Palestinian Children Living Off Israeli Trash

This is an awful sight. Yet, I must give kudos to the New York Times for capturing and reporting on this tragedy. It carried an article and showed a series of photographs with sad captions, such as:

Delighted
with a whole box of clothing in good shape, a boy shows off a sweater.
The boys say the real treasures come in deliveries of trash from the
Israeli settlements.

Can there be any question about the
basic inhumanity of this? The raw contrast between colonialist excess,
and the natives so oppressed and starved as to feed off their waste.

The
Palestinians have become so dependent, a pragmatists would welcome US
aid to Israel. Enough of the billions of dollars a year that goes to
Israel must indirectly subsidize the wasteful lifestyles of Israel’s
settlers. In a weird way, US taxpayers probably helped subsidize the computer Fadi El-Ammour found and fixed.
Wow, a trickle-down economist whose Zionist (read, statist) leanings
barely overshadow his economic views would agree passionately with this
analysis.

via

Technorati Tags: Palestine, Waste, Trash, Israel, Excess, Oppression

Looming Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza

From peacepalestineIn support of the call below, and in addition, please note that there is again a situation of high alert in northern Gaza, because there are strong concerns that the sewage lakes there will not hold much longer. Urgently needed equipment for repair does not enter Gaza, and this time we are talking about the main sewage lakes, not about the small overflow lake of the last time. Thus, a humanitarian catastrophe is pending for many reasons in Gaza, while Israel’s current newsline is that “Hamas is planning to create a humanitarian emergency there”!
Please make maximum effors to get the real story out. Do contact people in Gaza, including the phone numbers given below.
BADIL

Subject: For Immediate Release–Gaza Under Israeli Fire
Press Release 27.6.2007

Since last night, and only one day after the much celebrated Sharm El Sheikh summit, the Israeli Occupation Forces have been attacking the Gaza Strip-Khan Younus and Shijaeyya neighbourhood– with Mirkava tanks, Apache helicopters and F16. Instead of sending the promised “humanitarian aid” to the people of Gaza, as the Sharm El Sheikh leaders decided, Israel so far has killed 10 civilians, including a 10 year old child.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms these heinous crimes and call upon all civil society organizations and freedom loving people to act immediately in any possible way to put pressure on their governments to end diplomatic ties with Apartheid Israel and institute sanctions against it for its 40 years of military occupation of Palestine. We also call on the international community and the Arab and Islamic worlds, to take up their responsibility to protect the Palestinian people from this heinous aggression and immediately terminate the continuing Israeli policy of collective punishment.

We demand the immediate halt of the Israeli Occupation Forces’ attacks on the Gaza Strip and an end to the closure and isolation of the Strip, both of which are exacerbating an already desperate humanitarian situation inside the Strip.

The National Boycott of Apartheid Israel-Gaza
One Democratic State Association
University Teachers’ Association
For Comments contact:
+972 599 880608
+ 972 599 441766
+ 972 599 322636

Technorati Tags: Israel, Zionists, Gaza, Humanitarian Crisis, Sewage

You Can’t Trust Israel…

Constant Expansion, still continuing…  And so amid talks and debates about terrrorism and Getting rid of Hamas, etc., etc.  We see the full view of the current conflict… the reprisals from Palestinians are just a simple consequence of Zionist Action since 1946 right up to present day… the following from Jews sans Frontieres
—————————

So there! I was just going to blog an old article about Tommy Lapid and then I thought I’d better google “Israel” first just in case there’s a hot news item I’d be missing. I got this little nugget from Ynet, Yediot Aharanot on line. It’s headed Israel’s hollow declarations and it gives a blow by blow account of how Israel is making the prospect of a Palestinian state impossible. It also goes into the absurd spin placed on every zionist statement:

Olmert’s problem, and in fact the problem faced by all of us, is that in reality one cannot fool all the people all the time. Certainly not the Palestinians, who continue to see on a daily basis how more land is being taken away and paved under the wheels of the settlement and annexation machine, which does not rest even for a day.

At one location land is being seized for building the fence, with “only” 80 percent of it being built east of the Green Line, that is, in West Bank territory. Elsewhere land is being seized in favor of expanding one or another “consensus settlement.”

Simultaneously, at the heart of the West Bank, settlers who are fans of organic agriculture, plant vineyards on land that up until recently was worked by Palestinian farmers, while yet another bypass road is being paved on land confiscated with the High Court’s approval for “public benefit.”

