...how holy is that?

I feel sorry for the folks caught in the cross-fire-

-maybe folks should make some room in Olympia for refugees from this conflict and put their couch where their heart is?

In this article posted at Counterpunch today, Uri Avnery addresses this question and so much more.  It's an excellent piece.

How Many Divisions?

The Blood-Stained Monster Enters Gaza

By URI AVNERY

Nearly seventy ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.

Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.

This is the description that would now appear in the history books – if the Germans had won the war.

Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured.

* * *

IN THIS WAR, as in any modern war, propaganda plays a major role. The disparity between the forces, between the Israeli army - with its airplanes, gunships, drones, warships, artillery and tanks - and the few thousand lightly armed Hamas fighters, is one to a thousand, perhaps one to a million. In the political arena the gap between them is even wider. But in the propaganda war, the gap is almost infinite.

Almost all the Western media initially repeated the official Israeli propaganda line. They almost entirely ignored the Palestinian side of the story, not to mention the daily demonstrations of the Israeli peace camp. The rationale of the Israeli government (“The state must defend its citizens against the Qassam rockets”) has been accepted as the whole truth. The view from the other side, that the Qassams are a retaliation for the siege that starves the one and a half million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, was not mentioned at all.

[Read the rest of the article here:   http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery01122009.html .]

 

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe

Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions

* Avi Shlaim
* The Guardian, Wednesday 7 January 2009

The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel's vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration's complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.

I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war had very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism. The aim was to establish Greater Israel through permanent political, economic and military control over the Palestinian territories. And the result has been one of the most prolonged and brutal military occupations of modern times.

...

I am not saying that the following information about the possibility that Israel's natural gas supplies are dwindling, and Israel's probable desire for full and safe—uncontested (by rocket fire, et al.) access to the huge gas field off the coast of Gaza, is a principal motivation for the war. But it's hard to imagine how this issue might NOT factor in somehow in the overall strategy and hostile attitude toward Palestine...

Yes, I am sure that flexing political and military muscles, and taking Hamas out of power are the main goals. But underlying concerns very well might include concern about access to this energy reserve... Makes me think about to where or what will Israel turn when this gas field is depleted... War on the world?

Anyway, stop the massacre! Here's the article linked and an excerpt: Is the Gaza Catastrophe Really About Natural Resources?

... A decade back, the British the oil firm BG International discovered a huge deposit of natural gas just off the Gaza coast, containing 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas valued at over $4 billion. Controlling security over air and water around Gaza, Israel quickly moved to negotiate a deal with BG to access Gaza’s natural gas at cheap rates.  

The incentives for Israel are obvious -- as the Telegraph reports: "Israel’s indigenous gas fields -- north of the Gaza Marine field -- could run out within a few years and the only other long-term source will be a pipeline from neighboring Egypt." 

The British Foreign Office, described the reserves as "by far the most valuable Palestinian natural resource." Tel Aviv journalist Arthur Neslen cites an informed British source saying, "The UK and U.S., who are the major players in this deal, see it as a possible tool to improve relations between the PA and Israel. It is part of the bargaining baggage." The project could provide up to 10 per cent of the Israel’s energy needs, at around half the price the same gas would cost from Egypt. The Gaza Strip would be effectively circumvented, as the gas would be piped directly onshore to Ashkelon in Israel. Neslen reports another informed source noting "an obvious linkage" between the BG-Israel deal and "attempts to bolster the Olmert-Abbas political process." Yet this process is designed precisely to marginalize the Palestinian people, as Neslen reports that "up to three-quarters of the $4bn of revenue raised might not even end up in Palestinian hands at all. While the PIF officially disputes the percentages, it will provide no others for fear of a public backlash." The "preferred option" of the U.S. an UK is that the gas revenues would be held in "an international bank account over which Abbas would hold sway."  No wonder then, that Ziad Thatha, the Hamas economic minister, had denounced the deal as "an act of theft" that "sells Palestinian gas to the Zionist occupation." 

