Tag: gaza

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Flooded in, with an Eye on Israel’s Persecution of the People of Gaza

A flooded gum, flooded
A flooded gum, flooded

While Nutanyahoo postures about Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons in an effort to clutch a flimsy veil of victimhood over Israel’s fascist expansionism, Israel is terrorising the defenceless people of Gaza vigorously, with continued bombings and executions. It is Israel who is the belligerent, expansionist invader and its latest aggression occurs while Hamas implores militants not to fire rockets at the zionist usurper.

Electronic Intifada highlights the fate of another casualty of Israel’s hideous siege on Gaza – the murder of sick 20 year old Anas Saleh by Israel’s official siege flunkeys.

Meanwhile, Palestine-based human rights organizations have called for a criminal investigation into the death of a 20-year-old Gaza resident, as Israeli officials prevented him from leaving Gaza in order to receive life-saving medical treatment for advanced liver disease.

Several human rights organizations — including the Gaza-based Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel — have demanded prosecution against Israeli officials for their culpability in his death. In a public statement, the organizations report that Israeli authorities had known about Saleh’s critical medical needs, and had denied his permit to leave Gaza nevertheless (“Human rights organizations demand criminal investigations into the death…,” 6 January 2011).

“… [T]he denial of an exit permit in these circumstances is an act against the legal obligation to provide medical treatment to save the life of the patient, an act which brought about, or at least hastened, the death of the deceased,” the statement read. “The aforementioned act, or failure, raises the suspicion of manslaughter, and/or causing death by negligence …”

If Im Tirzu has its way, there will be no ‘leftwing’ human rights organisations to report on Israel’s crimes against humanity. As usual, this ziofascist organisation omits to mention the massive tax deductible donations received from the international community including Australia, for illegal apartheid Israeli settlements and other land theft by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Israel’s collective punishment of the people of Gaza is completely unacceptable and illegal.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) released a report on 10 December on Israel’s use of collective punishment against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip (“The Illegal Closure of the Gaza Strip: Collective Punishment of the Civilian Population,” 10 December 2010 [PDF]).

In its report, PCHR states that by enforcing the blockade since June 2007, Israel is in grave violation of international law and reiterates that “nothing substantial has changed” since Israel’s alleged “easing” of the closure in June 2010.

“The closure is prohibited as a form of collective punishment and results in the infliction of great suffering on the civilian population, which is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions,” PCHR states in the introduction to the 102-page report. “It is a crime that entails individual criminal responsibility for those involved in this policy at various levels, especially at the level of planning, organization and active implementation of the closure. Ultimately, the closure may amount to persecution, which is a crime against humanity.”

PCHR stated that the international community is mandated to take action to “put an end to the illegal closure of Gaza, which is inherently illegal and criminal in its nature.”

“By failing to do so,” PCHR added, “the international community bears responsibility for the intentionally manufactured socio-economical crisis that is progressively destroying Gaza, and depriving its people of their most fundamental human rights and dignity.”

Now is the time to ramp up boycotts, divestments and sanctions of apartheid Israel. As governments have failed, and continue to fail to act to stop Israel’s iniquity, all people of conscience must do so.

And as for us? we’re still flooded in. If it doesn’t rain tonight, we’ll doubtless be able to escape our paradise to collect the mail tomorrow morning. Not so lucky are the people of Brisbane who are awaiting a flood peak at 4 a.m. tomorrow morning. Please stay safe, don’t take chances and use your brains!

Palestine / Israel Links

Striking Israeli diplomats refuse to provide assistance to citizens abroad – As part of its sanctions against the foreign ministry, employees announce that they will not help citizens who lose their passport, need medical attention or face legal troubles around the world.
Israel blacklists 163 foreign charities suspected of supporting terrorism (fails to blacklist its own land-thieving JNF associated Keren Hayesod and United Israel Appeal charities)
Meridor tells Haaretz: Knesset plan to probe left-wing NGOs is dangerous
Israel begrudges Palestine its fragile tourism
#Israeli blood diamonds, forever on your conscience. #BDS campaign for Valentines day #Palestine
MKs demand names of Israeli firms boycotting settlements
Al-Jazeera reporter asked to remove bra by Shin Bet
‘Gentile sperm leads to barbaric offspring’
Birthright Israel calls on its alumni to ‘take back Zionism’
Asa Winstanley appearance on Epilogue, Ken Livingstone’s book review show
Fayyad meets outgoing NZ ambassador
Israel’s public relations policy: never apologise, always confuse

