Funny funny hahahahaha!!!! Ya! Great question, Mr. Audience member! Thanks for letting me have the opportunity to recite a very well versed joke on the fate of 66 million people! Haha... Gheez, as if the largest economic power in the world wouldn't choose a guy who makes (extremely) inappropriate, belligerent jokes about going to war and committing yet another international crime against humanity! Hahaa... Remember when I told you I know nothing about economics? I still don't! And I really don't care either. Uncle Sam knows that when we go to kill the Al-Qaeda... uhh, I mean Bagda....uhhh, the "Iraynians," the price of oil per barrel will skyrocket, and you think gas is expensive NOW??? Ohh... Chuckle, Chuckle! Who needs economics when we're already rich? It's not us, the elite., who are gonna suffer, see it's YOU that is going to have to deal with it... And YOU are not the people we are concerned with, America! hahaha. "Bomb-Bom-bom-Bomb-bom Iran!!!"
"Make it a hundred...That would be fine with me." John McCain-to a questioner who asked if he supported President Bush's vision for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for 50 years
Friday, June 27, 2008
Haha!!! What a Knee Slapper!!!
Friday, June 06, 2008
Film Review: Waltz with Bashir
Ari Folman's "Waltz with Bashir" premiered in Tel-Aviv this week. I attended the premier with much reluctance: I had a sinking feeling that I would be witnessing a filmmaker's rendition of Golda Meir's words: "We will never forgive the Palestinians for making us kill them." I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong.
The film documents the struggle of filmmaker Ari Folman to come to terms with the gaps in his memory surrounding his role as an Israeli soldier during Israel's invasion of Lebanon and the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila which left thousands of innocent civilians dead.
Using brilliant, hand-drawn animation (perhaps as a means of separating himself from the horrifically real events that took place), Folman weaves together the stories of his friends and fellow soldiers in order to highlight the atrocities committed by the Israeli army.
The film opens with a pack of mad dogs running down a street, finally stopping beneath a building to growl menacingly at a man looking down from a window. The dogs, as it turns out, come from a recurring nightmare of one of Folman's friends, Boaz. There are exactly 26 dogs -- 26, because that's the number of dogs his friend shot and killed to silence their barking before they could warn villages about to be invaded of the approach of the troops moving in. Like Boaz, Ari is plagued by a past he cannot recall. He sets out to sift through the memories of other Israeli soliders (7 firsthand accounts, 2 secondhand accounts), to make sense of the one image that he can recall of his time during the invasion.
Folman doesn't attempt to make any excuses: he points the finger at Bashir Gemayel, Lebanon’s president-elect whose assassination preceded the mass murder at the camps, and at Ariel Sharon, then the Israeli war minister (now comatose). Mr. Folman also doesn’t hide what soldiers do in wartime: at the sniper who lethally picks a man off a donkey, at the tank that crushes cars under its wheels, destroying buildings and running over people. The finale, which finds the animation violently giving way to live-action documentary footage, is stunning and difficult to watch.
The film was difficult to watch at times: it brought back my own memories of Israel's actions in Gaza in 2001 when I witnessed the assassination of a Palestinian man by an Apache helicopter and later in 2002 when Israel dropped a one-ton bomb in Gaza City killing 15 Palestinians (I am still haunted by the images of children being pulled from the wreckage); in the spring of 2002 when I lived through Israel's siege of the West Bank and the takeover of my home by the army. I often wondered during those periods whether the soldiers ever remember their crimes, or did they, like Ari Folman, choose to bury them instead. Thankfully Folman has now revealed his own secrets. I just hope that others will too.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Happy Mother's Day
** Samira's testimony to B'Tselem
Three small kids bury their mother today in Gaza. They spent the better part of last night locked into a room together, just after they saw the explosion of their front door that killed their mother, and observing soldiers cover her body with a rug. At 11 pm, after six and a half hours of taking care of her younger siblings in a locked room, the 12-year-old daughter Samira was let out and ran next door for help.
Ironically, I read Julia Ward Howe's "Mother's Day Proclamation" immediately after reading about Samira and her mother, Majdi Abd al-Raziq al-Daghma. Mother's Day was meant to be a call for peace, for pacifism and laying down of arms:
The "Mother's Day Proclamation" by Julia Ward Howe was one of the early calls to celebrate Mother's Day in the United States. Written in 1870, Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe's feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level.
