Israel

Expressing views that are surely representative of American Jews as a whole, here's what some American Jews are saying about the violence in Gaza.

J Street has a petition demanding that the U.S. intervene to bring about an immediate resumption of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas; the petition also calls for lifting the blockade of Gaza.

The petition says:

I support immediate and strong U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to urgently reinstate a meaningful ceasefire that ends all military operations, stops the rockets aimed at Israel and lifts the blockade of Gaza. This is in the best interests of Israel, the Palestinian people and the United States.

The Dignity, a Free Gaza boat on a mission of mercy to besieged Gaza, is being attacked by the Israeli Navy in international waters. The Dignity has been surrounded by at least half-a-dozen Israeli warships. They are firing live ammunition around the Dignity, and one of the warships has rammed the civilian craft causing an unknown amount of damage. Contrary to international maritime law, the Israelis are actively preventing the Dignity from approaching Gaza or finding safe haven in either Egypt or Lebanon. Instead, the Israeli navy is demanding that the Dignity return to Cyprus - despite the fact that the ship does not carry enough fuel to do so. Fortunately, no one aboard the ship has yet been seriously injured.

New York. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) condemns Israel's massive bombardment of the Gaza Strip which has left over 300 dead and 1,400 wounded, with the tolls mounting. The Israeli Air Force dropped more than 100 bombs in dozens of locations throughout the Gaza Strip as children left school on Saturday. The dead include men, women and children in school uniforms.

"International law forbids the targeting of civilians," said Radhika Sainath, a civil rights attorney and member of the Free Gaza Committee of the NLG. "Israel must comply with laws of war and the Fourth Geneva Convention." Today's massacre marks an escalation of Israel's two-year blockade of the Strip which has deprived 1.5 million Palestinians of necessary food, medicine, fuel and other necessities. In November 2008, the United Nations stated that it had run out of food to feed over 750,000 needy Gazans.

1. Tu, 12/30, 12-2pm, Lockheed Martin's Dyna Theatre (1801 Mountain Road in Old Town) (Lockheed "benevolently" shows movies to our kids and simultaneously profits from the bombing of kids in Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, and on and on and on), Albuq

2. Tu, 12/30, 5pm, candlelight vigil and press conf at Federal Court Bldg. on Lomas between 3rd and 4th Streets, Albuq

3. Sat, 1/3, 12-1:30pm, vigil at Central and Tulane in Nob Hill, Albuq

The Hanukkah Massacres
By Gary Corseri

On the seventh day of Hanukkah, 2008, as Jews around the world were lighting the seventh candle on the menorah, commemorating the victorious rebellion of Judah Macabbee and the re-dedication of the Temple of Jerusalem 2200 years ago, a terrorist, Zionist entity, with the approval of the world's last "Superpower" rained down death and destruction on men, women and children herded together on a sliver of the land they had once cultivated and shared with their fellow Semites.

Characteristically, a spokesman for the last Superpower blamed the herded people, the bombed and slaughtered, for their own miseries. It seems these herded Palestinians had had the effrontery to rebel against their Zionist masters in Tel Aviv, London, Jerusalem, New York and Washington.

We have seen this movie before. In the summer of 2006, Israel invaded Lebanon. Replace "Hizbullah" with "Hamas" and "Lebanon" with "Gaza," and much we have seen in the last few days is depressingly familiar. Once again, the Israeli military assault is justified on the basis of the need to stop rocket attacks on Israel, even though it is widely conceded that this will not be the result. Once again, establishment voices in Washington give carte blanche to the military action, even though few believe it will accomplish its stated objectives, and everyone understands that it will impose a huge political cost for the United States around the world, especially in the Arab and Muslim world.

Israel's Wanton Aggression On Gaza
by Stephen Lendman

Former Palestinian information minister, Mustafa Barghauthi, said: Israel didn't attack Hamas, it attacked "the whole population and the free will of the people of Gaza. (Israel is guilty of) war crimes."

It's not the first time and won't be the last. On December 27, AP reported that:

"Israeli aircraft struck Hamas security compounds across Gaza on Saturday in unprecedented waves of simultaneous attacks, and Hamas and medics reported dozens of people were killed."

Haaretz headlined:

"Israel launched (Operation Case Lead) Saturday morning (at around 11:30AM with no warning) the start of a massive offensive against Qassam rocket and mortar fire on its southern communities, targeting dozens of buildings belonging to the ruling Hamas militant group."

