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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUbw8T4J3s0
SIRATYST (Stuff I Read and Thought You Should Too) -- “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.” (Calgacus, as quoted by Tacitus, Agricola 30-31)"
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
The Casey Sheehan "End to War" Bill
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For more info, go here:
http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-i-fight-by-cindy-sheehan.html
The Casey Sheehan "End to War" Bill:
http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-i-fight-by-cindy-sheehan.html
The Casey Sheehan "End to War" Bill:
Immediately upon the president signing this bill into law, forced military conscription will begin.
The bill will have NO EXEMPTIONS to those who are eligible to the draft and the age limit is 18 to no upper limit. This bill seeks to draft those eligible from both genders and all gender and sexual preferences.
There will be very limited health exemptions as most people can perform a skill that is valuable to the military. As University is now open to all ages and attended by old and young alike, there will be no education exemptions. The draftees can resume or attend college when their stint in the armed forces is up. There will be no GI education benefits extended to the draftees, as they will be members of the wealthy of the US.
Citizens will be drafted in this order in the event of a Constitutionally declared war, or un-constitutionally started war, or any of these euphemisms (but not limited to) for war: police action, entanglement, theater, hostilities, occupation, special operations, interventions, cluster-fu@k, pacifications, war on drugs, peace-keeping, fighting for "freedom and democracy," etc:
The President and his/her Cabinet and their age appropriate dependents, including spouses. No exemptions as outlined above.
Senators and Congress Members and their age appropriate dependents, including spouses. No exemptions as outlined above.
CEO's of the Federal Reserve and Banks and their age appropriate dependents, including spouses. No exemptions as outlined above.
CEO's of any company (including the media) that profit directly or indirectly from war and their age appropriate dependents, including spouses. No exemptions as outlined above.
Anyone who by word or deed supports the entry into war, or any of the euphemisms associated with war, and their age appropriate dependents. This includes media pundits, male or female and their age appropriate dependents, including spouses. No exemptions as outlined above.
Any citizen of the United States of America who does not fall into one of the above categories is categorically ineligible for this forced conscription draft.
This bill will also provide college tuition grants to anyone who does not fall into one of the above categories and who wishes to go to college-without having to join the military.
No more of OUR blood for THEIR profit.
"The Incarceration of Carlos Alberto Torres" (Free After 30 Years!) -- Marjorie Cohn
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http://www.counterpunch.org/cohn07262010.html
Today, Puerto Rican political prisoner Carlos Alberto Torres will walk out of prison after 30 years behind bars. He was convicted of seditious conspiracy - conspiring to use force against the lawful authority of the United States over Puerto Rico. Torres was punished for being a member of an armed clandestine organization called the FALN (Armed Forces of National Liberation), which had taken responsibility for bombings that resulted in no deaths or injuries. He was not accused of taking part in these bombings, only of being a member of the FALN.
In 1898, Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States by Spain as war bounty in the treaty that ended the Spanish-American War. Nevertheless, the U.S. invaded Puerto Rico and has occupied it ever since. Puerto Ricans have always resisted foreign occupation of their land and called for independence.
The Puerto Rican independence movement enjoys wide support internationally. Every year for 29 years the United Nations Decolonization Committee has passed a resolution calling for independence. There have been similar declarations of the Non-Aligned Movement, and recent submissions to the United Nations Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review.
All of these expressions call on the U.S. government to release Puerto Rican political prisoners who have served 30 and 29 years of their disproportionately long 70 year sentences in U.S. prisons for cases related to the struggle for Puerto Rican independence. They include Torres (who was sentenced to 30 years) and Oscar López Rivera (sentenced to 29 years), as well as Avelino González Claudio, who was recently sentenced to seven years. None of these men was convicted for harming anyone or taking a life.
Torres’ attorney, National Lawyers Guild member Jan Susler of Chicago, notes, “Carlos is being released from prison due to the unflagging support of the Puerto Rican independence movement and others who work for human rights. The more than 10,000 letters of support from the U.S., Puerto Rico, Mexico and other countries sent a strong message to the Parole Commission.”
