Revolution

Justice


You've made my ******* world crazy
You son-of-a-bitch
You laugh like you know me
But you don't know ****
You think this is funny?
A million people dead
You really think that no one cares
About the evil you have spread?
Or every soldier you have broken
Left fucked in the head
The millions of innocents fled
And hearts you have bled...
You and your minions
Your oil company barons and their billions
All the ******* lies....
Man, I ******* despise you
And it may surprise you, but listen anyway
You will be in the dock one day
And when that day comes
I will jump up onto the nearest table and dance
And the whole of mankind will know, just for that one time
How it feels to be united at last
And church bells will ring
As choirs sing
Of the justice





Endymion 2008

That has passion and power, endy. Good on ya.

Yes. Yes, Indeed. You said it very well, Endy.










(... & in solidarity, I've spontaneously hurled a few shoes around the place! )

the latest i heard was the man has been badly beaten, but told his brother he would not apologise to Bush even if they were to cut him into a thousand pieces (his words, according to his brother).
His brother thinks it may be hard to save the shoe-thrower from being martyred
By his actions, he has made enemies on both sides (as well as supporters)
Only time will tell, i guess

The "democracy" in Iraq is sure to make this man continue to pay forever. or else kill him.

GAZA

Silence is Consent

At least 205 Palestinians, including women and children, have been killed in an Israeli aerial bombardment of Gaza

Israel launched air attacks across the besieged Gaza Strip on Saturday, threatening that further operations would be carried out.

Emergency services said that at least 300 people had been wounded.
(700 according to the BBC).

This follows the seige of Gaza

And a report from the UN that included the statement that...

Israel's policies against the Palestinians are tantamount to a "crime against humanity."
And that the UN must "implement the agreed norm of a responsibility to protect a civilian population being collectively punished by policies that amount to a crime against humanity".





Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, said that the operation would not be short.

"The operation will go on and be intensified as long as necessary," he said on Saturday.







The picture above (Guardian UK) looks like a picture from the Bible, to me.

Video footages showed the bodies of dead people including men, women and children on Gaza streets.

Hamas radio reported that Gaza police chief Tawfiq Jabber was among the dead.

Video

Israel Drops 100 Tons Of Bombs In Gaza City

The BBC Reports December 27, 2008
Massive Israeli air raids on Gaza

watch video here



A Palestinian security force officer carries a wounded girl into the emergency room at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, 27 Dec 2008


If you are in the UK and you want to voice your protest tomorrow (Sunday) in London
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
******************************************************************

update Sunday, December 28, 2008
06:27 Mecca time, 03:27 GMT

Israel resumes Gaza bombardment
Israeli warplanes have resumed their air strikes on Gaza Strip, hitting targets all over the territory, including a mosque and a TV station.

Inside Gaza report (Independent UK)

Inside Gaza: 'The hospital morgues were already full. The dead were piled on top of each other outside'

By Sami Abdel-Shafi in Gaza cityclick here
Sunday, 28 December 2008


sources

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/20081227193910425276.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSLR1342320081227
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-attacks-gaza-more-than-140-reported-killed-1213304.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/200812279451509662.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/20081210551198584.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/20081277125376365.html

*******************************************************************

"The day Hamas were (democratically) elected, Israel started the blockade of Gaza as collective punishment for voting the wrong way.The mainly feeble rocket attacks then began.
The west has been silent on Israel's method of dealing with a legitimately elected government it does not like and the punishment of innocents.It is now time for the UN or others to control the borders of Palestinian lands"
Comment - Independent UK 28th Dec 2008

I agree.

Here are the statements from US and UK Governments

Utterly shameful from both - but what can be expected? I have long ago realised the truth about world leadership. Worse than their corruption and cowardice is their mind-blowing stupidity...

You'd think they were salespeople working for a weapons-of-mass-destruction manufacturer, rather than a member of society who gets paid by the masses, to keep the world running smoothly - the crazy ******* things they say....

Gordon Brown "I am deeply concerned by continuing missile strikes from Gaza on Israel and by Israel's response today. I call on Gazan militants to cease all rocket attacks on Israel immediately. hello????? hello?????? anyone in there???? I understand the Israeli government's sense of obligation to its population. Israel needs to meet its humanitarian obligations, act in a way to further the long-term vision of a two-state solution, and do everything in its power to avoid civilian casualties."

Condoleezza Rice, US Secretary of State "The United States strongly condemns the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and holds Hamas responsible for breaking the ceasefire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza. WTF????? The ceasefire should be restored immediately. The US calls on all concerned to address the urgent humanitarian needs of the innocent people of Gaza."

At least she mentions the people...

