipline Israel for crimes against the Palestinians? The cruel siege of Gaza has been going on for at least 30 months. "It started March 2006 – I was there," says a friend… in other words, as soon as Hamas was inconveniently elected to power. In early April the EU turned off financial aid and the economic blockade had begun. Gaza was already suffering severe hardship when I visited a year ago. I wrote afterwards: I noted the deserted beaches and disused fishing boats… Israel has banned fishing off the Gaza coast, ruined the livelihood of 3000 fishermen and deprived local people of a proper diet. Boats defying the ban are fired on. The Gaza Strip is sealed off from the outside world with an Israeli fence guarded by watchtowers, snipers, tanks, armoured bulldozers and drones. Israel pretended to withdraw two years ago but still controls Gaza’s airspace, coastal waters and airwaves. It has the place bottled up like a prison and makes frequent incursions… Right now the strangulated economy is in free-fall and for 1.5 million ordinary folk life is hell. Unemployment stands at 65%, and 80% live below the poverty line. Fuel is running out, so are basics like washing powder. Shattered infrastructure and food shortages mean serious public and personal health problems. Power cuts disrupt hospitals and vital drugs cannot be kept refrigerated. Thousands look death in the face as medicare collapses. A friend emailed: "Today in Gaza we have no cement to build graves for those who die." Gaza's Ministry of Health reported then that cancer and cardiac patients were without their necessary medication. There was no radiotherapy. Hundreds of renal failure patients were not receiving dialysis as frequently as they should because a third of the machines were out of action. Lack of spares had also disabled other diagnostic and therapy equipment. Hospitals had run out of many essential drugs and were dangerously low on dressings and cleaning materials. A shortage of anaesthetics threatened to close the operating theatres. Fuel stocks were down to 15 days and there was no patient food. 450 cancer patients (35% of them children) were denied permission to cross the border for proper treatment. Physicians for Human Rights had been trying to bring the critically ill out of Gaza but were often refused by the Israeli authorities. So they died in agony. In Britain Channel 4 News screened a shocking report about how the sick were blackmailed. If they agreed to inform on relatives the Israelis would allow them to leave. If not, they were condemned to "stay in Gaza and die". The Ministry of Health’s crisis management unit sent out a list of urgently needed spares: "No words could express the miserable situation of medical equipment of the hospitals in Gaza better than the attached file," wrote the director. The list was forwarded to several British parliamentarians, including my own MP, with a request that it reach the appropriate minister. Who could have believed that a British government, in this day and age, would ignore such a cry for help from a former British protectorate? The European Parliament had earlier passed a resolution calling on Israel to lift the blockade and guarantee humanitarian aid and essential supplies. Israel responded by declaring Gaza a 'hostile entity’ and increasing the ferocity of the collective punishment. There have been countless calls since then by the UN and other agencies for an end to the siege. But the treacherous EU was only too happy to see it continue and actually rewarded Israel by upgrading EU-Israel association and trade agreements instead of suspending them as required under the rules. Villains abound in the corridors of power, but where were the men of stature and integrity to step in and end this outrage… in the name of God, in the name of Allah, or simply in the name of common decency? Now, a year later, Gaza's health minister warns that many more will die if Israel’s frequent power cuts and fuel restrictions succeed in shutting down whatever life-support systems are still working. Lack of spares has put half the ambulances out of action and 95 types of medicines, as well as cancer drugs, are no longer available in the Strip. 220 machines used for dialysis and other serious conditions, including CT scanning, are unserviceable. Israel won’t allow medics or journalists into Gaza to witness and report. We can only guess at the horrific conditions the siege has created. As for Gaza’s fishermen, the harassment never stops. A few days ago Israeli gunboats seized three fishing boats and kidnapped 15 Palestinian fishermen and three international peace activists – one of them British - in Palestinian waters. But the British government and its Royal Navy are far more concerned about pirates hi-jacking supertankers off the coast of Somalia than protecting British and Palestinian citizens, lawfully and peacefully going about their business, from piracy off the coast of Gaza. As I write, a Libyan vessel is on its way to Gaza with food, the first Arab boat to try to break the siege. Where are the others? There should be an armada. We had gone to Gaza in 2007 to show, in our small way, solidarity with the Muslim and Christian communities in their suffering under the Israeli cosh. And we wanted to meet Fr Manuel Musallam, the heroic priest who for 9 years had been trapped in Gaza, unable to visit his family living not far away in the West Bank because the Israelis wouldn't grant him a travel permit. When his parents died he was prevented from attending their funerals. When he heard we were coming, said a colleague, this brave man burst into tears. Now, at 70 and with failing health, he has suddenly been allowed to reunite with his family. This leaves the parish and its excellent school without a priest, and a replacement will have to be found… someone who is willing to be a prisoner. Freedom to worship in the Holy Land is routinely denied to Muslims and Christians. And to underline this fact the Israelis blocked the Pope's representative, archbishop Antonio Franco, and his colleagues from entering the Gaza Strip last Sunday to hold a service despite arrangements having been agreed days earlier. They were made to wait three hours at the crossing to no avail. Who could have believed that by Christmas 2008 the international community would still turn a blind eye to Israel’s persecution of Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land? And who could have believed that the great Churches of Western Christendom would sit back and watch the Holy Land being stolen, and not even prod their politicians into action? While citizens here in England prepare for their jolly festivities in safety and warmth, what are the chances of a merry Christmas in tormented Gaza? Zero. Families will be cold, hungry, and probably huddled in darkness much of the time, dreading the next Israeli blitz and in constant fear of re-invasion. Their Christmas misery comes courtesy of the morally bankrupt Western leaders who connive with Israel to destroy Gaza and bring its people to their knees, or their graves. - Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit http://www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk/.

:: Article nr. 49149 sent on 29-nov-2008 03:04 ECT

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=49149

Qatari relief vessel to sail to Gaza soon; Libyan vessel to arrive Gaza Monday

Source

[ 28/11/2008 - 12:23 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The chairman of the Popular Committee against the Siege on Gaza MP Jamal Al-Khudari has declared the start of the "vessel peaceful uprising" to break the unjust siege on Gaza, adding that a Qatari vessel would sail within few days from Cyprus to Gaza.

The Qatari vessel, according to Khudari, was the second Arab vessel to be dispatched to the besieged Gaza Strip after Libya dispatched the Marwa vessel carrying relief items worth of 15 million dollars. It is scheduled to arrive Monday the shores of Gaza.

The Palestinian official announced the good news as he inaugurated an exhibition of pictures reflecting the adverse results of the Israeli economic blockade on the 1.5 million Palestinian people living there.

More than 260 Palestinian patients have died so far after the Israeli occupation government decided to seal off all crossing points of the coastal Strip. Egypt also refused to open the vital Rafah terminal before the Palestinians, which according to Palestinian local sources contributed to the rising number of the victims.

Moreover, Khudari accused the Israeli occupation government of deceiving the international community by alleging it would open the crossing points, stressing that it is still sealing off all those crossings.

"The issue of the crossing points must be spared the action and reaction issue, and relief items and all basic needs to the Gazans must be allowed into the Strip without hindrances being a right to the Palestinian people sanctioned by international laws and conventions," underscored Khudari.

He also asserted that the Israeli permission for few items to enter the Strip was meant to cheat the world, and to portray the occupation as if it had lifted the siege.