Her idea was influenced by Ann Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker who, starting in 1858, had attempted to improve sanitation through what she called Mothers' Work Days. She organized women throughout the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, and in 1868 she began work to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbors.
When Jarvis died in 1907, her daughter, named Anna Jarvis, started the crusade to found a memorial day for women. The first such Mother's Day was celebrated in Grafton, West Virginia, on 10 May 1908, in the church where the elder Ann Jarvis had taught Sunday School. Originally the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church, this building is now the International Mother's Day Shrine (a National Historic Landmark). From there, the custom caught on — spreading eventually to 45 states. The holiday was declared officially by some states beginning in 1912. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day, as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.
Nine years after the first official Mother's Day, commercialization of the U.S. holiday became so rampant that Anna Jarvis herself became a major opponent of what the holiday had become.
Mother's Day Proclamation
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Shoot First, Renew the Contract Later
Blackwater disclosed that it engaged in 195 shootings since 2005, wherein its personnel shot first 84% of the time.The security contractor Blackwater has been running loose in Iraq above the law and to the detriment of ordinary Iraqis. Amnesty International is calling for greater accountability in the contracting of such entities.
On September 16, 2007, private contractors working for the U.S.-based company Blackwater Worldwide shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians in streets near Nisour Square, Baghdad. The shootings occurred while Blackwater was under a contract with the U.S. State Department.
So pleased the government is with this excellent track record, it renewed Blackwater's contract.
It probably sounds like I am being a bit hyperbolic. The government takes no pride in such slaughter, right?
The State Department did conduct "investigations" -- probably so it could say it did -- but it also gave Blackwater contractors immunity for providing information about the shootings. "Just admit you did it, and we won't punish you... we'll even renew your contract."
Amnesty is calling for the contract's suspension.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Its on CNN now
As Fadi accurately predicted, CNN finally posted a headline about the murder of 17 Palestinians in Gaza today by combining the deaths of those fighting their occupiers and the deaths of civilians at the hands of these same occupiers with the death of three Israeli occupation soldiers killed deep inside the Gaza Strip.
Check it out: Israeli-Palestinian fighting kills 21
Nothing too surprising there. However, I was pretty surprised that the BBC headline was ‘Israel Strikes after Hamas Raid’. Excuse me? Again, the Hamas attack targeted Israeli soldiers inside Gaza - therefore, it was the Israeli Occupation Forces that were conducting the raid, not the Palestinian resistance. That’s just a blatant attempt at covering for Israeli war crimes by painting the murder of Palestinians today as legitimate retaliation. Which, assholes, it isn’t.
The CNN report also claims that the five resistance fighters killed are part of ‘a new radical Islamic group called El Oma Army.’ At the risk of posing too many rhetorical questions for my own good in one post, which one of Mark Regev’s assholes do CNN pull this shit out from? Seriously, I’ve been watching local news out of Gaza and this is the first time I’ve ever heard of El Oma Army. The five killed were members of Hamas according to local sources and the Israeli media. And how the fuck do you judge on the radicalism of a group that you just invent-I mean discovered today. Give them a chance to do something radical next time!
Away from the Western media’s dickheaded approach to Israeli oppression, let us review the events of the day-a day where the death of 17 Palestinians wouldn’t have garnered much news had it not also featured the death of three Occupation soldiers. In the early hours of the morning, an Israeli force moved deep east of the Shuja’iyah neighborhood. Supported by tanks, armed bulldozers and fighter helicopters, the occupiers stormed civilian homes, arresting civilians and demolishing 4 houses at least. Four Hamas fighters were killed trying to resist that particular incursion, as well as a Palestinian farmer. The Israeli army also destroyed part of a local school and demolished large parts of a mosque.
Around the same time, an Israeli Special Forces unit entered Gaza from the east in pursuit of Palestinian fighters. The unit was ambushed by Hamas fighters, who left 3 of the occupation soldiers dead and managed to retreat. This ‘raid’ was carried out inside Gaza and targeted an Israeli unit that had crossed the border.