Hoyer Statement on Situation in Gaza
WASHINGTON, DC – House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (MD) released the following statement today on the developing situation in Gaza: “Israel is acting in clear self-defense in response to heinous rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza. As a sovereign nation, Israel has an unequivocal right to take action to ensure the security and safety of her citizens. Indiscriminate attacks by Hamas are a serious detriment to the peace process in the region.”

KUCINICH CALLS FOR INDEPENDENT UNITED NATIONS INQUIRY ON GAZA
Israeli government attacks civilians in violation of international law
WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 29, 2008) — U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich today released the following statement as Israeli attacks on Gaza have gone into a third day with a pending ground invasion of Gaza by Israel:

“Today I sent a letter to Secretary General Ban ki-Moon urging the United Nations to establish an independent inquiry of Israel's war against Gaza. The attacks on civilians represent collective punishment, which is a violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm). The perpetrators of attacks against Israel must also be brought to justice, but Israel cannot create a war against an entire people in order to attempt to bring to justice the few who are responsible. The Israeli leaders know better. The world community, which has been very supportive of Israel's right to security and its right to survive, also has a right to expect Israel to conduct itself in adherence to the very laws which support the survival of Israel and every other nation,” Kucinich said.

By Norman Solomon

Israelis and Arabs “feel that only force can assure justice,” I. F. Stone noted soon after the Six Day War in 1967. And he wrote: “A certain moral imbecility marks all ethnocentric movements. The Others are always either less than human, and thus their interests may be ignored, or more than human and therefore so dangerous that it is right to destroy them.”

The closing days of 2008 have heightened the Israeli government’s stature as a mighty practitioner of the moral imbecility that Stone described.

Obama-Biden Transition Project - 451 6th St. NW at 4:30 pm Monday, December 29th

What's the death count now? 300? How many injured? 1,000?

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, defended Israel's attack. "Israel has the right to self defense," he said. The Washington Post's lead editorial today said the same thing. Meanwhile, Israel's ambassador to the U.N., Gabriela Shalev, said her country is only defending itself from Hamas. They're all reading the same script.

Israel's attacks are continuing.

Is there any way you could join us on the streets in DC tomorrow at 4:30 pm for an emergency action? The world would be happy to see you on the street. The demonstration will take place from 4:30 pm to 8:00 pm at the Obama Transition Headquarters located at 451 6th St., NW, (on 6th, between D & E) a two-block walk from either the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro on the Green Line or Judiciary Square on the Red Line: Obama-Biden Transition Project

By Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies

The death toll in Gaza continues to rise. The carnage is everywhere - city streets, a mosque, hospitals, police stations, a jail, a university bus stop, a plastics factory, a television station. It seems impossible, unacceptable, to step back to analyze the situation while bodies remain buried under the rubble, while parents continue to search for their missing children, while doctors continue to labor to stitch burned and broken bodies back together without sufficient medicine or equipment. The hospitals are running short even of electricity-the Israeli blockade has denied them fuel to run the generators. It is an ironic twist on the legacy of Israel's involvement in an earlier massacre - in the Sabra and Shatila camps, in Lebanon back in 1982, it was the Israeli soldiers who lit the flairs, lighting the night sky so their Lebanese allies could continue to kill.

Tell Congress to enforce the law.

Gaza --The Israeli Air Force attacked the occupied Gaza Strip killing an estimated 200 or more people and injuring hundreds more, yesterday. (See video)These Israeli attacks come on top of a brutal siege of the Gaza Strip, which has created a humanitarian catastrophe of dire proportions for Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinian residents by restricting the provision of food, fuel, medicine, electricity, and other necessities of life. A virtually unarmed and starving people, the Palestinians of Gaza have been living under an illegal blockade and lock down for the past six months.

As Bill Fletcher warned on this site less than two weeks ago, silence toward human rights abuses against the Palestinian people means the removal or elimination of a people, a stated objective of a segment of the Israeli ruling class.

by Linda Milazzo

For years since the United States invaded Iraq, I've witnessed countless photo and video images of innocent civilians - men, women, teens and children - being rudely and aggressively threatened by hired uniformed militants (mostly men), wielding guns. I've seen these images from Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti, Palestine, and more. Whether they be armed American military threatening Iraqis, armed Israeli soldiers threatening Palestinians, or armed Ethiopian troops threatening Somalis, the images have always disturbed me. There's an inherent injustice to such blatant imbalance of power. An injustice I suffered recently myself.