Wikileaks Links

Drug companies tried to get rid of Helen Clark when she was health minister, leaked US Embassy cables claim
Wikileaks have WMDs say US, Evening Standrd poster, Brick Lane, Shoreditch, Hackney, London, UK
Assange fears of trial in US justified, says expert
Irony Plus : Remarks to the Washington Center’s “Politics and the Media” Seminar Students

Other Links

Australia floods threaten Queensland capital; 14 dead, dozens missing
Drift had been asked by engineers to open windows and doors to let the river through – they will either sink or be washed away. They won’t have flood insurance, because they’re right on the river.
Clinton to Yemen: Murder Those Anti-American Muslims!
Brisbane braces for massive floods
Queensland Flood: What You Can Do

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Two Years Later, Israeli Cast Lead War Criminals Elude Justice

Accompanying an alarming metastasis of racism within Israel, baleful, triumphalist zionist rhetoric directed at the defenceless people of the Gaza gulag is building ominously once more.

The scenario for the next round is unfolding in front of our eyes and it resembles depressingly the same deterioration that preceded the massacre of Gaza two years ago: daily bombardment on the Strip and a policy that tries to provoke Hamas so that more expanded assaults would be justified. As one general explained, there is now a need to take into account the damaging effect of the Goldstone report: namely the next major attack should look more plausible than the 2009 one (but this concern may not be that crucial to this particular government; nor would it serve as an obstacle).

Today, on the anniversary of the commencement of Israel’s attack of the people of Gaza, many of us reflect on the events of two years ago in mourning and regret that its criminal progenitors have eluded justice, courtesy of the largesse and impunity lent by Israel’s blinkered, biased imperial benefactor, the US and its bevy of colonialist toadies, including Australia.

Then acting Australian PM Julia Gillard disgracefully cheerled the Israeli massacre:

Israel’s attack upon Gaza was met with a curious indifference by most of the so-called leaders of Western nations. As acting Prime Minister of Australia at the time, the ill-informed Julia Gillard refused to criticise, let alone condemn the actions of Israel. Supposedly speaking on behalf of the Australian people, she said: “Australia recognises the right of Israel to defend itself.” That comment was made on the third of January 2009, by which time it was widely known that 430 Gazans had already been killed and 2,300 wounded in 750 individual strikes carried out by air and by sea over the previous five days.

The Cast Lead massacre was committed with malice aforethought on an imprisoned Gaza population of 1.5 million people, 55% of whom were under the age of 18 years. Israel broke its truce with Hamas on November 5th, 2008 although there had been no actual Hamas rockets during the ceasefire. Nor had Israel cooperated with the spirit if not actual terms of the truce by easing its illegal blockade. Israel automagically, conveniently blames Hamas for any rockets fired from the oppressed Gazan sliver of land. In revenge, Israel inflicts ongoing indiscriminate collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza, whom it has now incarcerated for 1,293 days.

Yet the truce was working, as during the final couple of months, there were practically no rockets fired from Gaza at all. After breaking the truce ,.Israel refused to renew it, even though Hamas expressed its willingness to renegotiate provided the siege was eased. Israel attacked on the 27th December, 2008. During the 22 infamous days of Operation Cast Lead, Israel killed 1417 Palestinian people, 352 of whom were children.

Flaunting the Geneva Conventions, Israel fiendishly, illegally targeted and destroyed ambulances, hospitals, schools, universities, the sole electric power and sewerage plants, chicken farms, dairy farms, crops, trees, police stations, homes and whole villages. Israel made around 50,000 Gazans homeless during winter, then for 18 months after the end of its 22 day attack, malevolently disallowed materials for rebuilding to enter Gaza. Two years later:

Israel has so far only approved the import of materials for 25 UNRWA[2] construction projects for schools and clinics, a mere seven per cent of UNRWA’s entire reconstruction plan for Gaza. Even for these approved projects, only a small fraction of the required construction materials have actually been permitted to enter Gaza so far.

More generally, says the report, the UN has estimated that Gaza needs 670,000 truckloads of construction materials for housing alone in Gaza. An average of only 715 truckloads of construction materials have entered the Gaza Strip per month since the ‘easing’ announcement, says the report. At this rate, it would take many decades to build the needed homes. And because UNRWA has been unable to get construction materials to build new schools, 40,000 eligible children could not be enrolled at UN schools at the start of the new academic year.

