Viva Palestina update : GAZA OR BUST !?

Even though I dislike the language spoken by the modern aid workers, it doesn't stop me from admiring them for their courage and willingness to do something, even if it's wrong. That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger... no pain no gain... we must face our fears, head on... I could really learn from a writer like this too, her humor was so refreshing. From Peter Myer's elist:

(7) Relief convoy reaches Gaza, undergoes attack by thugs

From: Benjamin Merhav <benjaminmerhav@hotmail.com> Date: 10.03.2009 08:36 AM

Viva Palestina update : GAZA OR BUST !?

http://4thautobiography.blogspot.com/

Yvonne Ridley* reports from Viva Palestina

9th March 2009

GAZA OR BUST

The last 24 hours have probably been the blackest since the Viva Palestina convoy set off from London.Yesterday the convoy members became the target of an orchestrated wave of violence first started by Egyptian police and then culminating in vicious attacks by unknown thugs.The end result was a number of peace activists whose only aim is to take humanitarian aid into war torn Gaza were treated in hospital for head injuries.

Mercifully the string of casualties was not too serious but the experience denied us the chance of fulfilling our mission to deliver aid to Gaza yesterday.And dramatic images of the rioting and attacks could not be relayed to Press TV viewers because someone sabotaged the satellite van by deliberately cutting through a vital cable which would have beamed the shameful attacks across the world.

However, every cloud has a silver lining and I would like to take this opportunity of personally thanking the Egyptian authorities and those dark forces who tried to derail Viva Palestina.The event has only served to make us stronger, unite and bond us together more and created a wave of international media interest in Viva Palestina.

I think it would be fair to say that when you bring a diverse group of 300 plus people together on a gruelling mission to cover 5,000 miles driving across North Africa the result can result in a less than harmonious state of affairs.To be frank, there was friction and infighting and some of us generally got on each other's nerves as you would when you are confined to close quarters with challenging living, sleeping and eating conditions.

However, the deliberate bloody-mindedness of the Egyptian authorities did something we had failed to do for ourselves ... it caused us to unite, bond and emerge stronger than ever from underneath the rows of police batons, bricks, bottles and stones.

The trouble began when the police - who were only obeying their orders - tried to break up the convoy into small groups of medical and non medical aid. We were told the first would go through the Rafah crossing while the latter would go through an Israeli checkpoint.This was never going to be accepted by anyone on board the convoy. Our aim from the outset was simple: Rafah or bust. Giving aid to the people of Gaza has nothing to do with the Israelis and I do wish they would stop trying to make themselves centre stage in an affair that does not involve Tel Aviv.

As we dug in our heels about the convoy being physically divided, the authorities decided there was only one solution - batter us into submission, after all that is what police states do.And so, when the police tried to get physical, the convoy members followed their natural instincts and used passive resistance to defend themselves. Egyptian police are obviously not used to confronting stroppy westerners in such large numbers and so they retreated while a second wave was sent in.

Hundreds of riot squad officers, wearing visors, carrying shields and batons tumbled in to one of the two car parks in a large town centre compound in the port of al Arish and set about the unarmed peace activists.They too were heroically repelled and what followed was an uneasy stand off as some convoy members received medical attention.The net result was scores of vehicles had been able to escape the compound in which they were being held behind metal police barriers.

It was a minor victory and what followed was a very British response - the lads decided to have a game of football. I did try to persuade the Egyptian police to join in stressing they would have much more fun kicking a ball instead of kicking my comrades, but they seemed reluctant to let go of their batons.As the night drew in the convoy leader George Galloway who was 40 kilometres down the road, was made aware of the battle of al Arish and so he refused to cross the Rafah Border in to Gaza and returned to the convoy.

It was a hard call to make as the international media had gathered at Rafah for a party that never happened. As usual the Israelis also played to stereotype by shelling and bombing parts of Gaza.By the time Britain's best known parliamentarian reached the compound night had fallen and bright stadium-style lights illuminated the two car parks.Suddenly the area was plunged into darkness by a powercut which coincided with a brick, bottle and stone attacks on the convoy members by youths in their late teens and 20s. Seconds before the lights went out some convoy members saw a couple of unidentified men scrawling anti-Hamas slogans on lorries.

The lights remained out for some minutes, during which time the vicious attack was unleashed - the whole proceedings failed to warrant one single Egyptian police officer to swing his baton into action.Those who had wielded their sticks with such a passion before, stood impassively by and watched the onslaught.The power kicked back in again and the bright lights illuminated the scene to reveal several convoy members lying dazed and confused, blood dripping from gaping head wounds.

While they were ferried to hospital for treatment, there was a second powercut and a repeat of the violence.Once again the police stood by and watched the thugs launch their attacks on unarmed and defenceless members of Viva Palestina.Galloway, incandescent with rage held an urgent meeting with the governor of the region and secured assurances this would not happen again. He also secured a pledge that the convoy would be allowed to make its way to the Rafah crossing for 6am on Monday.

We're now only a few hours away from that deadline and it remains to be seen if the governor will keep his word. But regardless of what he decides I want to thank him for pulling every single member of Viva Palestina into one, united front.Thanks to him and the cack-handed police operation, Viva Palestina has emerged refocussed and stronger than ever with one, determined goal: Rafah or bust.

And it will happen, inspite of the best efforts of Tel Aviv meddling and Egyptian authorities' bullying.The people united can never be defeated.Gaza, next stop.
(Emphasis added - B.M.)