Jesus - This is FUBAR

It's madness

(NOTE TO SELF)

Semitic

Semitic Sem*it"ic, a. Of or pertaining to Shem or his descendants; belonging to that division of the Caucasian race which includes the Arabs, Jews, and related races. [Written also {Shemitic}.] [1913 Webster]

{Semitic language}, a name used to designate a group of Asiatic and African languages, some living and some dead, namely: Hebrew and Ph[oe]nician, Aramaic, Assyrian, Arabic, Ethiopic (Geez and Ampharic). --Encyc. Brit. [1913 Webster]

All wars are fought for money.

~Socrates

That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations is as shocking as it is true...

~Thomas Paine

Gaza Under Fire



"They try to claim that this was done as a response to missiles, but they are denying the fact that the whole year not a single Israeli was killed by missiles. The first Israeli killed was only because of the Israeli invasion, the Israeli attack."

"This is a bloodbath."

Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council


Many of the dead in Saturday's attacks were police officers, including Tawfiq Jabber, the Gaza chief of police.

Hospitals, already suffering from shortages due to an 18-month blockade on the Gaza Strip, said they were struggling to cope with the number of injured, which included women and children.

One of the buildings hit on Sunday was reportedly a warehouse used to supply local pharmacies with medicines.

"This is going to make us unable to supply any of the local families that depend on us," Dr Hussam Abu Hashem, the owner, told local Hamas radio. "It's a war against human beings."

Just in case you don't know about Gaza's troubles - here is my research folder of recent links for GAZA

http://story.irishsun.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/2411cd3571b4f088/id/433138/cs/1/
http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ned=uk&q=Israeli+blockade+of+the+Gaza+Strip+&btnG=Search+News
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jzOzF_Qouah9wLUMJ1xBJr5Ne5sg
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/20/israelandthepalestinians-pressandpublishing
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7739063.stm
http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnTRE4AK74N.html
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=76204&sectionid=351020202
http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_11044328
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/21/us_activist_detained_in_israeli_jail
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/war_crimes_in_gaza_interview_with_donna_wallach/0016960
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israelandthepalestinians
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/gallery/2007/nov/26/gaza?picture=331371311
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2008/11/22/ism-gaza-strip-erez-protest-against-the-siege-for-the-return-of-the-palestinian-fishing-boats-and-for-the-release-of-the-3-ism-activists/
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9985.shtml
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9984.shtml
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9978.shtml
http://www.jkcook.net/
http://www.jkcook.net/Books.htm

The Back Ground of this Israeli attack in Gaza

The Blockade
A Humanitarian crisis

We are witnessing a horrific escalation and intensification in the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, with food, fuel and medicine being blocked for prolonged periods.

In November Israel issued a written list of goods banned from import into Gaza. The list, which has baffled UN officials, includes spices, kitchenware, glassware, yarn and paper.

This is a disastrous situation, and it's getting worse and worse... It is unprecedented that the UN is unable to get its supplies in to a population under such obvious distress; many of these families have been subsisting on this ration for years, and they are living hand-to-mouth."

John Ging, Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, The Washington Post 15 November 2008

The UN General Secretary has demanded that Israel lift the blockade of humanitarian goods, medicine and access for relief agencies. http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_gaza_situation_report_2008_11_17.pdf

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Maxwell Gaylard, described the Gaza blockade as “an assault on human dignity with serious humanitarian implications.”

The blockade of Gaza, which began in June 07 and has been compounded by the recent full closure, has caused the degradation of daily life for most of the 1.5 million Palestinians living in the Gaza " half of them children. The lack of fuel shut Gaza’s sole power plant on 9 and 10 November, resulting in blackouts of up to eight hours per day in most areas. The only line to import fuel into the Gaza Strip remains closed by the Israeli authorities except on two days, leaving 70 per cent of Gazan residents without electricity.

• The poverty rate stands at 76% and the unemployment rate at 45%.
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_weekly_briefing_note_2008_11_25_english.pdf

• UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has been forced to suspend financial support to just under 100,000 of the poorest refugees in November due to a lack of available currency in the Gaza - the grants enabled refugees to buy basic food.
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_protection_of_civilians_weekly_2008_11_18_english.pdf

Food

Israel blocked all provision of essential supplies to the Gaza Strip in November, except for allowing in a “token” amount of goods on 4 days.
According to OCHA-OPT’s report, ‘the amounts of supplies imported remain wholly insufficient to meet the basic needs of the population and restore any semblance of normal life.’

*The level of imports since the closure of the crossings on 5 November stands at an average of less than five truckloads a day, compared to 123 in October 08 and 475 in May 07. UNRWA alone needs at least 15 trucks per day to sustain normal humanitarian operations.

