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No More Khirbet Khizehs
"Fields that would never be harvested, plantations that would never be irrigated, paths that would become desolate. A sense of destruction and worthlessness. An image of thistles and brambles everywhere, a desolate tawniness, a braying wilderness. And already from those fields accusing eyes peered out at you, that silent accusatory look as of a reproachful animal, staring and following you so there was no refuge." -- Yizhar Smilansky, Khirbet Khizeh
On the day in 2014 that I read the new English translation of Khirbet Khizeh, Tom Engelhardt published a blog post rewriting recent news articles on the U.S. Senate's torture report as a 2019 Senate report on drone murders. The 2019 "news" media in Tom's believable account is shocked -- shocked, I tell you -- by the rampant murder discovered to have been committed using missiles from drones of all things.
The point is that most of what's been discussed as news from the recent torture report, and certainly all of the fundamental moral points -- has been known -- or, more accurately, knowable for years. For the past several years, the U.S. establishment has been repeatedly "banning" torture. It has also been repeatedly discovering the same evidence of torture, over and over again. Leading torturers have gone on television to swear they'd do it all again, while radical activist groups have demanded "investigations."
The point is that at some point "truth and reconciliation" is lies and reconciliation -- the lies of pretending that the truth needed to be unearthed, that it was hidden for a time, that the crimes weren't committed in the broad daylight of television spotlights on a sweaty old man assuring us he was about to start working on the dark side.
Illustrated at right, from the iNakba app, are villages that were destroyed in 1948 to create Israel. Generations of Israelis have grown up not knowing, not wanting to know, pretending not to know, and knowing without confronting the Catastrophe. Israelis are discovering what happened, unburying the hidden truth, filming aging participants' distorted confessions, and hunting out the outlines of disappeared villages on GoogleEarth.
But what if the truth was always marching naked down the street with trumpets sounding?
In May 1949, Yizhar Smilansky published Khirbet Khizeh, a fictional account of the destruction of a fictional village much like many real ones. Smilansky knew or hoped that he was ahead of his time, so much so that he began the tale by framing it as a recollection from the distant future. The narrator, like the reader, was known by the author to be unable to see for years to come.
What would keep the book alive until that distant day?
Poetry.
It's not a Senate report. Khirbet Khizeh is a work of masterful insight and storytelling that grips you and compels you to enter the experience of its narrator and his companions, as they do what the author had done, as they imitate Nazis before all the ashes had fallen from the skies above the ovens in Europe.
This book was planted and grew. It's been taught in Israeli schools. It was a movie on Israeli television in 1978. And now, with a sense that perhaps sleepy eyes are stretching open at long last, the book has had itself translated into the language of the imperial homeland, English.
But how could poetry keep heresy alive?
Several ways, I think. Absolute failure to pay attention, for one. Think about how literature is taught in many U.S. schools, for example. The ability of people to hear the poetry without the meaning, for another. Think about people singing John Lennon's Imagine without having the slightest idea they've just proposed to abolish religions, nations, and private property, or how people throw around the phrase "peace on earth" in December. Perverse but predictable and perhaps predicted misinterpretation, for another. Think about how viewers of the propaganda film Zero Dark Thirty read accounts of torture, for example -- as a dirty job that needed doing for a greater cause.
It's a strain, to me at least, to read Khirbet Khizeh as a celebration of genocide or mass-eviction. And the book not only suffered but also benefitted from being ahead of its time. It pre-existed the mythologies and rhetorical defenses that grew up around the Catastrophe in the decades that followed. When the narrator makes a slight resistance to what he is engaged in, no reader can find anything but humanitarian motivation in his resistance. The idea that this soldier, questioning his fellow soldiers, is engaged in anti-Semitism would literally make no sense. He's revolted by the cruelty, no more no less -- cruelty that every adult and child has to have always known was part of any mass settlement of ancient lands in 1948.
When I was a child, in elementary school, I wrote a story about an eviction of a family from its house, complete with plenty of tear-jerking details. As a good American I wrote about British redcoats evicting patriotic U.S. revolutionaries. My teacher suggested to me that I had a talent for writing. But that wasn't writing. Had I written of the Native Americans, the Hawaiians, the Filipinos, the Vietnamese, of Diego Garcia or Vieques or the Marshall Islands or Thule or Okinawa or any of the many places about which silence was expected, that might have been writing.
Let us wish no more Khirbet Khizehs on the people of Palestine and many more Khirbet Khizehs on the world.
Black, White, Racism and ‘Law Enforcement’
The murder of black men by white police officers is nothing new in the United States. The fact that the media is taking notice is what is newsworthy. Despite Civil Rights laws enacted decades ago, racism is deeply embedded in the fabric of U.S. society.
The recent cases of Eric Gardner in New York and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, victims of horrendous cruelty and murder, only received coverage due to the outrage their deaths, and the almost immediate impunity their killers received, caused across the nation. But is white police brutality against blacks something new? Anecdotal evidence presented here indicates that that is hardly the case.
Talk Nation Radio: Lia Tarachansky on How Israel Was Really Created in 1948
Lia Tarachansky discusses her new film On the Side of the Road which looks at the creation of Israel and the erasure of what was there before. Learn more at: http://naretivproductions.com
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
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Israel's Secret
Here in Virginia, U.S.A., I'm aware that the native people were murdered, driven out, and moved westward. But my personal connection to that crime is weak, and frankly I'm too busy trying to rein in my government's current abuses to focus on the distant past. Pocahontas is a cartoon, the Redskins a football team, and remaining Native Americans almost invisible. Protests of the European occupation of Virginia are virtually unheard of.
But what if it had just happened a moment ago, historically speaking? What if my parents had been children or teenagers? What if my grandparents and their generation had conceived and executed the genocide? What if a large population of survivors and refugees were still here and just outside? What if they were protesting, nonviolently and violently -- including with suicide bombings and homemade rockets launched out of West Virginia? What if they marked the Fourth of July as the Great Catastrophe and made it a day of mourning? What if they were organizing nations and institutions all over the world to boycott, divest, and sanction the United States and seek its prosecution in court? What if, before being driven out, the Native Americans had built hundreds of towns with buildings of masonry, hard to make simply disappear?
In that case, it would be more difficult for those unwilling to face the injustice not to notice. We would have to notice, but tell ourselves something comforting, if we refused to deal with the truth. The lies we tell ourselves would need to be much stronger than they are. A rich mythology would be necessary. Everyone would have to be taught from childhood onward that the native people didn't exist, left voluntarily, attempted vicious crimes justifying their punishment, and were not really people at all but irrational killers still trying to kill us for no reason. I'm aware that some of those excuses conflict with others, but propaganda generally works better with multiple claims, even when they can't all be true at the same time. Our government might even have to make questioning the official story of the creation of the United States an act of treason.
