Tag: war

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The Zeitoun Air Strikes – Israeli War Crimes

Hilary Clinton is making the same sort of dead end noises as Condi already:

“Speaking on Tuesday at her senate confirmation hearing, Clinton said that the US must address Israel’s security and work on the “legitimate” political and economic aspirations of the Palestinians.

However she ruled out negotiations with the Palestinian group Hamas until it recognised Israel and renounced violence, saying her position on the issue was “absolute”.

Will Hamas surrender to Hilary? Unlikely, since there’s nothing new brought to the table.

Meanwhile the collective punishment of the people of Gaza continues with 1001 murdered.

How the pro-Israel lobby in Britain benefits from a generous London tycoon – junkets for journalists to Israel.

The British Israel Communication and Research Centre, known as Bicom, has been one of the most active organisations behind the scenes in the UK during the present Gaza offensive, organising briefings and interview opportunities with senior Israeli spokesmen.

Excerpts from the diary of Safah Joudeh.

Israel is doomed. Their lies cannot withstand the truth which is sweeping the world in defiance of their oily propaganda. Here’s what the Hamas government Health Minister has to say about the Shoah against the civilian population of Gaza.

We believe in resistance, not revenge

Hamas is demonised to justify Palestinian suffering in Gaza. But we have no quarrel with Jewish people, only the actions of Israel

Ninety per cent of the targets attacked are civilian. Of nearly 900 confirmed dead, 32% are children. More than 40% of the 4,000 wounded are children, while medical centres and 13 ambulances have been destroyed.

Hamas is not the only group fighting against this aggression: its fighters are joined by members of Islamic Jihad, the PFLP and Fatah. But the popularity of Hamas has increased during the invasion. Every occupied people has the right to resist if negotiation fails. People know very well that those who took the other path – of negotiation without resistance – got nothing from it: only more settlements, checkpoints, killings, prisoners and occupation without end.

We have made clear our conditions for a ceasefire: a halt to the aggression, full withdrawal and the lifting of the siege. We have rejected any international force inside the Gaza Strip, but international monitoring at the crossings can be discussed. However, last week’s UN security council resolution has given a green light for the Israelis to continue their killing under an international umbrella.

Now that their massacres of women and children and their destruction of schools and mosques have been exposed before the world, the Zionists’ propaganda machine is trying to discredit our liberation struggle more desperately than ever. Through flagrant misquotation and mistranslation, they have falsely claimed that Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar has called for the killing of Jewish children around the world and attacks on synagogues.

He did no such thing – nor would any Hamas spokesman. Such a call would be against Islam and the teachings of the Prophet, who prohibited the killing of children and attacks on places of worship. And from the beginning of our struggle, Hamas has always insisted that its operations are restricted to the field of battle, Palestine itself.

What Dr Zahar did do is warn that by carrying out these barbaric massacres of children and women, and by destroying our mosques, the Zionists are creating the conditions for people to believe it is justified or legitimate to take revenge. That is not the call of Hamas. Dr Zahar did not even mention “Jews” in his comments. And throughout this latest offensive, hundreds of Palestinian children have been killed, while not a single Israeli child has died.

Our struggle is not against the Jewish people, but against oppression and occupation. This is not a religious war. We have no quarrel with the Jewish people. We welcome and appreciate the stand taken by leading Jewish figures in Britain and around the world against Israel’s aggression against Gaza and for the rights of our people. It is also not the case, as has been claimed, that Hamas is seeking to enforce sharia law in Gaza: we respect the democratic process and individual rights.

The continuing attempt to discredit and demonise Hamas by Israel, and its US backer, cannot hide the real atrocities and massacres they are now inflicting on our people. Hamas and its administration in Gaza remains intact, despite the devastation. This aggression will not succeed.

Basim Naim is the minister of health in the Hamas government in Gaza

Social Democrat in Sweden Ingalill Bjartén, is calling for boycott of Israel in the Davis Cup.

“Israel is an apartheid state. I think Gaza is comparable to the Warsaw ghetto,” said Ingalill Bjartén, the vice chair for the Social Democratic women’s organization (S-kvinnor) in Skane in southern Sweden, to the Sydsvenskan newspaper.

“I’m surprised that Israel – where large numbers of the population suffered under the Nazis – can do the exact same things the Nazis did.”

More techniques for for understanding and dealing with Israeli hasbara by James Zogby.

Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann ,Secretary of the UN General Assembly has condemned Israel in no uncertain terms.

The Security Council adopted a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, but Israel has escalated its offensive and Palestinian rocket fire has also continued.

“There have been some who were under the illusion that the Security Council would do something that could help the situation,” d’Escoto said. “I never thought so.

“Now we’re faced with not only with a lack of compliance but with a prime minister of Israel who has practically responded to the Security Council by saying ‘mind your own business’.

“It’s unbelievable that a country that owes its existence to a general assembly resolution could be so disdainful of the resolutions that emanate from the UN.”

D’Escoto, a former Roman Catholic priest and Nicaragua foreign minister, is known for his outspoken criticism of Israel and last year likened Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the racist apartheid system previously used in South Africa.

Gabriela Shalev, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, called d’Escoto an “Israel hater” for having hugged Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president and a vocal critic of Israel.

D’Escoto also said the UN had to bear some responsibility for the long-standing conflict in the Middle East as it had allowed the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, leaving the Palestinians stateless.

“You have to attack problems at their root cause and the Palestinian people have been subjected to subhuman treatment for decades and this [the Israeli offensive] is going to make matters worse.”

@BreakingNewsOn Spanish Foreign Minister Moratinos confirms that Hamas has accepted a ceasefire that would end the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

Is Israel’s gratuitous display of sadism to end for the time being?

Till the next time – the beast needs habitual blood tribute.

Is it coincidence that Bin Laden ‘releases’ a new tape? not many believe he is still alive. We’re still looking for a full transcript.

What scraps are around aren’t definitive, though he does make commentary on Gaza along with pronouncements of economic doom for the US and Israel.

Bin Laden last appeared in an audio tape in May and also focused on Gaza, calling on Muslims to try to help to end the blockade of the area. The al-Qaeda leader has placed growing emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent years and today’s audio tape was accompanied by a still of bin Laden and a picture of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Islam’s third holiest shrine.

From Al Jazeera:

The speaker on Wednesday’s tape hailed the global financial crisis as a decline in US influence around the world and said it would, in turn, weaken Israel – one of Washington’s closest allies.

From the New York Times:

The Bin Laden tape’s authenticity could not immediately be verified, but it bore many hallmarks of Qaeda messages. The tape was produced by As-Sahab, the Qaeda media arm, and the voice on the tape closely resembled other recordings by Mr. bin Laden, who was pictured on the Web sites next to an image of Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest sites.

The Bush administration reacted to the tape, according to Reuters, with White House spokesman Gordon D. Johndroe saying it appeared to demonstrate Mr. bin Laden’s “isolation and continued attempts to remain relevant at a time when Al Qaeda’s ideology, mission, and agenda are being questioned and challenged throughout the world.”

Finally, here’s the full transcript, complete with economic pronouncements:

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

The Jihad Media Battalion

Presents

English Translation of the speech of ?sheikh Oussama Ben Laden -may Allah preserve him-

Entitled:

Call For Jihad To Stop Aggression Against Gaza

All praise be to Allah. We thank Him, we seek His guidance and forgiveness. We seek His refuge from the evils of our souls, and the evil results of our deeds.

Whosoever Allah guides, there is none to lead him astray, and whosoever is led astray by Allah, there is none to guide him.

I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but Allah, alone, without partner, and that Muhammad is His slave and messenger.

To proceed:

My dear Muslim Ummah (nation)

I am not the one who stands in front of you in these difficult days under the guise of condemnation and denunciation to react toward what is happening to our people in Gaza, but I stand before you to say a word of truth which helps us to get back what was extorted of the truth.

Word of truth which doesn’t wheedle neither king nor Prince, neither savant nor minister.

Word which doesn’t recognize the false international legitimacy and fear not the United Nations Security Council which spread fright among the oppressed people in the small and weak countries like Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Kashmir and Chechnya.

Word of truth which the whole world stood against in order to erase it from our method and life then erase us.