Afghanistan after democracy

Contributed By Lucia

Afghanistan After the US invasion

WARNING!!!! - Horrific, terrible, heart-breaking photos!!!

here
VICTIMS OF URANIUM MUNITIONS USED BY THE US FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN

The United Nations' Darkest Day

The United Nations' Darkest Day
By Robert Thompson*
Nov 27, 2008, 20:49


http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_28883.shtml

This Saturday, 29th November, is the sixty-first anniversary of the darkest day in the history of the then still youthful United Nations. The Organisation then member states carelessly breached the provisions of the Charter by voting in favour of a partition of Palestine without any attempt at asking the population what it wished to have as a future, after the British Empire wished to give up its mandate due to a general desire on the part of the government headed by Clement Atlee to decolonise, cut expenses and end the terrorism of the Zionist gangs, Irgun Zwai Leumi, the Strern Gang and Haganah. The British Empire had been bled dry by the cost incurred for the supply of very expensive arms from the USA manufacturers before their country finally joined in the Second World War half-way through. Also the cost in British lives and injuries at the hands of the terrorists was a strong argument in favour of leaving what had become a hell-hole not only for the indigenous people but also for the British before, during and after the War, as a result of the attrocities committed by these de facto allies of the Nazis.

For those who do not understand the extent of the injustice of the Proposition for which the United Nations then voted, the Zionist occupied land in Palestine was approximately 7% and that occupied by indigenous Palestinians some 93%, whereas, apart from the proposal to make Jerusalem and its immediate neighbourhood into an international area, the land was attributed almost equally between the indigenous people and the incoming Zionists, with the latter being given areas largely occupied by the former, especially in the centre and in the south, including the Naqab (or in Hebrew Negev) giving access to the Gulf of Aqaba.

We should all condemn this terrible breach of justice, as well as of their Charter, by the United Nations and work towards the establishment in all of Palestine of a single democratic state, where all those driven out by force in 1947-1948 (and their descendants) can, as the United Nations did later resolve, return and recover their homes and lands, and where full citizenship rights do not depend on one's belonging to any specific religious group.

WHO ARE GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE?

Read here:

ISRAEL & THE CHURCH: WHO ARE GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE?

Gaza's death throes, and no one's listening

Source

Sonja Karkar, The Electronic Intifada, 27 November 2008




Palestinians wait to fix their old portable "primus" stoves which burn diesel fuel at a shop in the Beach refugee camp in Gaza City, 25 November 2008. (Hatem Omar/MaanImages)
What kind of government in the 21st century can deny another people basic human rights -- that is, the right to food, water, shelter, security and dignity?

What kind of government imposes draconian sanctions on another people for democratically electing a government not to its liking?

What kind of government seals a heavily populated territory of 1.5 million people so that no person can enter or leave without permission, fishermen cannot fish in their own waters, and world food aid cannot be delivered to the starving population?

What kind of government shuts off fuel, water and electricity and then rains down on the people, bombs and artillery fire?

The answer is: no government of integrity.

And yet, government after government in Israel continues to demand recognition and accolades as a first world democracy superior to all others, despite Israel's flouting of international law, its human rights abuses and the criminality and corruption of Israeli leaders. Worse still, the world has acquiesced and has welcomed every Israeli administration into its fold as a favored guest.

This should give everyone pause to revisit our noble declarations of independence and human rights, ethics, morality, religious beliefs, civil liberties and the rule of law. Are they just for show or do they really mean something? Are they intended only for some people or for all people?

Israel's President Shimon Peres is just one of the many leaders who have furthered Israel's aggressive policies and programs and yet he has been honored with a knighthood from the Queen and is likely to be honored with a lecture series named after him at Oxford University's Balliol College. Dubious honors indeed, for a man who helped to forcibly expel 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland in the 1948 war.

Today, we are witnessing in Gaza the kind of ghetto the world thought it would never see again and the comparison was conjured up early this year by Israel's Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai when he threatened "a bigger holocaust [shoah]" against the Palestinians in Gaza. Later, he explained away his use of the word as meaning "disaster," when in fact it has emotional connotations well known to everyone. Either way, the threat was ominous enough.

The slow death that is being visited on the Palestinians in Gaza is finding its first victims in more than 400 critically ill patients who are being prevented from leaving Gaza for urgent medical attention in Israeli or Arab hospitals. Thousands of other patients are being turned away from hospitals suffering from a severe shortage of 300 different kinds of medicines.

The hospitals have been deprived of medicines and equipment for so long now, that the trickle of supplies finally being allowed through, can no longer meet the minimum daily needs of the Palestinian civilian population. Similarly, the energy fuel being shipped in, is barely enough to operate the Gaza power plant for one day.

This drip-feeding of aid was suggested by Israeli Prime Ministerial adviser Dov Weissglas who said in February 2006: "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not make them die of hunger."

Such a malevolent policy has led to a steady increase in malnutrition as people are being starved of their staples of life. Not only have the flour mills been forced to shut down because fuel and power have run out, but now all wheat supplies have been exhausted. Out of the 72 bakeries operating in the Gaza Strip, 29 have completely stopped baking bread and others are expected to follow. This means that even the most staple of all foods -- bread -- will soon not be available for a hungry population.

A Red Cross report describes the effects of the siege as "devastating". Seventy percent of the population is suffering from food insecurity while the suspension of food aid distribution to some 750,000 refugees in the pitiful camps in Gaza since 4 November, has further devastated Palestinians with no recourse to other alternatives.

The United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have all called Israel's blockade "cruel." Former United States President Jimmy Carter makes no apology for describing the situation as "a heinous atrocity" amounting to a war crime.

In Britain, Oxfam's CEO Barbara Stocking has strongly criticized the Foreign Secretary David Miliband for not mentioning the "human desperation" in Gaza on his recent trip to Israel and Palestine.

Israel's tactics though may be unravelling.

So draconian has been Israel's closure of Gaza, the world's biggest media organizations including The New York Times are outraged that their journalists have been banned from entering the Gaza Strip and have protested in writing to Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Christian leaders have also been excluded from Gaza. Last week, Israel prevented Archbishop Franco, the Papal Nuncio in Israel, from celebrating mass to mark the beginning of Advent in the holy weeks leading up to Christmas.

And in the occupied West Bank, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has approved the building of hundreds more illegal settlement units with a flagrant disregard of the peace process agreements, further frustrating the current US administration eager to produce a solution before the end of its term.

What is truly astonishing is the world's silence in the face of all this. The shameful rush to grant Israel every honor and recognition so that it will be saved from the historical ignominy of having orchestrated the destruction of Palestinian society, is nothing short of unconscionable.

Sonja Karkar is the founder and president of Women for Palestine and one of the founders and co-conveners of Australians for Palestine in Melbourne, Australia. She is also the editor of http://www.australiansforpalestine.com/ and contributes articles on Palestine regularly to various publications.

Related Links

• Israel declares Gaza "enemy entity" (19 September 2007)

Egypt's people protests and Pro-Zionist police arrests!

Gathered for Gaza
Thousands of Egyptians of varying backgrounds demonstrated angrily to protest at Israel's blockade of basic supplies and medicine to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Reem Leila observed the collective response

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/882/eg6.htm



Egypt arrests Muslim Brotherhood members protesting Gaza siege

Member of Egyptian opposition group arrested as they attempt to protest Israeli blockade of Gaza Strip; around 500 people arrested.

Muslim Brotherhood calls on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to reopen Rafah border crossing

Associated Press : Egyptian police have arrested at least 460 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, including leading figures, in their attempt to thwart a planned demonstration in protest of Israel's blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip, security officials said Wednesday.

The demonstration was scheduled to take place in front of the Arab League's headquarters in downtown Cairo by noon, and was expected to attract hundreds of political activists and members of the banned Islamic group.