After all, in the West Bank everything is always done for public benefit – the Israeli public that is (which accounts for only 10 percent of the West Bank’s population).

In order to calibrate the national expectation gauge of the Sharm el-Sheik summit and the festive declarations that followed it, it would be worthwhile for us Israelis to one day clarify to ourselves, among the other terms we use routinely in order to describe our realities, the term “consensus.”

The Even-Shoshan dictionary defines the term as follows: “general agreement,” “unanimity,” or “homogenous position.” Where then does consensus have to prevail when it comes to the issue of settlements? Are we talking about a consensus between the Labor and Kadima parties? Or perhaps a consensus between the settler Right and all those who have yet to pledge their allegiance to the notion of the Greater Land of Israel?

Olmert’s problem is that he can’t fool the Palestinians? But he’s not even trying to fool the Palestinians. He’s got the Quartet on his side.

Technorati Tags: Israel, consensus, Olmert, land grab

Israeli Massacres…

I have recently been bombarded with comments regarding the terrorism of Hamas and how Israel is so poor and innocent. What rarely seems to come up in the conversation is State Terrorism, something Israel is a an absolute master at. The following from Cold Desert. Note that this list is only the tip of the iceberg ,and yet the list is far too long for any person with a little humanity in them to sit back and still say… “Please leave poor little Israel alone.” Get a clue.
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The following list of massacres is by no means exclusive, but they reflect the nature of the Zionist occupation of Palestine and Lebanon and show that massacres and expulsions were not aberrations that happen in any war, but organized atrocities with only one aim, that is to have a Zionist state which is ‘goyim rein’. (From Deathmasters through Message in a Bottle)

• The King David Massacre
• The Massacre at Baldat al-Shaikh
• YEHIDA MASSACRE
• KHISAS MASSACRE
• QAZAZA MASSACRE
• The Semiramis Hotel Massacre
• The Massacre at Dair Yasin
• NASER AL-DIN MASSACRE
• THE TANTURA MASSACRE
• BEIT DARAS MASSACRE
• THE DAHMASH MOSQUE MASSACRE
• DAWAYMA MASSACRE
• HOULA MASSACRE
• SHARAFAT MASSACRE
• Salha Massacre
• The Massacre at Qibya
• KAFR QASEM MASSACRE
• Khan Yunis Massacre
• The Massacre in Gaza City
• AL-SAMMOU’ MASSACRE
• Aitharoun Massacre
• Kawnin Massacre
• Hanin Massacre
• Bint Jbeil Massacre
• Abbasieh Massacre
• Adloun Massacre
• Saida Massacre
• Fakhani Massacre
• Beirut Massacre
• Sabra And Shatila Massacre
• Jibsheet Massacre
• Sohmor Massacre
• Seer Al Garbiah
• Maaraka Massacres
• Zrariah Massacre
• Homeen Al-Tahta Massacre
• Jibaa Massacre
• Yohmor Massacre
• Tiri massacre
• Al-Naher Al-Bared Massacre
• Ain Al-Hillwee Massacre
• OYON QARA MASSACRE
• Siddiqine Massacre
• AL-AQSA MOSQUE MASSACRE
• THE IBRAHIMI MOSQUE MASSACRE
• THE JABALIA MASSACRE
• Aramta Massacre
• ERETZ CHECKPOINT MASSACRE
• Deir Al-Zahrani Massacre
• Nabatiyeh (school bus) Massacre
• Mnsuriah Massacre
• The Sohmor Second Massacre
• Nabatyaih Massacre
• Qana Massacre
• Trqumia Massacr
• Janta Massacre
• 24 Of June 1999 Massacres
• Western Bekaa villages Massacre

Not forgetting… the Safsaf Massacre.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Massacres, List, State Terrorism

Amnesty International Report on Israel, 4 June 2007

After reading the report by Amnesty International below, things which just didn’t sit right with me were re-inforced and I knew that my feelings were validated and my actions justifiedin opposing the actions of the Israel. This sort of blatant oppression has to be opposed, its inhuman.