It is the sacred Jihad (fighting for the sake of Allah) to get back Bayt al-Maqdis and al-Quds (Jerusalem)

Poetry:

O captive Quds suffering its violation
And Muslims still sleeping far from Jihad

O my Muslim Ummah

The great point of imbalance in the previous efforts to free Palestine is that, those who assumed its cause were governors who betrayed their trust. In the war of 1948, the Muslims were surprised how we were defeated, but the surprise was to be victorious in that war, how can we be victorious while our kings entrusted the matter of war to the real governor of Jordan at that time, the British General Glub Basha. How can a nation be victorious while the leader of its armies is its enemy? At that time every one of our kings had a Basha like this one to guide him, for example: in Peninsula he was the non-enthroned king, the British General Philip, and it was enough for deceiving people to be named by the governor as Haj Abd-Allah Philip.

Him who looked into the British ********s related to this matter knows the degree of heedlessness reigning at that time among people, and now these deceptions still continuing with a change of faces and names. In each capital today there is “Bremer” (ex U.S. Civil Administrator of Iraq) overtly or secretly, and there is with him “Allawi” (former Iraqi Prime Minister ) at his disposal to execute his orders, and in each country there is “Sistani” (Iranian Shi’a cleric in Iraq) and “Tantawi” (Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar University in Egypt) supported by groups of official and unofficial Savants, and groups of writers, intellectuals, journalists and reporters who give false legitimacy to the agents of the crusaders in our countries. All these groups are enemies of our Ummah (nation) and we must beware of them, they are known in majority because the most important of their characteristics is that the governor enables them of the mass media to address people and deceive them regularly, while he prevents the truthful from a Friday sermon in outlying village.

Other points of imbalance we face nowadays are many ways that are raising slogans to free Palestine, most of them are in favor of mislaying the cause. One of the vastest way is what the governments are doing concerning the Ministerial Sessions and transference of the cause to the United Nations and Security Council, this is a way of disclaiming the responsibility and mislaying of the Palestinian cause.

Some of these ways also, is what some savants are doing about asking the governors to come to aid of Palestine, this is another way of disclaiming the responsibility and mislaying the Aqsa mosque and the martyrs’ bloods. How can we ask help from the agents of our enemies, aren’t those people tired of supplicating during these long decades?

Poetry:

Him who seeks the help from Amer in his distress
Is like him who seeks help of fire from scorching heat

There is another way taken by the Islamic groups and which is the permission of the governors to do Jihad, or asking them (governors) to be at the level of their peoples’ requests, and this is also another way of disclaiming the responsibility, which results in foisting heads into sands and deceiving the followers of these groups, and it is also mislaying of the cause. Those (leaders of the Islamic groups) must speak out frankly to their brothers and inform them that the responsibility is very heavy and they are not ready to assume it. Both international and regional Kufr (disbelief) are the same in attacking violently every one working and saying the word of truth in favor of this cause.

The duty is to instigate the youths to do Jihad and to arrange them in battalions to fight for the sake of Allah the Zionist-Crusader alliance and its agents in the region, not to make them feel satisfied by protesting in streets without arms.
These leaders of the Islamic groups must let the courageous and capable persons from their brothers to lead the group in these difficult conditions in order to do the legitimate duty.

Poetry:

Him among you who is not convinced that the fight is a duty
Must give the way for other and not stray the one who is convinced

With all these numerous deviated ways, there is one right way to get back al-Aqsa mosque and Palestine, it is the Jihad for the sake of Allah as we mentioned before. Allah Soubhanahu Wa Taala shows us how to stop the aggression of the infidels in the Holy Quran when He said: [Then fight (O Muhammad (peace be upon him)) in the Cause of Allâh, you are not tasked (held responsible) except for yourself, and incite the believers (to fight along with you), it may be that Allâh will restrain the evil might of the disbelievers. And Allâh is Stronger in Might and Stronger in punishing.] (4:84). So, by inciting people and fighting the enemy, so that the aggression of the infidels stops.

As I say to my Ummah:

Being ******* with laying the responsibility on the governors and savants, doesn’t exempt you (O my Ummah) from responsibility, but it is also another way of disclaiming the responsibility. For the order of Allah in the Holy Quran is very clear whereas the Jihad for the sake of Allah with soul and money is a duty until the achievement of the goal..

O my Muslim Ummah:

You are able to defeat the Zionist entity by your popular potentialities and huge energies without any support of the governors, even the majority stand with the Zionist-Crusader alliance in the same trench. Here , I would like to assure you my Ummah, I am sure that this matter is easy for you Allah willing if we took it seriously by trusting in Allah Soubhanahu Wa Taala, executing his orders and abandoning the deviated way.

Here I am giving you two evidences proving that you are able to defeat our enemies by small capacities:

* First evidence is the great defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by the grace of Allah then by your popular efforts without any intervention of any army of your governments, even if the general winds were behind the Mujahideen’s ship at that war. Since that the flag of the Soviet Union was removed from the world and thrown in the forgetting basket, praise and gratitude are due to Allah.

* As for the second evidence: after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the American system seized the opportunity of being alone without adversary and went into impose its hegemony and policy upon the world, so the governors of our region became more surrendering which made America more tyrant and more supporting the Zionist entity to destroy the crops and the cattle in Palestine.

Then a group of your sons (O my Ummah) declared the Jihad against this only magnate, Hitler of the era, the rhinoceros to which we broke the horn, destroyed its fort and demolished its tower (9/11 events). That made its president angry and claimed that he would reach the Mujahideen’s leaders dead or alive to regain the prestige of America and to make them as a lesson for others, he was like Abu Jahel in Bader battle and went out strutting by his great number of accouterments. Thus we destroyed them, killed his soldiers and dispersed his companions, by the grace of Allah.

Hence, when the battle became fierce and the enemy attacked us, the response was the sharp swords to drive away the oppression .

Here is America being shaky under the hits of the Mujahideen which made it suffering from human political and financial losses and now it is drowning in the economic crisis till the point of asking for alms from both small and grand countries. Therefore, this made it without respect in front of its friends and it could no longer dread its enemies.

Here we need a stance of pondering, you know well that the first loser due to the recession of the American oppression is the Zionist entity, because it will lose one of the most important components of its subsistence and life’s arteries. This terrible and fast recession of the American power is one of the most important causes which pushed the Israelis to carry out this savage attack on Gaza, in a despairing attempt to profit from the last days of the two periods of Bush administration, in which the Zionist entity found what couldn’t be reached by others from power, money, determination and rancor to assault the Muslims and to beat all powers refusing the American ascendancy in the region.

Since the White House’s forces being broken down over the Mujahideen’s rock in Afghanistan and drowning in quagmires of Iraq, this is why the Israelis are in a hurry to defeat their enemies in Gaza to replace them by Mahmoud Abbas and his authority for protecting their backs. So they carried out this terrible genocide before the end of the Bush’s period of rule and before more appearance of the American weakness, so that the Veto will collapse because the world started revolting against it and voices started rising high to annul it, it (Veto) is an unconcealed and flagrant call for oppression and arrogance.

O my Muslim Ummah:

This talk about weakness and recession of the American ascendancy as well as the collapse of its economy, is not a talk of hopes, but testimonies given by leaders themselves which they couldn’t conceal any longer:

* Biden the US vice president says: “the crisis is more difficult than we expected, the whole American economy is exposed to collapse”.

* The former chairman of American Reserve Bank (Alan Greenspan) says: “the big recession will appear as a nice promenade in comparison with the economic crisis”.

* As for the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, he described the crisis saying: “the crisis is very deep and the Global Financial System was about to fall in a catastrophe”. And I say: it is really inside the catastrophe by the grace of Allah because of those oppressors.

* The German Finance Minister said: “the world will never return to the previous situation prevailing before this crisis, and the United States will lose its position as a great force in the Global Financial System”.

Then, I present to you reports of the American intelligence which confirm the recession of the American influence in the coming years.

