Covid

MASKING SAVES LIVES

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Mad As Hell Doctors Take to Road for Single Payer!

Mad as Hell
You CAN handle the Truth
There's no nice way to say it. The financial cost of health care is killing our citizens, hobbling our economy, crushing small business, and threatening the solvency of our government. In the meantime, the Health Care Industry is spending almost two million dollars a day lobbying Congress and manipulating public opinion to accept “reform” legislation that leaves a vicious, for-profit system intact. The "public option" is a trap. We need real reform that finds immediate savings, controls costs, and accomplishes the moral imperative of true Universal Access. A Single Payer plan is the only real path to a Health Care System that is socially, ethically and fiscally responsible. And yet, our elected officials refuse to even discuss the possibility of a Single Payer plan!
If that doesn't make you mad, we recommend checking your pulse.

We believe the "public option" is doomed.
First: we will still have a dysfunctional health care system designed around insurance companies. Second: it will be impossible to cover everyone without raising taxes. The Obama administration is already saying it is acceptable to leave out 15 million people. Third: in a "post-option" environment you can bet that the health insurance industry will manipulate the rules so that the sickest, most expensive patients will gravitate toward the public plan, which will cause it to fail. When it does, the opponents of real reform will point to the "public option" and scream: "See! Single Payer won't work!"
Link
There is a time for compromise - this isn't one of them.
We are a small group of Oregon-Based doctors who care. We believe there is only one way to control costs, one way to remove profiteering from the system, one way to reclaim the care of our patients, and one way to be sure everyone is covered: we must replace our current pay or die system and with a comprehensive, publicly financed, privately delivered, Single Payer system that puts people first. Our moment to take a stand for Single Payer is NOW. We may not have another opportunity like this in our lifetime. Please support this unprecedented road trip to real health care reform.

Get Mad. Stay Mad.
Make History.

Israel and the Nutbar Factor -- Justin Raimondo

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/07/21/israel-and-the-nutbar-factor/

As Israel defies the U.S. on settlement policies and its continuing mistreatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, a recent poll shows the American public is undergoing a significant shift in its historically pro-Israel views:

"According to the survey of 800 registered voters, which was conducted June 9-11 by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, those who believe Israel is committed to peace has dropped to 46 percent this month from 66 percent last December. The poll found that some 49 percent of American voters call themselves supporters of Israel, down from 69 percent last September, and only about 44 percent of voters believe the United States should support Israel – down from 71 percent a year ago."

What is the reason for this dramatic drop in support for the Jewish state? After all, the Israeli government and its American amen corner spend a lot of money – a lot of it our own tax dollars coming back to haunt us – in pursuit of the good will of the American people. They do this because they know the U.S. is Israel’s lifeline and that what is essentially a settler colony could not exist for very long if taken off U.S. life support, i.e., if the billions in aid given each year were ended or even significantly reduced. Yet, in spite of this, Israel’s approval ratings are plummeting, fast – and the reason is an exponential expansion of what I call the nutbar factor in Israeli society.

Here’s a good and quite recent example, reported in the excellent Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz:

"The Pope and the cardinals of the Vatican help organize tours of Auschwitz for Hezbollah members to teach them how to wipe out Jews, according to a booklet being distributed to Israel Defense Forces soldiers.

"Officials encouraging the booklet’s distribution include senior officers, such as Lt. Col. Tamir Shalom, the commander of the Nahshon Battalion of the Kfir Brigade.

"The booklet was published by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, in cooperation with the chief rabbi of Safed, Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu, and has been distributed for the past few months."

No, the booklet is not entitled "The Protocols of the Elders of the Vatican," but it could be: “On Either Side of the Border” purports to be the testimony of “a Hezbollah officer who spied for Israel.” Inside is a greeting from an extremist rabbi "in the name of the Nahshon Brigade." Thousands of copies were distributed to IDF soldiers, until the pamphlet was spotlighted by Ha’aretz.

This "spy," who formerly went by the name Ibrahim and now calls himself Avi, claims Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was part of a delegation that journeyed to Italy, France, and Poland, alongside representatives of the Vatican. Apparently the pope was otherwise engaged, or he would no doubt have joined the Hezbollah chief, but, in any case, according to Ibrahim/Avi, "We knew [the pope] identified with Hezbollah’s struggle." Yes, those Hezbollah fighters who drove the Israelis out of Lebanon were really altar boys wearing keffiyehs.

Oh, but I’ve saved the best part for last, because, you see, the endpoint of Hezbollah’s hegira was none other than Auschwitz. Ibrahim/Avi avers:

“We came to the camps. We saw the trains, the platforms, the piles of eyeglasses and clothes. … We came to learn. … Our escort spoke as he was taught. We quickly explained to him: Every real Arab, deep inside, is kind of a fan of the Nazis.”

What a fiendishly clever public relations strategy on the part of Hezbollah: telling the world they’re Nazis. That’s the ticket! No wonder Israel’s poll numbers are going down!

Israel Deploys Cyber Team to Spread Positive Spin -- Jonathan Cook

Part of article below; whole article here: http://www.jkcook.net/Articles3/0406.htm#Top
NAZARETH. ISRAEL // The passionate support for Israel expressed on talkback sections of websites, internet chat forums, blogs, Twitters and Facebook may not be all that it seems.

Israel’s foreign ministry is reported to be establishing a special undercover team of paid workers whose job it will be to surf the internet 24 hours a day spreading positive news about Israel.

Internet-savvy Israeli youngsters, mainly recent graduates and demobilised soldiers with language skills, are being recruited to pose as ordinary surfers while they provide the government’s line on the Middle East conflict.

"To all intents and purposes the internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose," said Ilan Shturman, who is responsible for the project.

The existence of an "internet warfare team" came to light when it was included in this year’s foreign ministry budget. About $150,000 (Dh551,000) has been set aside for the first stage of development, with increased funding expected next year.

The team will fall under the authority of a large department already dealing with what Israelis term "hasbara", officially translated as "public explanation" but more usually meaning propaganda. That includes not only government public relations work but more secretive dealings the ministry has with a battery of private organisations and initiatives that promote Israel’s image in print, on TV and online.

In an interview this month with the Calcalist, an Israeli business newspaper, Mr Shturman, the deputy director of the ministry’s hasbara department, admitted his team would be working undercover.

"Our people will not say: 'Hello, I am from the hasbara department of the Israeli foreign ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis," he said. "They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the foreign ministry developed."

Rona Kuperboim, a columnist for Ynet, Israel’s most popular news website, denounced the initiative, saying it indicated that Israel had become a "thought-police state".

She added that "good PR cannot make the reality in the occupied territories prettier. Children are being killed, homes are being bombed, and families are starved."

Her column was greeted by several talkbackers asking how they could apply for a job with the foreign ministry’s team.