* British journalist Yvonne Ridley and award-winning film-maker Hassan al Banna Ghani are on the Viva Palestina convoy making a documentary about the journey from London to Gaza. her website is http://www.yvonneridley.org/ and you can follow her updates by Twitter or Facebook

Wonder if they made it yet.

ICC Prosecutor looks at ways to put Israeli officers on trial for Gaza 'war crimes'

The Israeli-Hamas conflict is synthesizing. Establishing jurisdiction is a key element in all court procedures, it's the process where a court confirms or denies their authority to hear and rule on a case. To date, neither the U.S. or Israel recognise the International Criminal Court's (ICC) jurisdiction over them. The Palestinian Authority has not been recognised by any nation as sovereign state. While the U.S. government was quick to recognise the Bolsheviks in Russia and the Jewish Israeli revolutionaries "right of return" to Palestine, official U.S. recognition of the Arab-Muslim Palestinian state is non-existent.

In the U.S., the accepted, "unofficial" attitude toward the Palestinian people is that they are all a bunch of fanatical whacked out Jihad terrorists who threaten Israel's (and America's) existence. To be pro-Palestinian rights in the U.S. is considered anti-Semitic by the ADL. One doesn't even have to be a gentile or in favour of eliminating Israel to be accused of anti-Semitism. According to the ADL, anyone speaking out against Israel is guilty of anti-Semitism and can/should be charged with a hate crime. As the ADL's (established in 1913, the same year the international bankers got the Federal Reserve Act passed) U.S. tax funded presence on the internet gains them more power to crush all U.S. opposition opinions, it will also create an international backlash against them. The way I see it, the ADL's assumption of dictatorial control over published content also plays right into the hands of the people who want to give the ICC more power.

There were 2 articles about this in Peter Myer's email forward, but, as usual, the UK press article includes more relevant information:

(2) ICC is exploring ways to prosecute Israeli commanders over Gaza

From: IHR News <news@ihr.org> Date: 04.02.2009 03:51 PM

Prosecutor looks at ways to put Israeli officers on trial for Gaza 'war crimes'

Catherine Philp in Davos and James Hider in Jerusalem

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5636069.ece

From The Times

February 2, 2009

The International Criminal Court is exploring ways to prosecute Israeli commanders over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

The alleged crimes include the use of deadly white phosphorus in densely populated civilian areas, as revealed in an investigation by The Times last month. Israel initially denied using the controversial weapon, which causes horrific burns, but was forced later, in the face of mounting evidence, to admit to having deployed it.

When Palestinian groups petitioned the ICC this month, its prosecutor said that it was unable to take the case because it had no jurisdiction over Israel, a nonsignatory to the court. Now, however, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC prosecutor, has told The Times that he is examining the case for Palestinian jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed in Gaza.

Palestinian groups have submitted arguments asserting that the Palestinian Authority is the de facto state in the territory where the crimes were allegedly committed.

“It is the territorial state that has to make a reference to the court. They are making an argument that the Palestinian Authority is, in reality, that state,” Mr Moreno-Ocampo told The Times at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Part of the Palestinian argument rests on the Israeli insistence that it has no responsibility for Gaza under international law since it withdrew from the territory in 2006. “They are quoting jurisprudence,” Mr Moreno-Ocampo said. “It’s very complicated. It’s a different kind of analysis I am doing. It may take a long time but I will make a decision according to law.”

Mr Moreno-Ocampo said that his examination of the case did not necessarily reflect a belief that war crimes had been committed in Gaza. Determining jurisdiction was a first step, he said, and only after it had been decided could he launch an investigation.

The prosecutor’s office has already received several files on alleged crimes from Palestinian groups and is awaiting further reports from the Arab League and Amnesty International containing evidence gathered in Gaza.

Under the Rome treaty that founded it, the ICC can investigate and prosecute allegations of the most serious war crimes only if the country responsible is unwilling or unable to do so through its national courts.

States that are party to the treaty can refer cases of crimes committed by their citizens or on their territory. Cases involving the citizens or territory of a country that has not signed up to the court can be referred by the United Nations Security Council – as in the case of Darfur. Ivory Coast set a precedent as the first nonstate party to accept the ICC’s jurisdiction over alleged war crimes on its territory. It signed the Rome treaty but never ratified it. In 2005 it lodged a declaration with the court accepting the ICC’s jurisdiction over crimes committed there since September 2002.

Palestinian lawyers argue that the Palestinian Authority should be allowed to refer the cases in Gaza on this same ad hoc basis – despite its lack of internationally recognised statehood.

The case has wide-reaching ramifications for the Palestinian case for statehood. If the court rejects the case, it will highlight the legal black hole that Palestinians find themselves in while they remain stateless. However, it also underlines some of Israel’s worst fears about a Palestinian state on its borders. A Palestinian state that ratified the Rome treaty would then be able to refer alleged Israeli war crimes to the court without the current legal wrangling. The case could also lead to snowballing international recognition of a Palestinian state by countries eager to see Israel prosecuted.

One avenue would be for Israel to agree to investigate its commanders and prosecute any crimes discovered. That would remove any case from the orbit of the international court. So far that appears unlikely, given Israel’s repeated denials of war crimes in Gaza.

The Israeli army has, however, launched an internal inquiry into whether white phosphorus was used in some cases in built-up areas, having eventually admitted that it did use the incendiary substance, which is not illegal as a battlefield smokescreen but is banned from being used in civilian areas. Camera footage from one such attack shows what appears to be white phosphorous raining down on a UN school in Beit Lahiya, where Red Crescent ambulances and their crews were stationed.