I tried looking at it from an objective point of view and I come to the same conclusion. In the end you have to stand for something, and for me it’s not nationalism of any kind, it’s the simple value of Justice and Equality. Israel has none of these values at heart. After listening to a lot of comments and arguments from the Pro-Israeli side in terms of the current conflict between Palestine and Israel I am even more convinced of the quote by Voltaire…

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA
PRESS RELEASE
June 4, 2007

Israel Must Observe Basic Human Rights of Palestinians in Occupied Territories, Insists Amnesty International
Illegal Measures Fail to Bring Security

(Washington, DC) On the eve of the 40th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Amnesty International released a new report, Enduring Occupation: Palestinians Under Siege in the West Bank, calling on the Israeli authorities to end the blockades, land-grabbing, and other violations of international law carried out under the occupation. These actions have caused widespread human rights abuses and failed to bring security to the civilian populations.

The report illustrates the devastating impact of four decades of Israeli military occupation and documents the relentless expansion of unlawful settlements on occupied land. Case studies show a plethora of measures that confine Palestinians to fragmented enclaves and hinder their access to work, health and education facilities. These measures include a 700km fence/wall, more than 500 checkpoints and blockades, and a complicated system of permits.

“It is imperative that Palestinians be allowed to provide for themselves and their families,” said Larry Cox, Amnesty International USA executive director. “Lives are at stake if mothers-to-be, ailing boys and girls and older men and women in fragile health cannot receive medical help because of delays at the border or lengthy alternative routes.

“The international community has effectively neglected to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian situation in the last forty years. Human rights abuses are committed every day. Such actions help increase resentment and hopelessness among a young and progressively more radicalized Palestinian population.”

Amnesty International is calling for the urgent deployment of an effective international human rights monitoring method to monitor compliance by both Israeli and Palestinian authorities with their obligations under international law. This must be backed up with a commitment to investigate and prosecute, through the exercise of universal jurisdiction, those who commit war crimes or other crimes under international law.

“International action is urgently needed to address the widespread human rights abuses being committed by all parties to the conflict,” said Marty Rosenbluth, Amnesty International USA country specialist for Israel and the Occupied Territories. “The international community cannot close its eyes to the plight of all civilians in the area – both Israelis and Palestinians – since they are all being affected.”

In its report, Amnesty International acknowledges Israel’s legitimate security concerns and the government’s obligation to protect the population within its borders, but says this does not justify blatant violations of international law, such as construction of much of the fence/wall inside the West Bank on Palestinian land. To prevent Palestinian suicide bombers from entering Israel, the barrier should be located on the Green Line, the border between Israel and the West Bank. However the organization states that most of the barrier is actually being built on Palestinian land, in defiance of the International Court of Justice, and is separating Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank.

In addition to the fence/wall, the movement of Palestinians is severely constrained by a host of other restrictions, including over 500 checkpoints and blockades, and a network of roads for Israeli settlers to use which is off-limits to Palestinians. The barrier, together with these roads and roadblocks, benefit continuously expanding but unlawful Israeli settlements and make them territorially contiguous with Israel.

Amnesty International is calling on the Israeli authorities to lift the regime of blockades and restrictions on Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, halt the construction of the fence/wall inside the West Bank and remove the sections already built there, cease the expansion of Israeli settlements and cancel all demolition orders on Palestinian homes.

Amnesty International is also reiterating its call on Palestinian armed groups to end immediately attacks on civilians and on the Palestinian Authority to take effective action to stop and prevent such attacks and bring to justice those responsible.

“Because of the current conditions imposed by the Israeli government, the Palestinian economy is in shambles resulting in greater degrees of poverty, food insecurity and desperation among the Palestinian population,” said Cox. “The global community must work towards a comprehensive resolution to this Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Otherwise, the cycle of hate continues and innocent people on all sides continue to die.”

» Read the full report
» See interactive map of the West Bank fence/wall

Technorati Tags: Israel, Amnesty International, Occupation

The Gaza Cage

I agree with Uri Avnery’s point of view on the current situation in Occupied Palestine. His recent article published on CounterPunch is very insightful into the internal dynamics of the leadership struggles on both the Palestinian and the Israeli side.

WHAT HAPPENS when one and a half million human beings are imprisoned in a tiny, arid territory, cut off from their compatriots and from any contact with the outside world, starved by an economic blockade and unable to feed their families?

Some months ago, I described this situation as a sociological experiment set up by Israel, the United States and the European Union. The population of the Gaza Strip as guinea pigs.