The project is a formalisation of public relations practices the ministry developed specifically for Israel’s assault on Gaza in December and January.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Why is Leonard Peltier Still in Prison?

Portion of article below; to read whole article and find out how to help Leonard gain parole, go to:  http://www.counterpunch.org/bollinger07162009.html

Leonard Peltier is an innocent man who has spent over 33 terrible years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

In 1977, he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms for the deaths of two FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, who were killed in a gunfight on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota on June 26, 1975.

Peltier's case is one of the awful travesties of the U.S. justice system--standing alongside those of Sacco and Vanzetti, Julius and Ethel Rosenburg, and Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Like these individuals, Peltier is rightly considered by his supporters to be a political prisoner--because his prosecution and conviction was driven solely by his participation in the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the 1970s. Since his conviction in 1977, he has been a victim--repeatedly--of the racism of the U.S. criminal justice system.

But Leonard Peltier is not simply a victim. He is also a fighter.

Leonard and his friends, family, allies and supporters have been courageous and relentless in speaking out for justice in Leonard's case, even when faced with government repression for doing so. And Peltier has stood up for justice not only in his own case, but on behalf of indigenous people and all victims of war, poverty and racism.

In his memoir Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance, he wrote:

The destruction of our people must stop! We are not statistics. We are people from whom you took this land by force and blood and lies...You practice crimes against humanity at the same time that you piously speak to the rest of the world of human rights! America, when will you live up to your own principles?

Views such as these, along with the work he has done setting up scholarships for Native American children, among other efforts, explains why Peltier was a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize and the 2004 presidential candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party.

Our society would benefit enormously from having someone like Leonard living as a free man. Instead, at age 64, he languishes in prison while in poor health. Earlier this year, he was brutally beaten; he has been repeatedly denied proper medical care.

On July 28, Peltier will appear at his first full parole hearing in 15 years. Now is the time to rebuild momentum around his case and demand his release and exoneration--and put his name back at the center of the fight against the criminal justice system.

* * *

PELTIER WAS indicted along with two others in the 1975 shootout at the Jumping Bull property. His co-defendants, Bob Robideau and Dino Butler, represented by famed radical attorney William Kunstler, were acquitted on the basis of self-defense.

Humiliated by the not-guilty verdict for Robideau and Butler, the government went after Peltier with a vengeance. It lied, cheated and slammed the book on any sense of justice to ensure a conviction.

The Feds used three perjured affidavits to get Peltier extradited from Canada, to which he had escaped. During the trial itself, Peltier faced an all-white jury in North Dakota, where racism against Native Americans and hostility to AIM was palpable. The jury was unnecessarily sequestered and deliberately made to feel vulnerable by the judge. This same judge wouldn't allow Leonard's attorney's to argue self-defense.

Assistant U.S. attorney Lynn Crooks didn't produce any witnesses who could identify Peltier as the person who killed the agents. The government presented false evidence--the claim that only Peltier had the type of gun that killed the agents--and also concealed evidence showing that the gun they claimed Peltier used didn't match the bullet casings found near the agent's bodies.

Documents uncovered later through Freedom of Information Act requests revealed, among other things, that the judge met with the FBI before the trial began, and that the legal defense committee that emerged out of the Wounded Knee occupation had been infiltrated.

None of these facts are really contested by the federal government. In fact, at an appellate hearing in the 1980s, the government attorney conceded: "We had a murder, we had numerous shooters, we do not know who specifically fired what killing shots...we do not know, quote unquote, who shot the agents."

Huwaida Arraf on the Latest Free Gaza Boat Attempt

Portion below; whole article here:   http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090803/arraf

Perhaps we were politically inept. Had we sailed toward Iran to offer assistance to civilian protesters there, we would have been a cause celebre if the Iranian government had arrested us. Iran, however, for all its troubles, is not now under foreign occupation as Palestine is. Yet as I watched the demonstrations in Iran, I could not miss the similarities to Palestine's nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation. I cannot count the times I have marched peacefully, waving a flag and demanding freedom for my people -- with only my voice and my presence as my weapons. And sadly, the number of friends I have lost -- killed by Israeli forces as, like Neda Agha-Soltan in Iran, they nonviolently demonstrated for freedom -- is becoming too great a pain in my heart.

My colleagues and I invested time and energy in this difficult journey and put our lives at risk because for too long the international community has been complicit in Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people. For too long, diplomats and world leaders have paid lip service to Palestinian human rights. For too long, the Palestinian people have been told to wait -- wait in the checkpoint line, wait on the peace process, wait to have your rights recognized, wait for freedom.

Students I met on a recent successful voyage to Gaza certainly did not want to wait to be slowly suffocated and drained of their dreams. So desperate were they to escape their confinement in Gaza to obtain higher education abroad that they asked us to drop them in international waters and they would swim the rest of the way to Cyprus. This was youthful madness, but indicative of how trapped people in Gaza are today.

I was born in the blanket of freedom of the United States. My parents immigrated here, knowing that I could not be free in my homeland. But today I use my freedom to struggle as a Palestinian for my friends and relatives who endure the yokes of occupation, oppression, discrimination, exile, internment and apartheid.

Most Palestinians in the occupied territories have not lived a day free of Israel's occupation, and Palestinian citizens of Israel continue to live as a discriminated-against minority. Just the other day, Israel's housing minister, Ariel Atias, declared, "We can all be bleeding hearts, but I think it is unsuitable [for Jews and Palestinians] to live together [in Israel].

This is the Israel the United States funds with billions each year. Under the leadership of President Obama--or any American president, for that matter--support for this sort of raw bigotry makes no sense and is antithetical to our most cherished principles. Yet when Israeli leaders utter such contemptible language it is ignored. When Israeli soldiers fire lethal weapons at unarmed, peaceful protesters it is too often ignored. When Israeli naval boats become pirate ships -- boarding a vessel that poses them no threat, arresting and beating American citizens--it is ignored.

It is ignored and Israel continues to enjoy the patronage of the United States and to present itself as a moral beacon for the world. But my generation finds racist language like that of Atias'--and the actions that result from such outdated thinking--abhorrent.

We find it unacceptable that Palestinians continue to be asked to wait, to improve our self-government and to be patient as we build ourselves toward the same rights that people elsewhere take for granted. With the fourth Palestinian generation born into refugee camps, with a new generation in Gaza being raised poorer and more desperate than the last, with my land being carved and sliced and walled for the exclusive benefit of one ethno-religious group, I say we cannot wait.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Save Gaza Vigil at the Bite of Seattle this Saturday

'Everyone is your enemy,' Israeli soldiers in Gaza told
=========================================
What: Save Gaza Vigil

When: Saturday July 18, Noon - 2:00pm

Where: Seattle Center near Mercer Street entrance between 3rd&4th Ave N.