As the Israeli army is prone to do whenever its soldiers are killed in Gaza, it sets about targeting obvious civilian targets (see Jabalya, March 2008). As the airforce set about conducting a series of airstrikes and killing several Palestinians, the biggest attack occurred near the Juhr Eldeak area, where a tank shell hit a large number of civilians gathered near the mosque. 9 were killed, including two children and several teenagers.
It was following this event that perhaps the most shocking images of the day came out. As cameramen rushed to the scene, Fadel Shana’a, a 23 year old cameraman working for Reuters, was killed when an Israeli tank shell hit his car. TV footage showed his SUV engulfed in an inferno as his colleagues rushed to his side, many openly weaping.
Shana’a’s car was clearly marked as a Press vehicle, and his clothing also was similarly marked. As Aljazeera correspondent Jackie Rowland testified, the vehicle “…was even clearly marked on the roof, so it can't be mistaken on the ground or from the air," she said."It is quite inconceivable that Israeli forces, who are looking over the territory with drones, helicopters and aeroplanes, were unfamiliar with this car."
Reuters say that Shana’a had just gotten out of the car and begun filming when he was killed. The footage recovered from his camera shows an Israeli tank firing from several hundred meters away towards the cameraman, before going blank at the point of impact. Also killed in that attack were two civilians-a young boy and a man in his 60’s.
Gosh, imagine if CNN didn’t keep covering for Israel’s crimes. Maybe this shit will stop.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Puppy-Killing US Soldier=Your Neighbor
It puzzles me why the soldier-throwing-puppy-off-cliff video has drawn far more outrage across the internet than any single video of US soldiers in Iraq committing indiscriminate murder. Perhaps this video, of American troops essentially behaving like assholes, (or children someone made the very poor choice to hand guns and who are drunk on power, or frat boys who would be much better served by being given scissors to run around with) can put the puppy video into a tiny bit of perspective.
At least in part, the sentiment that causes us by and large to focus on the puppy-over-the-cliff, as opposed to indiscriminate disregard for human dignity, property and life, may be due to the fact that many of us know people who have gone to Iraq. Take the town of Killeen, Texas for instance. Stars line the walls of the high school for the hundreds of parents who are in Iraq, they've had to dig an entire new cemetary, and 200 widows have been created by the war since 2003.
We know these people, they're our neighbors. How can we reconcile these images with our own communities, and as such, our own identities? Is it really possible that the victimizers are in fact also victims?
I've written before that I have little faith in human nature, and that each and every one of us is capable of the worst nightmarishly horrible violations, if only given the power, and the ability to think of others as subhuman.
The towns, though, that continue burying their young people who come home in boxes, understandably prefer to believe that their sacrifice is for something worthwhile, something that in the national imagination is inarguably above our value as individuals:Everyone believed that US troops should remain in Iraq to protect America from terrorists, to honour the dead, such as Gary, and to complete the job... even one whose definition was becoming less certain.
"You want to know why small-town America is losing so many of its people in Iraq?" he asked, his voice quivering. "It's because small-town America still believes in this country, still believes in fighting for the freedom to worship whichever God you believe in. Our young men and women - like Gary - have been sacrificing their lives for this for 200 years. This is America."
If we are to remove the ideology from the equation, and gain a practical understanding of what is happening and what our government is sending people to die for, we must, in fact we NEED, to be listening very carefully to these people.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Offer, Counteroffer
Yesterday Hamas offered comprehensive truce with Israel and set its terms. The main item is a cessation of all Israeli acts of aggression against the West Bank and Gaza. Israel’s response came within hours. It sent death squads to assassinate five Palestinians in the West Bank, and launched bombing raids on the densely populated Gaza Strip.
If you think this is an isolated coincidence… it’s not. Let’s review news archives with a longer than 24-hour attention span, and we would see it repeat it self over and over.
Silly Hamas, though, they seems to have gotten caught up in the Israeli propaganda storm that they thought they constitute enough of a menace to Israel to dictate the term of the truce. Would somebody tell the Knafeh Man that his rockets are only good enough for a photo op, or to be represented with balloons?
And the Shoah is not yet completed…
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Shoah Watch: Black Saturday
Saturday, March 1st, 2008. Sixty two Palestinians are massacred in an insane Israeli slaughter committed against the besieged people of the Gaza Strip. From the early hours of the morning, the Israeli airforce conducted dozens upon dozens of airstrikes against civilian homes, police stations, civilians in the streets and a mosque.