Muslim Brotherhood members from across different provinces, mainly the oasis city of Fayoum and the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, have been flocking to the capital to join members of their brethren since the early hours Wednesday, according to a security official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

However, their attempt to reach the protest site was prevented by security forces who dispersed the walking crowds by force and detained at least 300 of the activists in Cairo alone.

Police also arrested a total of 160 others in metro and train stations outside of the capital or when they were about to get into their vehicles and heading to Cairo.

A statement from the Brotherhood said their members, would-be-protesters, were held back by riot police and beaten by batons and heavy clubs. Five lawmakers among them were surrounded by police and were continuously badmouthed, the statement said. Brotherhood leader Mohammed Mahdi Akef described the arrests as ''an embarrassment, a disgrace'' and called on authorities to end this ''unfair campaign'' and immediately release the group members.

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3497959,00.html

Akef calls on Egyptian people to participate in relief convoys to Gaza

Source

CAIRO, (PIC)-- Mohamed Akef, the leader of the Muslim brotherhood, on Tuesday called on the Egyptian people to participate in relief convoys from all governorates to the besieged Gaza Strip, stressing the importance of participating in peaceful protests and pickets in solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people.

During a press conference held by national and political forces in Egypt, Akef stated that he invites all Egyptian political parties to participate in the convoys to be organized in a timely fashion.

For his part, Dr. Mohamed Habib, the first deputy head of the Muslim brotherhood, criticized the inflammatory campaign which the PA leadership waged against the brotherhood in Egypt in an attempt to bypass its role in tightening the siege on Gaza.

Dr. Habib refuted the PA accusations against the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt of seeking to pressure the Egyptian regime in order to help Hamas, saying that the siege is not only imposed on Hamas but on all Palestinian citizens in Gaza which moves the conscience of every free human being in Egypt. He noted that the Egyptian national forces are not less keen on lifting the siege on Gaza.

In a related context, about 3,000 Egyptian students from the Zagazig university participated Tuesday in a peaceful protest in solidarity with the Gaza people, where they expressed their outrage at the Egyptian and Arab silence towards the suffocating Israeli siege imposed on Gaza.

More than 10,000 Egyptian students from the Azhar university affiliated with the Muslim brotherhood organized Tuesday evening a massive rally in protest at the ongoing Israeli siege on Gaza and the closure of the Rafah border crossing.

The students called in a statement on the Arab and Islamic decision-makers to intervene to open the Rafah crossing constantly and the other crossings in order to break the siege on Gaza.

The students carried banners condemning the Egyptian authorities for providing Israel with gas while the Gaza people die of cold and poverty.

In a statement received by the PIC, Yemeni scholars and intellectuals called on the Arab and Islamic governments to take urgent steps to end the Israeli aggression and siege on Gaza.

The statement stressed the need to establish an Arab and Islamic charity fund to finance the project of linking Gaza with the Egyptian electricity network and paying its power consumption.

The statement called on the Yemeni government to direct all official mass media to carry out a campaign highlighting the catastrophic effects of the Israeli aggression and siege on Gaza. The statement also urged the government to invite an emergency Arab summit to take and implement decisive resolutions breaking the siege on Gaza.


Egypt arrests pro-Hamas blogger

Network for Human Rights Information reports 40 officers storm home of pro-Hamas blogger showing burning US flag, pictures of Hamas fighters in blog. Egyptian interior ministry spokesman says ministry not aware of case

Reuters
Published:
Israel News

Egyptian police have arrested a blogger who criticized the government and expressed support for the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas, a human rights organization said on Tuesday.

The Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said 40 officers had confiscated books and CDs from blogger Mohamed Adel's house before arresting him.

An enormous security force and special forces to take into custody a young blogger who owns nothing other than a keyboard and a blog!" said Gamal Eid, director of the Network. "This is the law of the state of emergency which has ruled Egyptians for 27 years."

The group said there had been no word of or from Adel since November 20. An interior ministry spokesman said he was not aware of the case.

Egypt sentenced a blogger to four years' jail last year after finding him guilty of insulting Islam and President Hosni Mubarak.

International and local rights groups say torture is systematic in Egyptian jails and police stations. Egypt says it prosecutes policemen who torture detainees.

Adel's blog featured a picture of the founder of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, a burning American flag, and pictures of Hamas fighters.

Egypt says the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's most powerful opposition, is a banned group and police regularly arrest its members.

The Brotherhood has criticised the government for refusing to open its Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip, accusing it of participating in the punishing Israeli siege of the coastal territory.

Hamas took over Gaza last year after routing forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas holds sway in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Same Old Gang

Obama's Odious Entourage

By ERIC WALBERG

Yes, we mustn’t expect too much. We all know it is the establishment that comes first in United States politics. Obama’s presidency could easily be sabotaged by the powers that put him there.

But still. He would never have made it past the first, obscure primary without his army of selfless, grassroots activists, and his coffers were first filled by millions of small, personal donations. Surely these are the people he should honour with at least a few names. Even Clinton had his Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala (at least until she was tarred and feathered by the right). Obama’s one token progressive appointment was Melody Barnes of the Center for American Progress, who was chief counsel to Senator Edward Kennedy, and will head the toothless Domestic Policy Council.

Not one of the 23 Senators and 133 House Representatives who voted against the war in Iraq are on his transitional team or even on a short-list for an important post in his Cabinet. The only promise that might be kept is to close Guantanamo, though he could hardly do less. The entire US legal establishment seems to be pushing to end this outrage.

Keeping on uberhawk Robert Gates as secretary of war, despite the continued slaughter in Iraq and Afghanistan under his capable mismanagement, his uncompromising position on missiles for Poland, and his shady past (including Iran-Contra) gives little cause for hope. Russia can probably kiss improved relations with the US good-bye. It looks like there will be neocon policy as usual. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state just confirms this.

Yes, everyone in Washington is solidly Zionist, so Rahm Emanuel’s devotion to Israel hardly changes much, as John Zogby argues. But, how is it he served with the Israeli Defense Forces — during a war — and yet never served with the US military? As an American, if he did this for any other country but Israel, he would have been arrested and his political career over at once. Instead, he is honoured with the key role of the president’s chief of staff.

On a positive note, hinging that the domestic crimes against personal freedom perpetrated under Bush are not entirely forgotten, John Brennan, who supported extraordinary rendition and warrantless wiretapping, was forced to excuse himself in the race for CIA head. Still, no criminal charges against those who authorised or conducted torture during the Bush years are foreseen.

As Bloomberg notes, almost half the people on the Transition Economic Advisory Board “have held fiduciary positions at companies that, to one degree or another, either fried their financial statements, helped send the world into an economic tailspin, or both.” This includes, for example, Anne Mulcahy and Richard Parsons, both of whom were Fannie Mae directors when the company fudged accounting rules. Mulcahy and Parsons were executives of their respective companies, Xerox and Time Warner, and were charged with accounting fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Also on this team is Robert Rubin, who as Bloomberg notes, was “chairman of Citigroup’s executive committee when the bank pushed bogus analyst research, helped Enron cook its books, and got caught baking its own. He was a director from 2000 to 2006 at Ford, which also committed accounting fouls and now is begging Uncle Sam for Citigroup-style bailout cash.”