=================================================================
Amin Odeh
VoicesofPalestine
"Stand up for what is right, even if you are standing alone"

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Breaking the Silence Documents Brutal Truth of Gaza Attack

Part of article below; whole article at:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israeli-soldiers-reveal-the-brutal-truth-of-gaza-attack-1746485.html

The first eye-witness accounts of the war by serving Israeli reservists and conscripts describes the Israeli use of Palestinian civilians as "human shields". They detail the killing of at least two civilians, the vandalism, looting and wholesale destruction of Palestinian houses, the use of deadly white phosphorus, bellicose religious advice from army rabbis and what another battalion commander described to his troops as "insane firepower with artillery and air force". The reports amount to the most formidable challenge by Israelis since the Gaza war to the military's own considered view that it conducted the operation according to international law and made "an enormous effort to focus its fire only against the terrorists whilst doing the utmost to avoid harming uninvolved civilians".

They are contained in testimonies from about 30 soldiers that were collected by Breaking the Silence, an army veterans organisation that seeks to "expose the Israeli public to the routine situations of everyday life in the occupied territories". Although the organisation has collected hundreds of testimonies from ex-soldiers before, this is the first time that it has done so from serving soldiers so soon after the events they describe.

They tell how:

* Unprecedentedly loose rules of engagement were put in place to protect Israeli troops. One soldier said his brigade commander and other officers made it clear that "any movement must entail gunfire". He added: "I don't remember if the brigade commander said this or someone else. I' m not sure. No one is supposed to be there. If you see any signs of movement at all, you shoot. These, essentially, were the rules of engagement. Shoot if you like if you are afraid or you see someone, shoot." Another soldier said his battalion commander had said the operation was not "a limited confrontation such as in Hebron, and not to hesitate if we suspected someone nor feel bad about destruction because it is all done for the safety of our own soldiers... if we see something suspect and shoot, better hit an innocent than hesitate to target an enemy". One soldier said the "awareness of each soldier going in is simply... a light finger on the trigger. You see something and you're not quite sure? You shoot".

* Houses were systematically demolished. Despite official accounts that homes were only destroyed for strictly "operational" reasons, one reservist, a veteran of the conflict in Gaza since before 2005, said "I never knew such fire power" used by tanks and helicopters for the "constant destruction" of houses. The soldier said that some houses had been destroyed for normal operational reasons, such as because they had been booby trapped or used by militants to fire from, or had contained tunnel openings. But he said others were destroyed for the "day after" – to make a "very large" area "sterile", to allow better "firing capacity, good visibility and control" once the operation was over. This meant, demolishing houses "not implicated in any way, whose single sin is that it is situated on a hill in the Gaza strip" .

* A civilian man between 50 and 60 who was unarmed but carrying a torch was shot dead after the unit's commander ordered his soldiers not to fire warning shots but to hold their fire until he was 50m away. The soldier said the company commander announced over the radio after the incident: "Here's an opener for tonight". The soldier said that the commander was challenged over why he had not authorised deterrent fire when the man was further away: "He didn't agree and couldn't give a damn, and finally the guys felt that even if they could take this up with the higher echelons it wouldn't be effective." Another soldier said his unit commander shot dead an old man hiding with his family under the stairs of a house. While the soldier said that the killing of the man was a mistake, it had happened as the unit entered the house using live fire.

Thursday, July 09, 2009

'This Is How They Tortured Me' -- Book Reveals First Nation Treatment in Canada

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23008.htm

I'm know this also happened in the U.S. -- it's not discussed much. Portion of article below. Linda
July 08, 2009 "Tye Books" -- Most of us know there was a time in Canada when aboriginal children where taken from their homes, their families and communities, and forced to attend residential schools.

There, we have been told, children were beaten for speaking their own language, and many were physically and sexually abused by the priests and nuns that ran the schools.

Most of us know that the lasting effects in many First Nations communities have manifested themselves as poverty, addiction and abuse.

Canadians learned at least that much from Stephan Harper's apology one year ago to the survivors of those schools.

But very few of us have looked into the eyes of one of those children now grown up, many of them now parents or grandparents, and heard them tell their stories -- the raw details of what really happened behind the doors of those schools.

That is why Jacqueline Windh fought hard for her book, First Nations and the Pacific Northwest: Change and Tradition, to be released this month in Canada.

The volume was originally published in Germany to accompany a gallery exhibit in Westfalian Museum of Natural History in Muenster. The first part of the book, by museum director Prof. Alfred Hendricks, explains historical facts about the First Nations of North America for the exhibition. The second part of the book, by Windh, delves into the deeply personal and disturbing stories of 16 residential school survivors from Vancouver Island, told in their own words. For some, it was the first time in their lives they'd talked about their experiences.

The stories force the reader to imagine what it would be like to learn about suicide for the first time when a 10-year-old boy hangs himself in the basement of your school. Or for nuns to come into your room at night to rape you, or to strangle you and the other kids until you black out, just for entertainment.

The stories force the reader to reflect upon how it would feel now, decades later, to see those same nuns in the grocery store of your tiny community. And then to go home to your family only to beat them and pass on the abuse you learned as a child, because it's the only thing you knew growing up.

'They were trained not to talk'

Windh grew up in Ontario, and did not lay eyes on a First Nations person until she was an adult. Not until she was in her 30s, after having moved to Tofino, British Columbia, did Windh really get to know an Aboriginal person. She had known only vaguely about the residential schools and what went on there. Slowly, she developed friendships in the First Nations community, eventually dating a First Nations man, and began to learn about the dark history that shrouded the families she was meeting.

It was years before she earned the trust and respect in the community necessary in order for people to open up and tell her their stories. Now, she says, many residential school victims are realizing it is time that people hear those stories so they can begin to understand the horror that lies in Canada's past, and how it has shaped the present.

"People can have more empathy if they know the truth. If you're walking in downtown Vancouver and you see a drunken Indian passed out on the side of the road, instead of just thinking, 'Why don't they get a job?' you can have a little more empathy about the whole history that brought that person to that situation."

While she originally set out to educate non-natives about the horrors of the residential school system through telling the stories, she quickly learned that many aboriginal people themselves, especially youth, were starved for information as well. What happened in the schools is rarely talked about, even in the family.

"Their parents and grandparents who went to the residential schools were so severely abused that it's a thing they don't talk about. And they were also trained there not to talk. They were really trained not to talk about stuff, so they've been raised in this culture of not talking," says Windh.

'I just want a better life'

The stories in the book are accompanied by portraits photographed by Windh. The last thing Canada needs, she believes, is another faceless Indian.