A coalition of Israeli human rights groups has urged the country’s attorney-general to open an independent investigation into allegations of war crimes by troops, urging that to do so could head off international court cases. The groups, including the antisettlement organisation B’Tselem, said that there had been reports of Israeli forces firing into civilian areas, denying medical aid to the wounded and preventing Palestinian ambulances from reaching them, and of firing at people carrying white flags.

Meanwhile, the UN is preparing an inquiry into the bombardment of a UN school in Jabaliya, in the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli forces fired artillery shells outside the school, which had been converted into a refugee shelter for Gazans fleeing their homes. At least 43 people were killed. Israel said that Palestinian militants had fired from the compound, which was denied by the UN.

Reality check - Destruction of Gaza's University

ACL dorm, 1/28/09

I'm feeling the stress of camping for my 3rd winter in a row. I've been fighting the urge to complain about it, which is somewhat easy because there's nobody here to complain to. :)

I've also always been a social person, even after I started my ACL studies. But as the subject deepened, so did my need for complete solitude and submersion. I know I made this lifestyle choice freely, nobody forced me to do this, and the daily, hard, physical labor required to maintain my unfunded "student" status is the price I was willing to pay. Little glitches, like my wood delivery never materializing and the leaking roof were all turning into major reasons to go back to the city, get a normal job, and have a "normal life." I was starting to hate my isolation and the extreme lonliness of my choice.

Joining facebook reminded me what my life used to be like, and I've been getting kind of jealous of my friends whose lives have not been obviously or adversely affected by the communitarian's plans. Although the ACL facebook group has 36 members now, the brutal fact is, most Americans I know still do not know what communitarianism is, nor do they want to know. I find it interesting that easily half of this blog's commentors come from the UK and Canada.

The hardest part of keeping up with my work is knowing that the people I think I do it for (besides Nordica and a few others I met online) could care less about what I'm doing. I was beginning to wish I could care less too.

Then, in the midst of all the horrible news about the chemicals dropped on Gaza and the rising death and wounded toll, this came in from Peter Myer's elist. This, more than anything I've read puts my American pitty pot negativity to shame. No matter how bad it gets for me out here in my "school," nobody is dropping American made bombs on my head, or on the elementary kids down the road at Kenny Lake Shool. How far we are all removed from that reality.

Israel bombs Gaza's University, 12/28/08
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7802515.stm

(3) Destruction of Gaza's University

From: Sadanand, Nanjundiah (Physics Earth Sciences) <sadanand@mail.ccsu.edu>
Date: 31.01.2009 03:34 PM

On Saturday December 27th, 2008, the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) was ready to start the final exams of the fall semester for more than 20,000 students (60% of whom are women) enrolled into its 10 colleges -education, religion, art, commerce, law, science, engineering, information technology, medicine, and nursing. On that day, more than 60 American made Israeli F16 warplanes began to bomb the Palestinian population of Gaza at a time when the maximum number of children going to and coming from schools.

On Sunday December 28th, 2008, the Israeli F16 fighters bombed IUG during the recent horrific attack on the people of Gaza who have been under suffocating siege for about 2 years.

Two 5-story buildings were completely destroyed by Israeli warplanes: the Science Lab Building and the Engineering Lab Building . The two major buildings had more than 50 labs that contained invaluable scientific and medical equipment and devices, and many academic materials which were destroyed. The buildings targeted served as research and development centers for students, faculty and community.

The six-rocket bombardment of both buildings also caused wide damage to all university buildings, including the central library close to the labs buildings.

It is worth mentioning that since its establishment in 1987, IUG has faced many challenges and restrictions imposed by the Israeli military authorities. Yet, IUG managed to provide quality academic education and serve the local community. With the help and support of all good people in the world, the university campus was converted from simple tents and barracks of asbestos to a modern campus with recent facilities that match the best in the world.

The bombing and shelling come at a time IUG faces major financial difficulties as many students’ families cannot pay fees due to high rate of unemployment caused by the siege imposed by the Israeli army.

'Tungsten bombs' leave Israel's victims with mystery wounds

It's been a difficult 3 weeks reading the death tolls and damage reports coming in about the Israeli attack on Gaza. It's beyond frustrating to know there's not a single thing I can do to stop the killing. There's not a single thing I can do about any of the communitarian's madness and wars, and now it looks like things are taking a slightly different twist from the one I kept seeing them trying out in public.

The Communitarian UN needs a way to bolster their global reputation and authority. The elected leader of an influential "democratic" nation has to be sacrificed for the global common good. Activist organizations working for the UN made it appear (to me anyway) that they wanted Bush Jr. to fulfill that role. My focus has been on the IC case against the US government (or the many cases I should say). But, yes, going after Israel makes a lot more sense. Why would the Btitish Zionists bring down the US government when they finally control it? After a century of infiltration of the US system, there is no longer any doubt who pulls the strings in the White House these days. (No matter what you hear about Obama, he was LED by the nose through the community activist ranks by committed Communitarians; check the public records and compare his speeches to the writings of Dr. Amitai Etzioni, his real guru.) So now Barry Chamish's insistance that the Jewish people who settled Israel are being set up to become victims for the globalist CFR is certainly worth reading again.