Supporters from all over the United States will flock to the welcoming celebration in Chicago, which will take place in the heart of the Puerto Rican community. Tomorrow, Torres, his family and attorney will fly to Puerto Rico, where thousands will greet him with a concert of the nation’s finest musicians and artists.
Yet there is a damper on the celebration, as Torres leaves behind his compatriot Oscar López, a 67 year old decorated Viet Nam veteran. López did not accept the terms of President Clinton’s 1999 clemency offer, which would have required him to serve an additional 10 years in prison with good conduct. Though he declined the offer, López has now served the additional 10 years in prison with good conduct. Had he accepted the deal, he would have been released last September. Those who did accept are living successful lives, fully integrated into civil society. There is no reason to treat him differently.
While we celebrate this remarkable day in the life of Torres and the movement for Puerto Rican independence, let us commit ourselves to continue to struggle until Oscar López Rivera and Avelino González Claudio, as well as all political prisoners in U.S. prisons, also walk free.
***********
FREE LEONARD! FREE MUMIA! FREE LYNNE!
WHAT'S THE CALL? FREE 'EM ALL!
"WIND CHASES THE SUN: The Leonard Peltier Story" -- New Movie Looking for Support
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http://cactusprofilms.com/wind-chases-the-sun/
EXCERPT from movie synopsis:
EXCERPT from movie synopsis:
Between the years of 1973 and 1975, over sixty Native Americans were murdered during the “Reign of Terror” on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. On June 26, 1975 tension erupted with a shootout on the Jumping Bull Ranch between FBI and American Indian Movement (AIM) members resulting in the deaths of two FBI agents and one American Indian.
In 1977, Indian Activist, Leonard Peltier was convicted for the murder of the two agents and since has served thirty-four years in Federal prison. Despite proof that he was convicted on a combination of fabricated and suppressed evidence and false testimony, he continues to languish behind bars.
Wind Chases the Sun is currently budgeted at $370,000. Preston Randolph, along with his research crew is the driving force behind the documentary script. Accumulating hands-on knowledge – garnered from extensive research and interviews – Preston exposes new & highly relevant information concerning the atrocities of the Peltier case, to aid viewers in finding the truth.
Leonard Peltier is in full support of this production and hopes the facts Preston brings to light will be the final chapter in his hell-behind-bars story and finally return him home to his family.
“This is the film of an innocent man, imprisoned by the lies of a guilty government.”
The extreme poverty of the Pine Ridge Reservation, along with the never-before-heard testimony, will be projected on screen through a revolutionary High-Definition Production. The cinematography will also include aerial footage of the Pine Ridge Reservation shot with a Cineflex HD camera by Aerial Filmworks.
The horrific details of the “Reign of Terror” and the plight of Leonard Peltier will be presented through vintage archival footage and groundbreaking, accurate and violent reenactments. Wind Chases the Sun not only wants to educate the masses on this genocidal case, but also to wow the audience, sending them away from the theater shocked and outraged from what they have just witnessed.
The film spans the life of Leonard Peltier, from early years to present, in a way never before seen on the screen. The audience will witness the experiences and principals that formed him into the man he now is. He grew up while dealing with prejudice and injustice, being shuffled to boarding schools while struggling to adapt to societal changes during the 1960’s.
The chronological account of Peltier’s recruitment into AIM and his earliest chapters of political activism will present vivid insights into what motivations took Peltier to the Pine Ridge Reservation during the 1970’s.
Another story line of the film focuses on tensions of the Pine Ridge Reservation, including the hardships and extreme poverty that remains to this day. This period included the murders – never investigated – of over sixty Native Americans by members of death squads funded and armed by the US Government and FBI. This segment will invoke extreme emotions, and the violent reenactments offer samples of the despair of this bleak, dark period in American History.
Amidst these horrific events, the people of the Pine Ridge Reservation cried out to the American Indian Movement for help. On June 26, 1975, Special Agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams sought to serve an out-standing arrest warrant and purposely entered the area where the AIM was camped. These two ill-advised and un-prepared young agents had entered a documented “war zone.”