O my Muslim Ummah:

Indeed the Jihad of your sons against the Zionist-Crusader alliance is one of the main causes (after the grace of Allah) in all these results which destroyed our enemies, and which appeared after the “seven years” war, and I assure you O my Ummah -regarding the graces that Allah bestowed us-, we feel that Allah granted us patience which suffices us to continue on the way of Jihad for seven years again, and seven and seven again..Allah willing. The patience is the best weapon and Taqwa (piety) is the best provision. If we got martyrdom so we achieved what we were looking for, but the flag of Jihad will never fall down until the Day of the Judgment as we were informed by the prophet of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).

But the question is: Can America continue in fighting us for coming decades?

The reports and indicators suggest otherwise, and that 75% of the American people are pleased by the departure of the president who entangled them in wars that exceeded their power, and plunged his country into economic turmoil. His successor has inherited a heavy legacy and was left between two bitter choices, like the one who swallowed a double-edged dagger which hurts him with any small movement. It is a most difficult heritage, to inherit a long guerrilla war with a patient stubborn enemy, that is funded with usury loans. For if he (enemy) withdrew from the war, it will be a military defeat, and if he continued the war he will sink in the economic crisis, how then about inheriting two wars, in which he is not able to continue, and we are on our way to open other fronts Allah Willing.

O my Ummah, with greater reason you should put your hands on the hands of your sons “the Mujahedeen” to continue Jihad against Allah’s enemies and to go through exhausting them on those two fronts and the other open fronts of the war with the Zionist-Crusader alliance and its agents in the region, in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Waziristan, Islamic Maghreb and Somalia…

It is your duty to support them with souls and money full supply, for I experienced Jihad by Allah’s grace and I know its financial costs, the Zakat (charity money) of one of the rich Muslim dealers can cover the expenses of Jihad in all the current open fronts with our enemies, and Jihad has a share in the Zakat as you know. Hence, the happy one is the one who could participate in the victory of his religion and could defend his prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and his nation.

How similar the hardship of the Mujahedeen today, to the hardship the Muslims passed by in al-Usrah (the hardship) army at the time of the prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), till Uthman Ben Affan came and equipped most of the army, the prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said then: “Nothing of Uthman’s deeds will harm him after that”.

Who is willing to be Uthman of this current hardship??

I know many of the Muslim dealers who can pay for the sake of Allah without meanness, but they are afraid of America and its agents in the region, and I say to them ‘this is not an excuse, you are in a test in this dunya (worldly life), and remember what Allah says : [do you fear them? But Allah is most deserving that you should fear Him, if you are believers].(9:13).

There must be migration and endurance for the costs of the victory and implementation of the religion, the prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) who is the best of the mankind was obligated to hide in a laurel and to leave his people, his family and homeland, to migrate from Mecca, the best place on earth.

Hurry up, seize the precious opportunity, and take the prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) as your good example when he hid in the laurel. Can’t anyone of you hide in a house in some place!? Isn’t it too vast the earth of Allah, to hide in to do the financial Jihad worship?!

Allah Soubhanahu Wa Taala says: [O My servants who believe! surely My earth is vast, therefore Me alone should you serve] (29:56), and says: [Surely (as for) those whom the angels cause to die while they are unjust to their souls, they shall say: In what state were you? They shall say: We were weak in the earth. They shall say: Was not Allah’s earth spacious, so that you should have migrated therein? So these it is whose abode is hell, and it is an evil resort. Surely (as for) those whom the angels cause to die while they are unjust to their souls, they shall say: In what state were you? They shall say: We were weak in the earth. They shall say: Was not Allah’s earth spacious, so that you should have migrated therein? So these it is whose abode is hell, and it is an evil resort] (4:97-98).

O my Muslim Ummah:

These wars, calamities and ordeals involve in them grants, and wise people are not to leave these grants to pass without benefiting from them, you have great opportunity to push away injustice and tyranny which is practiced upon you from in and outside since many decades, and snatch forcibly your rights. Him who tells you (O my Ummah) that the way to take back rights is the ballot boxes (giving you as example the Western peoples), those are deceiving you and lying to you! They say this out of either fear or greed of the rulers, because the Western people -whom they are giving as an example- got back their rights with rebellions and armed force.

After seven years of war between Britain and France for the acquisition of America, both of them suffered a huge economic crisis, which prompted the leaders to impose taxes on people, and this –with what preceded it of injustice and tyranny of the kings- was the incentive of the French Revolution.
For the King Louis XIV used to say: ” I am the State and the State is but me”, and this is what our leaders and kings are saying today, then the French people took the grants from among these ordeals and rebelled against the unjust kings who sucked their bloods and riches, and they dethroned Louis XIV, guillotined him and took their rights with the army force.

There is no place for the ballot boxes in our countries under the ruling of tyrants. And it is regrettable and should be noted that many of the great scholars and preachers market for this big trick!

And from that economic crisis, the Americans too rebelled against Britain to get back their rights, they didn’t follow the trick of democracy which they are deceiving us with today in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries. However they took back their rights with army and force. Learn a lesson from it O you who have insight.

We as Muslims believe that it is the nation’s right to elect its president and we believe in Shoura, however we believe that the Western democracy –beside being a big trick- it is an illegitimate heresy from the Islamic point of view, and Muslims do not agree to be ruled but with Allah’s rulings not man-made laws.
In our religion, fighting for the sake of Allah against the invaders and the apostate rulers is for Allah’s word to be the highest, till things are back to normalcy and till rights are back to their owners.

At the end I say to our people in Palestine:

May Allah make great your reward for what you endured..
May Allah accept your dead among martyrs..
May Allah cure your wounded sooner..
And I ask Him the Great and Almighty to comfort the families of the victims and to reward them the best.

O my brothers in Palestine, you suffered so much as your fathers did nine decades ago, and the Muslims are sympathizing with you for what they see and hear, and we “the Mujahideen” are also sympathizing with you more because they (Mujahideen) are living the same situation as yours, and their feeling toward you is bigger because of what you are suffering from. They live under bombardment like you by the same aircrafts, and they are losing their sons like you, praise be to Allah, and truly to Allah we belong and truly, to Him we shall return.

In this year Allah wills that the lineaments of the daybreak and the omens of relief appear, by the recession of the Zionist-Crusader expansion, for the relief is imminent and we are with you and we will never let you down, your fate is related to ours in fighting the Zionist-Crusader alliance, so either we fight until victory is achieved or we get martyrdom for the sake of Allah.

Endure and be more patient, and guard your territory by stationing army units permanently at the places from where the enemy can attack you, and fear Allah, so that you may be successful.

At last we say All praise be to Allah. Peace and Blessing be upon our prophet, and upon his family and companions.

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Dennis Kucinich Speaks Out For Peace

In our view, Dennis Kucinich is a man of moral clarity and courage.

On Day 18 of Israel’s Shoah against the Palestinian people of Gaza, journalist Sameh A. Habeeb relates the grim facts:

Day 18 of Israeli War On Gaza
Informative Report on Gaza War: Death toll 980, wounded 4400
By: Sameh A. Habeeb

Dear Editors, Journalists and Friends,
” Israeli MP and Leader: Afghdor Liberman says that “Gaza has to be erased from the Map by Nuclear bombs like what Americans used in Heroshima and Nagazaki.”

Israeli military operation is still increasingly killing more Palestinians mostly civilians. The victims are in contrary of the announced aim of targeting militants. Around 370 of the victims are children while 160 are women. Israeli Artillery intensified the shelling scale leaving more victims and destruction.

This is a new report for the 18th day of Gaza War and the outcomes of Israeli invasion. For more reporting, breaking news, interviews and accounts in Gaza, you could reach me on my contact info below. Please try both numbers below because there is a big problem in communication resulted in Israeli power cuts.

I’m available 24 hours for media coverage in occupied Gaza. You could reach me any time in my house. welcome to call me on this number in the night: Landline: 0097282802825

PLEASE: FORWARD THIS EMAIL IN SIPPORT OF THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY!

Mob: 00972599306096
Landline: 0097282802825
E-mail:

Skype: Gazatoday, Facebook: Sameh A. habeeb
Web: www.gazatoday.blogspot.com
Daily Photos:http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb
Please, make sure you forward this email to those who you feel are interested in this matter.
Day 18 of Israeli War On Gaza
By Sameh A. Habeeb, A Photojournalist, Humanitarian & Peace Activist in Gaza Strip.