Israel is that imagined United States, just formed in our grandparents' day, two-thirds of the people driven out or killed, one-third remaining but treated as sub-human. Israel is that place that must tell forceful lies to erase a past that is never really past. Kids grow up in Israel not knowing. We in the United States, whose government gives Israel billions of dollars worth of free weapons every year with which to continue the killing (weapons with names like Apache and Black Hawk), grow up not knowing. We all look at the "peace process," this endless charade of decades, and deem it inscrutable, because we've been educated to be incapable of knowing what the Palestinians want even as they shout it and sing it and chant it: they want to return to their homes.
But the people who did the deed are, in many cases, still alive. Men and women who, in 1948, massacred and evicted Palestinians from their villages can be put on camera recounting what they did. Photographs of what was done and accounts of what life was like before the Nakba (the Catastrophe) exist in great volume. Towns that were taken over still stand. Families know that they live in stolen houses. Palestinians still have keys to those houses. Villages that were destroyed still remain visible in outline on Google Earth, the trees still standing, the stones of demolished houses still nearby.
Lia Tarachansky is an Israeli-Canadian journalist who covers Israel and Palestine for the Real News Network. She was born in Kiev, Ukraine, the Soviet Union. When she was a child, her family moved to a settlement in the West Bank, part of the ongoing continuation of the process begun in 1948. She had a good childhood with a real sense of community in that "settlement," or what we would call a housing subdivision built on native farm land in violation of a treaty made with savages. She grew up not knowing. People pretended nothing had been there before. Then she found out. Then she made a movie to tell the world.
The film is called On the Side of the Road and it tells the story of the founding of Israel in 1948 through the memories of those who killed and expelled the people of Palestine, through the memories of survivors, and through the perspectives of those who have grown up since. 1948 was a 1984 year, a year of doublespeak. Israel was created in blood. Two-thirds of the people of that land were made refugees. Most of them and their descendants are refugees still. Those who remained in Israel were made second-class citizens and forbidden to mourn the dead. But the crime is referred to as liberation and independence. Israel celebrates its Independence Day while Palestinians mourn the Nakba.
The film takes us to the sites of vanished villages destroyed in 1948 and in 1967. In some cases, villages have been replaced with woods and made into national parks. The imagery is suggestive of what the earth might do if humanity departed. But this is the work of part of humanity attempting to erase another human group. If you put up a sign commemorating the village, the government removes it quickly.
The film shows us those who participated in the Nakba. They recall shooting the people they called Arabs and whom they'd been told were primitive and worthless, but who they knew had a modern literate society with some 20 newspapers in Jaffa, with feminist groups, with everything then thought of as modern. "Go to Gaza!" they told the people whose homes and land they were stealing and destroying. One man recalling what he did begins with an attitude almost bordering on the carefree heartlessness one sees in former killers in the Indonesian film The Act of Killing, but eventually he's explaining that what he's done has been eating away at him for decades.
In On the Side of the Road we meet a young Palestinian man from a permanent refugee camp who calls a place his home although he's never been there, and who says that his children and grandchildren will do likewise. We see him obtain a 12-hour pass to visit the place his grandparents lived. He spends half the 12 hours getting through check points. The place he visits is a National Park. He sits and talks about what he wants. He wants nothing related to revenge. He wants no harm done to Jews. He wants no people evicted from anywhere. He says that, according to his grandparents, Jews and Muslims lived together amicably before 1948. That, he says, is what he wants -- that and to return home.
Israelis concerned by their nation's open secret take some inspiration in the film from an art project in Berlin. There people posted signs with images on one side and words on the other. For example: a cat on one side, and this on the other: "Jews are no longer allowed to own pets." So, in Israel, they made signs of a similar nature. For example: a man with a key on one side, and on the other, in German: "It is forbidden to mourn on the Day of Independence." The signs are greeted by vandalism and angry, racist threats. The police accuse those who posted the signs of "disturbing law and order," and forbid them in the future.
At Tel Aviv University we see students, Palestinian and Jewish, hold an event to read out the names of villages that were destroyed. Nationalists waving flags come to try to shout them down. These properly educated Israelis describe cities as having been "liberated." They advocate expelling all Arabs. A member of the Israeli parliament tells the camera that Arabs want to exterminate Jews and rape their daughters, that the Arabs threaten a "holocaust."
The filmmaker asks an angry Israeli woman, "If you were an Arab, would you celebrate the state of Israel?" She refuses to allow the possibility of seeing things from someone else's point of view to enter her head. She replies, "I'm not an Arab, thank God!"
A Palestinian challenges a nationalist very politely and civilly, asking him to explain his views, and he swiftly walks away. I was reminded of a talk I gave last month at a university in New York at which I criticized the Israeli government, and a professor angrily walked out -- a professor who'd been eager to debate other topics on which we disagreed.
A woman who participated in the Nakba says in the film, in an effort to excuse her past actions, "We didn't know it was a society." She clearly believes that killing and evicting people who seem "modern" or "civilized" is unacceptable. Then she goes on to explain that pre-1948 Palestine was just what she says mustn't be destroyed. "But you lived here," says the filmmaker. "How could you not know?" The woman replies simply, "We knew. We knew."
A man who took part in killing Palestinians in 1948 excuses himself as having been only 19. And "there will always be new 19-year-olds," he says. Of course there are also 50-year-olds who will follow evil orders. Happily, there are also 19-year-olds who will not.