"The Forgotten American" (Furkan Dogan) -- Roger Cohen in NYTimes
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via The Jerusalem Fund website
EXCERPT:
TROY, New York — The Dogans were a quiet family little noticed by their neighbors here in upstate New York. Ahmet Dogan had come to the area from Turkey to study accounting at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
He was a serious student; the Dogans did little entertaining. But when their younger son, Furkan, was born in 1991, the family threw a party and a neighbor recalled a toast “to the first U.S. citizen in the family.”
Furkan Dogan would live just two years in Troy, returning to Turkey with his family in 1993. But he was proud of his American passport and dreamt of coming back after completing medical school. Five Israeli bullets — at least two of them to the head — ended that dream on May 31. Dogan was 19.
The young American, who had just completed high school with excellent grades in the central Turkish town of Kayseri, had seen an online advertisement for volunteers to deliver aid to Gaza. The ad, from a Turkish charity called the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, or I.H.H, said the goal of the trip was to show that Israel’s “embargo/blockade can be legally broken.”
Little interested in politics, but with an aspiring doctor’s concern for Palestinian suffering, Dogan won a lottery to go.
How he was killed is disputed — as is just about everything concerning the Israeli naval takeover of the six-boat Gaza-bound flotilla — but his father suspects a video camera carried by his son may have provoked Israeli commandos.
"Carpet-Bombing Falsehoods About a War That’s Little Understood- Korea"
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/books/22book.html?_r=1&hpw
via Global Network Against Weapons and Nukes in Space
EXCERPT:
Mr. Cumings argues that the Korean War was a civil war with long, tangled historical roots, one in which America had little business meddling. He notes how “appallingly dirty” the war was. In terms of civilian slaughter, he declares, “our ostensibly democratic ally was the worst offender, contrary to the American image of the North Koreans as fiendish terrorists.”
Mr. Cumings likens the indiscriminate American bombing of North Korea to genocide. He writes that American soldiers took part in, or observed, civilian atrocities not dissimilar to those at My Lai. An official inquiry is needed into some of these events, he writes, for any kind of healing to begin. (He also writes that this war, during which nearly 37,000 American soldiers died, deserves a memorial as potent and serious as Maya Lin’s Vietnam memorial.)
Among the most important things to understand about North Korean behavior then and now, Mr. Cumings writes, is the longtime enmity between Korea and Japan. Japan took Korea as a colony in 1910, with America’s blessing, and replaced the Korean language with Japanese. Japan humiliated and brutalized Korea in other ways. (During World War II the Japanese Army forcibly turned tens of thousands of Korean women into sex slaves known as “comfort women.”) About this history Mr. Cumings writes, “Neither Korea nor Japan has ever gotten over it.”
North Korea, which is virulently anti-Japan, remains bitter and fearful of that country and of the United States. It will do whatever it can to stay out of the hands of South Korea, where leaders have long-standing historical ties to Japan.
Mr. Cumings, in “The Korean War,” details the north’s own atrocities, and acknowledges that current “North Korean political practice is reprehensible.” But he says that we view that country through “Orientalist bigotry,” seeing only its morbid qualities. We wrongly label the country Stalinist, he argues. “There is no evidence in the North Korean experience of the mass violence against whole classes of people or the wholesale ‘purge’ that so clearly characterized Stalinism,” he writes.
The most eye-opening sections of “The Korean War” detail America’s saturation bombing of Korea’s north. “What hardly any Americans know or remember,” Mr. Cumings writes, “is that we carpet-bombed the north for three years with next to no concern for civilian casualties.” The United States dropped more bombs in Korea (635,000 tons, as well as 32,557 tons of napalm) than in the entire Pacific theater during World War II. Our logic seemed to be, he says, that “they are savages, so that gives us the right to shower napalm on innocents.”