Larry Summers, who was Clinton ’s treasury secretary, will head the National Economic Council — the president’s senior economic adviser. This looks ominous. It was Summers who forced through the deregulation of financial markets in the 1990s and imposed disaster capitalism on Russia . Considering that he is a chief architect of the current financial meltdown, we should be wondering why Obama isn’t preparing an arrest warrant for him, instead of offering him the most powerful economic role in the world. As chief economist for the World Bank, Summers wrote a memo saying the WB should actively encourage the dumping of toxic waste in developing countries, particularly “under-polluted countries in Africa,” since poor people in developing countries rarely live long enough to develop cancer, making him a particularly bizarre appointment for Obama. This contradiction will be interesting to watch unfold.

Summers, Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary, and Peter Orszag as budget director are all protégés of Robert Rubin, who held two of their jobs under President Bill Clinton. All three advisers are believers in what has been dubbed Rubin-omics: balanced budgets, free trade and financial deregulation, a combination that supposedly was responsible for the prosperity of the 1990s.

But times have changed since then. Rubin is facing questions about his role as director of Citigroup, which is the benefactor of the government’s latest bailout. Obama has pledged to introduce an era of re-regulation. Instead of balancing budgets, Obama plans a two-year fiscal stimulus worth hundreds of billions of dollars to aid the jobless, states and cities. “Everyone recognises that we’re looking at deficits of considerable magnitude,” said Jared Bernstein, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “Whether it’s Bob Rubin, Larry Summers or the most conservative economist, that is a widely shared recognition.”

The list of establishment appointees to his transitional team devoted to “change” goes on and on, begging the question: Is this really the best he could come up with? How about Nobel prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, or James K Galbraith, for starters? Someone who represents labour such as Arlene Holt Baker, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO? Something to suggest that change is really what this administration is about?

Remember Obama’s Bush moment, as they enthused about Bush’s bailout bill. Others, such as Senator Russ Feingold, realised the bill’s problems and voted against it. Feingold said that the Wall Street bailout legislation “fails to reform the flawed regulatory structure that permitted this crisis to arise in the first place. And it doesn’t do enough to address the root cause of the credit market collapse, namely the housing crisis. Taxpayers deserve a plan that puts their concerns ahead of those who got us into this mess.” Feingold was right. In short, Obama promised “Change we can believe in,” but it’s looking a lot more like “Business as usual.”

So far the only black to be appointed to a senior post is former deputy attorney general Eric Holder, will be attorney general. He is best known as the Chiquita Banana's lawyer who approved of president Bill Clinton’s pardon for Marc Rich, the blatantly corrupt financier whose former wife, Denise Rich, had contributed heavily to Clinton’s presidential library.

Despite the extreme disappointment that many are now experiencing, there are a few straws to grasp at. Emanuel was forced to apologise publically for his father’s now legendary anti-Arab remark about mopping floors in the White House, and this incident will act as a bell-weather for anti-Arab policies. Is this, plus the appointments of Gates, Summers and Clinton possibly a wily Obama “keeping his enemies close”?

Despite the inexorable march of the empire with a black commander-in-chief at the helm, at least the Cabinet is filled with competent people, some — like Clinton — with considerable authority and prestige around the world. Holder seems to be genuinely against torture and hostile to the concept of the imperial presidency. Obama himself is intelligent and will not have circles spun around him as did Bush, nor will he take five-week vacations and rely on comic book memos for snap decisions to go to war.

Despite his team’s credentials as Rubin-omists, they are hard at work on a huge fiscal stimulus package and further tightening of government regulations on banks and the financial sector. Conservation and the long-overdue move away from fossil fuels are high on the agenda. These bureaucrats are not fools (like Bush, Rice and many others in the current administration), and taking a leaf from president Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal administration, will not be afraid to borrow from the liberal handbook as the need arises.

What the progressives in the US must now do is mobilise, mobilise, mobilise, and articulate a clear, cogent agenda for real change. The old adage holds true more than ever: No pain — no gain.

It seems the only thing we can truly feel some exhilaration for at this point is the fact that Obama’s father was a black Muslim and his mother an altruistic humanitarian who truly loved other cultures and devoted her life to better understanding among peoples. Let us hope for some sign that their spirit lives on in their son to help fight off the demons who surround him at present. Perhaps a good old-fashioned African exorcism is in order.

Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly. You can reach him at www.geocities.com/walberg2002/

See also

Obama’s Zionist Jew At Treasury By Brother Nathanael Kapner,

The struggle is not over: Remembering Mohammed al-Kurd

Source

Pam Rasmussen writing from the United States, Live from Palestine, 26 November 2008


Abu Kamel and his wife, Um Kamel, eat breakfast with international volunteers at the al-Kurd's family home. (Pam Rasmussen)

The saying that a man's home is his castle goes back to the 1500s. Whether it is a mansion or a mud hut, a home to which you can retreat and be safe is a basic human need. But since 2001, Abu Kamel (Mohammed al-Kurd), his wife and five children were forced to fight every day for the right to stay in the East Jerusalem home his family had lived in for decades. And although the Jewish settlers who tried to push them out -- literally -- didn't put a gun to his head and pull the trigger, they might as well have.

Two weeks after the al-Kurds were finally evicted from their home on 9 November, Abu Kamel suffered a fatal heart attack. Now, Um Kamel (his wife, Fawzieh) who I grew to admire and respect while I camped on their patio as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) must wage the fight alone.

In October, my friend Jean and I traveled to Palestine from the United States to volunteer with the ISM during the fall olive harvest. When a foot injury ended my usefulness at olive-picking, we left Nablus for East Jerusalem, where the ISM had been keeping watch on the al-Kurds patio since the summer hoping to prevent the eviction that eventually came.

The al-Kurds' house is part of a project that the Jordanian government built with the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, to house 28 families who were forced to flee their original homes in 1948, after the Nakba, the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland. Abu Kamel's family was forced to flee West Jerusalem during the ethnic cleansing, and settled in the house in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. All of the parties involved agreed then that ownership of the houses would be transferred to the families within three years.

There they lived in peace until shortly after the June War in 1967, when two groups of Jewish settlers claimed ownership of the land, despite the earlier, documented agreement between Jordan and UNRWA. The struggle that followed took both parties into the courts, then escalated dramatically in 2001. When Abu Kamel suffered a heart attack and his family left the house to take him to medical treatment elsewhere, one of the settler families took advantage of his ill health. They moved in and occupied an extension to the home that the al-Kurds had renovated for one of their sons. When they returned, the al-Kurds faced the agonizing choice of abandoning their longtime home or living side-by-side with the representatives of a group that was trying to force them out. Despite Abu Kamel's fragile health, they chose to stay and fight.

Early this year, the situation began heating up. Despite the fact that the Israeli Supreme Court had ruled that the settlers claim on the land is fraudulent, an investment company acquired the right to raze all of the Palestinian homes in the community and replace them with 200 settler housing units and a commercial center. 15 July 2008 was set as the eviction date, and while the al-Kurds who became the standard bearers for the entire neighborhood appealed once more to the court, the ISM moved in to help. In response, the settlers' organization hired their own protection, an armed guard.

We lived in two tents set up on the patio, and one of us was present 24 hours a day, sleeping in shifts throughout the night. Um Kamel brought us tea at 7am, and she and Abu Kamel joined us for a traditional breakfast at 9am. A midday meal followed at 3pm. Although language was a bit of a barrier at first, we soon warmed up to each other and the routine. Abu Kamel was a quiet, solid presence, and Fawzieh was a model of cheerfulness and perseverance in the face of adversity. In addition to preparing our meals, she regularly played host to visiting delegations from international and Israeli peace organizations telling her family's story over and over, marshaling support for their cause as well as for the Palestinian community overall.