“Only a fraction of the aid needed has made it to the civilians trapped in Gaza by the blockade”, said Jeremy Hobbs, Director of Oxfam International. “Israel’s failure to live up to its commitments and the lack of international action to lift the blockade are depriving Palestinians in Gaza of access to clean water, electricity, jobs and a peaceful future.”

Altogether in the Occupied Territories, between 29th September, 2000 and 30th November, 2010, around 1313 Palestinian children have been slaughtered by Israeli security forces, according to B’TSelem.

According to an Al Mezan report from December 2010, over 21,000 people remain displaced two years after the end of Operation Cast Lead. Israel has committed more grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 147) as

careful documentation indicates that the IOF destroyed at least 1,723 shelters after the end of hostilities when they had come under Israel’s effective control. These shelters could not be deemed military objectives. Nor were they near any other legitimate military targets. Their destruction was therefore illegal, violating fundamental international humanitarian law principles, and amounting to war crimes.

Thanks to rejection by the credulous zionist sycophants in the US congress of the painstaking research within the UN-commissioned Goldstone Report into Cast Lead war crimes, Israeli war criminals responsible for the planning and execution of the heinous Cast Lead massacre still walk free, with no justice attained for, nor compensation paid to Israel’s civilian victims.

‘Despite its listing count after count of international law contraventions, Israeli “war crimes” and “possible crimes against humanity,” the European Union, the United Nations, the Red Cross, and all major Human Rights Organizations have called for an end to the illegal, medieval siege, it carries on unabated. On 11th November 2010 UNRWA head John Ging said, “There’s been no material change for the people on the ground here in terms of their status, the aid dependency, the absence of any recovery or reconstruction, no economy…The easing, as it was described, has been nothing more than a political easing of the pressure on Israel and Egypt.’

Though the resistance of Palestinians who endure it is unflinching, and international boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israeli apartheid and occupation are flourishing, Israel’s pitiless, illegal siege remains.

Israel’s harvest from its vindictive, cruel folly is bitter – as Nelson Mandela said, “A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he’s locked behind bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness.” Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their freedom. How much hatred, prejudice and narrow-mindedness imprisons Israel?

Palestinians deserve long overdue justice to be brought to their oppressors, for the hideous illegal siege to be lifted completely and for Israel’s aggression and expansionism to end. Join the #Gaza2 Campaign on twitter and post on your blog to remind the people of Palestine that neither they nor the calamities and evils inflicted on them during Operation Cast Lead by Israel and its collaborators are forgotten.

Palestine / Israel Links

The toxic downfall of the Jewish dream of a safe homeland
An Open Letter from Gaza: Two Years after the Massacre, a Demand for Justice
Israel’s image campaign a facade
Israeli foreign minister: Peace deal ‘impossible,’ ‘forbidden’
Dennis Ross Bats For Netanyahu
Hillary’s Envoy : Not Everyone is Cheering
New Mossad Chief Makes Nice to Brits
In Pictures: the slaughter of Gazan children – Victims of the Israeli occupation forces in the tenth day of their attacks on Gaza Strip – January 5, 2009
The drums of war are heard again in Israel
Davuto?lu blames Israel for failure to mend ties
And What Rough Beast Slouches Towards Gaza? Operation Cast Lead and the Dismembering of a People
Sorry, ‘Mother Jones’ but you’re piping the Israeli narrative of Gaza ‘war’
How long will American Jews deny this crushing reality?
Rabbi threatens civil war if settlements are evacuated
IDF warns troops: Facebook can bring terrorists to you
Jewish activist faces jail for West Bank resistance
Nomads No More: Israel evicts Indigenous Bedouins for more sterile racist settlements
Groundbreaking report details Israel’s inhumane conditions for isolated prisoners
UK considers recognizing PA diplomats
Palestinian group launches ‘Gaza Holocaust’ website
Another Gaza war?
Vigil outside the Israeli embassy in London to mark the second anniversary of the start of Operation Cast Lead
“To shoot an elephant” is an eye witness account from The Gaza Strip. December 27th, 2008, Operation Cast Lead. 21 days shooting elephants. Urgent, insomniac, dirty, shuddering images from the only foreigners who decided and managed to stay embedded inside Gaza strip ambulances, with Palestinian civilians.
The Gaza massacre and the struggle for justice
Suheir Hammad: 2. Rafah
Stuttgart Declaration
An Open Letter from Gaza: Two Years after the Massacre, a Demand for Justice
Operation Cast Lead 2 Years On
Leftist Yonatan Pollak sentenced to 3 months in jail
Shin Bet puts Israeli ‘anarchists’ in crosshairs
Israeli activist sentenced to 3 months in prison for protesting Gaza war