*A Red Cross report, based on the situation in May and June 2008, found that the blockade of Gaza means that ‘chronic malnutrition is on a steadily rising trend and micronutrient deficiencies are of great concern’. The report says the siege is causing "progressive deterioration in food security for up to 70 per cent of Gaza's population". http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/chronic-malnutrition-in-gaza-blamed-on-israel-1019521.html

• There is a daily struggle to obtain clean running water, fuel for cooking, and fresh foods to maintain families.

• Half of Gaza's bakeries have closed down and the other half have resorted to using animal feed to produce bread
http://www.metimes.com/International/2008/11/24/hungry_gazans_resort_to_animal_feed_as_un_blasts_israel/9217/

Fuel/water/sewage
• Without electricity and back-up fuel, most basic services and utilities including the sewage system, are on the brink of disaster - having received only limited maintenance and spare parts, and no investment in more than a year.

• UNICEF states 80% of Gaza’s water wells (115 wells) are only partially functioning due to intermittent electricity, shortages of backup fuel and the lack of spare parts. As a result, 20% of the Gaza population has six hours water access every five days, 40% of the population have access to water every four days and 40% of the population has access to water every three days.

Medicine
• Palestine Monitor reports that the lack of fuel means Shifa hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip, could see patients die as it is now dependent on a faulty generator.

• Stocks of about 160 essential medicines have run out, while about 120 other healthcare drugs are running low. Additionally Gaza's health ministry has run out of over 300 essential medicines as Israel bans the imports of these.

• UNRWA have expressed concerns about rising anemia amongst children as a result of malnutrition.

http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article704
http://www.metimes.com/International/2008/11/24/hungry_gazans_resort_to_animal_feed_as_un_blasts_israel/9217/

Grief and fear in Gaza

BBC journalist and Gaza resident Hamada Abu Qammar describes the impact of the current wave of Israeli airstrikes against Hamas targets. The streets of Gaza are deserted, apart from a few cars taking urgent cases to hospital and families screaming and shouting as they take bodies to the cemetery to be buried.

This morning I visited Shifa Hospital, the main one in Gaza.

I spoke to one man, a civilian, and also a 14-year-old boy who were injured in an airstrike on a police station in the east of Gaza City this morning.

The man said he had been going to work in a clinic when he heard the sound of planes and turned back. But after that he cannot remember what happened - he just woke up injured, with wounds in his hand, leg and stomach.

The teenage boy had blood on his head and was in a lot of pain. He could not even remember his own name. "I don't even know where I am," he said to me.

I saw a body too, in the emergency room, with a stick of wood stuck through the chest.

Yesterday I also went into the hospital; the morgue was full and bodies were left in the streets. Parents were scouring the hospital for their children.

I followed one woman who was screaming "my son, my son" as she searched the building.

Eventually they located him, a young man was in his twenties. The staff would not let her see the body, but I saw it. It didn't have a head and there was no stomach. She fainted on top of the remains of her son, which were covered with a white sheet.

The relatives in the hospital scream and scream. They don't have words to express their feelings, they just say "God help us", over and over.

'Sitting and waiting'

I have seen several Israeli airstrikes this morning - one on a Hamas police post on the coastal road, another on a house about 200m from the BBC office. Smoke pours into the sky. The largest so far today was on the Hamas security headquarters, which is also near to our office, a few hundred metres away.

I was watching it from the window. There were three very loud bangs and a power cut. I could hear women screaming in their houses, and gunshots from Hamas men surrounding the area to keep people way.

The compound was in a big residential area, with lots of high buildings and apartments. Some of the homes are only about 5m from the site - and of course those buildings were damaged, with windows shattered and falling to the ground.

Electricity comes and goes as usual. Most shops are closed. There is a lack of everything - the UN relief agency UNRWA has not been able to deliver food aid for about 750,000 people.

There are shortages of anaesthetic gas, medical supplies, flour and milk - but many of the people I have spoken to say they don't feel like eating while this is going on.

Families are just sitting in their homes. I spoke to one of my neighbours, Iman, a 14-year-old-girl. She was so scared she could barely speak.

"I don't know where to go. I don't know where is a safe place to stay. We don't know when they will strike again," she said.

Israel is not currently permitting international journalists to cross into Gaza


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7801973.stm

*****************************************************************

Aid worker diary: Gaza raids



Hatem Shurrab, an aid worker based in Gaza with the British-based charity Islamic Relief Worldwide, describes how ordinary people are coping following the Israeli air operation.

Dec 27th 2008

I was coming home after visiting a friend at 1130 on Saturday, when I heard the horrific sound of three huge explosions. Then a series of explosions rocked Gaza City. I live in the centre near a number of police buildings which were targeted first.

As I rushed home, I saw the main Gaza police station had been destroyed. Suddenly, another missile hit it again and, along with dozens of people nearby, I ran away. When I got home I found almost all the glass from the windows and doors was shattered due to the explosions.