Catch a screening of On the Side of the Road:
Dec 3, 2014 NYU, NY
Dec 4, 2014 Philadelphia, PA
Dec 5, 2014 Baltimore, MD
Dec 7, 2014 Baltimore, MD
Dec 9, 2014 Washington DC
Dec 10, 2014 Washington DC
Dec 10, 2014 American University
Dec 13, 2014 Washington DC
Dec 15, 2014 Washington DC
Israel News - Nov 21, 2014
Hamas calls for 'day of rage' in the West Bank on Friday - Maan News Agency
Violence in East Jerusalem; 'Intifada starts today,' Palestinian kids say - Ynetnews
Hamas said activating Jerusalem cells as Israel rocked by synagogue massacre - World Tribune
Police on heightened alert as Hamas calls for ‘day of rage’ - jpost.com
Police set up checkpoints at East Jerusalem neighborhoods - The Times of Israel
Hamas resumes trials of homemade rockets, IDF says - Ynetnews
VIDEO: Palestinians in the Middle-East celebrate the synagogue massacre - LiveLeak.com
VIDEO: Palestinians brandish AXES to celebrate synagogue attack - LiveLeak.com
VIDEO: Hamas’s new hit song in Hebrew: 'Zionist, you are about to be killed by a car’ - jpost.com
VIDEO: Attempted hit and run in Israel - LiveLeak.com
Hamas member admits to running over soldiers in Nov. 5 attack - The Times of Israel
Hamas planned to assassinate FM Lieberman - Ynetnews
PFLP statement on the Synagogue attack in Jerusalem - Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Abbas powerless to stop Palestinian violence, experts say - AFP
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Terrorist's home destroyed by Israel, marking return to controversial policy - The Times of Israel
Committee Approves 78 Apartments In Eastern Jerusalem - The Jewish Week
US slams Israeli construction in E. Jerusalem, renewed home demolitions - The Times of Israel
Five major EU states to Israel: Demolishing terrorists' homes will escalate tensions - Haaretz
Israeli soldiers protect settlers attacking Palestinian villagers (VIDEO) - RT News
Israeli settlers stab a Palestinian in Jerusalem, attack school in West Bank - Al Akhbar English
VIDEO: Palestinians attend funeral ceremony for hanged bus driver - YouTube
Closing of Egypt's Rafah crossing leaves thousands of Gazans stranded - Reuters
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Israeli Chooses "Honorable Life" Over Joining Military
Danielle Yaor is 19, Israeli, and refusing to take part in the Israeli military. She is one of 150 who have committed themselves, thus far, to this position:
We, citizens of the state of Israel, are designated for army service. We appeal to the readers of this letter to set aside what has always been taken for granted and to reconsider the implications of military service.
We, the undersigned, intend to refuse to serve in the army and the main reason for this refusal is our opposition to the military occupation of Palestinian territories. Palestinians in the occupied territories live under Israeli rule though they did not choose to do so, and have no legal recourse to influence this regime or its decision-making processes. This is neither egalitarian nor just. In these territories, human rights are violated, and acts defined under international law as war-crimes are perpetuated on a daily basis. These include assassinations (extrajudicial killings), the construction of settlements on occupied lands, administrative detentions, torture, collective punishment and the unequal allocation of resources such as electricity and water. Any form of military service reinforces this status quo, and, therefore, in accordance with our conscience, we cannot take part in a system that perpetrates the above-mentioned acts.
The problem with the army does not begin or end with the damage it inflicts on Palestinian society. It infiltrates everyday life in Israeli society too: it shapes the educational system, our workforce opportunities, while fostering racism, violence and ethnic, national and gender-based discrimination.
We refuse to aid the military system in promoting and perpetuating male dominance. In our opinion, the army encourages a violent and militaristic masculine ideal whereby ‘might is right’. This ideal is detrimental to everyone, especially those who do not fit it. Furthermore, we oppose the oppressive, discriminatory, and heavily gendered power structures within the army itself.
We refuse to forsake our principles as a condition to being accepted in our society. We have thought about our refusal deeply and we stand by our decisions.
We appeal to our peers, to those currently serving in the army and/or reserve duty, and to the Israeli public at large, to reconsider their stance on the occupation, the army, and the role of the military in civil society. We believe in the power and ability of civilians to change reality for the better by creating a more fair and just society. Our refusal expresses this belief.
Only a few of the 150 or so resisters are in prison. Danielle says that going to prison helps to make a statement. In fact, here’s one of her fellow refuseniks on CNN because he went to prison. But going to prison is essentially optional, Danielle says, because the military (IDF) has to pay 250 Shekels a day ($66, cheap by U.S. standards) to keep someone in prison and has little interest in doing so. Instead, many claim mental illness, says Yaor, with the military well-aware that what they’re really claiming is an unwillingness to be part of the military. The IDF gives men more trouble than women, she says, and mostly uses men in the occupation of Gaza. To go to prison, you need a supportive family, and Danielle says her own family does not support her decision to refuse.
Why refuse something your family and society expect of you? Danielle Yaor says that most Israelis do not know about the suffering of Palestinians. She knows and chooses not to be a part of it. “I have to refuse to take part in the war crimes that my country does,” she says. “Israel has become a very fascist country that doesn’t accept others. Since I was young we’ve been trained to be these masculine soldiers who solve problems by violence. I want to use peace to make the world better.”
Yaor is touring the United States, speaking at events together with a Palestinian. She describes the events thus far as “amazing” and says that people “are very supportive.” Stopping the hatred and violence is “everyone’s responsibility,” she says — “all the people of the world.”
In November she’ll be back in Israel, speaking and demonstrating. With what goal?
One state, not two. “There’s not enough space anymore for two states. There can be one state of Israel-Palestine, based on peace and love and people living together.” How can we get there?
As people become aware of Palestinians’ suffering, says Danielle, they should support BDS (boycotts, divestments, and sanctions). The U.S. government should end its financial support for Israel and its occupation.
Since the latest attacks on Gaza, Israel has moved further to the right, she says, and it has become harder to “encourage youth not to be part of the brainwashing that is part of the education system.” The letter above was published “everywhere possible” and was the first many had ever heard that there was a choice available other than the military.
“We want the occupation to end,” says Danielle Yaor, “so that we can all live an honorable life in which all of our rights will be respected.”
Clarity vs. befoggery: Troglodytes, Weasels and Young Turks
By John Grant
I’m a leftist, but I have a weakness for my brothers and sisters on the right. For some reason, I’m compelled to see what troglodytes like Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Megyn Kelly are thinking. They’re all quite entertaining as they do their best to un-man Barack Obama and advocate day-in, day-out for a war with Islam. They are masters of malicious fog.
Then there’s a writer like New York Times columnist David Brooks, a man who must sit around observing current events until he figures out a safe, center-right position he can express in the most reasonable, muddled language possible. Reading David Brooks is like trying to get a grip on jello.
Republicans, Democrats, War and Corporate Profits
In 1969, at the height of the U.S. war against Vietnam, Edwin Starr recorded a song called ‘War’, that reached number one on the charts. Among the lyrics are these:
War: What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Much as one would like to believe these simple lyrics, there are facts that belie them. In a report from the Financial Times from March of 2013, it is stated that private contractors earned at least a whopping $139 billion dollars from the U.S. war against Iraq up to that time, and that total is ever increasing. Kellogg, Brown and Root, a former subsidiary of Haliburton, the company once run by former Vice President Dick Cheney, the architect of this war, earned nearly $40 billion.