I will remember our time with the al-Kurds as a highlight of my stay in Palestine, an oasis of warm hospitality in a hostile surrounding. One week later, just after we reluctantly returned to our home in the United States, I got the news: at 3:30 in the morning on Sunday, 9 November, the Israeli army swooped in and forced the al-Kurds out, while detaining the ISM volunteers who had taken our place. That was the beginning of the end for Abu Kamel. Suffering from dangerously high blood pressure, the 61-year-old Mohammed was admitted to the hospital on 22 November. Just hours later, he died.

Abu Kamel lives on through Fawzieh, however. She has kept up the fight with the help of the ISM and other volunteers by camping in a tent close by her rightful home. Despite further attempts by the Israeli army to discourage her, this time through fines and destruction of her canvas shelter, she and her fellow protesters are persevering. This is nonviolent resistance at its best, and its up to us to show that it can work.

Pam Rasmussen works in the healthcare field and lives in Maryland. Visit www.thou-shalt-not-steal.org, sign the petition and send a message to the Israeli government.

Uprooted Palestinians: Holocaust; Not Again but in Gaza

Holocaust; Not Again but in Gaza

Contributed by Michael

The state of Israel was allegedly established to give world Jewry, in general, and “holocaust surviving” European Jews, in specific, a safe homeland. But the international humanitarian cry of “Holocaust, never again” has become so blind and so disillusioned that it has been, for the last sixty years, perpetrating the same thing it is trying to prevent, namely another holocaust, against another nation; the Palestinian Arabs.

The holocaust was perpetrated in Europe against Jewish Europeans by Christian Europeans. Arabs, who, for generations, received persecuted European Jews with hospitality, harbored and protected them, should not be made to pay their heartland, Palestine, for the sins of Europeans. Palestinians had never sinned against true Jews, but when Zionist militant Jews attack Palestinians, destroy their towns, massacre their families, forcefully evict hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of their homes, and usurp their lands to build their terrorist Israeli state, Palestinians had no choice but to defend themselves with whatever means available to them.

Since the 1940’s organized Zionist terrorists have been executing a graduated deliberate well-planned genocide (holocaust) against the Palestinians. They terrorized and murdered Palestinian civilians in every Palestinian city; some had been completely wiped out such as the Palestinians of Deir Yassin, al-Tantura, al-Dawayima, and Saliha among many others. At least 450 Palestinian towns were completely wiped off existence in 1948. Palestine itself was wiped off the map and replaced with Israel. The theft and usurpation of Palestinian land is still going on until this very moment. Every day the Israeli army raids Palestinian towns, demolishes homes and evicts Palestinians out of their land to build illegal Jewish Israeli colonies.

When Palestinians exercise their basic human right of resisting occupation and defending their lives and the lives of their families, they are called terrorists, who must be killed. Israeli influential chief rabbis, such as Yisrael Rosen, Dov Lior, Shmuel Eliyahu, Daniel Satosbky, Eliyahu Kinvinsky, Israel Ariel and Yitzhaq Ginsburg among many others, routinely and blatantly call for the extermination (a complete wiping off) of all Palestinians without exception. Yet these genocidal religious calls are being ignored by international political institutions and all the Western media, who concentrate on and misinterpret Iran’s President Ahmadinejad’s statement that the “terrorist Israeli regime” should not be allowed to continue, as a threat to wipe Israel off the map.

Part of this Israeli graduated genocidal holocaust can, currently, be clearly seen in the Gaza Strip. Life in Gaza has been gradually and systematically getting worse beginning with the Israeli occupation in 1967 until it has presently become the worst ever. Gaza is now the theater exhibiting the extermination of Palestinians for exercising their Western-encouraged democratic right of electing a Hamas government. Since the 2006 Hamas election Gaza has been severed from the West Bank, and encircled with an eight meter high concrete wall to make it the largest ever open-air concentration camp in the whole world. It is extensively worse than the notorious Nazi Germany concentration camps in umbers and space. The Israeli army is the jailer controlling and restricting the passage of all life-sustaining goods into Gaza, and the punisher by death of each Palestinian contemplating any resistance.

Similar to the pre-Holocaust international apathy towards the fate of European Jews, the current international political apathy towards the fate of Gaza and its 1.5 million residents is encouraging Israel to close the noose yet tighter to finish them off. Israel has completely sealed off all crossings to Gaza preventing entry of necessary food, fuel and medicine. No one is allowed in or out of Gaza.

Due to Israeli blockade life in Gaza has deteriorated rapidly. The number of Palestinians in Gaza living in absolute poverty has increased sharply. Today more than 80% of Gazans are jobless. 95% of Gaza’s industrial operations are suspended because they cannot import raw material nor export products due to Israeli siege. Agricultural sector is paralyzed and about 40,000 workers, who depend on cash crops, have now no income. With the Israeli gun-boats patrolling the shores of Gaza and sinking or seizing every Palestinian fishing boat the fishing industry, many Gazans depend on for their living, has come to a complete halt. Many Gazans depend on goods that are smuggled through tunnels underneath the Egyptian borders.

Electricity and water service infrastructure are non-existent because of Israeli prohibitions of importing spare parts and fuel necessary to keep the systems running. Hospitals cannot generate electricity to keep their life-sustaining equipments running. Sewage and water treatment facilities had completely halted, thus people don’t have clean drinking water, and sewage has been pouring into the sea contaminating its water.

Schools have been closed due to lack of books and electricity and due to high students drop out looking for jobs. Illiteracy is increasing. Educational system is collapsing. Without schools and without jobs, poor, hungry and frustrated young Palestinians of Gaza have nothing to do except brewing more and more hatred towards Israelis, the cause of their misery, and contemplating more aggressive self-defense mechanisms in the hope to deter or at least to balance the daily Israeli terror they are facing.

Israel stated on Friday Nov. 21st it will maintain its closure of Gaza Strip despite all the international concern over the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the area. Israeli officials claimed that this decision came due to firing missiles at Israeli settlements. We should note that Palestinians had observed the cease fire agreement struck last June 19th, but Israel, who broke each and every previous cease fire agreements, had broken this one too when Israeli tanks rolled into the Strip, Wednesday Nov. 4th , and murdered several Palestinians. The missiles were fired as a response to the Israeli attack.

Since the year 2000, 3000 Gazans and 12 Siderot Israeli residents have been killed. Israel, an occupying power, is routinely and indiscriminately attacking Gaza’s civilians with the most sophisticated weaponry; tanks, fighter planes, drones, Apache helicopters and laser-guided missiles. When some of these civilians are forced to become militaristic in order to defend their families with whatever ingeniously they can manufacture such as rudimentary home-made rockets and mines, the pro-Zionist biased international political communities ignore all Israeli terrorist attacks, deny the Palestinians their right of self-defense and call them terrorists.

When the EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), Javier Solana, stated in a New York press release in Nov. 22nd that the EU will not be able to do any more to break the Israeli blockade against Gaze, he is tacitly giving Israel implied acceptance and encouragement to continue its crimes. The international political bodies including the Arab League are just paying lip service confirming Israel’s right to self-defense while denying this right to Gazans, and are begging Israel not to launch a major military operation into Gaza.

Some Arab leaders are Zionist Arabs. Like Zionist leaders of WWII era, who ignored, encouraged, and benefited from the Jewish Holocaust, these Zionist Arab leaders are also ignoring the Gaza holocaust. Some of them, like Palestinian President Abbas and Egyptian President Mubarak, are actively contributing to this holocaust for a fistful of American Dollars. Abbas and his cronies in the Ramallah assigned government had opposed, plotted against, and attacked the democratically elected Palestinian government of Hamas in Gaza. Egyptian Mubarak’s government had repeatedly refused to give life to Gaza by opening border crossings into Gaza (a border between two Arab entities) citing international agreements and national security. The fallacy of these excuses were exposed when the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ahmad Aboul Gheit, disclosed last Wednesday 11th of November that the closure of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza comes for pure political reasons, and for the purpose of punishing one particular Palestinian side (Hamas). He explained that opening the Rafah crossing would mean recognizing Hamas as the legitimate Palestinian government. The speaker of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Husam Zaki, also declared that the closure came in support for Palestinian President Abbas, who requested the closure.