Wikileaks Links

WikiLeaks founder baffled by sex assault claims
THE WIKILEAKS NEWS & VIEWS BLOG, Special Holiday Weekend Edition!
Saving Private Manning
Beyond WikiLeaks: The Privatization of War
Austria and the WikiLeaks Diplomatic Cables
WikiLeaks tells why drug king is still free
Wikileaks: State Department Lied, Denying Dubai Asked for Assistance in Tracking Mossad Assassins
Wikileaks cables have revealed a disturbing development in the African uranium mining industry: abysmal safety and security standards in the mines, nuclear research centres, and border customs are enabling international companies to exploit the mines and smuggle dangerous radioactive material across continents.
EX-CIA SPOOK CALLS FOR “COVERT ACTION” VS. ASSANGE
WikiLeaks may spawn new sedition act

Other Links

Afghanistan denounces deadly NATO-led raid
America in Decline: Why Germans Think We’re Insane
Can Gillard Last?

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Israel as Multiphobic Grinch

Merry Christmas from Israeli-occupied Bethlehem via London.

Meanwhile, at the supposed place of Jesus’s birth, the racist Upper Nazareth mayor grinch has banned Christmas trees.

The mayor of a Jewish suburb of Nazareth sparked outrage on Wednesday after refusing to allow Christmas trees to be placed in town squares, calling them provocative.

Predominantly Jewish Nazareth Illit, or Upper Nazareth, is adjacent to Nazareth, where Jesus is said to have spent much of his life. It has a sizable Arab Christian minority, as does mostly Muslim Nazareth itself.

‘The request of the Arabs to put Christmas trees in the squares in the Arab quarter of Nazareth Illit is provocative,’ Mayor Shimon Gapso told AFP.

‘Nazareth Illit is a Jewish city and it will not happen – not this year and not next year, so long as I am a mayor,’ he said of the northern Israeli town.

Here, a new, nasty form of Israeli dendrophobia (phobia of trees) is displayed. Usually, zionists are renowned for burning or chopping rampages of Palestinian olive trees, actions designed to make life less bearable for Palestinians in their own land, to encourage them to vacate so more zionist land thieves can usurp their place.

Elsewhere in the Occupied Territories, brazen atrocities and theft committed by racist dysfunctional Israel have continued unabated. The phobias revealed by Israel’s lunatic fascist acts below include pediaphobia (phobia of children), ovinaphobia (phobia of sheep), oikophobia (phobia of houses), lactaphobia (phobia of milk), alektorophobia (phobia of chickens) and an over-arching xenophobia (fear of outsiders). I am not aware of formal names for the fear of equality nor the fear of human rights, but these phobias can also be added to the list of Israel’s pathologies.

From the Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (16 – 22 December. 2010):

– 5 activists of the Palestinian resistance were killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip.

– Another 4 activists were wounded by Israeli air strikes.

– IOF continued to fire at Palestinian workers, farmers and fishermen in border areas in the Gaza Strip.

– Two Palestinian workers, including a child, and one shepherd were wounded.

– Israeli warplanes attacked a number of targets in the Gaza Strip.

– A factory of dairy products was destroyed in the southern Gaza Strip.

– A house and a grocery were destroyed and another two houses were damaged in Rafah.

– A bird farm was damaged and 1,800 chickens were killed.

– Two sites of the ‘Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades (the armed wing of Hamas) were destroyed.

– IOF continued to use force against peaceful protests in the West Bank.

– 5 Palestinian civilians were wounded.

– IOF arrested 5 human rights defenders.

– IOF conducted 34 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank.

– IOF arrested 22 Palestinian civilians, including two children.

– Israel has continued to impose a total siege on the OPT and has isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world.

– Israel has continued to take measures aimed at creating a Jewish demographic majority in Jerusalem.

– IOF demolished a houses and forced two Palestinian civilians to demolish their houses in Jerusalem.

– IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property.

– Israeli settlers attacked two children in Jenin and burnt sheep in Nablus.

– IOF demolished a house in Bethlehem and 4 stores in Hebron.

– IOF confiscated 50 donums[1] of land in Beit Eksa village near Jerusalem.