This week, the experiment showed results. They proved that human beings react exactly like other animals: when too many of them are crowded into a small area in miserable conditions, they become aggressive, and even murderous. The organizers of the experiment in Jerusalem, Washington, Berlin, Oslo, Ottawa and other capitals could rub their hands in satisfaction. The subjects of the experiment reacted as foreseen. Many of them even died in the interests of science.

But the experiment is not yet over. The scientists want to know what happens if the blockade is tightened still further.

Read on…

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestine, Gaza , West Bank, Hamas, Fatah, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres, Crocodile tears, Uri Avnery, Gaza Cage

Secret UN Report Condemns US for Middle East Failures

M&G – The highest ranking United Nations official in Israel has warned that American pressure has “pummelled into submission” the United Nations’s role as an impartial Middle East negotiator in a damning confidential report.

The 53-page End of Mission Report by Alvaro de Soto, the UN’s Middle East envoy, obtained by the Guardian, presents a devastating account of failed diplomacy and condemns the sweeping boycott of the Palestinian government. It is dated May 5 this year, just before De Soto stepped down.

You can read the full article at the link above, but in the article the points he makes in the document are:

• The international boycott of the Palestinians, introduced after Hamas won elections last year, was “at best extremely short-sighted” and had “devastating consequences” for the Palestinian people
• Israel has adopted an “essentially rejectionist” stance towards the Palestinians
• The Quartet of Middle East negotiators — the US, the European Union, Russia and the UN — has become a “side-show”
• The Palestinian record of stopping violence against Israel is “patchy at best, reprehensible at worst”

De Soto acknowledges in the report that he is its sole author. It was
meant only for senior UN officials, and its wording is far more
critical than the public pronouncements of UN diplomats. On TUesday
night, De Soto, who is in New York, told the Guardian: “It is a confidential document and not intended for publication.”

In
January last year, the Quartet called on the newly elected Hamas
government to commit to non-violence, recognise Israel and accept
previous agreements. When Hamas refused to sign up to the principles,
the international community halted direct funding to the Palestinian
government and Israel started to freeze the monthly tax revenues that
it had agreed to pass to the Palestinians. Several hundred million
dollars remain frozen.

De Soto, who had opposed the boycott,
said this position “effectively transformed the Quartet from a
negotiation-promoting foursome guided by a common document [the road
map for peace] into a body that was all-but imposing sanctions on a
freely elected government of a people under occupation as well as
setting unattainable preconditions for dialogue”.

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The rest of the article brings up the current crisis within Palestine where Hamas and Fatah are fighting each other, and Palestinians are dying.  I’d never thought I’d see the day, but I guess it’s plausible since history does repeat itself, this has happened before, I’m sure.  It makes me really sad to see Palestinians killing Palestinians.  There must be someone who sees the bigger picture up in that leadership of theirs, then again if power is all they really want and not justice for Palestine, maybe they’re deserving of all this.

Technorati Tags: De Soto, UN, USA, Middle East, Palestine, Israel

Jewish State, Not a Jewish State…

Former speaker of the Israeli Parliament seems to have gotten wise now that he is outside the mental and psychological bubble of the Israeli military/political establishment. He recently published a book reflecting on the Judaism, his life, and the modern history of the Jewish political movement. He seems to think that defining Israel as a Jewish state, is exactly what’s wrong with it, and asked his people to shed the apartheid-like ideology in favor of humanism and pluralism:

Avraham Burg, former Knesset speaker and former head of the Jewish Agency says “to define the State of Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end. A Jewish state is explosive. It’s dynamite.” In an interview in Haaretz Weekend Magazine, he said that he is in favor of abrogating the Law of Return and calls on everyone who can to obtain a foreign passport.

Burg, who was interviewed on the occasion of the publication of his book “Defeating Hitler” said “the strategic mistake of Zionism was to annul the alternatives. Israeliness has only body; it doesn’t have soul.”

“Judaism always prepared alternatives,” says Burg, who three years after leaving Israeli politics is now a citizen of France and a successful businessman.

What, might you ask, the response of his former colleagues was? Well, Meretz chairman, Yossi Beilin, who is considered among the most “progressive” of mainstreamers in Israel, expressed sadness: “a man like Burg, who is salt of the earth, can say things like that. Obviously I don’t agree with him, if this country is not the Jewish State, and has no Jewish majority, it doesn’t interest me.”