Desmond Tutu: “My Plea to the People of Israel: Liberate Yourselves by Liberating Palestine”
by Desmond Tutu
published on Haaretz 14 Aug 2014
The past weeks have witnessed unprecedented action by members of civil society across the world against the injustice of Israel’s disproportionately brutal response to the firing of missiles from Palestine.
If you add together all the people who gathered over the past weekend to demand justice in Israel and Palestine – in Cape Town, Washington, D.C., New York, New Delhi, London, Dublin and Sydney, and all the other cities – this was arguably the largest active outcry by citizens around a single cause ever in the history of the world.
Israel News - Aug 23, 2014
VIDEO: Hamas gunmen execute 18 'collaborators' for helping Israel - YouTube
Palestinian Authority: Hamas arrested, shot Fatah activists during war with Israel - World Tribune
Gaza rocket that killed four-year-old Israeli was launched near UNRWA school, says IDF - JPost
VIDEO, PHOTOS: Deadly Gaza Mortar Attack Which Killed 4-Year-Old Child - JP Updates
Gaza Rocket Hits Israeli Synagogue, 3 Wounded - huffingtonpost.com
REPORT (Full): New Israeli Declassified Report Exposes Hamas Human Shield Policy - slideshare.net
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Palestinian Authority forces clash with Hamas protesters in West Bank - The Times of Israel
VIDEO: Palestinian Authority forces clash with Hamas protesters in West Bank - YouTube
PHOTOS: Hamas protests in West Bank turn violent - The Washington Post
Abbas castigated Mashaal in Qatar meeting, official says - The Times of Israel
Report: Abbas Forces Mashaal Back to Truce Talks - Arutz Sheva
Abbas, Meshaal seek UN timetable to end Israel occupation - Yahoo News UK
Europe, US mull UN resolution on Gaza truce - MiamiHerald.com
Haniyeh: Hamas will not accept less than end to blockade - Maan News Agency
Press Release of Abu Obeida, Al Qassam spokesperson - Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades
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Israeli airstrikes kill 3 top Hamas commanders in Gaza Strip - The Washington Post
VIDEO: Massive Funeral Procession for Hamas Military Leaders Killed in Gaza - YouTube
Gaza counts cost of war as more than 360 factories destroyed or damaged - theguardian.com
Smuggling between Sinai and Gaza still thriving - The Times of Israel
How Gaza’s Christians View the Hamas-Israeli Conflict - Christianity Today
Gaza's Christians Defy Hamas With Illegal Wine - MUNCHIES
Hold up of US missile shipment to Israel reportedly resolved - The Times of Israel
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle_at_gmail.com (replacing _at_ with @)
Israel News - Aug 21, 2014
IDF destroys homes of the suspected murderers of the three kidnapped Jewish teens - JPost
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Israeli Airstrikes Kill Wife, Child of Hamas Military Leader - VOA
Hamas Denies IDF Killed Gaza Military Chief, Mohammed Deif (VIDEO) - Algemeiner.com
At funeral thousands mourn slain wife, baby of Hamas commander - THE DAILY STAR
VIDEO: Funeral held for wife and child of Hamas military chief - YouTube
Hamas Threatens Ben-Gurion Airport, Warns Airlines to Stay Away - Arutz Sheva
Hamas says fired rockets at off-shore Israeli gas well - Reuters
Rights groups say Israeli ban hinders Gaza investigation - Reuters
Israel/Egypt: Provide Rights Groups Access to Gaza - Human Rights Watch
UN Security Council urges Israel, Palestinians to resume talks - Channel NewsAsia
Qatar 'threatened to expel Mashaal' if he agreed to Egypt deal - The Times of Israel
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Fatah were in the dark over Hamas coup plot - i24news
Meshaal, Abbas to Meet in Qatar Despite Alleged Coup - Arutz Sheva
Ankara rejects Israeli claim Turkey helped coup in West Bank - CİHAN
Palestinian Authority says Hamas shot Fatah men in legs during Gaza fighting - JPost
Hamas and Fatah: The rift - The Times of Israel
ARCHIVE: Hamas West Bank head arrested, indicted for planning wave of terror attacks - JPost
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle_at_gmail.com (replacing _at_ with @)
Death of Seaman Who Saved the USS Liberty Brings Memories of Israeli Attack
A USS Liberty’s Hero’s Passing
Editor Comment: Silver Star winner Terry Halbardier, the hero who got off the SOS that saved the USS Liberty from Israeli destruction in 1967, died last week in California, prompting ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern to recall the murderous attack and the cowardly cover-up that followed.
By Ray McGovern
Terry Halbardier, who – as a 23-year old seaman in 1967 – thwarted Israeli attempts to sink the USS Liberty, died on Aug. 11 in Visalia, California. It took the U.S. government 42 years after the attack to recognize Halbardier’s heroism by awarding him the Silver Star, a delay explained by Washington’s determination to downplay Israeli responsibility for the 34 Americans killed and the 174 wounded.
A Meditation on Peacemaking: Americans Need to Break the Cycle of War
By John Grant
All we are saying is give peace a chance
-John Lennon
Avoid bullies and thugs: Beware the World’s Leading War-Monger and Terrorist Organization
By Dave Lindorff
There’s an old adage that goes: “You can judge a man by the company he keeps.”
If that’s the case, then applying it to nations, the world has to judge the US to be a truly wretched and repugnant country, and should be steering clear of it.
Israel News - Aug 9, 2014
A Boy at Play in Gaza, an Israeli Missile, a Mourning Family - NYTimes.com
U.N. Reports Dire Impact on Children in Gaza Strip - NYTimes.com
Scale of Gaza civilian deaths 'mustn't happen again': Red Cross - Yahoo News
One Palestinian dead, dozens wounded in West Bank clashes - The Times of Israel
Iron Dome intercepts two rockets over Beersheba; Three Israelis hurt in south - JPost
Palestinian shift may bring war crimes case closer to Israel - Reuters
In Gaza, dispute over civilian vs combatant deaths - The Washington Post
Caution needed with Gaza casualty figures - BBC News
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Full text of the European plan backing U.N. monitoring mission in Gaza - scribd.com
UN: Arab states call for reconstruction in Gaza - Worldbulletin News
Egypt officials say Israel demands Gaza demilitarization - altahrir
Hamas threatens attacks if blockade is not lifted - The Portland Press Herald
What does Hamas want, and what may it get? - Ynetnews
Is it time for a Marshall Plan for Gaza? - The Washington Post
Gaza Symposium: Is reconstruction for demilitarisation the way forward? (AUDIO) - fathomjournal.org
Ruined Gaza Will Not Be Rebuilt By Hamas, But International Aid - ibtimes.com
Hamas backers spend fortunes on rockets and tunnels while Gazans live in misery - Fox News
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Hamas Executes One of Its Leaders, Then Blames Israel - gatestoneinstitute.org
Archbishop: Hamas Fired Out of Our Church in Gaza (VIDEO) - Algemeiner.com
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle_at_gmail.com (replacing _at_ with @)
Killing Lt. Goldin...and 150 innocents: The IDF’s ‘Hannibal Protocol’ and Two Criminally Insane Governments
By Dave Lindorff
The sickness of present-day Israel, on display over the past horrible month of the one-sided slaughter of over 2000 Palestinians (including over 400 children) in the fenced-in ghetto of Gaza, has finally reached its nadir with the ugly case of the deliberate Israeli Defense Force murder of captured IDF 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin.