The massacre was concentrated around Jabalya and the village of Izbet Abed Rabbo. TV footage clearly showed the Israeli army pounding civilian homes in and around the area. Children, women and the elderly were not spared. Ambulances were targeted by Israeli snipers and machine guns, as were journalists and the media.
Its past midnight here, but the attacks are ceaseless. I just want to talk about Saturday for now, so the killing going on now will be chronicled tomorrow as part of the Sunday chapter of this heinous crime.
Its just hard to put into words what happened in Gaza today. There can be no justification whatsoever. Israel promised a holocaust (excuse me, a mere disaster) and it didn’t waste time in delivering. I don’t understand how the lives of a certain group of people can mean so much less than another group because of race, or ethnicity, or religion. Sixty two Palestinians in 24 hours. Amongst them were children, including Samah and Sana, two teenage sisters murdered by an Israeli missile that was fired into their family home.
Also amongst the dead: a 45 year old man who was shot by an Israeli sniper as he stood on his doorstep, and his 19 year old son, who was killed by an Israeli rocket as he came to his father’s rescue. The Darduna family, which lost 3 of its young sons as they were playing soccer only yesterday, lost yet another member of the family when more Israeli missiles hit the family home.
What’s hardest to comprehend is the size of the slaughter. How can over 60 people be murdered is such a cold, murderous manner in one of the most high profile conflict regions on earth? Why have there not been any moves, from any official body, to denounce the massacre? The Palestinian people have been under illegal Israeli occupation and a brutal military rule for decades-so why is Israel’s butchering of Palestinians accepted as necessary self-defense, while Palestinian resistance to this brutality is denounced as abhorrent?
Why is it that in so many parts of the world, the death of one Israeli on Wednesday continues to receive equal or greater media coverage than the death of over 90 Palestinians since then? Is that really the equation, that 1 Israeli life is far more important than that of 90 Palestinians?
Talking to relatives in the Gaza, the situation is beyond terrifying. The airforce has begun attacking Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, as ground forces have moved several kilometers deep into the north of the Strip. Any moving car is liable to be hit with an airstrike without warning. A mosque in Rafah was bombed, killing three men, and two policemen walking home from duty were bombed in the street.
The medical services are warning of an imminent catastrophe. Gaza’s main hospital, Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, says that it cannot take in any more wounded. Mothers that have recently given birth have been sent home, as have dialysis patients, to make room for makeshift surgery rooms and intensive care units. The Strip is close to running out of anesthesia, making a disturbing situation even more gruesome as the majority of the wounded come in with missing limbs, severe burns and gaping wounds. The hospitals are close to running out of the diesel they need to power the emergency generators that are so necessary during these times of continuous power cuts, and with 50% of Gaza’s ambulance fleet parked due to a lack of fuel, there are official warnings that the fuel available to the other 50% will not last more than two days.
The two hospitals that are struggling the most are Al-Shifa in Gaza City and Kamal Udwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, the latter of which had 21 dead bodies brought in today alone. There is a shortage of sheets to cover and wrap the dead in, so hospital bed sheets, already scarce, are being used for the task. One Al-Shifa doctor has warned that if urgent medical supplies do not get through soon, the hospital will be unable to save many of the wounded, and that many of the over 200 wounded today will be buried in mass graves.
The extreme nature of the medical situation has many on the ground believing that the border with Egypt may well be breached again soon, if only to transfer the wounded to Egyptian hospitals.
With Israeli TV announcing yesterday that this is part of a four step plan designed by the Israeli government to overthrow Hamas in Gaza, it seems like what happened today is the beginning of an extremely bloody period in Gaza’s history.
As the governments of the world watch in silence, in apathy, or actively conspire against the people of Gaza, we all need to make every effort towards shedding light on the inhuman brutality of Israel’s merciless attacks on Gaza.
God be with them.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Just thought I'd brighten your day
Howdy,
Lost amongst May's marriage woes, Will's ramblings, and Emily's crusade against real Christians, has been the plight of Gaza over the last weeks or so. 16 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli rocket and missile attacks since yesterday, following the massacre of 9, including seven policemen in Khan Younis, the day before.