From Peter Myer's elist:

(1) 'Tungsten bombs' leave Israel's victims with mystery wounds

From: Kenneth Rasmusson <rasken@kulturservern.se> Date: 19.01.2009 05:52 AM

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/tungsten-bombs-leave-israels-victims-with-mystery-wounds-1418910.html

18 January 2009

'Tungsten bombs' leave Israel's victims with mystery wounds

As it declares a unilateral ceasefire, Jerusalem faces a UN call for a war crimes investigation

by Raymond Whitaker

Israel was facing demands for war crimes investigations as it declared a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza last night after a 22-day assault in which more than 1,200 Palestinians, a third of them children, were killed and 13 Israelis died.

Two children were killed yesterday when Israeli tanks shelled a UN school in which families were sheltering, leading a UN spokesman, Chris Gunness, to say: "There has to be an investigation to determine whether a war crime has been committed." The call was dismissed by an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Yigal Palmor, who said: "These claims of war crimes are not supported by the slightest piece of evidence." But among numerous allegations of disproportionate use of force, questions are also multiplying about the use of unconventional weapons by Israel, including a new type of bomb that causes injuries that doctors have not seen before, and which they find impossible to treat.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, claimed in a televised address last night that the military operation had "fully attained" its goals, "and beyond". Israel had declared the ceasefire in response to an appeal from the Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, but troops would remain for now in Gaza, and Hamas would be "surprised again" if it attacked.

But even though Mr Olmert said Hamas had been "beaten badly", rockets landed in Israel a few minutes before he spoke. Despite the desperate state of Gaza's population, Hamas leaders said they would continue to fight for an end to Israel's closure of crossing points into the territory and a withdrawal of the Israeli forces.

Mr Mubarak invited the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, and the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, to discuss Gaza in Sharm el-Sheikh today. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, said he might attend, and Gordon Brown is among other leaders due to take part.

Although Mr Olmert's announcement was only a first step towards halting the conflict in Gaza, the UN is not the only international body insisting that inquiries must be held as soon as possible into the tactics and weapons used by Israel. Erik Fosse, a Norwegian doctor who worked in Gaza's hospitals during the conflict, said that Israel was using so-called Dime (dense inert metal explosive) bombs designed to produce an intense explosion in a small space. The bombs are packed with tungsten powder, which has the effect of shrapnel but often dissolves in human tissue, making it difficult to discover the cause of injuries.

Dr Fosse said he had seen a number of patients with extensive injuries to their lower bodies. "It was as if they had stepped on a mine, but there was no shrapnel in the wounds," he said. "Some had lost their legs. It looked as though they had been sliced off. I have been to war zones for 30 years, but I have never seen such injuries before." However, the injuries matched photographs and descriptions in medical literature of the effects of Dime bombs.

"All the patients I saw had been hit by bombs fired from unmanned drones," said Dr Fosse, head of the Norwegian Aid Committee. "The bomb hit the ground near them and exploded." His colleague, Mads Gilbert, accused Israel of using the territory as a testing ground for a new, "extremely nasty" type of explosive. "This is a new generation of small explosive that detonates with extreme power and dissipates its power within a range of five to 10 metres," he said.

According to military databases, Dime bombs are intended for use where conventional weapons might kill or injure bystanders – to kill combatants in a house, for example, without harming people next door. Instead of being made from metal, which sprays shrapnel across a wide area, the casing is carbon fibre. Part of the motive for developing the bombs was to replace the use of depleted uranium, but Dr Fosse said the cancer risk from tungsten powde was well known. "These patients should be followed up to see if there are any carcinogenic effects," he said.

While the loudest controversy has been over accusations that white phosphorus was illegally used, other foreign doctors working in Gaza have reported injuries they cannot explain. Professor Mohammed Sayed Khalifa, a cardiac consultant from Sudan, said that two of his patients had had uncontrollable bleeding. "One had a chest operation, and continued bleeding even after having been given large quantities of plasma," he said. "The other had what seemed to be a minor leg injury, but collapsed with profuse bleeding. Something was interfering with the clotting process. I have never seen such a thing before."

Dr Ahmed Almi, an Egyptian cardio-thoracic consultant at al-Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, said he had seen a number of patients with inexplicable injuries. A boy of 14 had a small puncture wound in his head, but extensive damage to his brain, making it impossible to save his life. "I don't know the nature or type of these weapons that make a very small [entry wound] and go on and make massive destruction in the tissues," he said.

Israeli military representatives have refused to confirm or deny using specific weapons, but insist that all Israel's weapons comply with international law. Neither white phosphorus nor Dime bombs are illegal, but campaigners say the way they have been used, especially in Gaza's densely packed urban areas, could constitute a war crime.

Mark Steel: So what have the Palestinians got to complain about?

From Peter Myer's elist:

(8) Mark Steel: So what have the Palestinians got to complain about?

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel/mark-steel-so-what-have-the-palestinians-got-to-complain-about-1218135.html

Mark Steel: So what have the Palestinians got to complain about?

To portray this as a conflict between equals requires some imagination

Wednesday, 31 December 2008

When you read the statements from Israeli and US politicians, and try to match them with the pictures of devastation, there seems to be only one explanation. They must have one of those conditions, called something like "Visual Carnage Responsibility Back To Front Upside Down Massacre Disorder".

For example, Condoleezza Rice, having observed that more than 300 Gazans were dead, said: "We are deeply concerned about the escalating violence. We strongly condemn the attacks on Israel and hold Hamas responsible."

Someone should ask her to comment on teenage knife-crime, to see if she'd say: "I strongly condemn the people who've been stabbed, and until they abandon their practice of wandering around clutching their sides and bleeding, there is no hope for peace."