Israel News - Aug 7, 2014
Gaza cease-fire takes hold ahead of talks with Israelis in Cairo - The Washington Post
As Cairo Talks Begin, Hamas Vows Never to Disarm - Arutz Sheva
Analysis: Hamas emerges weakened from Gaza war - AP
Hamas Learns It Has Few Friends In Latest War With Israel - NBC News
War-weary Gazans lash out at Hamas - Fox News
POLL: New Poll Shows Support for Hamas Plummeting in Gaza - Clarion Project
VIDEO: "May Allah Curse Them!” Gazans Share Harsh Words for Hamas - The Gateway Pundit
Report: Hamas spokesperson attacked by Gaza civilians - Ynetnews
Hamas Combat Manual Explains Benefits of Using Human Shields - americanthinker
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Obama: No sympathy for Hamas, but Gaza blockade cannot go on - The Times of Israel
VIDEO: Obama Has ‘No Sympathy’ for Hamas, ‘Great Sympathy’ for People of Gaza - CNN
VIDEO: Americans Continue to Support Israel's Actions Against Hamas - gallup.com
Jimmy Carter pushes US to recognize Hamas, slams Israel in op-ed - Fox News
Jimmy Carter Op-Ed: How to Fix It - foreignpolicy.com
The Hamas Charter: Selected Excerpts - Israel Foreign Affairs News
Full Text of The Hamas Charter - Palestine Center
VIDEO: Cleric on Hamas TV: Muslims to Exterminate the Jews - breitbart.com
Hamas TV: Dress up like Jews to execute suicide bombings (PHOTOS) - PMW Bulletins
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle_at_gmail.com (replacing _at_ with @)
If a Genocide Falls in the Forest
There's a wide and mysterious chasm between the stated intentions of the Israeli government as depicted by the U.S. media and what the Israeli government has been doing in Gaza, even as recounted in the U.S. media.
With the morgues full, Gazans are packing freezers with their dead children. Meanwhile, the worst images to be found in Israel depict fear, not death and suffering. Why the contrast? If the Israeli intent is defensive, why are 97% of the deaths Gazan, not Israeli? If the targets are fighters, why are whole families being slaughtered and their houses leveled? Why are schools and hospitals and children playing on the beach targeted? Why target water and electricity if the goal is not to attack an entire population?
The mystery melts away if you look at the stated intentions of the Israeli government as not depicted by the U.S. media but readily available in Israeli media and online.
On August 1st, the Deputy Speaker of Israel's Parliament posted on his FaceBook page a plan for the complete destruction of the people of Gaza using concentration camps. He had laid out a somewhat similar plan in a July 15th column.
Another member of the Israeli Parliament, Ayelet Shaked, called for genocide in Gaza at the start of the current war, writing: "Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there."
Taking a slightly different approach, Middle East scholar Dr. Mordechai Kedar of Bar-Ilan University has been widely quoted in Israeli media saying, "The only thing that can deter [Gazans] is the knowledge that their sister or their mother will be raped."
The Times of Israel published a column on August 1st, and later unpublished it, with the headline "When Genocide Is Permissible." The answer turned out to be: now.
On August 5th, Giora Eiland, former head of Israel's National Security Council, published a column with the headline "In Gaza, There Is No Such Thing as 'Innocent Civilians'." Eiland wrote: "We should have declared war against the state of Gaza (rather than against the Hamas organization). . . . [T]he right thing to do is to shut down the crossings, prevent the entry of any goods, including food, and definitely prevent the supply of gas and electricity."
It's all part of putting Gaza "on a diet," in the grotesque wording of an advisor to a former Israeli Prime Minister.
If it were common among members of the Iranian or Russian government to speak in favor of genocide, you'd better believe the U.S. media would notice. Why does this phenomenon go unremarked in the case of Israel? Noticing it is bound to get you called an anti-Semite, but that's hardly a concern worthy of notice while children are being killed by the hundreds.
Another explanation is U.S. complicity. The weapons Israel is using are given to it, free-of-charge, by the U.S. government, which also leads efforts to provide Israel immunity for its crimes. Check out this revealing map of which nations recognize the nation of Palestine.
A third explanation is that looking too closely at what Israel's doing could lead to someone looking closely at what the U.S. has done and is doing. Roughly 97% of the deaths in the 2003-2011 war on Iraq were Iraqi. Things U.S. soldiers and military leaders said about Iraqis were shameful and genocidal.
War is the biggest U.S. investment, and contemporary war is almost always a one-sided slaughter of civilians. If seeing the horror of it in Israeli actions allow us to begin seeing the same in U.S. actions, an important step will have been taken toward war's elimination.
Yes, how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
Assault on Gaza: The Moral Agonies of Asymmetrical Diplomacy
By John Grant
At a birthday dinner with friends last night, the Israeli assault on Gaza came up. One friend said having to helplessly watch the violence infuriated him and made him ill. Another said it made him want to cry.
Israel News - Aug 2, 2014
UN Chief Blames Hamas for Breaking Cease-Fire - ABC News
Egypt delays Gaza talks after Israel soldier 'captured': Islamic Jihad - THE DAILY STAR
VIDEO: Arab states turn against Hamas - CNN
Saudi King Condemns Gaza War but Not Israel - ABC News
US Senate approves funding for Israel’s Iron Dome - The Washington Post
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How Hamas Uses Ambulances for Military Purposes (VIDEO) - jspacenews.com
VIDEO: The footage at the end shows UN ambulance transporting Hamas fighters - YouTube
VIDEO: Children and guns at Hamas summer camp - JerusalemOnline
VIDEO: Islamic Jihad showcases rocket capabilities - The Times of Israel
Hamas Loses Grip On Gaza Government Amid War, Poverty, Disillusionment - ibtimes.com
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle_at_gmail.com (replacing _at_ with @)
Guess Who Cheers When Cease-Fires Collapse
Among those who cheer when a cease-fire ends and killing resumes are those who want more Palestinians slaughtered as a form of mass punishment for fictional offenses. Also among those cheering are certain mainstream U.S. newspaper columnists. In fact, at least one person is clearly in both of the above categories.