Daily Feed About Gaza War:
1. Israeli war ships bombard two weeding halls, Al Jazeera and Shab palace on Gaza beach.
2. Heavy shelling in East of Gaza City resulted in the killing of many people and injuring several others.
3. Continued artillery attacks on Bait Lahi town.
4. The Israelis destroyed many houses in Khoza’a south north of Kanyounis where 24 citizens were injured by the white phosphorous bombs, most of them are suffering from third degree burns.
5. Expanding bulldozering houses and farms in Khoza’a and Najar neighborhood south north Khanyounis.
6. Killing a woman and injuring a girl in her arm and leg as well as wounding several citizens for their rejection to evacuate their houses.
7. Continual clashes between resistance men and the Israel army on Al Rayyes and Al Sorni hills.
8. Shelling a house belonging to Al Barawi family in Twam, north west of Gaza, four people injured by white phosphorous bombs. Injured people waited for long time until the ambulance men managed to reach them .
9. One Palestinian citizen killed and ten injured on Khnyounis Highway.
10. Targeting Al Ahli Sports Club in west to Nusseirat Camp.
11. Targeting by war planes missiles a house belonging to Al Shanti Family in Nusseirat .
12. Targeting a group of citizens in Nusseirat, four casualties. Ambulance personnel were prevented to reach them.
13. Targeting a house belonging Al Zwaidi Family south of Beit Hanoun .
14. Bombardment by two F16 rockets on farms in Abbassan south of Khnyounis
15. Artillery shelling in an open area near Jabalia refugee camp; three people were injured.
16. Warning rockets at residential areas in Beer Al Na’a Ja west of Jabalia.
17. Detonating an evacuated house in Al Attatra area where Israeli special Forces were inside the house. Al Qassam Brigades claimed one Israeli officer was killed and other soldiers were injured , while the Israeli sources have not referred to that incident.
18. A Palestinian citizen is killed and four other were injured, one of them is serious in Al Falouja while they were trying to get bread for their kids.
19. Alaqsa brigades calim killing 12 Israel soldiers in an ambush south of Baitlahi. Israeil sources kept silent.
20. Al aqsa Brigades shells by home- made artillery Soufa Crossing.
21. Five Palestinian citizens were killed and 10 people were seriously injured near Al Sekka area in Jabalia.
22. Destroying a villa belonging to Mohammed Madi in Raffah..
23. Targeting a group of citizens in Baitlahia, one was killd.
24. Bombardment on a house belonging to Mr. Amin Al Zwaidi for the third time, adjacent houses were affected.
25. Bombardment on Fatouh street close to Mosab Bin Omair mosque , three citizens were killed and several people were injured.
26. Air raids on Jabalia refugee camp where forty citizens were injured.
27. Bombarding a house belonging to Al Najar clan in Khanyounis where Mr. Khalil Ahmad Alnajar age 75 was killed and seven of his family members were injured.
28. Bombarding Raffah border area by 100 F16 to destroy tunnels; 25 houses were destroyed.
29. Thirteen resistance men were killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers south west of Jabalia.
30. Recovering of the dead body of Mikbel Abed Aljarbeeh,an old Palestinian who was killed on the second day of the ground attack. The corpse was found rotten.
31. Eight resistance men are killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers in Tal Al Hawa neighborhood south east of Gaza.
32. The Israeli solders shot dead two Palestinian civilians from Ayyad family in Al Zaitoun Neighborhood and one resistance man was killed by a rocket in the southern area of the same neighborhood.
33. Two Palestinian civilians, Hassan Shtaiwi age 68 and Mamdouh Shaiber age 18 were injured and later died in Al Zaitoun neighborhood.
34. Mr. Jaji Ramzi who was injured on Jan. 6th and then transferred to an Egyptian hospital died.
35. The total toll of the Palestinians victims have been 980 killed and more than 4400 wounded in the War.
36. Naval forces open heavy fire on Gaza shore and many houses were destroyed.
37. A Palestinian Killed in Shikh Ridwan area as a rocket his car and 5 other wounded.
38. Israeli allows some few vans of aids to get into the Gaza Strip. Hoever, Gaza needs thousands of food trucks a day.
39. Israeli Leader: Afghdor Liberman says that Gaza has to be erased from the Map by Nuclear bombs like what Americans used in Heroshima and Nagazaki.
40. Palestinian figthters fired 15 rockets into Israeli settlements.

Sameh A. Habeeb, B.A.
Photojournalist & Peace Activist
Humanitarian, Child Relief Worker
Gaza Strip, Palestine

The UN Office for Coordination of Human Affairs Report for the 13th January is equally horrific.

Field Update on Gaza from the Humanitarian Coordinator 13 Jan 2009 as of 17:00

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

Date: 13 Jan 2009

“My message is simple, direct and to the point: the fighting must stop. To both sides, I say: Just stop, now. Too many people have died. There has been too much civilian suffering. Too many people, Israelis and Palestinians, live in daily fear of their lives. And in Gaza, the very foundation of society is being destroyed: people’s homes; civic infrastructure; public health facilities; and schools.” (Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Press Conference, 12 January)

The Israeli military operation has entered its eighteenth day. Israeli air, sea and ground forces continue to surround populated areas of the Gaza Strip, and the Gaza and North Gaza Governorates remain isolated from the rest of the territory. The humanitarian crisis is intensifying and the number of Palestinian civilian casualties is increasing. Israeli bombardment is causing extensive destruction to homes and to public infrastructure throughout the Gaza Strip and is jeopardizing water, sanitation and medical services. Increasing numbers of Palestinians are fleeing their homes as Israeli forces penetrate deeper into the Gaza Strip. Hospitals are overstretched as medical staff attempt to cope with the high number of casualties, many of whom have multiple injuries. Of particular concern are children, who make up 56 percent of the Gaza population.

On 13 January, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed its deep concern ‘at the devastating effects that the current military engagement in Gaza is having on children.’

In response to allegations of the looting of food aid, the humanitarian agencies (UN and partners) involved in the delivery and distribution of food supplies affirm that there has been no reported theft or misuse of these supplies. They emphasize that careful mechanisms for monitoring aid flows are in place, although the ongoing conflict makes such monitoring difficult.

PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS

The Israeli military remains present in the north, east and Rafah border areas. Aerial bombardment, artillery shelling and naval firing continued throughout 13 January, with Israeli ground troops backed by artillery and helicopters advancing further into populated areas in the outskirts of Gaza City. Intense military activity was reported overnight, particularly in the Tel al Hawa neighbourhood north of Gaza and in Khuza’a village east of Khan Yunis.

With Israeli troops advancing deeper into the Gaza Strip, growing pockets of the population are trapped in their homes. Areas affected include Siyafa, Al Atatra, Al Isra, As Salateen, east and north of Beit Hanoun, east of Jabalia (North Gaza); southeast Az Zaitoun (southeast of Gaza Governorate); and At Tuffah (east of Gaza Governorate). Aid organizations have been unable so far to access these communities. The bodies of those killed in the Al Samouni house in Az Zaitoun on 5 January have still not been recovered, despite appeals to the Israeli army for access to the home.

ATTACKS ON MEDICAL PERSONNEL

Security for health care workers and access to medical facilities continues to be extremely difficult. On 12 January, an Israeli air strike on a house in Jabalia killed a doctor who was treating injuries, and wounded three medical staff waiting outside to evacuate the injured. Thirteen medical personnel have been killed since 27 December, and attacks on medical personnel and ambulances have hampered organizations’ ability to assist the injured.

In a joint public statement on 13 January, the ICRC and PRCS deplored the fact that ‘wounded people have been abandoned and left to suffer alone, unable to reach hospitals and inaccessible to ambulances and medical workers. Some wounded have even died because ambulances did not receive the required clearances to reach them in time.’ ICRC and PRCS reaffirmed that under International Humanitarian Law all parties concerned have a duty to collect, care and evacuate the wounded, without delay or discrimination.