One of these photos shows a man, Brian Lucas, not older than 50. He stands on a porch overlooking Tofino's shoreline and mountains, twisting a blue towel around his neck:

"We were tortured by the Brothers, getting hit by a big stick four feet long and two inches wide. Thirty whacks on my bare ass, I couldn't even sit down, but I was still forced to sit down. Then I had to get another ten more because I smiled at my friend. I got my ear twisted because they said I wasn't listening. I had my hair pulled by the Sisters, four of them. They tortured me by putting a towel around my neck. This is how they tortured me, they made me black out.

"I want my picture taken of me with a towel around my neck, to show what they put me through. It did something to my brain, that's why I'm always this way."

Brian was five or six when he entered Christie Residential School in Kakawis on Vancouver Island. He has six children of his own now who, though not attending residential school themselves, live with the consequences while their father still fights to move on.

"Nine of those Brothers and Sisters abused me -- physical, emotional, the works. Sexual, I seen them doing it right in front of me. It affected me, and made me say "Hey, that's all right for me to do too." I'm not ashamed to say it, that's where I learnt it from.

"It is hard to live with. I have to see them still, in Tofino. Some of the Brothers and Sisters still live there. Right away I get scared when I see them, I feel "I want to do the same thing to you guys." But I know that's not going to help me.

"Now I hear myself saying those same things to my own kids, 'You're stupid, you're never gonna learn anything.'

Universal Healthcare for All Citizens? Don't Be Silly!

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Save Gaza Vigil & Nakba Commemoration at Greenlake -- July 11

Please join us and bring your family and friends


What: Save Gaza Vigil & Nakba Commemoration

When: Saturday July 11, Noon- 2:00pm

Where: Greenlake Park. ( N. 66th St. & E. Greenlake Way N.)

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Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Reformed IDF -- Nice to Know They're Out There -- Cheers!

Commenter on a Bob Herbert column telling the truth about the life of Robert MacNamara:
Actually, with their praise for your article, your compassion and humanity and criticism of the politicians -- and of the majorities in society who either support them or remain silent -- the earlier commentees have mentioned almost everything that needs to be said. As an ex-longtime officer in the Israeli army who underwent a long and painful ideological-emotional metamorphosis into a peace and human-rights activist I can only point out that the massive international support, in Europe as well as in the USA, for the Israeli state-ideology and policies shows how little has been learned from the past --and present: the brutal oppression of the Palestinians continues, and the psychological warping of one generation of (Jewish)Israelis after another makes a peaceful solution more difficult to achieve.

The Crooks Get Cash While the Poor Get Screwed -- Chris Hedges

http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/20090706_the_crooks_get_cash_while_the_poor_get_screwed/

Tearyan Brown became a father when he was 16. He did what a lot of inner-city kids desperate to make money do. He sold drugs. He was arrested and sent to jail three years later for dealing marijuana and PCP on the streets of Trenton, N.J., mostly to white kids driving in from the suburbs. It was a job which saw him robbed at gunpoint and stabbed in the chest. But it made him about $1,400 a week.

Brown, when he got out after three and a half years, was done with street life. He got a job as a security guard and then as a fork lift operator. He eventually made about $30,000 a year. He shepherded his son through high school, then college and a master’s degree. His boy, now 24, is a high school teacher in Texas. Brown would not leave the streets of Trenton but his son would. It made him proud. It gave him hope.

And then one morning in 2005 when he was visiting his mother’s house the cops showed up. He saw the cruiser and the officers standing on his mother’s porch. He hurried down the block toward the home to see what was wrong. What was wrong was him. On the basis of a police photograph, he had been identified by an 82-year-old woman as the man who had robbed her of $9 at gunpoint a few hours earlier. The only other witness to the crime insisted the elderly victim was confused. The witness told the police Brown was innocent. Brown’s friends said Brown was with them when the robbery took place.

“Why would I rob a woman for $9,” he asks me. “I had been paid the day before. I had not committed a crime in 20 years. It didn’t make any sense.”

He was again sent to jail. But this time he was charged with armed robbery. If convicted, he would be locked away for many years. His grown son and his three young boys would live, as he had, without the presence of a father. The little ones—11-year-old twins and a 10-year-old—would be adults when he got out. When he met with his state-appointed attorney, the lawyer, like most state-appointed attorneys, pushed for accepting a plea bargain, one that would see him behind bars for at least the next decade. Brown pulled the pictures of his children out of his wallet, laid the pictures carefully on the table in front of the lawyer, looked at the faces of his children and broke down in tears. He shook and sobbed. It was a hard thing to do for a man who stands nearly 6 feet tall and weights 210 pounds and has coped with a lot in his life.

“I didn’t do nothing,” he choked out to the lawyer.

He refused the plea bargain offer. He sat in jail for the next two years before getting a trial. It was a time of deep despair. Jail had changed since he had last been incarcerated. The facilities were overcrowded, with inmates sleeping in corridors and on the floor. The gangs taunted those who, like Brown, were not affiliated with a gang. Gang members knocked trays of food to the floor. They pissed on mattresses. They stole canteen items and commissary orders. And there was nothing the victims could do about it. 

“See this,” he says to me in a dimly lit coffee shop in downtown Trenton as he rolls up the right sleeve of his T-shirt. “It’s the grim reaper. I got it in jail. I was so scared. I was scared I wouldn’t get out this time. I was scared I would not see my kids grow up. They make their own tattoo guns in jail with a toothbrush, a staple and the motor of a Walkman. It cost me $15, well, not really dollars. I had to give him about 10 soups and a package of cigarettes. On the street this would be three or four hundred dollars.”

Under the tattoo of the scythe-wielding, hooded figure are the words “Death Awaits.”

He had a trial after two years in jail and was found not guilty. The sheriff’s deputies in the courtroom said as he was walking out that they “had never seen anything like this.” He reaches into his baggy jeans and pulls out his thin brown wallet. He opens it to show me a folded piece of paper. The paper says, “Verdict: Defendant found not guilty on all charges.” It is dated Jan. 31, 2008.

But innocence and guilt are funny things in America. If you are rich and guilty, if you have defrauded banks and customers and investment firms of billions of dollars, as AIG or Citibank has, if you wear fancy suits and have degrees from elite universities that cost more per year than Brown used to make, you get taxpayer money. You get lots of it. You maintain the lavish lifestyle of jets and spas and million-dollar bonuses. You live a life of unchecked greed and have too much in a world where most have too little. If you are moral scum in America we take care of you. But if you are poor, if you are, say, Tearyan Brown and African-American and 39 years old with four kids and no job and you live in the inner city, you are in trouble. No one comes to help you. You don’t get a second chance. This is what being poor means.

Monday, July 06, 2009

How Cynthia McKinney honored America on the 4th of July from an Israel Jail -- Franklin Lamb

July 6, 2009

Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney returned home today after 6 days being held by the government of Israel while attempting with 21 colleagues to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza on the vessel, the Spirit of Humanity.