The head of UNRWA, Karen Koning Abu Zayd, warned: “Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and –some would say – encouragement of the international community”.

The majority of Gazans are dependent in their livelihood on donations from the UNRWA. Such donations has been routinely interrupted due to Israeli restrictions and crossing closures. UNRWA representative John Holms warned, lately, that the situation in Gaza is dire and that the Agency will no longer be able to distribute more food to the poor due to the current Israeli closure.

Despite the many scientific analyses, study and research the European revisionist historians introduce and refer to as proof that the Holocaust is a hoax and had never happened, one must admit that many European Jews, like the rest of other people, had been murdered during WWII. The Holocaust is the only historical event, throughout the whole history of Man, whose study and research has been made a religious taboo and a punishable crime. Therefore refuting the revisionists’ evidence has been made an impossible task, making the Holocaust a controversial subject. Nevertheless, the murder of one family member constitutes a holocaust to the rest of the family. We should remember that 55 million people are estimated to have died in WWII, millions of them died to free European Jews from the “controversial” Holocaust. The surviving Jews are indebted to the Allied countries and not the other way around as Israel keeps implying.

Although history shows many documented evidence that total annihilation of populations, worse than the “controversial” Holocaust, had taken place to other nations throughout history, Jews in general, and Israeli Jews in particular, claim that they are the only perennial victims in this world, and after the Holocaust they feel they are justified to do any thing they want, even perpetrating other holocausts against other nations while denying the fact. Most of the Jews, who repeatedly cite the Holocaust to gain sympathy, and to raise it as a weapon to extort money and weapons and political support from Europeans, have no sympathy for Palestinian victims, who were driven out of their homes in 1948 and in 1967 and have been suffering from deliberate, well-planned holocaust, part of which is being now executed by their government in their names against 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza.

In almost every Western country one finds a Jewish museum of tolerance. Although many nations had suffered from worse than Holocaust-like massacres, none of them found a need to erect their own museums of tolerance and in such numbers. I wonder what is it that Westerners find intolerable about the Jews that they need such an amount of museums to beg their tolerance for the Jews!

The Israeli blockade policy has effectively destroyed the economy and all the infrastructures of Gaza. It had impoverished and starved the whole population of Gaza including all civilians, women, children and the sick, and even their farm animals. This policy is illegal under International Humanitarian Law and a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This policy constitutes an indiscriminate collective punishment, a war crime, genocide, and a holocaust. This devastating holocaust is Israeli-made, but can easily be reversed if the necessary political will of the UN and/or the Arab League is exerted against the terrorist government of Israel. Isn’t time for the UN to assert its legitimacy, its dignity, and its respect by suspending and revoking rogue Israel’s membership for violating human rights, and for breaking the many UN resolutions and international laws? Isn’t it time for the UN to implement its solemn promise of “never again another holocaust” in the world starting with the most pressing Palestinian holocaust?

Comment

Fad said...

Touting for Jewish holocaust as the only holocaust has predisposed the world for the concept of ''never again only for Jews''We,ve never heared about museums for Russian or Chinese or Ukranian -or Iraqi-holocaustsOnly Jewish holocaust with its exaggerated number of victims ae imposed everywhere in memorial stuffs and schools and churchs

8:46 AM, November 26, 2008

Contributed by Fad

Our Roots Are Still Alive
The Story of the Palestinian People

Written by the Peoples Press Palestine Book Project:
Joy Bonds, Jimmy Emerman, Linda John, Penny Johnson, Paul Rupert
Illustrations: Ron Weil of Gonna Rise Again Graphics
Design: Leah Statman of Gonna Rise Again Graphics
Layout: Joy Bonds and Leah Statman
Institute for Independent Social Journalism

New Jersey Solidarity-Activists for the Liberation of Palestine Main Site

Introduction

Chronology

Chapter 1 - Our Roots Are Entrenched Deep in the Earth

Chapter 2 - Zionism: The False Return

Chapter 3 - World War 1: Pledges and Betrayals

Chapter 4 - Building Zion Under the British Gun

Chapter 5 - 1936: The Palestinian Revolt

Chapter 6 - World War II: Channelling Europe's Jews to Palestine

Chapter 7 - Green Light from the White House

Chapter 8 - Clearing the Land of Palestinians: The 1948 War

Chapter 9 - The Exile: From Bitterness to Strength

Chapter 10 - Building the Jewish State

Chapter 11 - Birth of the Fedayeen

Chapter 12 - The Road to War

Chapter 13 - June 1967: Seizing New Arab Land

Chapter 14 - Palestine Lives

Chapter 15 - Black September

Chapter 16 - The October War: The Olive Branch and the Gun

Chapter 17 - Our Roots Are Still Alive

Chapter 18 - The Battle of Lebanon

Conclusion: Revolution Until Victory

Postscript: "We Shall Never Forget Palestine!"

Recommended Reading

Published by the Peoples Press, New York, 1977.

Protest the Siege of Gaza this Friday

Source

Recieved via e-mail:

***PLEASE FORWARD***

In the US, Thanksgiving Day is a traditionally a day of feasting and giving thanks to God. In the Gaza Strip in Palestine, bread is a staple food that people usually get fresh from a local bakery. This supply lasts only a day or two. This is not much different from the days when Jesus taught his followers the words: "Give us this day our daily bread."

Egypt and Israel have virtually cut off the flow of people, food, medicine, fuel, and other goods into and out of the Gaza Strip. With the financial, diplomatic, and military backing of the United States government, 1.5 million people are being subjected to collective punishment in violation of international law. On Saturday, November 22, 2008, the United Nations announced that half of Gaza's bakeries were closed due to lack of electricity, fuel, or grain. Remaining bakeries have begun grinding second-rate wheat, usually fed to farm animals and birds, due to grain shortages. Human wheat supplies ran out last weekend as Israeli and Egyptian border guards turned away truckloads of donated food and medication, according to Abd An-Nasser Al-Ajrami, the head of the Gaza Strip Society of Mill Owners.

The Friday after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year, many people will have the day off from work. On that day, you are invited to join members of the Middle East Task Force of Ann Arbor at the corner of Liberty and Main street in Ann Arbor from 3 PM until 5 PM as we nonviolently protest. We will draw attention to the siege of Gaza by holding signs in support of human rights in Palestine and by passing out leaflets (see attached and below).

When: Friday, November 28, 2008
Time: 3 PM to 5 PM
Where: Corner of Liberty and Main, Ann Arbor

Our children are in danger. ... it’s a real hell here. People are starving, in very bad condition, starving in darkness. And in silence. There is a kind of international silence towards what’s happening here. We need a real reaction from the international community to what is happening here, real action, not just words and statements.–Amjad Al Shawa, Director of the Palestine Network of NGOs in Gaza qtd. in "Gaza Strip: starving in darkness" by Kristen Ess. Palestine News Network. 11/19/08.

Last week we were unable to feed 60,000 of Gaza's neediest refugees due to our warehouses running out of food. UNRWA supplies half of Gaza's population of 1.5 million people with emergency rations, and 20,000 people are fed per day when there are adequate supplies.–John Ging, Director of UN Relief and Welfare Agency qtd. in "On Top of Humanitarian Disaster, A News Blackout" by Cherrie Heywood. Inter Press Service. 11/18/08.