CASUALTIES

Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) figures as of 1600 hours 13 January are 971 Palestinians dead, of whom 311 are children and 76 are women. The number of injured stands at 4,418, of whom 1,549 are children and 652 are women. The MoH reported on 12 January that the number of children fatalities has tripled since the beginning of the ground operation on 3 January (compared to the number of child fatalities from 27 December to 3 January). The danger to medical staff and the difficulty of extracting the injured from collapsed buildings makes proper evacuation and estimation of casualties difficult, including to determine the number of Palestinian male civilian casualties.

Since the onset of the military operations on 27 December, two UN staff and four contractors have been killed while on duty, and six staff and four contractors injured. Another two UN staff have been killed off duty. Additionally, on 27 December, nine trainees were killed near the Gaza Training Centre. On 5 January, three brothers were killed at the UNRWA Asma school while taking refuge there. On 6 January, 43 people were killed and 55 injured when shells fell outside an UNRWA school in Jabalia. At least 49 UN buildings have sustained damage, of which 28 reported damage in the first three days of the operation. One international NGO partner clinic is reported to have been destroyed and several of their compounds have been damaged. At least four incidents have been reported of aid convoys being shot at or near

Nine Israeli soldiers have been killed since 27 December. Palestinian militants continue to fire rockets and mortars from the Gaza Strip into Israel. According to the Israeli Police Spokesman, Israeli civilian casualties stand at four dead and 58 injured. (OCHA’s casualty figures do not include the number of Palestinians or Israelis treated for shock.)

USE OF WHITE PHOSPHOROUS

Since 3 January, there have been numerous media reports about the alleged use of white phosphorous (WP). Human Rights Watch has stated that while the Israeli army appears to be employing WP as an ‘obscurant’ to hide military operations, ‘WP also has a significant, incidental, incendiary effect that can severely burn people and set structures, fields and other civilian objects in the vicinity on fire. The potential for harm to civilians is magnified by Gaza’s high population density, among the highest in the world.’ The Israeli army has informed Human Rights Watch and reporters that it is not using WP in Gaza.

SHELTER

The number of people who have fled their homes in Gaza remains unknown, but is estimated in the tens of thousands. As of the evening of 12 January, UNRWA was operating 38 emergency shelters, with 35,520 displaced people, an increase of 7,404 people since 11 January. UNRWA has provided bread and drinking water to all shelters; tinned meat was provided to shelters in the three southern districts of Gaza. On 12 January, UNRWA sent five trucks of essential non-food items from its stores in the West Bank to Gaza.

ELECTRICITY

As of this morning, 60 percent of Gazans are not receiving any power. The rest receive electricity intermittently. In the Gaza Governorate, which is most affected by power cuts as it depends the most on the Gaza Power Plant, GEDCO, Gaza’s electricity company, estimates that 20 to 30 percent of the population is without electricity; 40 percent has electricity between 8 and 12 hours per day; and 40 percent has up to 8 hours. As of 12 January, GEDCO estimates that 30 to 40 percent of recent damage to the electricity network has been partially repaired.

On the morning of 13 January, GEDCO discovered that its warehouse in Gaza City was hit. It estimates financial losses of at least $400,000, including desperately needed spare parts for the electricity network.

HEALTH

Hospitals remain overloaded with the large influx of injured persons. WHO reports that the emergency room of Dorah Paediatric Hospital was directly hit on 12 January. Staff are continuing to work despite

the damage caused to the infrastructure. Dorah Hospital has been closed except for emergency services since 8 January, due to its proximity to fighting and earlier damage sustained to its infrastructure. Damage sustained by the Gaza European Hospital on 10 January has not been repaired. Danish Church Aid and Christian World Service reported on 12 January that the clinic of their partner Near East Council of Churches in Al-Shuja’ia was completely destroyed by Israeli missiles on 11 January.

28 of the 58 MoH Primary Health Care centres (PHC) are now closed due to shelling. WHO continues to be deeply concerned about the consequences of the disruption in vaccination programmes, antenatal care and nutritional surveillance due to lack of staff, electricity and dangerous conditions on the ground.

As of 11 January, 70 patients have been cleared for evacuation but have not yet been evacuated through Rafah because of the slow flow of evacuations.

On 12 January, UNRWA provided 10,000 litres of fuel to hospitals most in need of fuel throughout the Gaza Strip.

WATER AND SANITATION

Many water wells and sewage pumps are still not functioning due to the lack of electricity, diminished fuel supplies to operate back-up generators and lack of spare parts. The damage to the water and wastewater networks has not been repaired because of the danger in reaching affected areas. CMWU reports considerable damage to infrastructure in Khuza’a following military activity in the area. 55 out of 145 water wells are not functioning throughout the Gaza Strip (32 in Gaza; 20 in North Gaza; 3 in Middle Area).

500,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip still do not have access to running water. Even before the current military operation, 80 percent of drinking water in Gaza was not safe for human consumption, according to WHO guidelines. 29,952 bottles of drinking water (1.5 litres each) from UNICEF entered Gaza on 12 January and were provided to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society for distribution.

Sewage continues to flow in the streets in Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya. UNRWA was unable to deliver fuel to the Beit Lahia Wastewater Treatment Plant to alleviate pressure on the banks of the sewage lake containing three million cubic metres of raw and partially treated wastewater due to the precarious situation. The sewage lake is in danger of overflowing placing up to 15,000 at risk. CMWU needs urgent approval from the Israeli authorities to assess the impact of wastewater leakage from the Gaza City Wastewater Treatment Plant.

CMWU is unable to access any of its spare parts or engine oil which are located in its warehouse in Az Zaitoun area. CMWU urgently needs access to 1,000 litres of engine oil for its sewage pump stations.

FOOD

Many food items remain unavailable, including rice, flour, oil, meat, chicken, fish and milk. Bread is in short supply: only nine out of 47 bakeries are currently operational. On 12 January, UNRWA distributed food parcels to 1,916 refugee families throughout the Gaza Strip. Due to the security situation, WFP, who works through partners, has been unable to operate to its full capacity. WFP has reached more than 85,000 out of its regular 265,000 non-refugee beneficiaries since 27 December, and an additional 21,000 non-refugee beneficiaries have received an emergency distribution.

UNIFEM is concerned about the nutritional well-being of the civilian population, notably of the 56 percent under the age of 18 and the daily average of 170 new born and their mothers.

INTERNAL ACCESS

Access between northern Gaza and the rest of Gaza remains possible only via the coastal road west of the former Israeli settlement of Netzarim and is restricted to humanitarian relief assistance (including ambulances) following coordination with the Israeli authorities.

On 13 January, the humanitarian “lull” was activated between 0900 and 1200 hours.

CROSSINGS

Only Kerem Shalom and Rafah crossings were open on 13 January.

On 12 January, Kerem Shalom was open, and Rafah and Karni were partially open. 93 truckloads including 54 for humanitarian aid agencies entered Gaza via Kerem Shalom crossing (back-to-back transfer). 27 truckloads of wheat, lentils and animal feed entered Gaza via the open convoyer belt at Karni crossing. This was the first time Karni was partially open since 26 December 2008. 25 Egyptian ambulances (with medical staff) entered Gaza via Rafah to transport injuries from Shifa Hospital to Egypt; 14 trucks of medicine and 17 foreign doctors entered Gaza. Seven injuries crossed through Rafah to Egypt for treatment.

PRIORITY NEEDS

Protection of civilians: Civilians, notably children who form 56 percent of Gaza’s population, are bearing the brunt of the violence. As one of the most densely populated places in the world, more civilians risk being killed or injured if the conflict continues. The parties to conflict must respect the norms of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), in particular the principles of distinction and proportionality.

Access for ambulance and rescue teams: An unknown number of dead, injured and trapped people remain in houses which have been shelled and in areas where hostilities are ongoing. Due to attacks on ambulances, medical staff are fearful of reaching these places. The evacuation of wounded and safe passage of ambulances and health workers are fundamental tenants of IHL, and should be facilitated at all times.

Opening of crossings: The number of trucks allowed into the Gaza Strip needs to be increased. Additional crossings must be opened urgently, including Karni for the provision of bulk grain.

Electricity is necessary for the operation of services within the Gaza Strip notably health, water and sanitation services. Back-up generators are not meant to function more than 8 hours per day, and are not reliable following repeated and prolonged use. Although efforts have been made to repair damaged electricity lines, bring in needed transformers, and allow fixing of other transformers, much more needs to be done.