“Don’t sign Miss Cynthia don’t sign!”  So chanted a boisterous group of Palestinian teens and pre-teens in Beirut’s Shatila Refugee Camp demonstrating support for the Freegaza Humanity boat abductees on the 4thof July.

The students understood that those illegally arrested while in International waters had been offered a “get out of Jail Free” pass if they confessed in writing to violating Israel’s territorial waters.

The Spirit of Humanity boat, trying to bring emergency humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, was the topic of a lively discussion during a Sabra Shatila Foundation summer school civics lesson on “International law and the Question of Palestine”. The students were interested in the plight of some of their relatives and countryman in Palestine and the continuing siege of Gaza. Some had just finished their Baccalaureate exams and were wondering how they could continue their education given the severe impediments the government of Lebanon places on Palestinian civil rights, and their post exam relief seemed to energize them for the discussion.

A couple of the students had met Cynthia during her recent visits to Lebanon. When they learned that as a Congresswoman, she had introduced articles of impeachment against Bush, was a consistent anti-war voter during her twelve years in Congress, and that no member in Congress had achieved a more consistent, principled, voting record of issues of civil and human rights, including Palestinian rights, they really connected with the subject of the Freegaza aid boat, the Spirit of Humanity and her travails. “Those supporters of Palestine should not accept a false confession and should stay in Jail if necessary. They are patriots” was a commonly expressed sentiment.

 The students understood that in refusing to sign the Israeli government prepared “acknowledgement/confession” the Freegaza group acted consistent with International Law.   They learned  that territorial waters, as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is a belt of coastal waters extending at most twelve nautical miles from the baseline (usually the mean low-water mark) of a coastal state. The territorial sea is regarded as the sovereign territory of the state, although foreign ships (both military and civilian) are allowed innocent passage through it. They learned from media reports that in any case the Humanity was in International waters and that consequently Israel had no right to molest it.

The class adjourned sharing a general consensus that the Spirit of Humanity, enjoyed and will continue to enjoy on every subsequent humanitarian voyage, these freedoms as well as other internationally lawful uses of the sea within contiguous zones, exclusive economic zones, and on the high seas. Needless to report, were it possible for them, the whole class would like to be on the next Freegaza boat.

Khalil Bendib



http://www.bendib.com/newones/2009/july/small/7-5-Free-Gaza.jpg

Remembering Hiyam, A Teenager -- Killed by Israel

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10643.shtml
Thursday was as normal and quiet an afternoon as you get in Johr al-Deek village in the central Gaza Strip. "Prepare yourself for I will be taking you to the dentist in half an hour," Salim Abu Ayish recalled telling his 17-year-old daughter Hiyam.

Moments later everything changed. "At 5:30 PM an Israeli shell landed on my brother's house," the father told visitors who had come to offer condolences for his daughter at the family's home on Friday. The shell injured a nephew and Salim Abu Ayish rushed to render aid.

"I asked Hiyam to bring me the car key from my bedroom," Salim Abu Ayish said. As she went, he recalled, "suddenly another shell struck my room, killing Hiyam instantly, as shrapnel rippled through her body. I was injured with some of the shrapnel in my back and my neck."

Two Israeli army shells landed in the family houses of the Abu Ayish clan in the Johr al-Deek village, just north of the al-Bureij refugee camp and about 1.5 kilometers from the border with Israel. The shelling caused critical injury to Husam Abu Ayish, Hiyam's 21-year-old cousin and minor wounds to Hiyam's father and sister, Nawal. For hours after the attack, the Israeli army denied any involvement and claimed the attack was the result of mortar shells fired by Palestinians. But late on Thursday, the Israeli army changed its story, admitting that Palestinian civilians were hit "accidentally" by Israeli army fire directed at Palestinian gunmen in the area, according to Israeli media.

Taking a deep breath, and trying to be strong despite his agony, Abu Ayish remembered his daughter: "She used to be humorous, active, well-mannered and smiling. I never turned down her requests. On Thursday, the day her soul went to heaven, she asked me to bring some watermelon, but her destiny was faster than me. Two months ago, she asked me to bring her a necklace, and I did buy her one," he recalled.

"Hiyam was more than a sister," recalled Emad, 24, Hiyam's brother. "She was different from my other five sisters. Just about an hour before she was martyred, she wondered when I would get married." Emad remembers her saying, "we want to celebrate your wedding, my brother." Instead of such happy memories, Emad now has only pictures of his sister's wounded face, taken with his mobile phone.

"Every time she visited our home, my children would get so cheerful as they enjoyed the laughter and fun she would bring to our house," recalled Saleh Abu Hajjaj, Hiyam's brother-in-law.

"She was one of my best students," said Jamal al-Nabahin, a teacher at Qaysaria Secondary School for Girls where Hiyam had recently completed her 11th year certificate. "She was active and sometimes very funny. Her death is a great loss, and may she rest in peace."

Mahmoud al-Aydi, the father of Raghda, one of Hiyam's friends and schoolmates, recalled that the two girls had been chatting on the phone shortly before the shells struck. On hearing what had happened Raghda had "fainted for three hours," according to Raghda's father, "she could not believe Hiyam was killed."

Um Jihad, Hiyam's mother only uttered a few words, "May God hold accountable those who killed my beloved daughter."

In December 2008 and January 2009, Israel carried out a massive bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip. The 22 days of Israeli attacks claimed the lives of 1,400 Palestinians, the vast majority of whom were unarmed civilians. Before and after the attack, Israel has maintained a strict blockade on the coastal territory grossly hampering the daily lives of its 1.5 million residents.

"We have nowhere to go to," said Hiyam's father, "Even if we wanted to move, the siege has prevented us from building as there are no building materials available. The situation is extremely difficult, and yet the world keeps silent about our continuing agony."

Support for Zelaya -- Twit Pic via Angry Arab


http://twitpic.com/9fjza

"The Israeli Idea of a 'Palestinian State'" -- Saree Makdisi

Part of article below; whole thing: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15260

But this latest demand is too much for any Palestinian leader—even one as endlessly obsequious as Abbas—to accept.

For to recognize Israel as a Jewish state would be not only to renounce (which no leader and indeed no individual Palestinian has the authority to do) the right of return of those Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their homes during the creation of Israel in 1948. It would also be to abandon to their fate the remaining million or so Palestinians (including their descendants) who survived the nakba and have been living as second class citizens of Israel, and perhaps even to give Israel license to expel them all and complete the “job” (as Benny Morris puts it) of 1948.