My local newspaper in Charlottesville, Va., printed a column on Friday from Thomas Sowell, distributed by Creators Syndicate but actually written for the right-wing Jewish World Review. Sowell writes:
"It is understandable that today many people in many lands just want the fighting between the Israelis and the Palestinians to stop. Calls for a cease-fire are ringing out from the United Nations and from Washington, as well as from ordinary people in many places around the world. According to the New York Times, Secretary of State John Kerry is hoping for a cease-fire to 'open the door to Israeli and Palestinian negotiations for a long-term solution.' President Obama has urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to have an 'immediate, unconditional humanitarian cease-fire' -- again, with the idea of pursuing some long-lasting agreement."
Here is where Sowell might logically object to Washington shipping Israel more weaponry in the midst of proposing cease-fires and mumbling quietly about the inappropriateness of particular bits of the mass-murder underway. John Kerry doesn't hope for a long-term solution any more than he knew Syria used chemical weapons or Putin shot down a plane or Iraq deserved to be destroyed before it didn't but after it did. John Kerry knows the U.S. provides the weaponry and the criminal immunity to a nation intent on completing the process of eliminating its native peoples, as Kerry's own nation effectively did long ago. There's no solution possible in that context other than a Final Solution for Palestinians. But this is not what Sowell goes on to say.
"If this was the first outbreak of violence between the Palestinians and the Israelis, such hopes might make sense. But where have the U.N., Kerry and Obama been during all these decades of endlessly repeated Middle East carnage?"
Well, the same place all of their Republican and Democratic predecessors have been, supporting endless armaments for Israel and most of its neighbors, and vetoing any U.N. resolutions that would impose any consequences for Israel's occupation, blockade, and Apartheid repression on the basis of religion and race.
"The Middle East must lead the world in cease-fires. If cease-fires were the road to peace, the Middle East would easily be the most peaceful place on the planet."
Stop for a moment and appreciate the unfathomable stupidity of that remark. One might as well say the Middle East must lead the world in U.S. weapons imports or the Middle East must lead the world in wars. If these were paths to peace, the Middle East would easily be the most peaceful place on the planet. One might also just as easily say the Middle East must lead the world in the brevity of its cease-fires, with cease-fires elsewhere lasting longer, and with as many broken agreements lying in the sand of the Middle East as anywhere since the last big batch of promises made to Native Americans. One might even just as easily say the Middle East must lead the world in resumptions of fighting, rather than in halts to fighting. But that's not where Sowell is headed. He's out to reverse Benjamin Franklin's notion that there has never been a good war or a bad peace.
"'Cease-fire' and 'negotiations' are magic words to 'the international community.' But just what do cease-fires actually accomplish? In the short run, they save some lives. But in the long run they cost far more lives, by lowering the cost of aggression."
Here it comes. Just as the Jewish World Review wants to make poor people "self-sufficient" by denying them any assistance, Sowell wants to teach the people of Palestine a lesson for their own good. Of course people dispossessed of their land, made refugees, entrapped and blockaded, and targeted with missiles that level their homes and explode in their schools and hospitals and shelters are unusual suspects to accuse of aggression. And for those who shoot rockets, so ineffectively and counter-productively, into Israel, the lesson Sowell wants to teach through mass slaughter is demonstrably not taught. Everyone in Gaza will tell you that Israeli violence increases support for Palestinian violence. Not every Palestinian understands that the reverse is also true, that the rockets fuel Israeli attacks, but that hardly justifies their murder or creates a lesson where Sowell imagines Israeli missiles teaching one.
"At one time, launching a military attack on another nation risked not only retaliation but annihilation. When Carthage attacked Rome, that was the end of Carthage."
Ah, the good old days, when any colony or challenger that stepped out of line could be wiped out, starved out, and cleansed from the earth.
"But when Hamas or some other terrorist group launches an attack on Israel, they know in advance that whatever Israel does in response will be limited by calls for a cease-fire, backed by political and economic pressures from the United States."
The political pressure of Kerry groveling before Netanyahu? Of Susan Rice explaining to the world that Kerry never meant to negotiate and has always been 100% in Israel's camp? Of Obama joining Sowell in blaming the victims? The economic pressure of the free weapons continuing to flow from the U.S. to Israel? What sort of fantasy is this?
One possibility is that it's a fantasy of racism or culturalism. Americans are rational beings in this fantasy. It would only make sense to apply obvious points of pressure for a cease-fire once you've proposed one. Arming the Middle East for peace would be insanity. So, Sowell perhaps fantasizes that sanity and rationality prevail. Except in places like Palestine or Iran:
"Those who say that we can contain a nuclear Iran, as we contained a nuclear Soviet Union, are acting as if they are discussing abstract people in an abstract world. Whatever the Soviets were, they were not suicidal fanatics, ready to see their own cities destroyed in order to destroy ours. . . . Even if the Israelis were all saints -- and sainthood is not common in any branch of the human race -- the cold fact is that they are far more advanced than their neighbors, and groups that cannot tolerate even subordinate Christian minorities can hardly be expected to tolerate an independent, and more advanced, Jewish state that is a daily rebuke to their egos."
Since when does Iran not tolerate minorities? Since when is it populated by 76 million suicidal fanatics?
You see, not only do the Gazans want to die, in the view of Sowell and so many others we've been hearing from via our so-called public airwaves, because it makes good footage, because they have a culture of martyrdom -- you've heard all the explanations for Gazans stubbornly remaining in their homes and hospitals rather than swimming to Cyprus as normal people would do -- but the source of Gazans' irrational aggression against the benevolent power that stole their land and starves their children and bans the importation of books is -- wait for it -- jealousy. It's wounded egos. Just as poor Americans are jealous of the success of those with the wisdom and fortitude to be born into the families of billionaires, so Palestinians resent the superiority, the Ubermenschness of the people who have been clever enough to get born into Pentagon subsidies.