The oddity here is that unlike those less fortunate innocents in war zones who faced the guns of hired aggressors, I was not in a war zone when I faced mine. I wasn't even in a high crime zone. I was in a gentle middle class suburb, where my aggressor, an armed Brinks, Inc. security guard, was in full combat-mode performing his non war-zone duty. My aggressor more typified the machismo of a Blackwater guard than the demeanor of community-minded Brinks, when he flailed his loaded gun at me, as though he'd done it often before. My armed Brinks aggressor was not merely disrespectful. He was downright hostile and dangerous. He treated me as his enemy and freely showed me his force.

Here's how it happened:

By Phyllis Bennis

Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories,wasn't allowed into Israel on a recent trip. That action fits a pattern of Israeli efforts to hide the human consequences of the siege of Gaza and of the escalating settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Richard Falk was detained at the airport and denied entry to Israel on December 13, when he arrived in Tel Aviv. The American professor of international law was traveling to the West Bank and Gaza, to fulfill his mandate as the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories to investigate the human rights conditions affecting the civilian population. His most urgent task includes monitoring the rising humanitarian crisis facing the 1.5 million Palestinians, of whom half are children, living in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Obama v. Richard Falk on Israel and Occupied Palestine
by Stephen Lendman

Obama leaves no ambiguity where he stands. From public statements, campaign pledges, policy advisors, and war cabinet selections, his positions affirm:

• one-sided pro-Israeli zealotry;
• continued Palestinian oppression;
• no end to the Iraq war and occupation;
• possibly attacking Iran and/or allying with Israel to do it;
• pursuing an imperial agenda; targeting Pakistan, Russia and other countries;
• expanding the size of the military; increasing expenditures for it; and
• providing Israel annually with billions of dollars; the latest weapons and technology; the same zero interest rate loans Wall Street gets; liberal debt forgiveness; virtually anything Israel requests on the pretext of security, to wage aggressive war, or expand its illegal settlements; and
• acquiescing and remaining silent after Israel insulted a high UN official by harassing and detaining him, then expelling him from the country.

Here's a Jerusalem Post article that mentions the use of radar provided by the U.S. but does not mention the recent withdrawal agreement in Iraq under which the U.S. will supposedly not control Iraqi air space and therefore not be able to provide it to Israel for purposes of bombing Iran.

Israel’s Settlement on Capitol Hill
by Robert Weitzel | Media With a Conscience.com

“With [traditional Israeli defense strategists] it’s all about tanks and land and controlling territories . . . and this hilltop and that hilltop. All these things are worthless.” -Incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

Soon after the sand settled following the Six Day War in 1967, Jewish settlements began dotting the hills in the occupied territories. These settlements are typically located on the high ground to better control the surrounding landscape. Today there are 127 Jewish settlements with a population exceeding 468,000 in the West Bank, the Golan Heights and in the suburbs of East Jerusalem—the last of nearly 8,000 settlers were removed from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Israel's Slow-Motion Genocide in Occupied Palestine
by Stephen Lendman

Imagine life under these conditions:

Living in limbo under a foreign occupier. Having no self-determination, no right of return, and no power over your daily life. Being in constant fear, economically strangled, and collectively punished.

Having your free movement denied by enclosed population centers, closed borders, regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, electric fences, and separation walls. Having your homes regularly demolished and land systematically stolen to build settlements for encroachers in violation of international law prohibiting an occupier from settling its population on conquered land.

Iranian blogger arrested as Israeli spy | Jerusalem Post

An Iranian blogger who visited Israel at least twice in the past three years, and who was twice interviewed here by The Jerusalem Post about his efforts to "humanize" Israel for Iranians and vice-versa, has reportedly been arrested in Teheran and admitted to spying for Israel.

According to a report in Jahan News, which is close to Iran's intelligence community, quoted by the Middle East analyst Meir Javedanfar, the blogger, Hossein Derakhshan, returned to Iran about three weeks ago, having previously been based in Canada.

"Prior to his return," Javedanfar writes on his middleeastanalyst.com Web site, Derakhshan had "started attacking [former Iranian president] Ayatollah [Hashemi] Rafsanjani in his blog. It is possible that he fell foul of a power struggle within Iran."

Reported on Press TV.

Extrajudicial Assassinations As Official Israeli Policy
by Stephen Lendman

Extra-judicial killings are indefensible, morally abhorrent, and illegal under international laws and norms. Article 23b of the 1907 Hague Regulations prohibits "assassination, proscription, or outlawry of an enemy, or putting a price upon an enemy's head, as well as offering a reward for any enemy 'dead or alive.' "

Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." UDHR also recognizes the "inherent dignity (and the) equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family."

Darlene Wallach is in a new prison in Ramle, a men's prison, but she's in a section reserved for illegal immigrants.