I ran to the Shifa hospital to check on casualties and was shocked by the number of cars and ambulances bringing in the injured. There was panic everywhere.

In less than half an hour, the hospital was full of casualties. There was no space for more, yet the casualties kept coming. At the hospital I saw something I have never seen before - dead bodies outside on the floor. Everyone in Gaza has a relative or a friend killed or injured after these attacks.

Islamic Relief is working hard to get medical aid to the hospitals, which desperately need disposable equipment. We spoke to the committee at the Shifa Hospital to find out what's needed. We are now supplying it with syringes, sponges, surgical gloves and other such equipment.

Hospitals are so overwhelmed that they are now using normal beds for intensive care patients. Everything is so desperate. Only 50% of the ambulances are working. If the attacks go on for another week the doctors are going to have to start using old and traditional ways of treating the injured - that means no anaesthetic. We have to get new supplies in!

For two years, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been witnessing daily crises over shortages of food, fuel, health services in addition to severe poverty and unemployment. We have seen the closure of crossings and the banning of patients from travelling for medical treatment.

All these restrictions have slowly sucked the life out of Gazans and it's no exaggeration when I say that trying to live daily life is a struggle. But Gaza has not witnessed anything like this onslaught since 1967.

I used to describe what was going on in Gaza as a catastrophe, now I have no words. I received news that the brother of one of my work colleagues has been killed in the attacks. They had been looking for him all day and discovered him under the ruins of a destroyed building.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/default.stm

PROTEST

Over 2000 people protested outside the Israeli embassy (LONDON) against the slaughter of innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza, in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle to exist.

The protest became so large that the police lost control of the streets, forcing them to call for reinforcements.

As darkness fell the streets outside the Israeli embassy were still filled with chanting protesters as police struggled to regain control.

Further protests are planned for Monday 29th December from 4pm outside the Israeli embassy and on Saturday 3rd January 2009 in Parliament Square London.

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=860&Itemid=27

There have been protests held all over Britain and also around the world.

Johann Hari: The true story behind this war is not the one Israel is telling


Monday, 29 December 2008

The world isn't just watching the Israeli government commit a crime in Gaza; we are watching it self-harm. This morning, and tomorrow morning, and every morning until this punishment beating ends, the young people of the Gaza Strip are going to be more filled with hate, and more determined to fight back, with stones or suicide vests or rockets. Israeli leaders have convinced themselves that the harder you beat the Palestinians, the softer they will become. But when this is over, the rage against Israelis will have hardened, and the same old compromises will still be waiting by the roadside of history, untended and unmade.

To understand how frightening it is to be a Gazan this morning, you need to have stood in that small slab of concrete by the Mediterranean and smelled the claustrophobia. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave. They live out their lives on top of each other, jobless and hungry, in vast, sagging tower blocks. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean, and Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall " as they are doing now with more deadly force than at any time since 1967 " there is nowhere to hide.

There will now be a war over the story of this war. The Israeli government says, "We withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and in return we got Hamas and Qassam rockets being rained on our cities. Sixteen civilians have been murdered. How many more are we supposed to sacrifice?" It is a plausible narrative, and there are shards of truth in it, but it is also filled with holes. If we want to understand the reality and really stop the rockets, we need to rewind a few years and view the run-up to this war dispassionately.

The Israeli government did indeed withdraw from the Gaza Strip in 2005 " in order to be able to intensify control of the West Bank. Ariel Sharon's senior adviser, Dov Weisglass, was unequivocal about this, explaining: "The disengagement [from Gaza] is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians... this whole package that is called the Palestinian state has been removed from our agenda indefinitely."

Ordinary Palestinians were horrified by this, and by the fetid corruption of their own Fatah leaders, so they voted for Hamas. It certainly wouldn't have been my choice " an Islamist party is antithetical to all my convictions - but we have to be honest. It was a free and democratic election, and it was not a rejection of a two-state solution. The most detailed polling of Palestinians, by the University of Maryland, found that 72 per cent want a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, while fewer than 20 per cent want to reclaim the whole of historic Palestine. So, partly in response to this pressure, Hamas offered Israel a long, long ceasefire and a de facto acceptance of two states, if only Israel would return to its legal borders.

Rather than seize this opportunity and test Hamas's sincerity, the Israeli government reacted by punishing the entire civilian population. It announced that it was blockading the Gaza Strip in order to "pressure" its people to reverse the democratic process. The Israelis surrounded the Strip and refused to let anyone or anything out. They let in a small trickle of food, fuel and medicine " but not enough for survival. Weisglass quipped that the Gazans were being "put on a diet". According to Oxfam, only 137 trucks of food were allowed into Gaza last month to feed 1.5 million people. The United Nations says poverty has reached an "unprecedented level." When I was last in besieged Gaza, I saw hospitals turning away the sick because their machinery and medicine was running out. I met hungry children stumbling around the streets, scavenging for food.