The Israeli government suffers terribly from this confusion. They probably have adverts on Israeli television in which a man falls off a ladder and screams, "Eeeeugh", then a voice says, "Have you caused an accident at work in the last 12 months?" and the bloke who pushed him gets £3,000.

The gap between the might of Israel's F-16 bombers and Apache helicopters, and the Palestinians' catapulty thing is so ridiculous that to try and portray the situation as between two equal sides requires the imagination of a children's story writer.

The reporter on News at Ten said the rockets "may be ineffective, but they ARE symbolic." So they might not have weapons but they have got symbolism, the canny brutes.

It's no wonder the Israeli Air Force had to demolish a few housing estates, otherwise Hamas might have tried to mock Israel through a performance of expressive dance.

The rockets may be unable to to kill on the scale of the Israeli Air Force, said one spokesman, but they are "intended to kill".

Maybe he went on: "And we have evidence that Hamas supporters have dreams, and that in these dreams bad things happen to Israeli citizens, they burst, or turn into cactus, or run through Woolworths naked, so it's not important whether it can happen, what matters is that they WANT it to happen, so we blew up their university."

Or there's the outrage that Hamas has been supported by Iran. Well that's just breaking the rules. Because say what you will about the Israelis, they get no arms supplies or funding or political support from a country that's more powerful than them, they just go their own way and make all their weapons in an arts and crafts workshop in Jerusalem.

But mostly the Israelis justify themselves with a disappointing lack of imagination, such as the line that they had to destroy an ambulance because Hamas cynically put their weapons inside ambulances.

They should be more creative, and say Hamas were planning to aim the flashing blue light at Israeli epileptics in an attempt to make them go into a fit, get dizzy and wander off into Syria where they would be captured.

But they prefer a direct approach, such as the statement from Ofer Schmerling, an Israeli Civil Defence official who said on al-Jazeera, "I shall play music and celebrate what the Israeli Air Force is doing."

Maybe they could turn it into a huge nationalfestival, with decorations and mince pies and shops playing "I Wish We Could Bomb Gaza Every Day".

In a similar tone Dov Weisglas, Ariel Sharon's chief of staff, referred to the siege of Gaza that preceded this bombing, a siege in which the Israelis prevented the population from receiving essential supplies of food, medicine, electricity and water, by saying, "We put them on a diet."

It's the arrogance of the East End gangster, so it wouldn't be out of character if the Israeli Prime Minister's press conference began: "Oh dear or dear. It looks like those Palestinians have had a little, er, accident. All their buildings have been knocked down – they want to be more careful, hee hee."

And almost certainly one of the reasons this is happening now is because the government wants to appear hard as it wants to win an election. Maybe with typical Israeli frankness they'll show a party political broadcast in which Ehud Olmert says, "This is why I think you should vote for me", then shows film of Gaza and yells: "Wa-hey, that bloke in the corner is on FIRE."

And Condoleezza Rice and her colleagues, and the specially appointed Middle East Peace Envoy, could then all shake their heads and say: "Disgraceful. The way he's flapping around like that could cause someone to have a nasty accident."

Peter also sent an article written by a US Intelligence officer who offers Americans his alternate view of the Israeli war against Gaza: http://www.currentissues.tv/Joe_Cortina.html

Our closest allies in the ME steal classified military secrets from us? No, say it isn't so!

Temps dropped to 50 below F. here last night. Gertee is holding the heat though, and I'm adjusted to waking up as soon as my inside temp drops below freezing. This is the kind of weather where everything becomes super fragile. Plastic cracks and even metal can be easily snapped. This slows the pace of living down to a snail's crawl; as much as I want to race back inside everytime I go outside to get a bucket of wood, I have to be careful or I won't have a wood bucket anymore.

From Peter Myer's elist:

(1) U.S. man pleads guilty to acting as agent for Israel

From: Kristoffer Larsson <kristoffer.larsson@sobernet.nu> Date: 31.12.2008 11:58 PM

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE4BT4R820081230?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

U.S. man pleads guilty to acting as agent for Israel

Tue Dec 30, 2008 3:31pm EST

By Daniel Trotta and Randall Mikkelsen

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An 85-year-old former U.S. Army employee pleaded guilty on Tuesday to acting as an unregistered agent of Israel and admitted he gave classified documents to the Jewish state in the 1980s.

Court documents show the defendant, Ben-Ami Kadish, reported to the same handler as Jonathan Pollard, an American who spied for Israel in the 1980s and triggered a scandal that rocked U.S.-Israeli relations.

Kadish's plea indicates the Israeli spy network that obtained U.S. nuclear secrets through Pollard spread further than previously acknowledged.

It comes as the Bush administration considers a new request by Pollard for a commutation of his life sentence.

Prosecutors say Ben-Ami Kadish provided classified documents, including some relating to U.S. missile defense systems, to an Israeli agent, Yosef Yagur, who photographed the documents at Kadish's residence.

Yagur was one of Pollard's handlers, according to court documents.

From 1980 to 1985, Yagur asked Kadish to obtain classified documents, which Kadish retrieved from the U.S. Army's Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, New Jersey, according to Kadish's sworn statement.

Pollard, a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, is serving life in prison term after pleading guilty to spying for Israel in 1986. His case has led Jews in the United States and Israel to plea for clemency and a new request by Pollard is under Bush administration review.

Israel gave Pollard citizenship in 1996 and acknowledged he was one of its spies in 1998.

Though the United States and Israel are close allies, the Pollard case revealed how the thirst for intelligence trumped that friendship.