Supply of fuel: Industrial fuel is needed to power the Gaza Power Plant, which had been shut since 30 December but partially re-opened on 10 January. Nahal Oz crossing must remain open as it is the only crossing which can facilitate the transfer of sufficient amounts of fuel to restart and maintain operations of the power plant, and restock other types of fuel needed in the Strip. Delivery of fuel to its intended destination must be facilitated.

Cash/liquidity: The issue of cash remains of high priority. Cash has still not entered the Gaza Strip and is urgently needed. With the exception of public UN sources, reproduction or redistribution of the above text, in whole, part or in any form, requires the prior consent of the original source. The opinions expressed in the documents carried by this site are those of the authors and are not necessarily shared by UN OCHA or ReliefWeb.

UPDATES

Chomsky Condemns U.S. and Israel For Civilian Deaths in Gaza Strip

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Who Owns Who?

Olmert’s posturing that it is he who tells the US what to do echoes a previous incident attributed to Sharon on October 3, 2001 – later labelled propaganda by Camera and debunked on Mondoweiss:

According to Israel radio (in hebrew) Kol Yisrael, Peres warned Sharon Wednesday that refusing to heed incessant American requests for a cease-fire with the Palestinians would endanger Israeli interests and “turn the US against us.”

At this point, a furious Sharon reportedly turned toward Peres, saying “every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it.”

Regardless of the veracity of the above quote, what is verifiable are Mearsheimer’s observations:

As one former Democratic senator, Ernest Hollings, noted on leaving office, ‘you can’t have an Israeli policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here.’ Or as Ariel Sharon once told an American audience, ‘when people ask me how they can help Israel, I tell them: “Help AIPAC.”’

Thanks in part to the influence Jewish voters have on presidential elections, the Lobby also has significant leverage over the executive branch. Although they make up fewer than 3 per cent of the population, they make large campaign donations to candidates from both parties.

…

By February 2003, a Washington Post headline summarised the situation: ‘Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical on Mideast Policy.’ The main reason for this switch was the Lobby.

Is Olmert’s recent swagger merely to play to the electorate, or is he, despite being up on corruption charges, revelling in real power – what are the layers behind his statement?

The Security Council resolution passed on Friday calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza was a source of embarrassment for US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who helped prepare it but ultimately was ordered to back down from voting for it and abstain, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday.

Is Condi really humiliated, or has she already been promised a holiday home at Netanya after Obama’s inauguration? perhaps a post at an Israeli University?

Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says that he told President Bush not to vote in favor of the United Nations’ last week resolution on Gaza.

“I told him (Bush) the United States could not vote in favor. It cannot vote in favor of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favor,” said Olmert on Monday.

Last Thursday, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1860, calling for an immediate ceasefire between Hamas and Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip and an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. The US was the only country that abstained while fourteen of the council’s 15 members voted in favor of the resolution.

According to Olmert, Bush had ordered Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to abstain.

“In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favor,” Olmert said in a speech in the southern town of Ashkelon.

“I said ‘get me President Bush on the phone’. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I did not care. ‘I need to talk to him now’. He got off the podium and spoke to me,” he added.

Elsewhere, Olmert rubs salt in Condi’s wounds – does this put paid to her presumptions that she might birth something alive in the Middle East?

“She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour,” Olmert said in a speech in the southern town of Ashkelon.

The US tries to cover up or is it telling the truth? is this a repeat of the Barak pre election invasion of Lebanon?

But a US State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, denied Olmert’s claim.

“Mr. Olmert is wrong,” the official said.

Even if everything had gone according to plan, “she would have abstained. That was the plan,” said the official. “The government of Israel does not make US policy.”

Right – so the State Department can maintain a convenient facade to protect exposure of US policy interests when the crunch comes – it’s a win win situation. A sort of “clayton’s defence”, like the media frolics in the last foray by Israel into Lebanon, the possession of that wonderful genie in the bottle – plausible deniability.

A quick browse through the Australian media found the story only at our good old Aunty ABC, who repeat the Reuters take.

Rice shamed over UN Gaza vote: Olmert

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said a telephone call he made to US President George W Bush last week forced Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to abstain in a UN vote on the Gaza war.

Pouring on political bravado in a speech, Mr Olmert said he demanded to talk to Mr Bush with only 10 minutes to spare before a UN Security Council vote on Thursday on a resolution opposed by Israel calling for an immediate ceasefire.

“When we saw that the Secretary of State, for reasons we did not really understand, wanted to vote in favour of the UN resolution … I looked for President Bush and they told me he was in Philadelphia making a speech,” Mr Olmert said.

“I said, ‘I don’t care. I have to talk to him now,'” he said, describing Mr Bush, who leaves office on January 20, as “an unparalleled friend” of Israel.

“They got him off the podium, brought him to another room and I spoke to him. I told him, ‘You can’t vote in favour of this resolution.’ He said, ‘Listen, I don’t know about it, I didn’t see it, I’m not familiar with the phrasing.'”

Mr Olmert said he then told Mr Bush: “‘I’m familiar with it. You can’t vote in favour.’

“He gave an order to the Secretary of State and she did not vote in favour of it, a resolution she cooked up, phrased, organised and manoeuvred for. She was left pretty shamed and abstained on a resolution she arranged,” he said.

Fourteen of the Security Council’s 15 members supported the resolution, which has failed to halt Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip and Hamas’s cross-border rocket fire.

Mr Olmert, under police investigation over alleged corruption, resigned as prime minister in September but is serving in a caretaker capacity until a new government is formed after Israel’s February 10 parliamentary election.

Juan Cole hypothesises:

Olmert’s account cannot be accurate as to detail. Bush was not interrupted during his speech in Philadelphia, and the speech was given many hours before the UN vote. But that kind of discrepancy is easily resolved if we want to believe that Olmert is telling the truth. When he called the White House, he may have initially gotten a staffer who said something like, Bush is away at Philadelphia for a speech. Olmert could have misunderstood the staffer to say that Bush was still giving the speech.

…

Then everyone was surprised by Rice’s about-face. And it was reported at the time that she changed her mind after a phone call from Bush.

…

She must have blown him off or been evasive, alarming him that there would be a UN ceasefire resolution before which Israel might have to bow. My own guess is that Olmert had Bush tell her to veto it altogether, but you have to wonder whether she and Khalilzad engaged in their own little final rebellion and so just voted “present,” which allowed the resolution to pass. (Olmert has ignored it.)

…

Olmert reports that Bush had no idea what the substance of the resolution was, and this anecdote is consistent with what we know about how this White House has functioned. Bush admitted to Bob Woodward that an important decision on sending some troops to Iraq had been made by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and that Bush had not sat in on the relevant meetings. So Rice was at the UN on her own, thinking she was a plenipotentiary of Bush, and Olmert was annoyed at this attitude and decided to put her in her place.

…

The likelihood is that Olmert was stung by severe criticism of his government for allowing the UNSC cease-fire resolution to be passed. His Kadima Party is in a neck and neck race with the even more hard line and far rightwing Likud Party, with elections to be held on February 10. Presumably Olmert was trying to deflect the Likudniks’ charges that Kadima was inept or impotent, and to improve the standing of his would-be successor, Tzipi Livni (now the Foreign Minister).

Other than the obvious – that Bush is dumb as two planks and is a serial sadist, Cole points to 2001:

3. Olmert has something over Bush. I remember that Bush had taken on Sharon in September of 2001, calling for a Palestinian state and ordering Sharon to stop colonizing the West Bank. Sharon was so furious that he compared Israel’s situation to that of Czechoslovakia in 1938, when the rest of Europe let Hitler grab part of it. But by spring of 2002 Bush was bending over backward to please the Likud. What changed? Something did. There is a mystery to be explained here. I only point out that along with the previous two explanations, this one would make sense of otherwise baffling behavior on Bush’s part.

For some, the conspiracy buttons wil be pressed.

Did Sharon pass on to Olmert a little present prior to his vegetabilisation?

Or was Bush simply unable to stand up to the Zionist Lobby in the fact of its considerable influence on the Congress and Senate?