It was in this context " under a collective punishment designed to topple a democracy " that some forces within Gaza did something immoral: they fired Qassam rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities. These rockets have killed 16 Israeli citizens. This is abhorrent: targeting civilians is always murder. But it is hypocritical for the Israeli government to claim now to speak out for the safety of civilians when it has been terrorising civilians as a matter of state policy.

The American and European governments are responding with a lop-sidedness that ignores these realities. They say that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate while under rocket fire, but they demand that the Palestinians do so under siege in Gaza and violent military occupation in the West Bank.

Before it falls down the memory hole, we should remember that last week, Hamas offered a ceasefire in return for basic and achievable compromises. Don't take my word for it. According to the Israeli press, Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, "told the Israeli cabinet [on 23 December] that Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms." Diskin explained that Hamas was requesting two things: an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank. The cabinet " high with election fever and eager to appear tough " rejected these terms.

The core of the situation has been starkly laid out by Ephraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad. He says that while Hamas militants " like much of the Israeli right-wing " dream of driving their opponents away, "they have recognised this ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future." Instead, "they are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of 1967." They are aware that this means they "will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original goals" " and towards a long-term peace based on compromise.

The rejectionists on both sides " from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Bibi Netanyahu of Israel " would then be marginalised. It is the only path that could yet end in peace but it is the Israeli government that refuses to choose it. Halevy explains: "Israel, for reasons of its own, did not want to turn the ceasefire into the start of a diplomatic process with Hamas."

Why would Israel act this way? The Israeli government wants peace, but only one imposed on its own terms, based on the acceptance of defeat by the Palestinians. It means the Israelis can keep the slabs of the West Bank on "their" side of the wall. It means they keep the largest settlements and control the water supply. And it means a divided Palestine, with responsibility for Gaza hived off to Egypt, and the broken-up West Bank standing alone. Negotiations threaten this vision: they would require Israel to give up more than it wants to. But an imposed peace will be no peace at all: it will not stop the rockets or the rage. For real safety, Israel will have to talk to the people it is blockading and bombing today, and compromise with them.

The sound of Gaza burning should be drowned out by the words of the Israeli writer Larry Derfner. He says: "Israel's war with Gaza has to be the most one-sided on earth... If the point is to end it, or at least begin to end it, the ball is not in Hamas's court " it is in ours."

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-true-story-behind-this-war-is-not-the-one-israel-is-telling-1214981.html



'For the children, it is like living in hell'



By Jerome Tyler
Monday, 29 December 2008

As explosions echoed in the distance and Israeli aircraft roared overhead, many residents in Gaza City were hunkered down in their houses yesterday, praying the bombs would spare them and worrying about how to feed their families and keep them warm should they survive.

"We still don't dare go outside. Nowhere feels safe," Faysal Shawa, a construction engineer, said by telephone from the house where he lives with his wife and three children. "Gaza is so small that when the Israelis bomb us it feels like they are bombing our own houses. There is a government building about 100 metres from where I live and it has been hit a number of times. My children are completely terrified.

"People in Gaza are used to dealing with hardship, but this time the bombings are absolutely terrifying, and what makes this attack worse is that for the past 18 months we have been living with little electricity, water and food. For the children it is like living in hell.

"This has to stop and it must stop now. Both sides are making the same mistakes again and again and it is the Palestinian people that suffer," Mr Shawa said. At that point, an explosion was heard close to the house and the engineer said he had to end the call to take his children to the cellar.

Gazan hospitals were running out of medical supplies to treat the wounded, and residents who had escaped unscathed were running out of basic foods and fuel.

"It is completely impossible to get any commodities now," said Sameh Habeeb, 23, an aid worker. "There is little electricity, all the bakeries and shops are shut and you cannot get any cooking gas. It's getting cold at night which means those families that don't have any gas will just have to use blankets to keep warm."

Like many Gazans, Sameh Habeeb was adamant that far from diminishing Hamas as a fighting force, the Israeli attack that dealt Palestinians one of their bloodiest days, would simply bolster support for the group among ordinary Palestinians.