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Israel Withholds Medical Treatment for Gazans -- Stephen Lendman in Baltimore Chronicle
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http://baltimorechronicle.com/2010/072510Lendman.shtml
EXCERPT:
EXCERPT:
Two recent reports discuss it, a July Physicians for Human Rights - Israel (PHR-IL) one titled, "A Situation Report on Obstacles Facing Gaza Residents in Need of Medical Treatment," and a June one titled, "
- preventing the restoration and development of the Strip's healthcare system; and
- restricting travel to the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Israel, or neighboring countries for treatment.
In its July report, PHR-IL said Gaza's healthcare system is getting progressively worse "due to a lack of medical expertise, medicine(s) and medical equipment," the ICRC recently saying it's "at an all time low."
In June, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that Israel blocked delivery of essential equipment, including a CT scanner, defibrillators and monitors. In addition, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Israel confiscated seven oxygen machines, donated by a Norwegian development agency, and blocked x-ray machine deliveries, claiming they were dual-use, meaning possibly for military purposes.
As a result, critical shortages of most everything exist, including vital medicines, essential equipment, and other supplies expected to run out this summer, harming chronic disease sufferers the most, hampered by draconian impediments for permission to leave Gaza for treatment - what PHR-IL calls "an inexcusable breach of medical ethics" based on political, not medical considerations, most non-life threatening cases denied, including ones PHR-IL calls urgent, such as for:
"Paraplegia; retinal detachement; SLE (Lupus); foreign body in vitreous; subluxated lens; chronic severe febrile anemia; fever(s) of unknown origin (FUO); traumatic macular hole; psychomotor retardation; anemia; suspected abdominal abnormal vascular pressure; suspected chronic intestinal disease; psedoarthrosis (non-union of fractured bones) - arms, hand; infected plate - hip; deformation of cornea; recurrent dislocation of shoulder; lumbar discopathy; opacity of vitreous; (and) malformation of urinary tract."
Numerous other non-urgent/non-life-threatening ones are also denied, some chronic, severe, painful and/or disabling, badly in need of treatment, including a 24 year old Gaza resident shot in the arm in October 2007, unable to use his hand because of atrophied muscle tissue around the wound area.
As a result, he suffers severe pain, orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Yosef Leitner, saying a tendon transfer is the only hope to restore proper hand functioning, Gaza's Al Shifaa Hospital (the Strip's largest and most advanced) with neither the means or staff to perform it.
In August 2009, an exit request was submitted to receive treatment in East Jerusalem's Al Makassed Hospital. Initially denied, it was appealed and again denied - unprincipled, unethical, illegal, and common practice against Gazans under siege, PHR-IL saying:
"....all patients are entitled to the best available medical treatment, regardless of the urgency....or the severity of their clinical state," legitimate distinctions only permissible in cases of limited resources (such as after a natural disaster), even then for the shortest time possible to restore proper care to everyone in need.
Under international law, denying medical care is illegal, Fourth Geneva's Article 3 saying all non-combatants and those having laid down their arms "shall in all circumstances be treated humanely" with no distinctions for any reasons.
Article 16 states:
"The wounded and sick, as well as the infirm, and expectant mothers, shall be the object of particular protection and respect."
The UN's Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment prohibits mistreatment in any form (including denying medical treatment), as do the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Constitution of the International Criminal Court (the Rome Statute), and civilized countries globally, Israel and America not among them.
An Israeli Supreme Court decision provides an example, approving restrictions to exit Gaza for treatment, with narrow exceptions, ignored by government officials because the ruling left final authority in their hands, an easy cop-out to permit cruel and unusual punishment to continue, what PHR-IL calls "routine, permanent policy," unethical, immoral, illegal, and deplorable.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
"The Shocking Rates of Infant Mortality and Cancer in Iraqi City Raise New Questions About Battle"
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EXCERPT:
Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.
Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.
Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.
Rashid Khalidi ("Obama Associate") Fundraising for Gaza Boat
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http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/obama-associate-raising-funds-for-new-gaza-aid-ship-1.303844
EXCERPT:
EXCERPT:
The Palestinian-American academic told Haaretz that although he will participate in the fundraising event for the ship, he will not be sailing in the planned flotilla itself. In a reference to the Israel Defense Forces, he added: "Given the national-religious hierarchy which determines what the IDF can do to whom, the fact that the ship is American will make it harder to deal with it as the Mavi Marmara was dealt with."