With the border with Egypt finally sealed, the flow of food, gas, diesel, medicine and paper has once again come to a standstill. Israel is still limiting its supply of electricity and fuel, today announcing that it will further reduce energy supplies to the Strip.
People are still dying because of electricity failures and medicine shortages in hospitals. Students are having trouble studying due to a lack of supplies and power. My elementary school-aged cousins have to read outside by the headlights on their father's car. There are shortages of food because Israel has continued to keep its border crossings with Gaza closed for the last two weeks.
And FIFA is thinking of suspending Abutrika.
Seriously, how much longer is this going to go on?
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
The Largest Prison Break in History
After six days of strangulation, thousands of Gazans dramatically entered Egypt Wednesday morning after a border wall was blasted open. Afterwards, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak claimed to allow the Palestinians entry so as to not starve, though he has - up to this point - shown little concern for Palestinian lives while willingly enforcing Israel's blockade. In particular, he has refused entry of critically ill Palestinians and passage of goods despite warnings by countless humanitarian organizations of the threat to life. Coincidentally, Mubarak's change in heart came simultaneously with the Palestinian breach in the border wall, and subsequent mass influx of Palestinians. Meanwhile, Israeli President Shimon Peres has lashed out at the Palestinians for not obediantly accepting their own starvation, alleging that the entry of Palestinian civilians into Egypt for food and fuel is a mistake responsible for "killing people." Apparently, the Israeli President believes that Palestinian survival is a mistake.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
1 Minute to Help 1.5 Million Gazans
-Forward Widely-
Call (202-667-3402) or email (Embassy@egyptembdc.org) the Egyptian Embassy and demand that Egypt open the Rafah crossing
(1/22/08) Since Friday, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has escalated to previously unimaginable levels. Over the past five days, Gaza has been completely shut off from the rest of the world due to an Israeli - and Egyptian-enforced - closure of all border crossings. By Sunday, approximately 800,000 Gazans were left without electricity as Gaza's only power plant ran out of fuel. Many of the hospitals and medical clinics were also left with dwindling medical supplies and little to no fuel to power generators. As a result, approximately 75 Palestinians have reportedly died from the closure, and a number of patients in intensive care units have died as their emergency life support equipment cannot function without electricity. Many hospitals are forced to choose which equipment to keep running: dialysis machines, neonatal units, or heart and oxygen machines.
Furthermore, with no fuel or electricity for the water pumps and sewage treatment plants, most Gazans have now lost their running water, with several neighborhoods, including the large Zatoun neighborhood east of Gaza City, flooded with sewage.
The closure has resulted in a deliberate and collective punishment of the entire civilian population of Gaza (nearly 1.5 million Palestinians). Such collective punishment directly contravenes explicit provisions of the 4th Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signing party.
John Ging, director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza said the civilian population was living in "abject misery" and had been stripped of their human dignity.
"People here in Gaza have been living in abject misery and hardship now for a long time," Ging told Al-Jazeera. "On top of that they are living in darkness… You have to see how miserable the situation is. The civilian population is under occupation. It is collective punishment - they are victims."
For its part, Egypt has willingly assisted Israel in the closure, preventing any Palestinian from leaving Gaza through the Rafah crossing. In particular, several ambulances carrying critically ill patients have been refused entry by Egyptian authorities. Faced with starvation and death, a group of Palestinian female protestors attempted to leave Gaza, only to be turned away by water cannons, gunfire, and baton-wielding Egyptian soldiers. At least 25 Palestinians have been injured by Egyptian soldiers enforcing Israel's closure.
Though the media has reported that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to express opposition to the humanitarian crisis, Mubarak has followed these empty words with affirmative acts to enforce the closure. Egypt does have the power to alleviate Palestinian suffering by at least allowing entry of fuel, emergency medicine and medical supplies, and supplies needed by aid agencies to distribute food .
Call the Egyptian Embassy in Washington D.C. and demand that Egypt open the Rafah crossing, and cease enforcing the closure of Gaza now!
Embassy of Egypt
3521 International Ct. NW
Washington, DC 20008
TELEPHONE: (202) 667-3402 –or- (202) 895-5400 – or - (202) 966-6342
Email: Embassy@egyptembdc.org
For example: "As an [Arab/Arab-American/Egyptian/Concerned American], I am concerned with the humanitarian crisis that is currently transpiring in Gaza. I am especially concerned with Egypt's participation in the closure, and refusal to open the Rafah crossing as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are trapped in life-threatening conditions."