...

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/02/20092592757311355.htm

The Israeli navy has captured and diverted a ship from Lebanon carrying more than 60 tonnes of aid to the Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera's correspondent aboard the Al-Ikhwa (The Brotherhood) ship said the navy first opened fire, then five Israeli soldiers boarded the ship, beating and threatening the passengers.

"They are pointing guns against us - they are kicking us and beating us. They are threatening our lives," Al Jazeera's Salam Khoder said.

Communications with the ship broke off shortly thereafter.

According to the owner of the vessel, the Israelis destroyed its communication equipment and confiscated the phones of those on board. 

The Israeli military told Al Jazeera it had captured the Lebanese vessel and taken it to Ashdod, where authorities were examining its cargo. The passengers and crew, meanwhile, were being questioned by police.

Warnings 'disregarded'

In a statement, the Israeli military said it had warned the ship on Wednesday night against entering Gaza's coastal waters.

"During today's morning hours, the cargo ship changed its bearing, and began heading towards the Gaza Strip .... disregarding all warnings made," it said.

Al-Ikhwa, which originally set sail from Cyprus, left the Lebanese port city of Tripoli on Tuesday.

Maan Bashour, an aid co-ordinator for the group End the Blockade of Gaza, said the ship was carrying medical equipment, food supplies and books, toys and milk for small children.

"This ship was searched in Cyprus and in Lebanon," Bashour told Al Jazeera in Beirut, Lebanon. "And we were very eager to let it be searched by Lebanese and Cypriot authorities in order that there be no reason for the Israelis to prevent it from going to Gaza."

Foud Siniora, Lebanon's prime minister, condemned the attack on Al-Ikhwa, emphasising that it was on a humanitarian mission to Gaza.

"It is no surprise for Israel to perpetrate such an action as it has been accustomed to ignoring all international resolutions and values," he said during a speech in Beirut.

"I made a number of necessary phone calls with international parties in order to exert pressures on Israel which is violating laws. I hold Israel responsible for the safety of the ship and passengers. "

Dispite the international condemnation Israeli inflicted death and destruction rages on. To date over 800 Palestinians dead, most of them civilians. Bastards.

Here is an emphatically critical article from a highly credible and informed source, which lays bare in blunt terms the lies of Israel, which have been perpetuated through the screaming halls of the American Mainstream Media. Siegman, the author, is a rabbi and a Holocaust survivor from Germany.

I subscribe to Jewish Peace News, an affiliated service of Jewish Voice for Peace. I was turned on to this Henry Siegman article by a regular JPN update. You can find that here: Henry Siegman: Israel's Lies

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Henry Siegman: "Israel's Lies"

The London Review of Books published a new essay in which Henry Siegman thoroughly dismantles each of Israel's stated justifications for its assault on Gaza and Hamas. Siegman says "Western governments and most of the Western media have accepted a number of Israeli claims justifying the military assault on Gaza: that Hamas consistently violated the six-month truce that Israel observed and then refused to extend it; that Israel therefore had no choice but to destroy Hamas's capacity to launch missiles into Israeli towns; that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a global jihadi network; and that Israel has acted not only in its own defence but on behalf of an international struggle by Western democracies against this network....let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a lie."

Siegman, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and former Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee, is also a rabbi and a Holocaust survivor from Germany. He's written extensively about the peace process, stating that no agreement can be made without the inclusion of Hamas and referring to his own experience of fleeing the Nazis to identify with Palestinian refugees and Palestinian suffering. In an article by Chris Hedges, formerly of the New York Times, Siegman discusses his disappointment in American Jewish leadership over Israel as well as the family strife that his speaking out on Israel and Palestine has caused (query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B06E4DA173CF930A25755C0A9649C8B63). Siegman's wisdom, insight and willingness to say unpopular things is always instructive and helps illuminate a path for those seeking justice and security for both Israelis and Palestinians. Of his many insights, one in particular that I want to emphasize is that "if
[Israel] succeeds in dismantling Hamas, the movement will in time be replaced by a far more radical Palestinian opposition."