But this Zionut actually wants him to be banned from burial in Israel, or at least its “national” cemetery. I’m sure Burg will be disappointed if not allowed to be buried among the military officers-later-turned-politicians who dedicated their lives to make Israel an ethno-religiously exclusive state.

Link
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Notice the amount of Israeli’s and Jews worldwide who recognise the illegitimacy of Israel… and yet you never hear a single voice from the Palestinian/Arab/Muslim camp who stands up and says anything even vaguely similar to “Israel should keep on keepin’ on.”

“There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” — David Ben-Gurion quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp. 121-122.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Jewish State, Knesset, Avraham Burg

Tutu to tell Oprah to visit Both Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories

Archbishop
Desmond Tutu has decided to reach out to Oprah Winfrey on visiting both
the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel to ensure an evenhanded
approach, according to one advocacy group which wrote him a letter
advocating this idea after learning of Oprah Winfrey’s assumed
“solidarity” trip to Israel.

 

Oprah Winfrey is the most-influential day-time talk show host of the hugely popular and highly successful The Oprah Winfrey Show.  Not
only is she celebrated for her day-time job, but also for her
philanthropy and earning the only African American billionaire status
for three consecutive years.

 

She
has recently put herself in a predicament when she accepted an
invitation from Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel to visit Israel, first
reported by Ynetnews.com, Israel’s top-read news website.  Many feel that if Oprah visits the region, then she should also visit the Occupied Palestinian Territories.  The story was also covered on Arabisto.com.

 

Patricia Ann Abraham, a Friend of SABEEL, the Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center of Jerusalem, wrote a letter to The Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation this week, along with some Arab Americans, on this matter.  She
told me that they wrote out of concern, “that Ms. Winfrey might not be
shown the true nature of the human rights violations perpetrated upon
both the Palestinians living is Israel and those living.”

Link

Technorati Tags: Tutu, Oprah, Israel, Palestine

Actinomyces Israelii

The following is a guest posting by Emily et al. in Amman, Jordan… enjoy!

A
few weeks ago, a couple of truly dorky first-year medical student
friends of mine took the time to look up the subspecies of a bacteria
called Actinomyces, and they stumbled upon what had to be either a
truly fortunate coincidence, or a bacteria with a sense of humor, or
both.

You see, when biologists discover some new species or
protein, the one who describes it first gets to name it. Usually they
either name it after themselves, how it behaves, or what it looks like.
Sometimes they have a sense of humor about it: there is a protein
called Sonic Hedge Hog. People end up writing entire dissertations on
Sonic Hedge Hog. One dude who developed a DNA separation process was
named Southern, and the next person who developed the corresponding
process for RNA called it Northern to be cute, etc.

When the
diligent medical students curiously researched the types of Actinomyces
that have been isolated, they were surprised to discover in the
literature a species called Actinomyces israelii. What’s more, every
source to be found described the bacteria as being highly invasive
without respecting borders (here,
for example)! We’re talking borders in a body, usually human or bovine,
so the borders they refer to are the natural divisions between tissue
layers. Further research revealed that Actinomyces israelii not only
doesn’t respect borders, it also forms destructive colonies throughout
tissues, establishing itself in a solid matrix so that it cannot be
dismantled. Uncanny?

We could have sworn collectively that the
bacteria was discovered and named by either a Palestinian or Israeli
biologist with a sense of humor. Usually it’s the biologists that endow
their discoveries with unfortunate namesakes. However, Actinomycosis,
the disease caused by the infection of these bacteria, was first
described by a dude (I’m assuming it’s a dude, since I can’t find his
or her first name) named J. Israel in 1878, 70 years before the
establishment of the modern state of Israel. It appears that the
bacteria themselves evolved the funny bone.

Further information taken from UpToDate ,
the respected medical literature review maintained by physicians, has
led the future doctors to their diagnosis, which reads as follows:

We now seek to promote good oral hygiene as a first step to ending the invasion,
occupation, and destruction of Palestinian land and life across fascial
planes. We remind you that flossing (with old school waxy floss or a water
pick) can prevent the dense colonization of Actinomyces israelii and subclinical
periodontal infection- now known to be an important precipitating event for more
extensive disease. Though A. israelii can mimic very aggressive cancers in
its militancy, er, malignancy, we assure that it is definitely a bacterium-
therefore it can still be contained by good old-fashioned penicillin G and other
common bread molds.

Link

Technorati Tags: Israel, Actinomyces Israelii, Bacteria