END THE SIEGE OF GAZA NOW!

The US-backed regimes of Israel and Egypt have sealed the Gaza Strip's borders. Most of the Gaza Strip is without power due to lack of fuel, and the United Nations has been forced to stop food distribution to those in need. The humanitarian situation is dire for the people in the Gaza Strip, most importantly the children. Gaza is home to 1.5 million Palestinians, 80% of whom are refugees denied by Israel the right to return to the homes from which they were expelled by the Zionist occupation in 1948.

Speak Out!

Demand an End to the Siege of the Gaza Strip
and the Occupation of All of Palestine!

Organize Street Actions and Protests

Call/Write the Media and Your Congressional Representatives

Organize Community Meetings and Delegations
to Religious Leaders and Educators

Donate to Help the People in Gaza!

To contact your congressional representatives, go to http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home

To contact the media, go to http://newslink.org

To donate and help the people in the Gaza Strip, go to http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and simply follow the instructions. Indicate that your donation is for the GAZA EMERGENCY FUND.

BREAK THE SIEGE OF GAZA NOW!
DON'T DELAY! TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!

This leaflet sponsored by the Middle East Task Force of Ann Arbor. Contact: metfinexile-owner@yahoogroups.com

// posted by PeaceMonger @ 11/25/2008 12:40:00 AM

End the Starvation and Siege of Gaza

Source

Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East (http://www.adalahny.org/)

Network of Arab-American Professionals of NY (www.naaponline.org/ny)

Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee of NY (http://www.adcnewyork.org/)

Brooklyn For Peace (http://www.brooklynpeace.org/)

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (http://www.endtheoccupation.org/)

November 17, 2008

Take Action

With Gazans already impoverished and struggling to survive, on November 5, Israel completely sealed Gaza's border crossings. This followed an unprovoked Israeli attack on Gaza that killed six Palestinians, despite a ceasefire, and Palestinian rocket fire in response. As a result of Israel's closure, the United Nations has been forced to stop food distribution to 750,000 needy people, and 70% of Gaza is now without power due to a lack of fuel. According to reports, even candles are now in short supply. "Let's see this for what it is." said UN spokesman Chris Gunness. "Fifty-six percent of the Gaza Strip are children. Let us not cause suffering of innocent children." Blocking witnesses, on November 13, Israel denied the entry to Gaza of 20 senior EU diplomats. Israel also has refused to allow foreign journalists to enter Gaza. Foreign Press Association chairman Steven Gutnik called the ban "a serious violation of freedom of the press" and said "it is essential that journalists be allowed to enter the Gaza Strip since it is the foreign media that serves as the world's window into Gaza. Israel allowed a trickle of aid to enter Gaza today. Gaza has 1.5 million residents, the large majority of whom are displaced refugees from 1948.
In response to calls from Gaza, we urge you to take one or more of the following actions:
1) Contact Your Political Representatives: Contact your congressional representatives (http://capwiz.com/fconl/directory/leadership_list.tt ) and demand that the US government pressure Israel to stop starving Gazans, end the siege, and respect basic Palestinian rights.
Tell this directly to the U.S. Mission to the UN:
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad
Phone: (212) 415-4053
E-mail: '; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text26254 ); document.write( '<\/a>' ); //-->\n

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

2) Organize a Protest: Organize public protests and educational events calling for an end of Israel's abuse of Palestinian rights in Gaza.
3) Boycott the Occupier, Not the Occupied: Take action for long-term change and join the growing international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. Organize a BDS campaign in your community, in response to the call by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations, until Israel ends its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands, dismantles the Wall, recognizes the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel, and implements the right of return for Palestinian refugees as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Impacts of Israeli Actions

The latest measures are the culmination of a long-term Israeli policy and strategy of displacement and oppression that started in 1948, when Israel expelled Gaza's current refugees from their original villages. According to Oxfam, CARE and Save the Children, "The rise of poverty in Gaza relates to the crippling impact of the Israeli blockade within the broader context of a long-term pattern of economic degradation in Gaza stemming from Israeli-imposed closures since the early 1990s and, more recently, the eighteen-month international aid embargo on the Palestinian Authority that was in place until June 2007."
According to the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health in Gaza, 257 Palestinians have died in Gaza in the last year because they have been unable to leave for necessary advanced care.

Israel's Obligations

Israel's claim that it no longer occupies the Gaza Strip has been rejected by the international community and rights organizations because "it still maintains effective control over the territory via its control of Gaza's land borders, airspace, territorial waters, tax collection, and population registry." Because Israel is occupying the Gaza Strip, it is morally and legally responsible for protecting the human rights of Gaza's citizens.

Yet Israel's siege violates international law and basic human rights like the rights to healthcare, education, freedom of movement, and employment, as well as broader rights like the right to self-determination. Israel's siege also violates its most basic obligations as an Occupying Power under the Fourth Geneva Convention, including the "duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population," and the prohibition against collective punishment.
Thank you for taking action and please spread the word.
Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East (http://www.adalahny.org/)
Network of Arab-American Professionals of NY (www.naaponline.org/ny)
Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee of NY (http://www.adcnewyork.org/)
Brooklyn For Peace (http://www.brooklynpeace.org/)

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (http://www.endtheoccupation.org/)

Israel spurns U.N. plea to ease Gaza blockade

Israel spurns U.N. plea to ease Gaza blockade

Ban Ki-Moon expresses concern over 'deteriorating humanitarian situation'

JERUSALEM - Israel stood fast Wednesday by its decision to clamp shut cargo crossings at the Gaza Strip, brushing off pleas to ease the blockade from United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27801489/.



This all what the American UN can say about unhuman blockade:

UN head fears over Gaza blockade !!

In a telephone call, he urged Mr Olmert to ease the delivery of aid to the territory, Mr Ban's office said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7737243.stm

The Nazis of our time

We don’t have the slightest doubt that the Israeli military-political establishment and those backing it politically, financially and militarily represent the Nazis of our time.

We know the word “Nazi” is a loaded term that shouldn’t be used arbitrarily to describe evil actions or evil people. We are also mindful of the fact that ascribing the “Nazi” epithet to Jews and Jewish behaviour is a tightly guarded taboo in many Western countries.

However, the truth must be told regarding what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. Indeed, when Jews, or anybody else, think, behave and act like Nazis, they become Nazis, which begs the question: Does Israel think, behave and act in a Nazi-like manner toward the helpless and unprotected Palestinians in the streets and hills of the West Bank and Gaza Strip?

You bet, it does!

Over the past few days and weeks, the Nazi nature of Israeli behaviour was amply conspicuous. In March, the Israeli army, acting like the Nazi Gestapo, forced Palestinian policemen to take off their clothes at gunpoint and then paraded them naked before TV cameras, very much like the Nazis did in Europe more than 60 years ago.

The disgraceful act, which was meant to humiliate, debase, and hurt, served no logical purpose other than satisfying sadistic tendencies, using the words of veteran Israeli writer Uri Avnery.

Why do Israeli leaders and army generals do these things to the Palestinians? Are we talking about a subconscious or probably conscious urge to emulate their former tormentors? Do Israeli leaders and generals think that humiliating their victims is the ultimate test of their virility? Do some Jews in Israel subconsciously admire the Nazis?