Sarah Anne Minkin

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n02/sieg01_.html

Israel's Lies
Henry Siegman

Western governments and most of the Western media have accepted a number of Israeli claims justifying the military assault on Gaza: that Hamas consistently violated the six-month truce that Israel observed and then refused to extend it; that Israel therefore had no choice but to destroy Hamas's capacity to launch missiles into Israeli towns; that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a global jihadi network; and that Israel has acted not only in its own defence but on behalf of an international struggle by Western democracies against this network.

I am not aware of a single major American newspaper, radio station or TV channel whose coverage of the assault on Gaza questions this version of events. Criticism of Israel's actions, if any (and there has been none from the Bush administration), has focused instead on whether the IDF's carnage is proportional to the threat it sought to counter, and whether it is taking adequate measures to prevent civilian casualties.

Middle East peacemaking has been smothered in deceptive euphemisms, so let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a lie. Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce: Hamas undertook to stop firing rockets into Israel; in return, Israel was to ease its throttlehold on Gaza. In fact, during the truce, it tightened it further. This was confirmed not only by every neutral international observer and NGO on the scene but by Brigadier General (Res.) Shmuel Zakai, a former commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division. In an interview in Ha’aretz on 22 December, he accused Israel’s government of having made a ‘central error’ during the tahdiyeh, the six-month period of relative truce, by failing ‘to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians of the Strip . . . When you create a tahdiyeh, and the economic pressure on the Strip continues,’ General Zakai said, ‘it is obvious that Hamas will try to reach an improved tahdiyeh, and that their way to achieve this is resumed Qassam fire . . . You cannot just land blows, leave the Palestinians in Gaza in the economic distress they’re in, and expect that Hamas will just sit around and do nothing.’

...

Respite in Gaza By Kathy Kelly

January 18, 2009 at 6pm
Rafah, Gaza

Late last night, a text message notified us that the Israeli government was very close to declaring that they would stop attacking Gaza for one day. Shortly before midnight, we heard huge explosions, four in a row. Till now, that was the last attack. Israeli drones flew overhead all night long, but residents of Rafah were finally able to get eight hours of sleep uninterrupted by F16s and Apache helicopters attacking them.

...

Alan Dershowitz in the New York Daily News, "there have been more than 6,500 [rocket attacks] since Israel ended its occupation of Gaza."

He goes on to add:

The Hamas Charter not only denies Israel's right to exist, it calls for the complete destruction of the Jewish state.

And yet tens of thousands are protesting because Israel should have - evidently - "[opened] all Gaza's crossings."