Kadish, a Connecticut-born U.S. citizen, faces a maximum of five years in prison at his February 13 sentencing in federal court in Manhattan but it is possible he will not serve any time.

Sentencing guidelines call for a maximum of six months and prosecutors said they would not oppose a sentence without jail time, according to his plea agreement.

He had been free on bail since shortly after his arrest in April on four counts of conspiracy and espionage as a result of an investigation that began in 2005.

The Israeli embassy had no immediate comment.

Kadish used his security clearance to borrow 50 to 100 classified documents from the arsenal's library, including some "concerning nuclear weaponry" and others relating to a modified version of an F-15 fighter jet that the United States had sold to an unidentified country, the complaint said.

A third pertained to the U.S. Patriot missile air defense system.

(Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Vicki Allen)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

+++++

(3) Gilad Atzmon - Eine Kleine Nacht Murder: How Israeli Leaders Kill for their People's Votes

From: Kristoffer Larsson Date: 30.12.2008 07:52 AM

http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/12/29/gilad-atzmon-eine-kleine-nacht-murder-how-israeli-leaders-kill-for-their-peoples-votes/
Gilad Atzmon - Eine Kleine Nacht Murder: How Israeli Leaders Kill for their People's Votes

By Gilad Atzmon • Dec 29th, 2008 at 13:17 • Category: Analysis, Gilad Atzmon, Gilad's Choice, Israel, Newswire, Our Authors, Palestine, Religion, War, Zionism

In order to grasp the latest devastating murderous Israeli expedition in Gaza one must deeply comprehend the Israeli identity and its inherent hatred towards anyone who fails to be Jewish and a hatred against Arabs in particular. This hatred is imbued in the Israeli curriculum, it is preached by political leaders and implied by their acts, it is conveyed by cultural figures, even within the so-called ‘Israeli Left’.

I grew up in Israel in the 1970’s people of my generation are nowadays the leaders of the Israeli army, politics, economy, academia and the arts. We were trained to believe that ‘a good Arab is a dead one’. A few weeks before I joined the IDF in the early 1980’s, General Rafael Eitan, the Chief of Staff at the time announced that the “Arabs were stoned cockroaches in a bottle”. He got away with it, he also got away with the murder of many thousands of Lebanese civilians in the 1st Lebanon war. In a word, Israelis manage to get away with murder.

Luckily enough, and for reasons that are still far beyond my comprehension, at a certain stage I woke up out of that Hebraic lethal dream. At one point I left the Jewish state, I evaded the Jewish hate mongering, I had become an opponent of the Jewish state and any other form of Jewish politics. However, I am utterly convinced that it is my primary duty to inform every being that is willing to listen about that which are we up against.

As much as Zionism was there to transform Jews, and by “giving them a State of their own” make them like any other people, it failed miserably. The Israeli barbarism as we have seen this week and too many times before is far beyond bestiality. It is killing for the sake of killing. And it is indiscriminate.

Not many people in the west are aware of the devastating fact that killing Arabs and Palestinians in particular is a very effective Israeli political recipe. The Israelis are indeed confused people. As much as they insist upon seeing themselves as a ‘Shalom seeking’[1] nation, they also love to be led by politicians with an astonishing record of unlawful murderous activity. Whether it was Sharon, Rabin, Begin, Shamir or Ben Gurion, Israelis love their ‘democratically elected leaders’ to be belligerent hawks with their hands dripping with blood and backed by a solid record of crimes against humanity.

We are weeks before an election in Israel and as it seems, both Kadima PM candidate Foreign minister Tzipi Livni and Labour PM candidate Defence minister Ehud Barak, are trailing well behind Likud PM candidate the notorious Hawk Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu. Livni and Barak need their little war. They must prove to the Israelis that they know how to engage in mass slaughter.

Both Livni and Barak have to provide the Israeli voter with some real exhibition of devastating carnage, so the Israelis can trust their leadership. This is their only chance against Netanyahu. Seemingly, Livni and Barak are throwing tons of bombs on Palestinian civilians, schools and hospitals because this is exactly what the Israelis want to see.

Unfortunately, Israelis are not known for mercy and grace. Instead they are appeased by retaliation and vengeance, they are cheered by their own limitless brutality. When an Ex-Israeli Air Force Chief Commander Dan Halutz was asked how it feels to drop a bomb on a highly populated neighbourhood in Gaza, his answer was short and precise. ‘It feels like a light bump on the right wing’. Dan Halutz’s cold deadly manner was enough to secure his promotion into the IDF Chief of Staff post shortly thereafter. It was General Halutz who led the Israeli army into the second Lebanon war, it was this man who perpetrated the destruction of Lebanese infrastructure and large parts of Beirut.

Seemingly, in Israeli politics, Arab blood is translated into votes. It would obviously be very reasonable to charge Livni, Barak and the current IDF Chief of Staff Ashkenazi with first-degree murder, crimes against humanity and the obvious breach of the Geneva Convention. But it would be far more intelligible to take into account that Israel is a ‘democracy’. Livni, Barak and Ashkenazi are giving the Israeli people that which they want: it is called Arab blood and it must come in vast quantity. This repetitive murderous practice, conducted by Israeli politicians reflects on the Israeli people as a whole rather than just a few politicians and generals. We are dealing here with a barbarian society that is politically driven by bloodthirstiness and lethal inclinations. There should be no mistake, there is no room for these people amongst nations.