Palestine / Israel Links

‘Israel approves 13,000 settlement units’
‘The Palestine Cables’: Gaza is a burning issue from Egypt to Latin America to Pakistan, to John Kerry being ’shocked by what I saw’
Israeli officer claims Goldstone report will not restrict IDF in future war
Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (16 – 22 December. 2010)
Soldier assaults B’Tselem worker on latter’s land
Postscript on the new McCarthyism
U.S. criticizes PA bid to take settlement construction to UN
Blast from the Past Evergreen – A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm
Austrian Jews chide Likud MK for meeting far-right leader
Right-wing Israelis rally to kick Arabs out of Bat Yam
The tyranny of the Israeli majority
Australian BDS Movement Begins to Emerge
Major success for the anti-settlements campaign: Multilock to close West Bank factory
Settlement expansion in Palestine rises by 65 per cent
Netanyahu Accuses the Palestinians Of Obstructing Peace
UN envoys criticize Israel home demolitions
Wikileaks Cable Shows US Involvement in Swedish Anti-Piracy Efforts
Israeli airstrikes target Rafah
Abulhawa: Delegitimization? We are merely drawing back the curtain on child arrests and confiscation of water
Only a strong political center will halt Israel’s racist frenzy (not enough, zionism is doomed and in its final horrific flailing incarnation
Left-wing students fight university ban of ‘libelous’ flyer featuring Lieberman
The Bluster of a Zionist Thug
Hamas threatens Israel with retaliation
Christians in Palestine
Invisible Bethlehem

Wikilinks

Assange says ‘high chance’ he would be killed in US jail
US Army launches WikiLeaks probe
Julian Assange: my fate will rest in Cameron’s hands if US charges me
Supposed wikileak yet to be published: US memo: Israel bombed Syrian reactor
Cuba puts ‘imperialist’ US Wikileaks online
Norway’s top diplomat finds WikiLeaks “fascinating”
Norwegian Paper Obtains WikiLeaks Cable Haul
The Case of Julian Assange
WikiLeaks to ‘prove’ Mossad behind Dubai murder
What WikiLeaks revealed to the world in 2010
Anthropology, Secrecy, and Wikileaks
WikiLeaks Reveals the Crimes of the Congressional-Big Agra Complex
We’re no pawns: Assange accusers
Bickering warriors in coalition of unwilling : Mistrust, indecision and hostility undermined Australia’s alliance with the Dutch and Americans in what was supposed to be a united front

Other Links

FBI: Don’t Spy on Us Say Minneapolis Activists
Obama administration preparing executive order to authorize indefinite detentions
Pentagon’s Christmas Present: Largest Military Budget Since World War II
Supporters Demand Justice for Aafia Siddiqui
The United States and Africa Security Cooperation and the Africa Command (AFRICOM)
Australia rejects Israeli ordered Media censorship on Al-Manar

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Wrong, Reut

In its latest plan released in summary form, the Reut Institute demonstrates the validity of Umberto Eco’s analysis of Ur Fascism : ‘Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.’

By unceasing land grabs and burgeoning illegal settlements, demolitions, evictions, detainments, incarceration of Palestinian children, attacks on non-violent protestors, roughshod riding over court decisions, official condoning of racist laws, passing new racist laws, denial of rights to Palestinians, an overweaning, well-identified system of apartheid and decades of cruel Occupation, the Israeli entity delegitimises itself.

This week, Human Rights Watch released a 166 page report, “Separate and Unequal: Israel’s Discriminatory Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories”, which ‘identifies discriminatory practices that have no legitimate security or other justification and calls on Israel, in addition to abiding by its international legal obligation to withdraw the settlements, to end these violations of Palestinians’ rights.’

Human Rights Watch reiterated its recommendation that the United States, which provides US$2.75 billion in aid to Israel annually, should suspend financing to Israel in an amount equivalent to the costs of Israel’s spending in support of settlements, which a 2003 study estimated at $1.4 billion. Similarly, based on numerous reports that US tax-exempt organizations provide substantial contributions to support settlements, the report urges the US to verify that such tax-exemptions are consistent with US obligations to ensure respect for international law, including prohibitions against discrimination.

Human Rights Watch called on the EU, a primary export market for settlement products, to ensure that it does not provide incentives for settlement exports through preferential tariff treatment, and to identify cases where discrimination against Palestinians has contributed to the production of goods. For example, the report documents how crops exported from settlements using water from Israeli-drilled wells have dried up nearby Palestinian wells, limiting Palestinians’ ability to cultivate their own lands and even their access to drinking water.