The Mavi Marmara was boarded by the Israel Navy at the end of May while part of a flotilla attempting to run the blockade. Nine people on board the ship were killed in the confrontation with naval commandos.
Khalidi said he visited relatives in the Gaza Strip a number of years ago. He characterized the blockade as a measure "imposed on a population of 1. 5 million people who are effectively imprisoned, and most of whom are deprived of living a normal life."
When asked by Haaretz if he was aware of the proposed name of the ship and whether the choice of name was appropriate, Khalidi said: "I am not one of the organizers of this effort, and had no knowledge that this name had been chosen. If the name is a problem for the [Obama] administration, it can simply insist publicly that Israel lift the siege. That of course would require it to respond to the systematic mendacity of those in Congress and elsewhere who support the siege. It is shameful that the U.S. and Egyptian governments are complicit in this indefensible siege."
"California Tribes Stand Together to Protect Rights at MLPA Meeting, Fort Bragg CA
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http://intercontinentalcry.org/california-tribes-peacefully-take-control-of-mlpa-taskforce-meeting/
Via Friends of Peltier blog
Via Friends of Peltier blog
More than 50 tribal nations peacefully took control of the Marine Life Protection Act's Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting in California Wednesday. Their message: The state will no longer impose its will on indigenous people.
"This is about more than a fouled-up process that attempts to prohibit tribes from doing something they have done sustainably for thousands of years," said Frankie Joe Myers, a Yurok tribal citizen and organizer for the Coastal Justice Coalition. "It is about respect,acknowledgement and recognition of indigenous peoples' rights."
The group of more than 300 met up at 11a.m. on the Main Street of Fort Bragg, CA. and hiked up a half mile to the C.V. Star Community Center with a unified voice that pulsed: M-L-P-A Taking Tribal Rights Away! Just before heading into the meeting tribal community members standing twenty deep chanted "No Way M.L.P.A.!" to the Blue Ribbon Task Force Members waiting inside.
"The Blue Ribbon Task Force had given us no indication that they were listening to North Coast Tribes' call to respect our sovereignty," Dania Rose Colegrove, a Hoopa tribal citizen. "We felt that we needed show them a small symbol of what we are willing to do to pass on our culture to future generations."
The Marine Life Protection Act Initiative is a public and privately funded partnership between the State of California and a few deep-pocketed foundations — chiefly the Resources Legacy Fund to — implement the Marine Life Protection Act, which was signed into law in 1999. That Act calls for the creation of marine reserves with varying levels of protection from one end of the state to the other. The Blue Ribbon Task Force is charged with making recommendations to the California Fish and Game Commission of where to put the protected areas. To date, the Task Force has said it will view traditional tribal gathers in the same light as recreational fishermen, which is largely offensive to tribal people.
Citizens from tribal nations as far away as the Choktaw Nation attended the meeting to stand in solidarity with the North California Tribes. Many pointed out the absurdity and pain caused by asking Native Americans to give something else.
"Whether it is their intention or not, what the Marine Life Protection Act does to tribes is it systematically decimates our ability to be who we are," Myers said. "That is the definition cultural genocide."
Coastal indigenous people collect mussels, seaweed and other ocean resources for sustenance and ceremonial regalia. All of these resources were abundant until Europeans commercialized them.
"We should have had better immigration laws," tribal citizen and Air Force Veteran Wally Obie told the Blue Ribbon Task Force. "That's not funny."
Friday, July 23, 2010
Two Dead and 4 Children Injured in Israeli Nail Bomb Attack in Beit Hanoun, Gaza
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http://uruknet.com/?p=m68173&hd=&size=1&l=e
"She came in through and it wasn’t clear she was injured. Suddenly a lot of blood came from her nose and she vomited. All of the family saw this – her little brothers were very scared. She had just been playing in the front of the house."