Laila Al-Arian reveals another side of Condi relating a chance encounter at a hair salon:

Recognizing how rare it is to get face-time with the nation’s top diplomat, Nadia felt she had to say something, anything. “Great job you’re doing in Gaza,” she blurted out. Nadia says Rice then turned to her and smiled. “Ohh thank youu,” she responded, dramatically dragging out each word. “I don’t think she understood the sarcasm,” Nadia told me. “No. I mean is there anything else that the U.S. can say other than all of the onus is on Hamas to end the violence?” she asked Rice.

“We’ve made other statements!” Rice replied, as she walked away. “And it is,” she added, referring to the notion that solving the crisis is solely in the hands of Hamas.

Perhaps these omissions should not have been surprising considering Rice’s bewildering remark that Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon — in which more than 1,000 people were killed, thirty percent of whom were children–was simply part of “the birth pangs of a new Middle East.”

…

“We need very much to find a solution to this problem in the short term,” Rice told the Security Council. “But it really must be a solution this time that does not allow Hamas to use Gaza as a launching pad against Israeli cities,” she added, once again refusing to even mildly admonish Israel for the civilian deaths or acknowledge what had occurred earlier that day.

On Thursday, after nearly two weeks of carnage, the Security Council finally passed a resolution – with a 14-0 vote– calling for an “immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.” The United States, represented by Rice who helped draft the text, abstained from voting.

According to writer Karim Makdisi, “the text of Resolution 1860 makes no mention of international humanitarian laws (let alone offer any condemnation for the breaching of these laws), and it appears to adopt Israel’s narrative of events.” Israel dismissed the resolution as “unworkable” and continued its bombing campaign on Friday, the day Rice told reporters “it’s hard” for Israeli troops to shield civilians in Gaza because the area is so densely populated.

Excuses, excuses, always for the ‘ally’ there are excuses – even for mass murder.

Condi has reaffirmed herself as an Aunty Tom in the last days of the Bush idiot presidency with her lockstep except for the last gaff, collaboration with the torturous Israeli Occupation of Palestine. Does she know or even care that the Israelis have inflicted an illegal, brutal Occupation for many decades, from which much angst flows – the rockets of Hamas are in one sense analagous to the cruel necklacings perpetrated by some rebels during the apartheid era in South Africa. Are the birth pangs to which she has referred Israel being born as regional hegemon, rather than the liberation of the oppressed Palestinians within their own free state? With the US economy flailing, has Tel Aviv conveniently become the new power nexus for the electorally ousted US neoconservatives?

If Iraq was the “tactical pivot”, Saudi Arabia the “strategic pivot”, is Egypt still “the prize”?

Olmert’s arrogance reemerges with NATO:

Prime Minister Olmert thanked NATO Secy.-Gen. Scheffer for NATO’s cooperation with Israel: “Israel stands behind NATO and fully supports its struggle against terrorism, just as we expect that you will understand us in our struggle against terrorism. The difference between us is that while you are fighting terrorism even if your territory is not in immediate danger, we are defending our territory and our citizens, who are being attacked on a daily basis.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni earlier met on Sunday with the NATO secretary-general. They spoke together about mutual ways to cooperate in a war on terrorism, and discussed actions to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.

In reaction to Livni’s hopes for cooperation in preventing smuggling into Gaza, Secretary-General Scheffer stated that NATO has no plans for a peacekeeping force to supervise any ceasefire in Gaza.

The NATO chief told an audience at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies on Sunday that NATO would be willing to play a peacekeeping role only if there existed a full-scale peace agreement, consent from both sides, and a UN mandate. He predicted that those conditions would not be ripe any time in the near future.

The convolutions of the US and Israel stand in terrible bleak contrast to the plight of the people of Gaza, caught in the midst of some grand game.

Khaled Meshaal, Hamas’ political leader states the Gazan government’s present position:

The enemy has succeeded in bringing about a new Holocaust on Gaza.

Let me now speak to Israelis and Zionists. What have you achieved in this war that you supported? You supported your leaders in going ahead with this war, but what have you achieved besides killing innocent children, breaking skulls and creating an ocean of blood in Gaza?

What have you achieved except a Holocaust that your leaders want to use to win the next elections in February? Palestinian blood is now a means for political achievements in your elections.

You complain about the Holocaust that was committed against you, but you today are now committing an even harsher Holocaust. The Palestinians can now make a museum of your Holocaust in Gaza…

What prevented the US from allowing Resolution 1860 being passed a week or two weeks ago? They wanted to give Israel a chance to kill more Palestinians and claim victory over Gaza. But when the resistance did not back down and Israel failed and when the magnitude of these massacres were uncovered and the USA and those who collaborated in this military campaign witnessed the dissent and intifada among the Muslim masses, which carries with it real danger, at that point they let the resolution pass.

But they took the teeth out of (UN Security Council Resolution) 1860. The resolution is a non-binding cease-fire with no date specified for the cease-fire.

The question now is about who should implement the resolution. Those who started the military campaign in the first place, the Zionists, should implement it and immediately pull out of Gaza. This is logic.

Concerning us, we want the immediate and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the lifting of the unjust siege on Gaza that has led to the current situation.

Our other request is the opening of all border crossings including the Rafah border crossing.

We, with an open mind, will deal with any initiatives and decisions based on these three requests.

Therefore, we will not accept any negotiations for a truce in the light of and under the pressure of a military campaign and siege.

Let the military campaign stop, let the Israelis withdraw, and let the rights of our people be admitted to, let them recognize our rights to live without a siege and closed border crossings, just like other humans, then we are ready to discuss a truce, just like we did before.

We will not accept a permanent truce, because it will take the right of resistance from the Palestinian people. The resistance is against occupation and military campaigns and therefore as long as occupation exists, resistance will too…

We will also not accept the interference of international forces because international forces will come only to protect Israel’s security and any international force imposed will be considered as occupiers.

We will not accept any talks about strengthening the ‘choke hold’ on the resistance concerning its weapons. Some are speaking about the tunnels as if Gaza is a super power with advanced weapons, while we are people with very limited capabilities to defend our territories and ourselves. No body has the right to take our legitimate right for defense and resistance. The US, as if the whole of the Israeli arsenal does not exists, sends hundreds of tons of explosives and artillery shells to Israel.

In this context, we still sent our delegation to Cairo to talk about Egypt’s proposal and other political plans. The November 2005 Rafah crossing agreement, must be reconsidered because this agreement really promoted the blockade on Gaza and we proposed different means and methods.

I call on Mr. Mahmoud Abbas – who called for national unity in the face of Israel’s attacks – to declare to the world that we must agree to a Palestinian partnership between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza, so that we can reach a firm arrangement in Rafah. This is appropriate choice for you. Anything besides this has no credibility when it comes to national unity.

We supported national unity from day one–nNational unity based upon confronting the military campaign, but this needs honesty and credibility. All political detainees must be freed and the Palestinians in the West Bank must be free to hold protests without being arrested. We saw them arrested of course yesterday. We also call on Mahmoud Abbas to stop cooperating with the enemy and to stop negotiations with the Israelis. There is no future for these negotiations…

And to the Arab countries, by God you abandoned and degraded us. But if you made mistakes in the past go ahead and correct your mistakes before it is to late… I call on Arab countries not to welcome any Israeli official in their capitals.

The Arab leaders must coordinate and be aligned with the will of their people. Moreover, I call on Arab countries that have relations with Israel to tell the Israelis either that they should stop their war, or that the Arab countries will stop their relations.

After this resolution, the Muslim Ummah should not calm down and assume the atrocities are over. Resolution 1860 has not brought about any changes on the ground. Israel refuses the resolution and the battle in Gaza is in its most intense phase. What we need is more stern resistance in Gaza and we need more fierce protests in the Arab and Islamic world and the international community to achieve victory for the people of Gaza. We need a third ‘Intifada’ (uprising) in the West Bank and a revolution in the Arab, Islamic world until the enemy withdraws from Gaza, the siege is lifted and the border crossings are opened.