"The Israelis seem to have widened their targets. They are clearly trying to destroy Hamas's entire infrastructure but my guess is that Hamas will just wait for the bombing to be over. This will not weaken them.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/for-the-children-it-is-like-living-in-hell-1215060.html

The Gaza hospitals, cut off from the rest of the world, will soon have to start doing surgery without anaesthetics

In 2009??? FFS

from the front page of The Independent (on line UK) today. A Palestinian climbs to the top of rubble on the site of a destroyed Mosque - Gaza



taken from

Will Things Ever Change?
Gaza and the World

By RAMZY BAROUD


http://www.counterpunch.org/baroud12302008.html

***



taken from

Livni and Barak Pin Their Hopes on Gaza Rampage
Electioneering with Bombs

By JONATHAN COOK
December 30, 2008

http://www.counterpunch.org/cook12302008.html

***


taken from

America's Crimes "Never Happened"
May We No Longer Be Silent

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

***



taken from

Five Little Girls on a Sofa
Gaza's One-Sided Images

By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY

http://www.counterpunch.org/cloughley12312008.html

***




taken from

There Aren't Two Sides to the Story of a Real Rape
The First Casualty of Israel's War

By TED HONDERICH

http://www.counterpunch.org/honderich12312008.html

***



taken from

Accomplice in Cairo
Mr. Mubarak, Tear Down That Wall!

By FRANKLIN LAMB

http://www.counterpunch.org/lamb12312008.html

***


taken from
Before Our Very Eyes
Israel's Attempted Endgame in Gaza

By JENNIFER Loewenstein

http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein12292008.html





The remains of the Islamic University following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City. Israeli warplanes have pounded Gaza for a third (now fourth) day as tanks stand by to join Israel's "all-out" war on Hamas that has killed at least 345 people and prompted deadly rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave. (AFP/Mahmud Hams)

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

To portray this as a conflict between equals requires some imagination
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."

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel




***

BTW - you would think people could come up with a better reason for a massacre, than that 'rocket' bull-****.
It's not about that and we know it. It's about the sodding elections. Humanity is out the window on this one.

For years the IRA bombed my country - they blew up the British Government and spilled children's blood on London's street....but i cannot begin to imagine us dropping bombs on Dublin - flattening the Uni and housing estates and pulverising Irish babies in their beds

There is no excuse for fascist behavior



Four-year-old Lama Hamdan killed by an Israeli missile on 29 December.

"Israel is committing a shocking series of atrocities by using modern weaponry against a defenceless population - attacking a population that has been enduring a severe blockade for many months."
The UN Human Rights Council


You know, believe it or not, i am concerned also, about the possible backlash to all this. The world seems very vulnerable to me.

A Royal Marine (from 45 Commando) was killed in Afghanistan yesterday.(New Year's Eve).
He died on a routine patrol in the Sangin district of Helmand province. That makes 51 British Killed in Afghanistan during 2008

LEST WE FORGET


2008


JANUARY

Corporal Darryl Gardiner, 25, of Salisbury, Wiltshire. Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

FEBRUARY

Corporal Damian Lawrence, 25, of Whitby, North Yorkshire. 2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment.

Corporal Damian Mulvihill, 32, of Plymouth. 40 Commando Royal Marines.

MARCH

Lieutenant John Thornton, 22, of Ferndown, Dorset. 40 Commando Royal Marines.

Marine David Marsh, 23, of Sheffield. 40 Commando Royal Marines.

APRIL

Senior Aircraftman Graham Livingstone, 23, of Glasgow. The Royal Air Force Regiment.

Senior Aircraftman Gary Thompson, 51, of Nottingham. Royal Auxiliary Air Force Regiment.

Trooper Robert Pearson, 22, of Grimsby, Lincolnshire. The Queen's Royal Lancers.

MAY

Trooper Ratu Babakobau, 29, from Fiji. The Household Cavalry Regiment.

Soldier James Thompson, 27, of Whitley Bay, North Tyneside.

Marine Dale Gostick, 22, of Oxford. 3 Troop Armoured Support Company Royal Marines.

JUNE

Private Nathan Cuthbertson, 19, of Sunderland. 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment.

Private Daniel Gamble, 22, of Uckfield, East Sussex. 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment.

Private Charles David Murray, 19, of Carlisle. 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment.

Lance Corporal James Bateman, 29, of Colchester, Essex. 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment.

Private Jeff Doherty, 20, of Southam, Warwickshire. 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment.

Corporal Sarah Bryant, 26, from Cumbria. The Intelligence Corps.

Corporal Sean Robert Reeve, 28. The Royal Signals.

Lance Corporal Richard Larkin, 39.

Paul Stout, 31.

Sergeant Major Michael Williams, 40, of Cardiff. 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment.

Private Joe Whittaker, 20, of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. 4th Battalion The Parachute Regiment.

Warrant Officer Dan Shirley, 32, of Leicester. 13 Air Assault Support Regiment Royal Logistic Corps.

Lance Corporal James Johnson, 31, of Chatham, Kent. 5th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland.

JULY

Corporal Jason Barnes, 25, of Exeter, Devon. Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

Lance Corporal Kenneth Michael Rowe, 24, of Newcastle. Royal Army Veterinary Corps.

Sergeant Jonathan Mathews, 35, of Edinburgh. The Highlanders, 4th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland.