Why the Israeli are people so remote from any notion of humanism is a big question. The generous and naïve humanists amongst us may argue that the Shoah left a big scar in the Israeli soul. This may explain why Israelis are obsessively cultivating that very memory with the support of their Diaspora brothers and sisters. The Israelis say ‘never again’ and what they mean is that Auschwitz should never reoccur, this somehow allows them to punish the Palestinian for the crimes committed by the Nazis. The realistic amongst us do not buy this argument anymore. They start now to admit that it is more than possible that the Israelis are so incredibly brutal just because this is how they are. It goes far beyond rationality or pseudo-analytical assumptions. They say, ‘this is what the Israelis are and there is not much we can do about it anymore’. The realistic amongst us come to admit that killing is how the Israelis interpret the meaning of being Jewish. Gravely, many of us come to admit that there is no alternative humanist secular Jewish value system to replace the Hebraic murderous one. The Jewish state is there to prove that Jewish national autonomy is an inhuman concept.

I grew up in post-1967 Israel. I was raised in the wake of the Israeli mythical victory, we were trained to worship the “Israeli who shoots from the hip” the platoon commando who shoots his Uzi automatic rifle in the direction of the Arabs and manages to win against four armies in just six days.

It may have taken me two decades too long to understand that the Israeli who ‘shoots from the hip’, was actually the master of indiscriminate killing. Barak was one of those 1967 heroes, he was a master indiscriminate killer. Apparently, the Israeli cabinet has just approved his plan for the biggest raid on Gaza since 1967. Livni is more or less my age, as we read the news, she internalised the message. She is now accumulating the necessary credentials as an indiscriminate murderer. Both Barak and Livni are taking Israel and Palestine into an election campaign of slaughter. Arab and Palestinian blood is the fuel of Israeli politics.

I may just suggest to Livni and Barak that it may not help them in the polls. Netanyahu is a genuine authentic hawk. He doesn’t have to pretend to be a murderer, and as much as I despise him, he has yet to take Israel into a war. He probably understands better than them what power of deterrence is all about.

[1] Do not confuse ‘shalom’ with ‘peace’ or ‘salam’. While peace and salam refer to reconciliation and compromise, shalom means security to the Jewish people on the expense of their surrounding environment.

SEE video here that Gilad Atzmon discovered revealing the great humanitarian Elie Wiesel as well as other videos with Gilad on http://palestinethinktank.com/ptt-tv/

Why does the US media show so much support for Israeli genocide in the Middle East? Why do US Christians (like the ones posting on Constance Cumbey's blog) support genocide in the Middle East? Is it possible that the War on Terror is being staged only to push the global governance agenda? Bush's Wars on Iraq and Afghanistan clearly violate UN and Iternational Law. Many from the US "left" have organized protests and petitions around their goal of taking Bush and Cheney before the International Communitarian Criminal Court. Obama supporters are convinced he will be different from the Bush Administration, even as Obama surrounds himself with Staff and Advisers who are openly Militant Zionists. VP elect Joe Biden co-wrote the Iraqi partition plan with Communitarian Network founder Amitai Etzioni. And, Dr. Etzioni is an invited, respected speaker at International forums on the Iraq War. The same people starting the wars are offering the solutions. Apparently, a LOT of people must be sacrificed for the global, sustainable common good. All Hail Queen Beatrix and her Nazi royal family!

Gaza: It's Terrorism, it's Slaughter. Crime can be reported
WRITTEN BY Pino Cabras - Megachip
Translated by Diego Traversa and Revised by Mary Rizzo for www.tlaxcala.es

"In the days of the atrocious massacre in Gaza, horror inevitably focuses on the images and the voices of the victims. They are tiny fragments that don’t help complete the picture of the tragedy yet. It’s hard to understand and reflect while such a disaster is underway. Yet, we are required to, in order to reconstruct the facts and the context."
http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/12/31/gaza-its-terrorism-its-slaughter-crime-can-be-reported/

There is obviously more than one side to the Middle Eastern crisis. In a free society where freedom of the press really exists, citizens are exposed to all relevant, well-presented opinions and analysis. The choice to read and vote intelligently rests upon the common people whose taxes pay for all foreign policies. Why does the US tolerate information gatekeepers? Why are we only exposed to the Zionists' Judeo-Christian messianic propaganda when the Israelis continue to steal vital US military secrets? How large is Pollard's spy network in the US? How many of these agents for a foreign power are low-level operatives disguised as major contributors to the Patriot Christian groups? Who runs the agenda for people like Alex Jones and Constance Cumbey, Americans who purportedly "expose" the New Age and the NWO? The Fusionist borg? Who is "Dorothy from Kansas" at American Counter-Revolution, and why is she making sure Constance Cumbey never once discussed communitarianism on her blog after she invited me as a guest on two of her shows? The purpose for inviting me was not to learn more about communitarianism, it appears to have been to subject me and my ACL work to public ridicule and slander for my principled stand aganist political Zionism.

The VERY LAST THING the Zionist borg wants the world to understand is their religious theory called communitarianism, and how it leads us all into global governance.

Show your support for a global free press! Start by helping Palestinian journalists travel outside their Israeli controlled concentration/death camps:
http://www.petitiononline.com/k1h2a3l4/

Community vs. Democracy: Communitarian Theories and the Israeli Settlers

As an American who knows virtually nothing about Israeli politics or struggles, this paper provided me with a rare, brief glimpse into the Settlers' war against the Israeli state and the Arab Palestinians. It's also interesting that the "father" of American Communitarianism was a German born immigrant raised and trained as a soldier in an Israeli kibbutz settlement, yet his input into the "moral dialogue" is not included in this paper. This paper focuses on Taylor and MacIntyre and neglects to mention Martin Buber, the Israeli philosopher who coined the modern terms for moral communitarianism and then taught it to his pupils, including Amitai Etzioni.