She wanted to pass on this information, "We were fishing about 7 miles off the shores of Gaza. The Israeli soldiers came on board the three boats via four Zodiacs. The frogmen came up and over each boat. They used a taser on Vik while he was still on the boat, then tried to push him backwards onto a sharp piece of wood.. He jumped into the sea to avoid being hurt more than he already was and was in the water for quite a while.

Then they came for me and forced me into the Zodiac at the point of a gun. They said, "You are in Israeli territory." even though is was obvious that all three boats were in Palestinian territory. They kidnapped me and Andrew and Vik and all of the Palestinian fishermen."
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The deeper we are stuck in our Auschwitz past, the more difficult it becomes to be free of it.
By Avraham Burg, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Nataf, Israel — Even today, when economic storms are shaking markets around the world, posing a threat to the stability of entire countries and societies, Israel continues to conduct its business far from the turmoil, as if swimming in a private ocean of its own. True, the headlines are alerting the public here about the crisis, and the politicians are hastily recalculating their budgets. But none of this is dramatically changing the way we think about ourselves.

For Peace, the U.S. Will Have to Change
By Cherrie Heywood | IPSNEWS.net

Barack Obama has been elected U.S. President at a time when the number of extremists has risen dramatically since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, going by the resistance to Western forces in the region. The U.S.-led 'war on terror' has itself now become a threat to peace.

A combination of despotic Arab regimes propped up by the West, neo-colonialism, religious intolerance, educational stagnation, a clash of cultures and religious ideology, and a U.S. foreign policy biased in favour of Israel has further helped build this situation.

Given the possibility of an attack on Iran, the near future appears even more ominous. But all hope is not lost, according to both an Israeli and a Palestinian analyst.

By Gideon Levy, Haaretz

The march of parochialism started right away. The tears of excitement invoked by U.S. president-elect Barack Obama's wonderful speech had not yet dried, and back here people were already delving into the only real question they could think to ask: Is this good or bad for Israel? One after another, the analysts and politicians got up - all of them representing one single school of thought, of course ‐ and began prophesizing.

They spoke with the caution that the situation required, gritting their teeth as though their mouths were full of pebbles, trying to soothe all the fears and concerns. They searched and found signs in Obama: The promising appointment of the Israeli ex-patriots' son [Rahn Emanuel], whose father belonged to the Irgun, and maybe also Dennis Ross and Dan Kurtzer and Martin Indyk, who may, God willing, be included in the new administration.

Negotiators repeat support of peace talks | UPI.com

Leaders of Middle East peace negotiations reaffirmed their backing for the continued Israeli-Palestinian effort toward a two-state solution.

Negotiations began last fall at a U.S.-sponsored conference in Annapolis, Md., have been inconclusive and the Bush administration has conceded the original goal of reaching an agreement by the end of 2008 likely won't be met, The New York Times said.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni briefed during a meeting in Egypt representatives of the negotiation's quartet, which includes the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia. Abbas said he and the Israelis would meet until the Israeli elections Feb. 10 conclude and the new U.S. administration was installed, the Times reported.

Bush Middle East efforts end with little progress
By Dion Nissenbaum | McClatchy Newspapers

JERUSALEM — Outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is wrapping up the Bush administration's yearlong attempt to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace with little to show for her investment.

Reviewing James Petras' "Zionism, Militarism, and the Decline of US Power"
by Stephen Lendman

James Petras is Binghamton University Professor Emeritus of Sociology. His credentials and achievements are long and impressive as a noted academic figure on the left. A well-respected Latin American expert, and a longtime chronicler of the region's popular struggles.

He's also a prolific author of hundreds of articles and dozens of books, including his latest titled "Zionism, Militarism, and the Decline of US Power" and subject of this review. It follows from his earlier 2006 book: "The Power of Israel in the United States" that documented the Israeli Lobby's enormous influence over US Middle East policy and its destructive effects.

End the Siege on Gaza Fax Blast!

In support of the global day of mobilization to ‘End the Siege of Gaza,' we're taking our protest to the internet. With one simple click, you can send a fax from our web site to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, calling for an end to the siege, which has for over a year now effectively imprisoned more than 1.5 million people and denied basic human rights in violation of international law.

Adding insult to injury, the Israeli Defense Ministry has also denied access to Gaza to over 120 health professionals from around the world who had been invited to the international conference ‘Siege and Mental Health…Walls vs. Bridges', organized by the Gaza Community Mental Health Program and the World Health Organization and long-scheduled to be held October 27-28.