This is a mother describing to us her daughter, 9-year-old Sammah as she came in to her home at 4pm after the Israeli army reportedly shelled and fired four bombs into and around a residential area in Beit Hanoun, Northern Gaza. She is now in a semi-critical condition in hospital, suffering extensive blood loss and very low haemoglobin. She was hit by shrapnel and 'flechettes’ from a nail bomb that landed 100m away, causing internal bleeding to the chest, severe head trauma and nails embedded in her body. Shells containing flechettes are illegal under international law if fired into densely populated civilian areas and SamahEid El-Massry is one of four children injured in the attack yesterday, July 21st.
Two young men were killed: Mohammad Al-Kafarneh, 23, from severe shrapnel injuries in his back and chest and Kasim Al-Shinbary, 19, caused by injuries from nails embedded in his skull and shrapnel wounds to the back. It was unclear earlier whether they were resistance fighters or if they were civilians – the Israeli Occupation Force called them 'militants’ – just as they called the four children, aged between 4 and 11, who were left hospitalised by their injuries 'militants’. Their parents could be found weeping over their loved ones in Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City last night.
We first visited Haitham Thaer Qasem a four year old boy and a first and only child. He was sleeping on the hospital bed, occasionally gasping for breath through the strapping around his nose. He had suffered deep nasal trauma, and flechette darts from the nail bomb were still embedded in his tiny body, where they had pierced his back, right elbow and right leg. He was 200m from the impact of the bomb.
In his hospital ward his mother was standing to one side crying quietly and another relative at Haitham’s bedside explained what had happened.
"We had asked Haitham to get shopping for her from the market…then we heard the bombings and somebody came to our home and told our family that he was in the hospital and was injured in the bombing. We came quickly to the hospital."
New Israeli Report on Operation Cast Lead Confirms Goldstone Report’s Main Findings -- Yaniv Reich (via Aletho News)
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http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/new-israeli-report-on-operation-cast-lead-confirms-goldstone-report%e2%80%99s-main-findings/
Defense Minister Ehud Barak described it as “false, distorted, and irresponsible“. Information Minister Yuli Edelstein called it “anti-Semitic“. Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren said it “insidiously… portrayed the Jews as the deliberate murderers of innocents“. Foreign Minister Lieberman argued that its true purpose “was to destroy Israel’s image, in service of countries where the terms ‘human rights’ and ‘combat ethics’ do not even appear in their dictionaries“. And the US House of Representatives banded together in bipartisan harmony to pass a resolution (344–36) that called “on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration” of it.
For nearly a year now, vicious attacks on the Goldstone report and on Judge Goldstone himself have been the thing for Israel’s numerous apologists to do.
There is just one not-so-minor problem with this knee-jerk criticism of the report and infinite stream of ad hominem libel against its main author. A majority of the most damning—and damaging—war crimes that are alleged to have taken place have now been confirmed by the IDF’s own investigations into the matter, themselves only conducted in an effort to derail the Goldstone report’s referral to the International Criminal Court.
IDF confirms over 20 gravest findings of the Goldstone Report
Several of the most dramatic instances of war crimes, which previously stirred Israel’s defenders into fits, are now publicly admitted by the IDF in the recent update to its official response (which can be found here).
Some examples of war crimes include:
- White phosphorous in urban areas: This one is probably the most famous admission that emerged after a series of easily disproved lies. Israel’s initial response was one of absolute denial, indeed indignation, that people would suggest it had used banned chemical weapons in densely populated areas. But the steady stream of photos and videos depicting phosphorous burns on children and buildings eventually forced Israel to admit it had used these prohibited weapons.
- The murder of two unarmed Palestinians carrying white flags of surrender.
- The Al-Fakhura Street incident: Israeli mortar fire at a site adjacent to a UN Relief Works Agency compound resulted in multiple civilian deaths.