Israel today is no more Jewish than America is white or Christian. The big difference, though, is that, whereas America (for the most part) embraces its own multiculturalism, Israel still desperately wants to be Jewish. Its absurd demand to be recognized as such (no other state goes around impetuously demanding that others accept its own sense of its national character) is an expression of its own profound insecurity: not its military insecurity—the only serious military threat Israel faces on its own territory is imaginary—but rather its anxious awareness of its status as a botched, and hence forever incomplete, settler-colonial enterprise. Unlike Australia, there were too many aboriginals left standing when the smoke cleared over the ruins of Palestine in 1948. And to this day the Palestinians have refused to simply give up, go away or somehow annul themselves.

That fact—and its attendant anxiety among Zionists—poses a real problem for the million Palestinians inside Israel, whose fate is far from settled.

Western liberals consider Avigdor Lieberman to be right wing because he says openly that he wants the indigenous Palestinians removed from what he considers to be the Jewish land of Israel (to which he came as a Russian-speaking immigrant). What they fail to acknowledge is that Tzipi Livni, who ran in the recent Israeli elections as the voice of peace and moderation—the darling of Western liberals—hinted at exactly the same dark fate (“Once a Palestinian state is established, I can come to the Palestinian citizens, whom we call Israeli Arabs, and say to them ‘you are citizens with equal rights, but the national solution for you is elsewhere,’” she said during the electoral campaign—i.e., you are equal, but not really, and ultimately you must look elsewhere for a sense of home). And Netanyahu has long espoused a similar position.

How could he not? This is not rocket science or linear algebra: it is what it means for a state to insist on having a single cultural identity irrespective of who happens to actually be living on the territory it considers its own. It is all too rarely thought of in the same terms, but the violent insistence on monoculture is just as ugly in Israel as it is in Iran, Saudi Arabia, among the cadres of the British National Party, the followers of Jean-Marie le Pen, the hoodlums of Aryan Nation or the hooded posses of the KKK. The drive to obliterate or expunge cultural difference from a homeland conceived of as an exclusive space will always be inherently ugly.

And the fact of the matter is that the expulsion or “transfer” of Palestinians has been a core feature of Zionism as it has been practiced since 1948. It is inherent in Zionism as a political program—from right to left—because, if the idea behind Zionism is to establish an exclusively Jewish state (which it is), the only way for a would-be Jewish state to have been established on land that began the twentieth century with a population that was overwhelmingly (93 percent) non-Jewish was through the removal of the land’s non-Jewish population. The sense that there is an inherently Jewish land inconveniently cluttered up with a non-Jewish population that needs to be dealt with somehow or other drove Zionist planning all through the 1930s (the “transfer” of the Palestinians was planned more than a decade before the 1948 war). And, as grotesque as ever, it was on full view in Netanyahu’s speech.

The key moment in the speech came when he said that “the truth is that in the area of our homeland, in the heart of our Jewish Homeland, now lives a large population of Palestinians.” This attitude comes straight out of the primitive racialism and imaginary civilizational hierarchies of the nineteenth century. The Jews are a people with a homeland and hence they have a right to a state; the Palestinians are not a people at all, or certainly not one of the same order. They are merely a collection of vagabonds and trespassers intruding on the Jewish Homeland. They have no rights, let alone a centuries-old competing narrative of home attached to the same land, a narrative worthy of recognition by Israel.

On the contrary: the Palestinians must accept that Israel is the state of the Jewish people, and they must do so on the understanding that they are not entitled to the same rights. “We” are a people, Netanyahu was saying; “they” are merely a “population.” “We” have a right to a state—a real state. “They” do not. “They” have to recognize “our” rights; “we” owe “them” nothing in return, except, possibly, a curt nod of dismissal from “our” view into the walled-off ghettoes and cantons which we might (perhaps, if “they” behave well) be persuaded to build for “them” on “our” land—and “they” had better be grateful even for that.

This racialized sense of inherent entitlement and unique superiority—fuelled (in just the way that a child is spoiled by over-indulgent parents) by over $100 billion of our tax dollars, the endless deference of our elected representatives, the open-ended diplomatic cover provided on demand by all our presidents after Eisenhower—is what allows Israelis like Netanyahu (and Lieberman, and Livni, and Olmert, and Sharon, and Rabin, etc.) to threaten, bellow at and admonish the Palestinians. It is also what allows Israel to occupy Palestinian land, demolish Palestinian homes, starve Palestinian children, imprison and shoot Palestinian youths, tear up Palestinian olive trees, crush Palestinian aspirations, while believing—really sincerely believing—that Israel is the real victim of everything that has happened. And, unbelievable as it is, that idea too (that Israel is the real victim of Palestinian aggression) was repeatedly expressed in Netanyahu’s speech. Make no mistake that he really believes it; it’s astonishing to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the history, but most Israelis, and most of their supporters in this country, really do believe in this totally inverted—and perverted—view of history.

Such attitudes, such views, are the inevitable products of endless indulgence.

No matter what the best way forward is—two states or one—it is absolutely vital for the American people to call their leaders to account and to demand that this indulgence must end, for the sake of everyone involved. And until our politicians learn (or are persuaded) to do the right thing, it falls on each of us to do what we can to end the indulgence and to bring pressure to bear on Israel. Heeding the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions is the obvious place to begin.

- Saree Makdisi is a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA and author of Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation. This article was contributed to PalestineChronicle.com by The Institute for Middle East Understanding (http://imeu.net)


"Unmanned Drones Could be Banned, Says Senior Judge"

In my estimation, a fight we should take up. Linda [article found on Citizens for Legitimate Gov't]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/5755446/Unmanned-drones-could-be-banned-says-senior-judge.html

Lord Bingham, who retired last year as a senior law lord, said the aircraft could follow other weapons considered "so cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance" in being consigned to the history books.

He likened drones, which have killed hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Gaza, to cluster bombs and landmines.

Lord Bingham made the comments to the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in an interview which addressed the issue of the state being bound by the rule of law.

"Are there, for example, and this goes to conflict, not post-conflict situations, weapons that ought to be outlawed?" he said.

"From time to time in the history of international law various weapons have been thought to be so cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance. I think cluster bombs and landmines are the most recent examples.

"It may be – I'm not expressing a view – that unmanned drones that fall on a house full of civilians is a weapon the international community should decide should not be used."

His comments are likely to lead to further calls for new international rules to protect civilians from attacks by the pilotless aircraft.

Drones have become an important tool in combating the Taliban in remote regions of Afghanistan, which are difficult to access by land and leave soldiers vulnerable to attack.

They have proved successful in eliminating several high-profile leaders of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, including Mohammed Atef, reputedly al-Qaeda's chief of military operations.

However, they have been known to make errors and kill civilians.

Israel was accused last week of using missile-firing drones to unlawfully kill at least 29 Palestinian civilians during the Gaza Strip war. The US admitted to 26 civilian deaths in a series of drone attacks that took place in May.

Britain, which currently deploys drones to gather battlefield intelligence, has indicated that it plans to use them as weapons in the future.