The report also describes cases in which businesses have contributed to or benefited directly from discrimination against Palestinians, for example through commercial activities on lands that were unlawfully confiscated from Palestinians without compensation for the benefit of settlers. These businesses also benefit from Israeli governmental subsidies, tax abatements, and discriminatory access to infrastructure, permits, and export channels. Human Rights Watch called on businesses to investigate, prevent and mitigate such violations, including ending any operations that cannot be separated from discriminatory Israeli practices.

Blundering blindfolded by bigotry at windmills of concocted ‘Red-Green’ alliances is likely to be counter-productive when the root of the problem lies with Israel’s own atrocious behaviour.

Nor does the Reut tilt at its bete noir, the worldwide Palestinian BDS movement, seem cogent, considering basic aims of BDS which are thoroughly supported in international law – for equal rights, an end to Israeli apartheid and occupation, and recognition of the right of Palestinian people to return to their lands. Since the US has abandoned its pretence of being able to stop Israeli land grabs and oppression, boycotts, divestments and sanctions remain a primary means chosen by Palestinians to attain their rights.

The Reut Institute perceives these reasonable goals as an existential threat – somehow if Palestinian people were not discriminated against, disenfranchised and ethnically cleansed, Israel would cease to exist. Yet what legitimacy does an entity have which relies for its continuance on tormenting those whom it has dispossessed and continues to dispossess of rights and land? Reut seeks to:

‘Prioritize delegitimizing the BDS Movement, which is among the most sophisticated tools in the attempt to undermine Israel’s legitimacy, and can be considered a mega-catalyst due to its influence in a number of arenas. As mentioned, the BDS Movement claims to promote human rights, international justice, and peace, while in practice, its organizers explicitly or implicitly reject Israel’s right to exist.’

Whereas the BDS network is a grassroots, decentralised global effort sustained from solidarity of its members from myriad cultures including jewish culture in principled demands for justice and rights for those who have neither, the obtuse Reut hasbaroids intend targeting London as a ‘delegitimisation hub’, aiming ‘to out, name and shame activists’ in a scurrilous witchhunt. That Reut considers human rights activists have something to be ashamed of is symptomatic of the above-mentioned malaise – and again political zionism is revealed as a radical, fascistic ideology, whose adherents obliviously project onto their quarries their own attributes – ‘anti-peace, anti-Semitic’ and ‘dishonest purveyors of double standards’. Political zionism is limited and eroded by its internal contradictions of addictive expansionism and consequent insecurity, syncretised mythologies of entitlement, victimhood and hubris.

Below is a video of the brutal realities which Israel inflicts upon Palestinians within the Green Line which Reut, I feel sure, would rather have us ignore as much as it would like us to forget Israel’s violations in the Occupied Territories. The story of how 67 members of the extended Abu Eid family were evicted summarily and their homes bulldozed last week is horrendous.

It is a scene being repeated across Israel with increasing frequency. Some 42,000 Arab homes built without required permits are threatened with demolition: 13,000 could be carried out at any time and 30,000 are at some stage in local courts, said Ameer Makhoul, director of Ittijah, a Palestinian civil society organization.

Palestine / Israel Links

Do Israelis “hate Obama’s guts”?
Shalit activists protest against Palestinian prisoners’ rights
VOTE! ‘Israeli War Crimes’ signs to go on Metro buses
Refugees’ flat torched in Ashdod
Racial discrimination – a tool of occupation

Belarus Links

Buzek on Belarussian presidential candidate being beaten up
Presidential Pseudo-Elections in Belarus 2010
Lukashenka Declared Belarus Victor After Clashes, Detentions
Crackdown mars Belarus elections
Belarus journalist beaten by police

Wikilinks

WikiLeaks and OpenLeaks
2010-12-19 New Whistleblowing Sites
2010-12-16 FAIR: Media paint flattering picture of U.S. diplomacy
Brad Manning Has Rights!
Julian Assange to Launch Social Network for Diplomats, Twofacebook&tm;
China pays Nepal police to catch Tibet refugees: WikiLeaks
South Africa: Bloggers’ take on Wikileaks
Cover-ups, Coups, and Drones – A Holiday Sampler of What Wikileaks Reveals about the US
Spawn of WikiLeaks
Rap News 6 – Wikileaks’ Cablegate: the truth is out there
Secrecy, National Security and the Internet
Essential: voters support WikiLeaks and Assange, attack Gillard’s stance

Other Links

The tragedy of Algeria’s ‘disappeared’