Private Peter Cowton, 25, of Basingstoke, Hants. 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment.

AUGUST

Signaller Wayne Bland, 21, of Leeds. 16 Signal Regiment.

Corporal Barry Dempsey, 29, of Ayrshire. The Royal Highland Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Scotland.

SEPTEMBER

Ranger Justin James Cupples, 29, of County Cavan, Ireland. 1st Battalion The Royal Irish Regiment.

Warrant Officer Class 2 Gary O'Donnell, 40, of Edinburgh. The Royal Logistic Corps.

Private Jason Lee Rawstron, 23, of Clayton-Le-Moors, Lancashire. 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment.

Lance Corporal Nicky Mason, 26, of Aveley, Essex. 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment.

OCTOBER

Trooper James Munday, 21, of Birmingham. D Squadron. The Household Cavalry.

NOVEMBER

Yubraj Rai, 28, of Khotang district, eastern Nepal. 2nd Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles.

Marine Robert McKibben, 32, from Westport in Co Mayo. The UK Landing Force Command Support Group.

Marine Neil Dunstan, 32, from Bournemouth. The UK Landing Force Command Support Group.

Colour Sergeant Krishnabahadur Dura, 36, a Nepalese Gurkha. 2nd Battalion the Royal Gurkha Rifles.

Marine Alexander Lucas, 24, from Edinburgh. 45 Commando Royal Marines.

Marine Tony Evans, 20, from Sunderland. 42 Commando Royal Marines.

Marine Georgie Sparks, 19, from Epping, Essex. 42 Commando Royal Marines.

DECEMBER

Lance Corporal Steven 'Jamie' Fellows, 26, from High Wycombe. 45 Commando Royal Marines.

Sergeant John Manuel, 38, from Gateshead. 45 Commando Royal Marines.

Corporal Marc Birch, 26, from Kingsthorpe, Northamptonshire. 45 Commando Royal Marines.

Marine Damian Davies, 27, from Telford. Landing Force Support Party, Commando Logistic Regiment.

Lieutenant Aaron Lewis, 26, from Rochford, Essex. 29 Commando Royal Artillery.

Rifleman Stuart Nash, 21, an Australian national serving with the 1st Battalion The Rifles.

Corporal Robert Christopher Deering, 33, from Solihull, West Midlands. Commando Logistic Regiment Royal Marines.

Lance Corporal Ben Whatley, 20, of Tittleshall, Norfolk. 42 Commando Royal Marines. CHRISTMAS EVE

Royal Marine, as yet unnamed, though next of kin have been informed. 45 Commando Royal Marines. NEW YEARS EVE

Meanwhile in IRAQ


Green Zone Handed Off With Little Fanfare
Embassy Ceremony Hints at Uncertainty

By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 2, 2009; A12

BAGHDAD, Jan. 1 -- The handover of the Green Zone from U.S. to Iraqi control Thursday presented such a powerful symbol of the waning American presence in Iraq that it would have been nearly impossible for both sides not to mark it with a formal ceremony.

They did, but the ceremony wasn't much. A podium was set up in the middle of a dirty street. Five small balloons and some tinsel decorated a seating area. The American ambassador and the top commander of U.S. troops didn't show up. Neither did Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Maliki instead attended an unannounced event where he watched what might have been one of the most stirring signs of the new Iraq: the raising of the Iraqi flag over what just a day earlier had been the U.S. Embassy. The decision to keep reporters away from this ceremony hinted at the unease and uncertainty both sides feel about the transition.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/01/AR2009010101240_pf.html

**

British forces hand Basra airport to Iraqis
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090101/wl_mideast_afp/iraqbritainmilitary

**


Of course, you wouldn't notice either of those things happening...
Not when there is Gaza to look upon.














The picture below has already become symbolic around the world. It is as much about the grotesque continuation of child abuse as anything else.
To wage war on children is not just a violation of the law, it is a violation of us all, as a species and it is cowardly not to recognise that and take responsibility. To use modern technology to bomb an unarmed, cut off and surrounded enclave of humans is a war crime. It is a crime against them, but also against humanity, against me and you. Because it makes human life less valuable.


yes she is Palestinian

but she was also Vietnamese


and she was also Jewish






Israel has violated international law, including the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter.
That is evident.

The trouble is, there are no world leaders either willing or able to take the higher moral ground. Can you imagine George Bush even trying that?
The last thing he needs is Israel listing his atrocities in moral defence of their own.

Gaza follows years of 'suspension of law'
It wouldn't be happening right now if the press, politicians and lawmen (not to mention the masses) had stood up earlier to protest the breaking of international laws, the Geneva Conventions, etc in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and else where.

Instinct and common sense tells us that if we continue to allow an erosion of human rights, eventually, we will end up loosing our own humanity. Our human dignity.