It's a country in a sea of enemies and they're the ones being labled as the evil party.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/opinion/08khalidi.html January 8, 2009 Op-Ed Contributor What You Don’t Know About Gaza By RASHID KHALIDI NEARLY everything you’ve been led to believe about Gaza is wrong. Below are a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation, much of which has taken place in the press, about Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip. THE GAZANS Most of the people living in Gaza are not there by choice. The majority of the 1.5 million people crammed into the roughly 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip belong to families that came from towns and villages outside Gaza like Ashkelon and Beersheba. They were driven to Gaza by the Israeli Army in 1948. THE OCCUPATION The Gazans have lived under Israeli occupation since the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel is still widely considered to be an occupying power, even though it removed its troops and settlers from the strip in 2005. Israel still controls access to the area, imports and exports, and the movement of people in and out. Israel has control over Gaza’s air space and sea coast, and its forces enter the area at will. As the occupying power, Israel has the responsibility under the Fourth Geneva Convention to see to the welfare of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. THE BLOCKADE Israel’s blockade of the strip, with the support of the United States and the European Union, has grown increasingly stringent since Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006. Fuel, electricity, imports, exports and the movement of people in and out of the Strip have been slowly choked off, leading to life-threatening problems of sanitation, health, water supply and transportation. The blockade has subjected many to unemployment, penury and malnutrition. This amounts to the collective punishment — with the tacit support of the United States — of a civilian population for exercising its democratic rights. THE CEASE-FIRE Lifting the blockade, along with a cessation of rocket fire, was one of the key terms of the June cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. This accord led to a reduction in rockets fired from Gaza from hundreds in May and June to a total of less than 20 in the subsequent four months (according to Israeli government figures). The cease-fire broke down when Israeli forces launched major air and ground attacks in early November; six Hamas operatives were reported killed. WAR CRIMES The targeting of civilians, whether by Hamas or by Israel, is potentially a war crime. Every human life is precious. But the numbers speak for themselves: Nearly 700 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed since the conflict broke out at the end of last year. In contrast, there have been around a dozen Israelis killed, many of them soldiers. Negotiation is a much more effective way to deal with rockets and other forms of violence. This might have been able to happen had Israel fulfilled the terms of the June cease-fire and lifted its blockade of the Gaza Strip. This war on the people of Gaza isn’t really about rockets. Nor is it about “restoring Israel’s deterrence,” as the Israeli press might have you believe. Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.” Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia, is the author of the forthcoming “Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East."

Aren't both sides at fault here? Both sides have killed and both sides lie and bend the facts. Maybe we need to stop pointing fingers at one or the other and say, "you are both wrong, take responsibility for it and lets move forward." Pointing fingers is not helping anyone here.

But I am Just Another Voice

Without question there are individuals worthy of condemnation who claim to be acting on behalf of Palestinians. This in no way indicates a moral equivalency between the actions of the Palestinian people and the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces. As was the case when Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006, civilians are the target of Israeli fire. Any analysis of available statistics will support this conclusion; Israel intentionally kills civilians. They kill children because they will grow up to be militants, they kill women because they will bear more children to replace those killed. I state this without hesitation and with every confidence that it is a stated objective within the ranks of the Israeli Defense Forces. I do not defend the firing of primitive rockets into Israel, they are the consequence of failed Israeli policy, and serve the Israeli governemnt far better than they threaten the Israeli people.

Israel has a national policy of genocide. Israel has a national policy of demonizing and dehumanizing its enemies. Israel undertakes psychological operations to manipulate political figures and the press in Europe and America to further its agenda. Any attempt to excuse Israeli actions in Lebanon or in Gaza is a dishonest effort born of an ideological loyalty to the state of Israel that will not be altered by empirical evidence. I conclude this as a result of careful analysis and not as a result of any ideological discrimination against Israel based on the race or religion of its citizens. 

Palestinians are Semites. I reject ideology that does not modify itself based upon empirical evidence that stands to contradict it. I oppose the willful murder of women and children and non-combatants to further any ideology, wether it be Zionism or America's own Manifest Destiny. I will never weaken my condemnation of the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces by equivocating their actions with the actions of the resistance in Palestine. I vehemently support and defend the right of individuals to participate peacefully in the conduct of global affairs, and I further support and defend the right of peoples to take arms in their own defense when their lives and liberty and culture and ancestral land is threatened by force, even when it is overwhelming force. I strongly and unequivocally support the people's resistance in Palestine.

Here's a book, published online and available at www.endtheoccupation.org. It's by Phyllis Bennis. Here's a link to the start page: Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer

Description:

Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer

PHYLLIS BENNIS

If you have ever wondered “Why is there so much violence in the Middle East?”, “Who are the Palestinians?”, “What are the occupied territories?” or “What does Israel want?”, then this is the book for you.

With straightforward language, Phyllis Bennis, longtime analyst of the region, answers basic questions about Israel and Israelis, Palestine and Palestinians, the US and the Middle East, Zionism and anti-Semitism; about complex issues ranging from the Oslo peace process to the election of Hamas. Together her answers provide a comprehensive understanding of the longstanding Palestinian–Israeli conflict.