Call the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. and demand an end to the closure of Gaza now!
Embassy of Israel
3514 International Dr., NW
Washington, DC 20008
TELEPHONE: (202) 364-5500
Emergency Protests
Anaheim, California: Saturday, Jan. 26, 1 p.m. 512 S. Brookhurst St. Between Orange Ave. & Broadway)
Washington DC: Friday, Jan. 25 (time tba), at the Israeli Embassy, 3514 International Dr. N.W.
San Francisco, California: Friday, Jan. 25, 4-6 p.m., Israeli Consulate, 456 Montgomery St. (near California)
New York, New York: Saturday, Jan. 26, 1 p.m. at the Israeli Embassy, 43rd St. and 2nd Ave.
Chicago, Illinois: Tues., Jan. 29, 5 pm at the Lakeshore Theater, 3175 North Broadway (at benefit for the Friends of the Israeli Defense Force)
Seattle, Washington: Friday, January 25, 4 p.m., Westlake Park, 4th & Pine Sts.
Cleveland, Ohio: Saturday, Jan. 26, 2 p.m. at 25th & Lorain across the street from the West Side Market
Gaza Blackout - Day 3
Three days on, and the siege continues. For three days now, there has been no fuel or electricity in the Gaza Strip. Amongst the developments today:
A women’s protest reached the Rafah crossing early in the afternoon. Ambulances carrying critically ill patients again travelled to the border, hopeful of being allowed through for emergency medical assistance. Again, the Egyptians refused to allow them through. Eventually the protestors, now joined by young men and youths, managed to break through the border gate. They were immediately set upon by baton-wielding Egyptian border guards and beaten. Water-canons were aimed at the protestors in the freezing cold, with 20 women suffering injuries and being forced to seek medical attention in Gaza’s freezing, underpowered and undersupplied hospitals.
The Egyptian foreign ministry released a statement condemning the Palestinians for trying to break the siege imposed on them. Egypt and the Palestinian Authority have been exposed as complicit in this crime, with Salam Fayyad and Abbashole both issuing statements condemning the Palestinian resistance in Gaza while the blackout and starvation continues.
Most Gazans have now lost their running water, with several neighborhoods, including the large Zatoun neighborhood east of Gaza City, flooded with sewage.
Israel has received widespread media acclaim for agreeing to allow limited shipments of fuel in today, but that appears to be no more than a media stunt as the amount allowed in has not been enough to bring anything back online. The entire siege on Gaza (which has been going on for over a year now) must be lifted. Allowing fuel in should not be the goal of the international community-rather, it needs to be the freedom of all Gazans from the brutality of Israel’s occupation.
As I write, the UN is conducting an emergency session to discuss Gaza. Israel’s ambassador just finished a heart-wrenching diatribe in which he justified the starvation of 1.5 million humans in Gaza under the pretext that children in Sderot constantly face shock from Palestinian rocket fire, with some even wetting their beds!
Great exposure of just how much Israel values Palestinian life.
Monday, January 21, 2008
ACTION ALERT: Stop the Blockade on Gaza
From our friends within '48:
On Saturday, 26 January 2008, a humanitarian convoy of supplies headed by peace and human rights organisations will go from Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Beer Sheva to the Gaza Strip border, decked with signs “Lift the Blockade!” The convoy will meet up at 12.00 noon at Yad Mordechai Junction and all will then travel together to a hill which overlooks the Strip, where a demonstration will take place at 13:00. Speakers will be Shulamit Aloni, Uri Avnery, Ronit Matalon, Hassan Jabareen and Prof. Jeff Halper. There will be a ‘phone link between the Israeli demo and hundreds of Gazans on the Gaza side in Gaza City at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, demonstrating as part of the Palestinian-International Campaign to End the Siege,” one of whose spokesmen is psychiatrist and human rights activist, Dr. Eyad Sarraj.
The convoy will contain sacks of flour, food supplies and other essential products, especially water filters. Water supplies in Gaza are polluted, with nitrates at a level ten times the maximum recommended by the World Health Organisation. Due to the Israeli blockade, Gaza has a critical shortage of water filters, creating an intolerable violation of minimum humanitarian standards.