- The use of innocent Palestinians as human shields: The Goldstone report explains that in order “to carry out house searches as human shields the Israeli soldiers took off AD/03’s blindfold but he remained handcuffed. He was forced to walk in front of the soldiers and told that, if he saw someone in the house but failed to tell them, he would be killed. He was instructed to search each room in each house cupboard by cupboard. After one house was completed he was taken to another house with a gun pressed against his head and told to carry out the same procedure there. He was punched, slapped and insulted throughout the process.” The new Israeli report identifies this anonymous human shield AD/03 and confirms this episode. Other cases of human shield use, e.g. Abbas Ahmad Ibrahim Halawa and Mahmoud Abd Rabbo al-Ajrami, were also confirmed.
- Al-Samouni family massacre: The Israelis attacked two houses of the Samouni family, killing 23 people in total. Subsequently, they prevented the Red Cross and PRCS from providing care to the wounded and dying for three days. Confirmed by Israel and the subject of a military investigation.
- Firing on Al Maqadmah and other mosques during prayer time.
In total, a quick scan through the IDF’s new report provides direct confirmation of more than 20 of Goldstone’s findings.
'West Bank-Gaza Split Impedes Peace, State' -- Sarah Harlan
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http://palestinenote.com/cs/blogs/news/archive/2010/07/22/panelists-west-bank-gaza-split-impedes-peace-state.aspx
EXCERPT:
EXCERPT:
Both El-Khodary and Brown chastise the US for pumping money into the West Bank and building up Salam Fayyad but not engaging Hamas or actively working to democratize the PA.
US policy has been the most significant contributor to the continued split, she said. By backing the West Bank seemingly against Gaza, the West Bank and Gaza are turning more and more into separate entities, making reconciliation more difficult to effect.
In his discussion of what the US expects to do and gain in the region, Katulis gave a point-by-point overview, focused mainly on PA-Israeli engagement.
He admitted in his discussion of US policy that building security and institutions does not create political legitimacy, as Brown demanded. Moreover, he said, state-building does not connect directly to a two-state solution.
As for the US policy toward Gaza (or lack thereof), it has been "illogical and immoral," Katulis said.
Some have criticized the Obama administration's approach to the Middle East, saying its no different than those who came before him. Katulis offered as an explanation but not an excuse that President Obama took on the presidency saddled with two wars and an economic crisis.
There simply are not enough hours in the day to give the Palestinian-Israeli issue the attention it merits, and the flaws in the management of the Obama's Palestine plan begun to emerge, especially during the flotilla crisis, he said without much elaboration.
He closed his overview of US policy in on the issue saying the US should keep its eyes on intra-Palestinian political development instead of simply hoping Hamas will go away, as Brown put it. Intra-Palestinian divisions impede US goals in the region, Katulis said simply.
Prospects
Despite this fact, El-Khodary had little hope for the US endorsing a reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. It would be the end of Salam Fayyad, she said.
There is no love for Fayyad within Hamas, as the PM kept Hamas members out of key ministries before the split, she said. And he has no popular base in Gaza, she continued, because he represents a government that turned its back on its own people.
And without a political base of his own, the American-backed Fayyad would have no toe-hold in a reconciled government.
The US has a history of supporting personalities over institutions, she said, pointing to Fayyad, Abbas, and deceased PLO leader Yasser Arafat. Where is the sustainability in a system like that, she asked.
Hamas, on the other hand, is sustainable as a movement and a government - if any of its key leaders were to be lost, another would enter his place with little disruption. When it comes to the PA or Fatah, discussions deal in names, Brown said. But not Hamas - it has proven to be bigger than the personalities in it.
Where does this leave the two-state solution the US hopes to effect?
With Palestine divided, the two-state solution has little chance of success, and despite the seeming inevitability of this reality, it appeared from the panelists commentary that the US is still disinterested in backing a reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas.
The end of the lecture was not entirely hopeless. Both sides express that they do want reconciliation, and Brown said he could conceive of a power-sharing government as a possibility. And while it could mean the end of Salam Fayyad and his state-building initiatives, for the panel, building a state cannot begin with Gaza and the West Bank divided.
"Top Gaza Student Studied with Oil Lamp, Mobile Phone"
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Gaza – Ma'an – Gaza's top Tawjihi student felt like she broke the siege against her with determination and the light from her mobile phone, she told Ma'an the day she received the news of her success.