As a contrasting view of the world to Sowell's allow me to offer this new Willie Nelson video (http://youtu.be/MezGqmMCrwo):
Israel News - Aug 1, 2014
Israel, Hamas agree on 72-hour humanitarian Gaza ceasefire - Yahoo News
Netanyahu Says 'Protective Edge' Goal is Demilitarization of Gaza - Algemeiner.com
Netanyahu's vision for Gaza: Internationally supervised demilitarization - Haaretz
Op-Ed of Shaul Mofaz, Chairman of the Kadima party: Gaza demilitarization is vital - Israel Hayom
Disarm Gaza? Why Israel's idea deserves a look. - CSMonitor.com
Report: U.S. Has Sold Ammunition to Israel Since Start of Gaza Conflict - ABC News
US Senate Passes Resolution In Support of Israel - The Times of Israel
Arab Leaders Silent, Viewing Hamas as Worse Than Israel - NYTimes.com
Cairo denies Hamas an audience without Fatah umbrella - JPost
Egyptian media reveals just how isolated Hamas is - The Washington Post
Qatari tech helps Hamas in tunnels, rockets: Expert - The Times of Israel
UNRWA spokesman denies handing rockets over to Hamas - The Times of Israel
Nunn’s validation of Islamic Relief USA reveals system-wide failure - Money Jihad
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Mohammed Deif: elusive Hamas military chief defying Israel - Yahoo News
Who is Hamas’ military chief Mohammed Deif aka ‘Phantom’? - Al Akhbar English
Deif the Islamic holy warrior unites Hamas - The Times of Israel
Gaza crisis: Who's who in Hamas - CNN.com
Netanyahu 'Nixed' Idea of Killing Hamas Leaders - Arutz Sheva
Tunnels and rockets, but no top brass: Why Hamas' leadership is still alive - Ynetnews
VIDEO: IDF footage: 12 Examples of Hamas Firing Rockets from Civilian Areas - YouTube
VIDEO: IDF Forces Find & Destroy Terror Tunnel In Gaza Mosque - YouTube
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NYT on why it hasn’t shown photos of Hamas fighters: We don’t have any - Jewish Journal
In LA Times Gaza-Israel Photo Slideshow, Hamas Not in Picture - CAMERA
Hamas threatening journalists in Gaza who expose abuse of civilians - The Times of Israel
Trapped in Gaza: How Hamas punishes reporters for the truth - The Australian
Journalists threatened by Hamas for reporting use of human shields - JPost
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle_at_gmail.com (replacing _at_ with @)
TODAY AT 12PM: ARTISTS & ACTIVISTS STAGE "MARCH OF DEAD" ON ISRAELI CONSULATE
Masked & Black-Clad Mourners will March on Consulate in Memorial for Thousand Gazans Killed
NEW YORK, NY — Members of the arts and activism collective We Will Not Be Silent will march upon the Israeli consulate at 12pm EST today, Thursday July 31, 2014. Donned in black clothing and face masks, the group hopes to memorialize the names of the Palestinians who have lost their lives in the recent bombardments of the Gaza strip.
We Will not Be Silent has issued the following statement in advance of today's march:
"In the name of decency we must act. Artists and activists, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and atheists, we join together to create an arresting visual presence on the streets of NYC. We carry the names of the dead in Gaza. We march to the Israeli Consulate. We are the March of The Dead.
"We will create a representation of the carnage from the war crimes perpetrated by the State of Israel on the civilian population of Palestinians in Gaza.
"'We will not be silent...we are your bad conscience...we will not leave you in peace.' - The White Rose resistance movement against Nazi Germany"
WHAT: Protest march on Israeli Consulate, creative visuals.
WHEN: Thursday, July 31st, 12PM EST
WHERE: Israeli Consulate, 800 2nd Ave, New York, NY
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WE WILL NOT BE SILENT is an artist/activist collective that has been in existence since 2006. Through the creative use of language embodied on shirts and emboldened on signs held up in public spaces, we respond to current social justice issues, encouraging creative, direct public-actions where many people can participate.
Should Israel Teach the Holocaust Less?
Humans almost invariably imagine humans to be far more imaginative and original than they are. But most of our ideas come from (often imperfect and improvised) imitation. And even more powerful than our tendency to imitate is our inability to refrain from imitating, to shake an idea out of our heads once it's there, to "not think of an elephant."
Anthropologists have found cultures whose members cannot conceive of killing. "Why won't you shoot an arrow at those slave raiders?" "Because it would kill them."
In Western culture, children hear of killing in fairy tales, cartoons, Harry Potter books, video games, the TV news, the newspaper, the games played in the park. It's everywhere. Usually it's frowned upon, although often a distinction is made between bad killing by bad guys and good killing by good guys, or inexplicable random killing and killing justified and sanctified by bitter revenge.
But even when a behavior is frowned upon, the listener or viewer has now heard of that behavior. There have been studies of children's responses to stories and television dramas in which fictional children misbehave for three-quarters of the episode and then learn an important moral lesson at the end. Guess what? Kids don't retroactively view the whole story as a package and wipe the bad behavior out of their minds. Instead they display a tendency to try out the behavior demonstrated to them in so many of the isolated moments that they lived while watching or listening to the story.
Humans also almost invariably imagine humans to be far kinder and far more selfless than they are. Most of us very much want others to be kind to us, and we try our best to be kind to others. So, when we see behaviors and institutions that cause horrendous suffering, we like to imagine there is a rational cause, a greater good, or that the explanation is incompetence or stupidity -- anything other than the most obvious explanation: vicious, evil sadism.
We are often encouraged to picture vicious cruelty and irrational evil in certain foreign groups of humans. But usually this perspective is intended to help us avoid seeing cruelty in those who are supposedly like ourselves.
These thoughts arise as I'm confronted by the polling showing that 95% of Israelis deem the slaughter of Gazans to be just, and the realization that for many in Israel "just" is a rather disgusting euphemism for "satisfyingly sadistic." People are sitting on hills watching the missiles hit the homes, some of them telling cameras they want everyone killed, and then explaining that their thoughts are "a little bit fascist."
This week we'll be remembering Harry Truman's bombing of Japan with nuclear weapons, and we'll be told that he must have believed those acts of mass murder would help end the war, even though the evidence shows he knew otherwise. Truman had earlier advocated aiding the Russians or the Germans, whoever was losing, so that as many people as possible would die, he said. Top U.S. military officials wanted Japan cleansed of all human life. The most likely explanation for the nukes, namely that Truman viewed killing lots of Japanese as an advantage to be weighed along with impressing the Russians and so forth, is too ugly, so we turn away. We even have to turn away from his own statement on the occasion, which justified the bombing in terms of revenge, not in terms of ending the war.
Also this week we'll mark 50 years since the Gulf of Tonkin fraud. We like to imagine such incidents, even when they result in the deaths of 4 million foreigners, as misunderstandings. But during the course of the savagery that followed, how was progress gauged? That's right: by body counts.