Moreover, why did Jewish leaders and public figures—who move quickly to condemn the slightest censure of Israeli behaviour—remain silent about this abominable act? Just imagine how these hypocritical Jewish leaders would have reacted had Jews, not Palestinians, been paraded naked before the eyes of the world!

The second Nazi-like act carried out by the Zionist child killers took place at the village of el-Yamon near Jenin in the northern West Bank on 17 March. There, the Israeli army dispatched a death squad of undercover soldiers who disguised themselves as Palestinians to assassinate those Palestinians the Israeli army suspects were involved in the resistance.

However, after milling around for more than an hour, and the person or persons to be murdered didn’t show up, the soldiers, worried that they would return to base “empty- handed,” decided to murder an 8-year-old child named Akaber Zayed.

The child was sitting in the backseat of a taxi cab when a bullet pierced her tender head, killing her instantly. Having carried out their mission, the soldiers returned to base, probably receiving a citation for valour from their superiors.

The Israeli army, adding insult to injury (in this case to murder), initially claimed the soldiers acted in accordance with standing orders and violated no laws. Well, the Gestapo, the SS and Wehrmacht were also acting in accordance with standing orders and violated no laws.

The cold-blooded murder of Akaber Zayed is another stark reminder, if one were needed, of the phantasmagoric murder of Iman al-Hams in Rafah in southern Gaza three years ago. Then an Israeli army soldier shot the 9-year-old child while on her way to school, seriously wounding her in the upper part of her body. However, instead of trying to save her life, the beast, using the words of an Israeli newspaper, emptied his entire magazine of bullets into her body to make sure that she was dead and posed no risk to the Israeli “defence” forces in the area. In Israeli army jargon, they call this “verification of the killing.” (This author witnessed a barbaric act as such in Hebron several years ago.)

We are not talking about two or ten or even a hundred cases of deliberate murder of Palestinian children. We are talking about as many as 1,400 Palestinian minors and children, murdered knowingly and deliberately by the Israeli occupation army and paramilitary Jewish terrorists, also known as settlers, in less than six years by the Nazis of our time.

The Israeli State, along with its parroting mouthpieces in the capitals of North America and Europe, claim, mendaciously, of course, that Israeli soldiers don’t deliberately target Palestinian children and that the estimated 1,400 Palestinian kids were killed by mistake.

Well, mistakes happen once, twice, even ten times. But when children are killed nearly on a daily basis, it means the killing is institutionalized State policy.

And, now, we are entering the era of a new Nazi-like policy adopted by the government of Israel, designed to starve the Palestinian people through hermetic blockades and closures of Palestinian population centres in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

This did not happened by coincidence. Two months ago, Dov Weisglass, Advisor of the now-comatose Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, told the Israeli public radio that “the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet but not make them die of hunger.” Other Israeli officials made similar virulent statements, which, unfortunately, failed to draw any reactions from Western capitals.

Mass starvation is nothing short of mass genocide, pure and simple. And Israel is only doing it gradually in order to predict and pre-gauge Western reactions. Israel has done it for two months this time and must be very pleased with the absence of any angry reactions from the capitals of Europe and North America.

Next time, the blockade will last longer, and the prospects of real hunger will grow accordingly. This is not an exaggeration or hysteria. This is simply the honest impression that one, anyone, would receive after objectively examining facts on the ground.

We, Palestinians, will not appeal to the U.S. to rein-in Israeli Nazism. America has been crueler to us than Israel itself. America, whose policies are controlled by right-wing Jewish circles such as AIPAC, is our tormentor, par excellence.

But how about Europe? Should European peoples and European governments atone for one holocaust by allowing Israel to commit another, though a silent and almost imperceptible one?

This is the urgent question that the Old Continent must face now.

When Jews Behave Like Nazis, They Become Nazis

last time i read this article on some website..it's quite intersting..it goes staight to the point, and it shows what some people is trying not to be !!

by Khalid Amayreh
July 30, 2006

On 23 March, 1944, 33 German soldiers were killed when members of an Italian resistance group set off a bomb close to a column of German troops who were marching on via Rasella. Adolph Hitler got furious and ordered that within 24 hours, ten Italians were to be shot for each dead German. Herbert Kappler, the local German commander, quickly compiled a list of 320 civilians who were to be killed. On 24 March, the victims were transported to Adreatine caves where they were summarily executed by the SS.

Numerous similar “pacification operations” were carried out by the Nazi armies against civilians throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, in which men, women and children were brutally killed to avenge the death of German soldiers by local resistance fighters.

I know it is a taboo, especially in the West, to compare Israel, let alone Jews, to the Third Reich. However, if truth is to be upheld as an intrinsic, paramount value, it is inescapable to call things by their real name.
Today, in light of Israel’s criminal aggressions in Lebanon and Gaza, there is no doubt that Israel is thinking, behaving and acting like the Third Reich. And when Jews, or some Jews, think, behave and act like the Nazis, they become Nazis themselves.

Zionists are behaving like Nazis because they are murdering innocent civilians en mass to avenge the death of a few Israeli soldiers killed by resistance fighters in Lebanon or Palestine.

Needless to say, these fighters, whether you call them Hamas or Hizbullah, are struggling to rid their countries of a brutal Israeli occupation, very much like European resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Poland, France, Greece, and other countries fought to get rid of the brutal Nazi occupation of their countries.

Jewish suffering in Europe six decades ago by no means entitles Jews to commit another holocaust against the peoples of the Middle East. Indeed, a Jewish holocaust against the peoples of the Middle East is no less evil (and no less-Nazi) than the German holocaust against Jews.

Evil crimes don’t become lesser when perpetrated by Jewish hands. There is no such thing as kosher genocide, or kosher holocaust or Kosher massacres.

Actually, if Jews are so intent on avenging the holocaust, the “logical” thing, at least from a Talmudic perspective, is that Zionists should direct their wrath to the Germans, the children and grandchildren of the Wehrmacht, Gestapo and SS, not to the innocent Palestinians and Lebanese who don’t have the means to protect themselves and their children.

Isn’t a sign of criminality and cowardice to target innocent and helpless civilians with the most potent machines of death?

I know that many Jews get vociferously furious whenever Israeli-Nazi analogies are drawn, especially by Europeans and westerners. They would claim that the holocaust was a unique event compared to what Israel is doing in Lebanon and Gaza.

Well, nobody is claiming that Gaza is becoming a new Auschwitz. However, nobody can deny that numerous helpless civilians are exterminated by the Israeli war machine. After all there are other means to “evaporate” people than sending them to gas chambers and incinerators (I am using the word “evaporate” because an Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, gleefully used this very word recently on its internet cite in reference to Palestinians killed in one Israel aerial bombing of a crowded Gaza street in mid July.).
In the final analysis, if brutal collective punishment is a criterion for qualifying anybody for the “Nazi” label, then Israeli behavior and Israeli leaders, politicians and military commanders alike, are undoubtedly the Nazis of our time.

Posted by S H A R I F O on Tuesday, 

Abu Kamel of the al-Kurd family has died two weeks after Israel forcibly evicted him from his home of 52 years

Child-killers par excellance

"As late as 1941, the Zionist group LEHI, one of whose leaders, Yitzhak Shamir, was later to become a prime minister of Israel, approached the Nazis, using the name of its parent organization, the Irgun(NMO)..[The proposal stated:] 'The establishment of the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian Pd bound by a treaty with the German Reich would be in the interests of strengthening the future German nation of power in the Near East...The NMO in Palestine offers to take an active part in the war on Germany's side'...The Nazis rejected this proposal for an alliance because, it is reported, they considered LEHI's military power 'negligible.' "
Allan Brownfield in "The Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs", July/August 1998.