A very important point is that the Muslim world should stand by us. In spite of all these massacres committed by Israel, some say that we are the problem and the massacres are our fault. These are shameful words. What provided the atmosphere for the Zionists to boost their reputation (among their people) and to increase our wounds and impose new circumstances, for example the separation wall, settlement activities and so on, all happened at the time of negotiations.

Concerning are casualties and wounded, resistance cannot liberate without martyrs and casualties. It is better to achieve victory through martyrs and wounded, instead of having casualties without resistance and victory.

Some express fear that after all the sacrifices, the leadership of the resistance may collapse or make a settlement for example. On the contrary, the blood of our women and children and people will increase our cohesion and determination to achieve our aims. It is unjust that after all these massacres to just go and say lets make a truce. On the contrary, the price of this bloodshed is freedom and to decide our own destiny and to end the occupation and siege.

In this psyop war of all psyop wars, the Israel public is held captive to fears of Israel’s own creation. The shallowness of the Israeli public perception, bereft of the appallingly sad narrative of their occupied neighbours leads to a one-sided bitterness, perpetuating victimhood and cruelty, engendering callous disregard for needs of others less fortunate. All Palestinians, even babies, clinics, ambulances, schools and even foreign aid workers are the enemy. However unequally matched the protagonists are, this is war, the eternal war, and resistance must be crushed ruthlessly, without any acceptance of criticism.

“It is very frustrating for us not to be understood,” remarked Yoel Esteron, editor of a daily business newspaper called Calcalist. “Almost 100 percent of Israelis feel that the world is hypocritical. Where was the world when our cities were rocketed for eight years and our soldier was kidnapped? Why should we care about the world’s view now?”

Israel, which is often a fractured, bickering society, has turned in the past couple of weeks into a paradigm of unity and mutual support. Flags are flying high. Celebrities are visiting schoolchildren in at-risk areas, soldiers are praising the equipment and camaraderie of their army units, neighbors are worried about families whose fathers are on reserve duty. Ask people anywhere how they feel about the army’s barring journalists from entering Gaza and the response is: let the army do its job.

1984, anyone?

ADDITIONAL LINKS

The Mysterious Hold of Zionism over American Politicians

Mondoweiss Where is Hillary on cease-fire?

UPDATE

It turns out Australia was gutless at the UN and abstained inline with its fairy godmother the US. To be expected with conservative Christians and others beholden to the Zionist lobby at the helm. When we get a chance we’ll be looking at the latest party donation lists to see which Zionists are feathering which political nests.

Labor backbencher Melissa Parke has questioned why Australia abstained from a United Nations vote last month demanding an immediate end to the Israeli military offensive in Gaza.

More than 1,300 people died during the three-week war, including more than 400 children.

Ms Parke, a former United Nations lawyer who has lived in Gaza, raised the matter on Monday during the first Labor caucus meeting for the year.

Last month, Australia was one of eight UN members to abstain from a vote demanding “full respect” of a Security Council resolution calling for “an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces” from Gaza.

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When the Truth Matters Most of All

Israel’s hasbara campaign is in full swing – the truth about who breached the ceasefire (Israel), why the Israelis never stopped occupying Gaza (Israel breached the 4th Geneva Conventions ever since it ‘withdrew’ from Gaza by maintaining a blockade), how the UN School at Jabailya came to be attacked by the IDF, the hideous Zeitoun massacre of 30 people by the IDF and many more memes are dissembled, sanitised, spun and respun by the mendacious Israeli spiel machine.

Now, we know that the Israeli foreign ministry itself is orchestrating propaganda efforts designed to flood news websites with pro-Israel arguments and information.

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The foreign ministry shouldn’t get a pass on this one. It may view such hasbara as maximising its efforts to “explain” Israel’s position in the world media. I view it as a cynical attempt to flood the web and news media with favorable flackery in a vain attempt to tilt public opinion toward Israel. Not only does it do Israel a disservice, it stains every legitimate effort that the ministry might make to explain Israel to the world, since no one will believe a word it says knowing it engages in such outright propaganda.

The just cause of Palestinians for land and freedom is further set back by the image provoked in the media by the Israeli propaganda machine:

“We don’t fight the Jews because they’re Jews, but because they are occupiers,” stresses Meshal. “If the Arabs occupied us, [we’d] fight them too … But why is everybody so worried about our religiosity anyway? Israel has always referred to ancient biblical texts to justify its existence. If an Arab official, for example, wore an Islamic looking turban, he would be sending the wrong signals. But when Israeli officials put on the Jewish kipot (skull cap), that’s not a problem, nobody is worried about religiosity then.”

“We live under occupation and we don’t have the traditional tools to defend ourselves” Meshal continues. “We repeatedly demanded that Israel not target Palestinian civilians and end the siege. But Israel never listened.”

The UN Human Rights Council is considering a draft resolution on the treatment of civilians in Gaza by the IDF – about time!

The Zeitoun massacre is horrific –

According to the survivors’ accounts, partly corroborated by the International Red Cross and the United Nations, Israeli soldiers raided their homes and then huddled the extended family together into one house.

The following day they shelled and dropped missiles around the house.

Abdullah was found in the house surrounded by his dead uncles and cousins Witnesses say at least 30 members of the Samouni family were killed.

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Al Jazeera tracked down the ambulance driver who rescued Ahmed. The Red Cross personnel were denied access by the Israeli army to the area for four days after the house was shelled.

“On the day we got permission, the army told us to leave the ambulances around two kilometres from the house,” said Mohamed el-Halby, a paramedic. “So we walked and all around us we could see they had bulldozered the area. The houses we passed had Israeli soldiers standing on the roofs.”

“We went inside and heard screams coming from one room. There were about 15 people inside, two were dead, the rest sitting around them. That was just one room.”

France is suggesting European observers be sent to monitor any eventual cease fire.

French Defense Minister Herve Morin suggested a European peacekeeping force for Gaza once the violence has settled.

“It seems to me it would not be stupid or incoherent for the Europeans to participate in a force that would be tasked with watching over the security of the borders,” he said on French radio RFI on Sunday night.

He said France should consider participating in such a force if one is formed, but added that for now “the conditions have not been met” to establish such a force.

A rift has developed in the Israeli cabinet, with Olmert still hell-bent on continuing the collective punishment the people of Gaza, and Barak and Livni dissenting.

The three officials discussed the issue Saturday evening in a security cabinet meeting, and both Barak and Livni reportedly argued for ending Operation Cast Lead as soon as possible but Olmert seeks to continue the military operations inside the Gaza Strip, the report added.

According to the report, Livni and Barak also objected the expansion of the ground operations.

How convenient – when the operation is ended after even more loss of civilian lives, Livni and Barak can both attempt to exonerate themselves by pointing out they were in favour of stopping before the ground invasion.

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Israelis protest against their government’s attack of Gaza

Independent Australian Jewish Voices has protested against Israel’s offensive and collective punishment of the Gazan people.

We are Australian Jews who join thousands in Israel and around the world condemning ongoing Israeli military attacks on Gaza. Together with Israeli peace group Gush Shalom, we condemn the current war as “inhuman, superfluous” and “abominable”.

While Israel has the right to protect its citizens and to demand an end to the crime of Palestinian rockets that target civilians, this cannot be used as a pretext for the grossly disproportionate military assault on Gaza because it was Israel that violated the fragile truce on November 4, 2008. Furthermore, Israel ignored Hamas’ diplomatic initiatives to re-establish the cease-fire since it expired on December 19.

The war on the population of Gaza comes after the Israeli blockade that had already created a severe humanitarian crisis under which the Palestinians suffered from lack of food, electricity, medicines, hospital equipment and other basic necessities of life. The blockade was condemned by the UN as a violation of international law and, like the massive Israeli air-strikes, constitutes illegal collective punishment prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

We call for an immediate end to attacks on civilians by Palestinians and Israelis. However, since Palestinians have no means of self-defence against the most powerful military force in the Middle East, we particularly call on Israel to end its brutal assault on the vulnerable Palestinian people of Gaza and to reconsider its rejection of the UN Security Council’s call for a cease-fire.

Israel has refused to accept Hamas’ consistent offer of negotiations since its election win in 2006.

As Syd Walker points out, the IAJV highlights the facts which the Israeli hasbara machine is desperately attempting to counter.