It was disclosed earlier this year that the Home Office has suggested using drones to help police gather evidence and track criminals to avoid putting officers at risk.

Last year, Lord Bingham said he believed that Britain violated "international law and the rule of law" by supporting the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Amin Odeh: Even If You Are Standing Alone -- by Anne Paxton

Free Gaza Boat Prisoners: "We Are Not the Story"

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Israel: "Cynthia Getting VIP Treatment"

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/stories/2009/07/04/mckinney_israel.html

Civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph Lowery, head of the Atlanta-based Coalition for the People’s Agenda, said he and others have spoken by phone with the Consulate General of Israel.

“Whatever happened, there was no harm done,” Lowery said. “She was not carry munitions, but medicine. We hope Israel will show compassion and release her and let her go on to deliver the much-needed medicine to the Gaza Strip. … If she were carrying guns, that would be a different thing. [But] she was carrying humanitarian aid.”

Lowery said Israeli officials had assured him that Cynthia McKinney was “getting VIP treatment. I don’t know how you get VIP treatment in j-a-i-l.”

Israeli officials blame Cynthia McKinney and her group for the controversy, saying they were looking for confrontation to attract publicity. The officials note that Palestinian Authority and the rest of the international community had agreed to the off-shore blockade to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza.

Leola McKinney said the trip would have received no “publicity if they had been allowed to deliver supplies to Gaza. They [Israel] made an issue out of it by taking the boat and escorting them into Israel.

Friday, July 03, 2009

Activists Plan March to Break Gaza Siege -- 1/1/2010

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=103669

By Richard Hall
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, July 01, 2009

BEIRUT: A coalition of activists belonging to various Palestinian solidarity organizations are planning an international march in Gaza aimed at ending the blockade of the territory. The event will aim to bring thousands of demonstrators from around the world to march alongside Gazans as they breach the blockade imposed upon the population since the election of Hamas in 2006.

“This march draws inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi,” said a draft statement of purposes and principles written by the “Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza,” obtained by The Daily Star. “Those of us residing in the United States also draw inspiration from the civil rights movement,” it added.

The statement also outlines plans for the march, which will take place on January 1, 2010. “We will march the Long Mile across Erez checkpoint alongside the people of Gaza in a nonviolent demonstration that breaches the illegal blockade,” it said, adding that “We conceive this march as the first step in a protracted nonviolent campaign … If we bring thousands to Gaza and millions more around the world watch the march on the internet, we can end the siege without a drop of blood being shed.”

Professor Norman Finkelstein, a political analyst and author of several books on the Israel-Palestine conflict, is one of the organizers of the march. “We want to send over several thousand people from around the world to march alongside several hundred thousand Gazans,” he told The Daily Star.

Finkelstein hopes that large numbers of international activists and world leaders will attend the march, and as a result, prohibit a violent response from Israeli authorities. “If the likes of Jimmy Carter, Noam Chomsky, Bishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela are at the head of the march; if behind them are students holding high signs of the schools from which they hail - Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge; if behind them are the ill and the lame, the young and the innocent of Gaza; if behind them are hundreds of thousands of others, unarmed and unafraid, wanting only to enforce the law; if around the world hundreds of thousands are watching the internet to see what happens - Israel can’t shoot,” he said.

“The first formal organizational meeting of the coalition is set for July 13,” said Finkelstein. “We hope then to create an umbrella steering committee. Right now the working group consists of individuals who belong to organizations that have been active on the Israel-Palestine conflict such as CodePink.”

Members of the coalition are now contacting Palestinian solidarity groups around the world in preparation for the march.

Angry Arab Puts Things in Perspective

The rules of Amnesty International

The lousy Amnesty International has spoken: that resistance to foreign occupation (by brown and black people) is considered a war crime. Cuddling the boots of the foreign occupiers is recommended instead. (thanks Marc)

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2009/07/rules-of-amnesty-international.html

Cindy Sheehan Speaking on July 25th in Ballard

Peace activist and anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan has been invited to speak atTrinity United Methodist Church later this month. Sheehan made headlines in 2005 by camping outside of President Bush’s Crawford, Texas home with a contingent of Veterans for Peace after her son Casey was killed in Iraq the year before. In the last four years she has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and has written several books. The stop in Ballard is to promote her fourth book, “Myth America: 10 Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution”. She will be speaking on July 25th at 7 p.m.

The Big Whorehouse On The Potomac - -Paul Craig Roberts

 If Roberts is accurate here, this article is very interesting for what it says about Iranian elections and also about Obama overtures to Putin (update:  today's NYTimes says Russia will grant America fly-over to Afghanistan -- Roberts was right?), not to mention the antics of THE WASHINGTON POST.  linda

link to whole article (portion below):  http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22978.htm

July 03, 2009 "
Information Clearing House" -- -As Americans celebrate July 4th, they can contemplate that the union of “free and independent states,” like the former British colonial power, has evolved into its final manifestation--a complete whore house. While Members of Parliament in London charge their expense accounts with every personal expenditure, including the rental of adult xxx-rated films, an American newspaper put the reporting of public policy out to bids until politico.com blew the whistle.

In Washington, everything is for sale, including journalistic integrity. The Washington Post, which abandoned investigative reporting eons ago, decided to boost its sagging revenues by spreading her legs. The Post’s business division put out a flyer offering lobbyists access at the Post’s CEO’s gracious home to “those powerful few” in the Obama administration, Congress, and among the Post’s editors and reporters who decide the nation’s policies, such as health care. 

The Washington Post’s flyer offered a Wal-Mart low cost of a mere $25,000 for one “salon” to interact with decision makers and $250,000 for eleven interactions. 

Alas, people with an old fashioned sense of integrity impugned the Washington Post’s new business model, and the Post’s boss, Katharine Weymouth, had to rescind the offer that would have rescued the newspaper by turning it into a “facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters.”

I say damn the old fashioned moralists. America would be much better served if the Washington Post was selling access to lobbyists instead of selling the US government’s PSYOPS operations in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, Ukraine, Serbia, Venezuela, Honduras, and everywhere else, for which the paper receives a pittance: the reporter can tell his editor that he has a deep source within the government, hardly an adequate recompense for wars that cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars at a time when Americans cannot pay the mortgages on their homes. 

America would be better off if the Washington Post whored for lobbyists than for the US Imperial State, which has failed to adjust its imperial ambitions to its bankruptcy. As an example of its whoring for US Imperialism, on July 2, the Washington Post reported President Obama’s claim that Russian Prime Minister Putin is a person who lives partly in the past, with “one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new.” 

LA Protest at Israeli Embassy for the Free Gaza Crew & Palestine

Cynthia McKinney from Israeli Prison: Obama, Stand by Your Policies!