If Israel are allowed to continue...who will be next? Who will feel free to slaughter who?
Are we all going to stand by and watch the continued eradication of human rights?

And how about the future?
Are we going to give up fighting for a better world for our children to live in?


What about our battered human dignity.
Are we going to continue denying our own beliefs?

I think people can speak out in defense of the meek. There is a small measure of dignity in that.





Endymion 2008

January 2 - 4, 2009
An Experiment in Provocation
Stealing Gaza

By BRIAN ENO

It's a tragedy that the Israelis - a people who must understand better than almost anybody the horrors of oppression - are now acting as oppressors. As the great Jewish writer Primo Levi once remarked "Everybody has their Jews, and for the Israelis it's the Palestinians". By creating a middle Eastern version of the Warsaw ghetto they are recapitulating their own history as though they've forgotten it. And by trying to paint an equivalence between the Palestinians - with their homemade rockets and stone-throwing teenagers - and themselves - with one of the most sophisticated military machines in the world - they sacrifice all credibility.

The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people who fully deserve the right to live in peace, but who seem intent on squandering every chance to allow that to happen. It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that this conflict serves the political and economic purposes of Israel so well that they have every interest in maintaining it. While there is fighting they can continue to build illegal settlements. While there is fighting they continue to receive huge quantities of military aid from the United States. And while there is fighting they can avoid looking candidly at themselves and the ruthlessness into which they are descending.

Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly...and, surprise, surprise - they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment?

Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now 'under attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation.

And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.

Brian Eno is a musician and music producer.

http://www.counterpunch.org/eno01022009.html



*
*

Protesters voice anger over Gaza conflict

By Tom Rayner, PA
Saturday, 3 January 2009

Thousands of protesters voiced their anger at the bombing of Gaza today in a series of rallies across the UK.

The protesters - including the singer Annie Lennox and Respect MP George Galloway - marched along the Embankment in London to Trafalgar Square to call for an immediate end to the Israeli attacks.

The demonstration in the capital was the biggest of at least 18 organised across the country.

Other rallies were taking place at Blytheswood Square, Glasgow; Bedford Square, Exeter; Princes Street, Edinburgh; Bristol city centre; Bold Street, Liverpool; Norwich Forum; Portsmouth's Guildhall Square; Queen Victoria Square, Hull; Tunbridge Wells town centre; Leeds Art Gallery; All Saints Park, Manchester; Grey's Monument, Newcastle; Castle Square, Swansea; St Sampson's Square, York; Morrisons, Caernarfon; Bradford city centre; and Sheffield town hall.

*

US President George Bush described the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel as an "act of terror", adding that no peace deal would be acceptable without monitoring to halt the flow of smuggled weapons to terrorist groups.

But in response, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said Israel's offensive would prove "self defeating" and accused President Bush of giving the action an unquestioning green light.

*

This afternoon's mass demonstration is the culmination of days of smaller protests around the country and outside the Israeli Embassy in Kensington, central London.



http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics


********************************************************************



Please note

I condemn terrorism against unarmed civilians. This means that i am against Hamas firing rockets into civilian neibourhoods of Israel and i am against the Israeli bombing of civilians in Gaza.

*****

Tens of thousands in London protest Gaza offensive
Demonstrators throw shoes at Downing Street as Muslim symbol of disgust at Israeli attacks




Protesters march through central London, as part of nationwide demonstrations against Israeli air strikes on Gaza. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Tens of thousands of protesters showed their anger at the Israeli bombing of Gaza today in a series of rallies across the UK that included throwing shoes at the gates of Downing Street.

More than a thousands pairs of footwear were thrown by protesters marching down Whitehall. A firework was also set off metres from the Downing Street gates.

The organisers said they wanted to leave shoes at the gates as a Muslim symbol of disgust at the attacks. When they were prevented from doing so, protesters began throwing their footwear, mimicking the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush at a press conference last month.

Protesters shouted: "Shame on you, have my shoe."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/03/gaza-israel-protest-shoes-london

Organisers have reported a figure of 50,000 attending
(the police say less than 10 thousand but as usual they can't count)

I have also heard that a man tried to set fire to himself in Dublin during the protest there today against the war on Gaza. He survived.

*
Israel steps up offensive on Gaza

The Israeli military has stepped up its attacks on Gaza, as the offensive on Hamas enters its second week.

Israeli artillery and tanks bombarded the territory for what is thought to be the first time during the offensive, and further air strikes were launched.
Correspondents say the activity could be an indication the Israeli military is preparing to launch a ground attack.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7809699.stm

*

Five sisters killed in Gaza while they slept
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/five-sisters-killed-in-gaza-while-they-slept-1216224.html

*

i keep thinking any time now someone of importance is going to stand up and say something to end this

... any time now....