Asma Amin Tubasi from Rafah remembers her father telling her to stop studying using the old oil lamp after a series of accidents in the Gaza Strip saw children injured and homes burned due to unsafe fuel smuggled in from Egypt.
"She would study 18 hours a day, and she has made me so proud today, scoring 99.4 on the literary stream of the Tawjihi, the highest score in all of Gaza," her father said.
From September to January, Asma's family had an average of 2-8 hours of blackouts each day, but in January, when the Palestinian Authority took over fuel transfers to Gaza from the EU, a shortage of funds and fuel lead to blackouts of 8-12 hours day.
"These power cuts exacerbate the already difficult living conditions in Gaza and disrupt almost all aspects of daily life, including household chores, health services, education and water and sanitation services," a special UN report on the electricity crisis in Gaza reported in May.
"I was just hoping for a better ending," Asma said, explaining that when the oil lamp was no longer an option she would use the light on her phone.
Her father, who works for the Ministry of Waqf (religious endowments) in Gaza, said he worried she would damage her eyes reading in such low light, with rolling power cuts spreading darkness over the Gaza Strip by 10 in the evening.
Her achievement is all the more impressive given the troubles plaguing the education system in Gaza. Statistics from the UN have shown that attendance and performance in public schools have declined as a result of aging education infrastructure, overcrowding, and frequent disruptions caused by military operations.
In the first semester of the 2007-2008 school year, only 20% of 16,000 sixth graders in Gaza passed standardized exams in Math, Science, English and Arabic, a study by Gaza's Ministry of Education found.
When Asma saw the result of the exams for which she had spent the year preparing, "I screamed, I cried, I laughed, I could not believe I had done it," she explained.
"She is a dedicated girl, she read all the time amidst a very difficult situation," her father explained, adding that he believed she was so determined to succeed because she wanted "a better future for herself, and a better future for Gaza."
Asma Amin Tubasi from Rafah remembers her father telling her to stop studying using the old oil lamp after a series of accidents in the Gaza Strip saw children injured and homes burned due to unsafe fuel smuggled in from Egypt.
"She would study 18 hours a day, and she has made me so proud today, scoring 99.4 on the literary stream of the Tawjihi, the highest score in all of Gaza," her father said.
From September to January, Asma's family had an average of 2-8 hours of blackouts each day, but in January, when the Palestinian Authority took over fuel transfers to Gaza from the EU, a shortage of funds and fuel lead to blackouts of 8-12 hours day.
"These power cuts exacerbate the already difficult living conditions in Gaza and disrupt almost all aspects of daily life, including household chores, health services, education and water and sanitation services," a special UN report on the electricity crisis in Gaza reported in May.
"I was just hoping for a better ending," Asma said, explaining that when the oil lamp was no longer an option she would use the light on her phone.
Her father, who works for the Ministry of Waqf (religious endowments) in Gaza, said he worried she would damage her eyes reading in such low light, with rolling power cuts spreading darkness over the Gaza Strip by 10 in the evening.
Her achievement is all the more impressive given the troubles plaguing the education system in Gaza. Statistics from the UN have shown that attendance and performance in public schools have declined as a result of aging education infrastructure, overcrowding, and frequent disruptions caused by military operations.
In the first semester of the 2007-2008 school year, only 20% of 16,000 sixth graders in Gaza passed standardized exams in Math, Science, English and Arabic, a study by Gaza's Ministry of Education found.
When Asma saw the result of the exams for which she had spent the year preparing, "I screamed, I cried, I laughed, I could not believe I had done it," she explained.
"She is a dedicated girl, she read all the time amidst a very difficult situation," her father explained, adding that he believed she was so determined to succeed because she wanted "a better future for herself, and a better future for Gaza."
Source: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=301840
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Jewish Federation Ben Gurion Fundraiser at Seattle Art Museum 7/22/10
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Hammering Man pleads with passers-by to Boycott Israeli Apartheid!
With a little help from his friends!
Hammering Man pleads with passers-by to Boycott Israeli Apartheid!
With a little help from his friends!
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