Community vs. Democracy: Communitarian Theories and the Israeli Settlers Prepared for delivery at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 28 - August 31, 2003. Copyright by the American Political Science Association. presented by Avia Pasternak, MA The Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ## email not listed ##

The communitarian critique of liberal thought, which defied the liberal conception of the autonomous subject and the neutrality of the liberal political sphere, attracted much criticism for its vagueness in what regards the practical implications of communitarian politics. More specifically, critics of communitarianism argue that communitarian philosophers, when shaping their proposed political model around a rather obscure definition of the community, do not consider the possibility that ‘ communities’ may have some negative implications as well, if they impede individual autonomy. Accordingly, these philosophers fail to provide a sufficient explanation as to how the political models they propose can be disassociated from anti-democratic communities. 1 This paper aims at reinforcing such a critique on communitarian thought by comparing the communitarian theory with the praxis of an actual community. Focusing on the thought of Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre it strives to show that there are distinct similarities between these philosophers’ ontological premises and those of the Israeli Settlers, 2 and that such similarities raise doubts as to level of {2} compatibility between the political solutions suggested by Taylor and MacIntyre and the modern democratic order. The paper begins by analyzing Taylor’s and MacIntyre’s ontological premises and argues that their critiques of liberal thought rest on a similar perception of the modern subject, which consists of two competing manifestations: the Atomist-Self and the Communitarian-Self. Both philosophers condemn the image of the Atomist- Self and the moral neutrality of the liberal political sphere it leads to. They argue that in order to assist the Communitarian-Self in overcoming her deficient rival, modern politics ought to reintroduce fundamental moral questions to the life of the modern individual, and thus reawaken her communitarian qualities. Nevertheless, albeit Taylor and MacIntyre argue that the political remedies they offer will solve the malaise of modern political order, namely its lack of democratic participation, I argue that these political remedies can in fact have some anti- democratic implications as well, when applied to reality. However, since neither philosopher discloses with clarity what real-world communities accommodate his theoretical conjectures, the paper proceeds to examine Taylor’s and MacIntyre’s conjectures by juxtaposing them with the Israeli Settlers’ worldview. This comparison is conducted through a text analysis of the Settlers’ periodical Nekudah. It focuses on the year 1995, in which many of the Settlers openly defied the democratic order in Israel, a defiance which reached its tragic culmination with the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Thus, by comparing the Settlers’ ontological premises to those of Taylor and MacIntyre, the paper discloses the distinct similarity between the communitarian dual image of the subject and the Settlers’ portrayal of the self. However, contrary to MacIntyre’s and Taylor’s predictions, the Settlers draw some {3} clearly anti-democratic conclusions from these very premises, thus attesting to the anti-democratic potential embedded in the communitarian image of the self.

1 Buchanan Allen, "Assessing the Communitarian Critique of Liberalism” Ethics, 98(3), 867; Phillips Derek, Looking Backward (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 7-8; Holmes Stephan, The Anatomy of Anti-Liberalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 178.

2 The Israeli Settlers are Israeli-Jews who reside in settlements in the occupied territories (Gaza Strip and the West Bank). They are motivated by a strong religious ideology, claiming that the settling of the biblical Land of Israel is a divine commandment; and hence they strongly object any territorial concessions to the Palestinians.

(From pages 14 and 15): The Settlers’ ideology originates in the political and theological premises of their founding movement, Gush Emunim (The Block of the Faithful). In a nutshell, Gush Emunim was the offspring of Rabbi A.Y. Kook’s Religious Zionism, which composed a unique dialectic combination between Zionism and Judaism, claiming that Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel signified the first stage of the heavenly redemption of the Jewish People. 60 Rabbi Kook’s son, Zvi Yehuda, gave a more radical and material tone to his father’s metaphysical teachings, placing special emphasis on the sanctity of the Land of Israel and preaching for the retrieval of all the ancient Jewish biblical land-patrimonies, then under Egyptian and Jordanian rule. The Israeli dazzling victory of the Six-Days 1967 War, which resulted in the occupation of Eastern-Jerusalem, Sinai, Gaza and the West Bank, conferred a prophetic validity to his preachings. This henceforward led to the establishment of Gush Emunim, whose declared purpose was to hasten the redemption of Israel, via the settling of the Promised Land. 62 Gush Emunim’s principal guidelines were, mainly, the belief in the sanctity of the Land of Israel, the People of Israel and the Torah (Pentateuch); the belief that our age, that of the unification of Israel with its Land, is the age of Messianic redemption; the perceiving of the State of Israel as a sanctified manifestation of Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel; and a total refusal to discuss territorial concessions to the Palestinians, together with the denial of Palestinian rights over the land. More generally, Gush Emunim viewed itself as the natural heir of secular Zionism, which had lost its momentum due to its secular flaws.

(Page 25) Yehuda Etzion’s Hai Vekayam 'identity card' reads: "Even 120 Knesset members – as well as elections or referenda – cannot change the People’s truth. The Land is a bequest for the people and its generations. It is a trust in our hands, which one generation does not have the authority to desert and destroy", quoted in: Sprinzak, Brother Against Brother 224. Etzion is a convicted member of the Jewish Underground, which committed terror acts against Palestinians and planned to blow-up the Mosques on Temple Mount in 1984.

Read the whole paper at http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/6/3/6/0/pages63600/p63600-1.php