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Privately Run Checkpoint Stops Palestinians With 'Too Much Food' -- Amira Hass

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1096322.html
A West Bank checkpoint managed by a private security company is not allowing Palestinians to pass through with large water bottles and some food items, Haaretz has learned.

MachsomWatch discovered the policy, which Palestinian workers confirmed to Haaretz.

The Defense Ministry stated in response that non-commercial quantities of food were not being limited. It made no reference to the issue of water.


The checkpoint, Sha'ar Efraim, is south of Tul Karm, and is managed for the Defense Ministry by the private security company Modi'in Ezrahi. The company stops Palestinian workers from passing through the checkpoint with the following items: Large bottles of frozen water, large bottles of soft drinks, home-cooked food, coffee, tea and the spice zaatar. The security company also dictates the quantity of items allowed: Five pitas, one container of hummus and canned tuna, one small bottle or can of beverage, one or two slices of cheese, a few spoonfuls of sugar, and 5 to 10 olives. Workers are also not allowed to carry cooking utensils and work tools.

MachsomWatch told Haaretz that Sunday, a 32-year-old construction worker from Tul Karm, who is employed in Hadera, was not allowed to carry his lunch bag through the checkpoint. The bag contained six pitas, 2 cans of cream cheese, one kilogram of sugar in a plastic bag, and a salad, also in a plastic bag.

The typical Palestinian laborer in Israel has a 12-hour workday, including travel time and checkpoint delays. Many leave home as early as 2 A.M. in order to wait in line at the checkpoint; tardiness to work often results in immediate dismissal. Workers return home around 5 P.M. The wait at the checkpoint can take one to two hours in each direction, if not longer.

The food quantities allowed by Modi'in Ezrahi do not meet the daily dietary needs of the workers, and they prefer not to buy food at the considerably more expensive Israeli stores.

MachsomWatch informed the Israel Defense Forces about the new bans but received no response, the organization said. Modi'in Ezrahi issued a statement saying questions should be directed to the Defense Ministry's crossings administration.

MachsomWatch activists said a security guard on duty told them the food restrictions were imposed due to "security and health risks." However, at the nearby Qalqilyah checkpoint, which is still run directly by the IDF, workers have been allowed to carry through all the food items banned at Sha'ar Efraim.

However, responsibility for the Qalqilyah checkpoint is supposed to be transferred to a private company this week, and workers voiced concerns that similar restrictions might be imposed there.

The IDF Spokesman's office said in a statement: "There are no limits on food quantities. They may take through food necessary for personal consumption during a day's work. When a worker arrives with a large quantity of goods intended for sale rather than for personal use, he is asked to pass through the goods crossing instead, where the goods are handled appropriately and with the appropriate customs checks. This crossing is intended for pedestrians and not for goods."

Zionist Kidnappers of Children! -- Angry Arab Newservice

"After ransacking three homes Israeli forces blasted into a fourth through the back door. They threw rocks at the door and windows, report witnesses. A 16 year old high school student had begun a summer job with his father as an apprentice carpenter. Israeli soldiers took the teen from his bed: no shoes and in his underpants. The boy’s parents pleaded with the Israeli soldiers that their child be allowed to dress. Soldiers claimed they were only taking the 16 year old for a “minute or two.” His family has not seen him since, reports the International Women’s Peace Service, a humanitarian mission based in the West Bank’s Salfit." (thanks Olivia)

Free Gaza People Kidnapped by Israel -- "We Are Not the Story"

In calling reps, asking for the activists on the Spirit of Humanity to be freed to continue their journey to Gaza, they ask us to bring attention to the 11,000 Palestinian prisoners and the continuing siege/occupation of Palestinians. Please, lets take advantage of their plight to emphasize the illegal & worsening conditions for Palestinians in prisons & on the land. Take a moment to call your representatives today! Press release & update are below:

Phone numbers and e-mail addresses for U.S. Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Phone numbers and e-mail addresses for US Representatives: http://clerk.house.gov/members/index.htm


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
1 July 2009

We are NOT the “Story”
It’s Not Just Our 21 Kidnapped Passengers

On June 30th 2009 Israeli Occupation Forces forcibly boarded the Free Gaza boat, SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, and kidnapped 21 human rights workers and journalists who were on their way to deliver much needed humanitarian and reconstruction supplies to besieged Gaza. Those abducted by Israel include Nobel peace prize laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.

Since their kidnapping, tens-of-thousands of people around the world have mobilized to demand their immediate and unconditional release. The Free Gaza Movement would like to thank everyone who has made a phone call, sent a fax or email, written a letter, or organized a demonstration on behalf of our 21 imprisoned friends.

With respect, it is not enough. We are not the story. Since its founding in 1948 the State of Israel has regularly kidnapped and tortured Palestinians, throwing them into forgotten prisons where they can languish for years. Today, over 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners without benefit of due process, some never even charged - men, women, and children – endure torture and isolation in Israeli jails, outdoor prison camps, and secret black sites. They come from all walks of life: doctors, journalists, parliamentarians, workers, resistance fighters, homemakers, students and others. They are our sisters and brothers.

The 21 passengers aboard the Spirit of Humanity have been illegally incarcerated for their solidarity work with Palestine. 11,000 other members of our common human family are already imprisoned simply for being Palestinian.

The Siege of Palestine is not simply the physical blockade against Gaza. The Siege includes the hundreds of checkpoints throughout the West Bank that separate families and communities and shatter any prospect for a viable Palestinian state. The Siege includes the millions of Palestinians in Diaspora, many of them dumped in squalid refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and elsewhere. The Siege is ever-present throughout all aspects of Palestinian life.

This Siege is only strengthened when we pay more attention to the injustice done to 21 international solidarity workers than we do to the much greater injustices already being committed against millions of Palestinians.

We in the Free Gaza Movement implore all the good people around the world who have working so hard to secure the release of our friends to "adopt" a Palestinian prisoner. We ask you to learn about the crisis and take on the cause of an individual prisoner as your own.

Break the Siege! Reach out to Palestine!

For more information, please visit http://www.FreeGaza.org, as well as the following prisoner information websites:

• http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=7209&CategoryId=4
• http://sumoud.tao.ca/?q=node/view/76
• http://palestinianprisoners.blogspot.com/2009/04/palestinian-prisoners-families-protest_27.html
• http://www.btselem.org/english/statistics/Detainees_and_Prisoners.asp
###

For More Information, Please Contact:
Greta Berlin (English)
tel: +357 99 28 41 02 / friends@freegaza.org

Ramzi Kysia (English)
Tel: + 357 99 08 17 67 / rrkysia@yahoo.com

Caoimhe Butterly (Arabic/English/Spanish):
tel: +357 99 80 96 37 / sahara78@hotmail.co.uk
---