Examples of evil policies, in one's own or other parts of the world, flood in the moment you begin to look for them. The evidence is clear that locking kids up in juvenile prisons makes them more likely, not less likely, to grow into criminals. But we just go on locking them up for other motives we don't care to examine too closely. We've learned what it's impolite to mention. Support for wars in Afghanistan or Iraq is discussed on television in terms of "strategic interests" and other such blather, but the counter-demonstrators across the street from a peace rally sometimes have different desires, including the death of foreigners -- and of the peace activists with them.
Courageous peace activists in Israel have been facing hostile counter-demonstrations from those in their society who have moved in a different direction.
There are many reasons why I shouldn't make any observation on Israeli society, beginning with the fact that I know very little about it. But when a nation is continually engaging in the most horrific and massive crimes, using weapons and criminal immunity provided by my nation, and protests are raging around the earth, when the news is packed with information, analysis, propaganda, and poisonous pontificating, when the peace meetings I go to discuss the matter at great length, when the guests on my radio show and the books I read and Israelis I meet begin to inform me a little, and when the problem appears enormous and glaring but guarded by a protection of intimidation and obedience, then I think tossing an idea into the mix may be justified, despite being dramatically more impolite by U.S. standards than criticizing Harry Truman or LBJ.
Israel is a nation where children grow up learning about the holocaust, marking the holocaust with holidays, planning trips to Germany to visit the camps. U.S. children dress up as Pilgrims and Indians, but nobody tells them that the Pilgrims ended up murdering the Indians, or what it was like to be an Indian child preparing to be murdered or watching your loved ones murdered. The U.S. origin story is, appropriately enough, one of feasting, not one of genocide. I'm speaking of how it is told, of course, rather than what actually happened.
To criticize the Israeli government for its wars, even though I also criticize every other government for their wars, generates inevitable and truly stupid accusations of anti-Semitism. But criticizing the teaching of the holocaust, which I've never done before, seems likely to go beyond that into an area of accusations of holocaust denial. I have, of course, been there. I've been accused of denying the holocaust for opposing bombing Iran because someone in Iran supposedly denied the holocaust. I've been accused of denying the holocaust for criticizing World War II, even though the actions I express a wish had been taken include opposing fascism in its early years instead of waiting, defunding the Nazis rather than supporting them as preferable to Communists, and finding homes for Jewish refugees when they needed them, rather than turning them away. But this is all ridiculously dumb: denying the holocaust and flooding society with its ubiquitous presence are not the only two choices, any more than leveling people's homes in Gaza and "doing nothing" are the only two choices.
To say that people are behaving like Nazis is not to say that they are exactly identical to Nazis, any more than to say that your child's piano playing is exactly like Mozart. Without question, Nazism is a source of imitation for rightwingers around the world, including in Israel. Might a lesser focus on its significance be helpful? Would a greater emphasis on peace studies do any harm?
Talk Nation Radio: Sarah Ali: Under the Missiles in Gaza, Palestine
Sarah Ali is a Palestinian living in the Gaza Strip. She has lost friends and neighbors in the current war on Gaza. She speaks to us about conditions under the bombing. Sarah Ali studied English and literature and currently is working as a teacher in Gaza City. She contributed a short story called "The Story of the Land" to the book Gaza Writes Back: Short Stories from Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine. We close the show by reading that story.
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download from Archive or LetsTryDemocracy.
Pacifica stations can also download from AudioPort.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
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Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://davidswanson.org/talknationradio
Israel News - July 30, 2014
THIRD Palestinian Rocket Arsenal Found At UNRWA School In Gaza - breitbart.com
Israel outraged over UNRWA turning over rockets to Hamas - JPost
Are UN Agencies Fighting for Human Rights or Supporting Terrorism? - Algemeiner.com
WSJ Journalists Delete Tweets About Gaza Hospital Hit by Errant Rocket - NewsBusters
Israel: Hamas still has 5,000 rockets in its arsenal - usatoday.com
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Israel pounds Gaza; Hamas rejects PLO's proposed cease-fire - LA Times
VIDEO: Full Interview with Hamas leader Mashaal - THIRTEEN
In recorded message Hamas military chief Deif says: Our fighters are eager for death, will not stop attacks until Israel lifts its blockage of Gaza - The Times of Israel
POLL: Over 90% of Jewish Israelis say Gaza op justified - The Times of Israel
U.S., Israel Strongly Decry Obama-Netanyahu Transcript as Crude Fake - NBC News.com
TRANSCRIPT: Reported transcript between Obama and Netanyahu - MarketWatch
Turkish PM Erdogan returning Jewish American award - US News
Chinese Hackers Stole 'Large Amounts' Of Tech Behind Israel's Iron Dome: Report - huffingtonpost.com
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle_at_gmail.com (replacing _at_ with @)
Israel News - July 29, 2014
VIDEO: Bodies of Gazan children slain in park playground attack - YouTube
Hamas’ Top 10 Hiding Places (VIDEO, PHOTO) - TheBlaze.com
VIDEO: Live footage of Hamas Terrorists Firing Rockets from a Gazan School - YouTube
VIDEO: Grad Rocket Launchers Discovered Next to Gaza School - YouTube
Israeli leaders vow to keep up Gaza operation until tunnels destroyed - The Times of Israel
Hamas spokesman: Israel has reached only a fraction of our tunnels - JPost
Egypt army destroys 13 more Gaza tunnels - Yahoo News
Hamas said to execute over 30 suspected collaborators with Israel - The Times of Israel
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Israel disputes US account of Kerry's ceasefire effort - The Times of Israel
Kerry: Truce 'Must Lead to Disarmament of Hamas' - Arutz Sheva
VIDEO: Statement of Kerry on Gaza ceasefire - YouTube
Hamas and Fatah to discuss ceasefire in Cairo - The Times of Israel
Islamic Relief Worldwide programs staffed by Hamas - Money Jihad
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle_at_gmail.com (replacing _at_ with @)
Israeli Genocide will Ultimately Fail
As Israel continues its unspeakable brutality, violating not only international law but basic human decency by targeting children, hospitals, mosques and private residences, its many outrages are being widely publicized, thanks to social media. One can access YouTube and see Israeli soldiers using Palestinian children as human shields. Facebook is awash with pictures of bloody, dismembered, dead children, victims of ‘the most moral army in the world’. Twitter is filled with links, all showing not only the horrors that Israel is inflicting, but the many worldwide demonstrations supporting Palestine. Numerous large such demonstrations have been held in Israel itself.