Organisers of the convoy will be appealing to the army for immediate permission for the goods to be allowed into the Strip, and are prepared for an ongoing campaign next to the border crossings, together with a public and judicial appeal; nearby kibbutzim, which are within the range of the Qassam rockets and mortars, have offered their warehouses for storage of the convoy’s goods.
A simultaneous demonstration will be taking place in Rome, Italy. There will also be demonstrations in various cities in America, at the initiative of San Francisco-based Jewish Voice for Peace.
To travel as part of the event, you may go in one of the convoys (8.30 a.m. departure from Reading Terminal in Tel Aviv, 8.45 a.m. from Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem) or join the general convoy as it leaves at 12 noon from Yad Mordechai Junction, or go individually to the demo, which will take place at “Nabiya Maraai Lookout,” near Kibbutz Mefalsim (from Yad Mordechai Junction, go on Road 34 and at Gavim Junction turn right onto Road 232, after about 6 kms, immediately after Kibbutz Mefalsim, turn right and go for a short distance to the site). A map showing the site of the demonstration is available on the website: http://toibillboard.info/26janmap.jpg
For further details: Adam Keller, Gush Shalom (0506-709603), Adi Dagan, Coalition of Women for Peace (0508-575730), Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, ICAHD (0547-366393).
Dr. Eyad Sarraj (Gaza), End the Siege on Gaza campaign, (0599-408438), Marwan Diab (Gaza), End the Siege on Gaza campaign, (0599-462037).
Participating organisations: Gush Shalom, Combatants for Peace, Coalition of Women for Peace, ICAHD – The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Bat Shalom, Bat Tzafon for Peace and Equality, Balad, Hadash, Adalah, Tarabut-Hithabrut, Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, AIC – The Alternative Information Center, Psychoactive – Mental Health Workers for Human Rights, ActiveStills, The Students Coalition (Tel Aviv University), New Profile, MachsomWatch, PCATI – The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Yesh Gvul, Gisha, Local Television on the Internet.
---
Background: Despite unilateral evacuation of 7,000 settlers, the Gaza Strip remains Occupied Territory and the situation of its residents is increasingly worsening. The Government of Israel continues to control its airspace, territorial waters, population registry, tax system, supply of goods, freedom of movement and access to healthcare. Entry and exit of people and goods is completely controlled by Israel, and is currently under total closure, so that the Strip has actually become the largest prison in the world.
We sympathize with Sderot’s residents and others living near the border, exposed to traumatising Qassam rockets, but siege and collective punishment are no answer: although 1.5 million men, women and children are denied basic necessities, driven to the edge of starvation, Israel is increasing the daily deathtoll among Palestinians, many of whom are civilians, whilst the rocket fire has increased. Few Israelis ask why several Palestinian ceasefire offers have been rejected out of hand by the Israeli government. We’ll go to the Gaza border, in co-operation with Palestinian partners inside Gaza, to show there’s an alternative to siege and rocketfire – an alternative of peace.
END THE BLOCKADE ON GAZA!
Does it help the children of Sderot that we are forcing starvation on the children of Gaza, and making them drink polluted water?
On Saturday, 26th January, we will not stay at home!
There will be a huge supply convoy to Gaza.
Israeli and Palestinian peace organisations will be working together!
We shall travel in a huge convoy of private cars and buses, in order to bring basic supplies to the people of Gaza.
Owners of private cars are asked to come with their cars and their families, too. Bring food packages from your own family for a family in Gaza (make your personal choice from basic food stuffs, with a personal message placed inside).
In order to help with effective organisation:
Please register immediate notice of your participation by bus or car from Tel Aviv and Haifa to Tali Schiff (0523-738832) and from Jerusalem and Beer Sheva to Moshe Pesach (0509-702338).
Departure times:
Tel Aviv: 8.15 a.m. by bus from the Arlosorov Train Station and 8.30 a.m. by private car from the Reading Power Station car park.
Jerusalem: 8.30 a.m. by bus from Liberty Bell Gardens (Gan HaPa’amon) and 8.45 a.m. by private car from Teddy Stadium car park.
Haifa: 7.45 a.m. by bus and private car from Solel Boneh Square.
Beer Sheva: 10.15 a.m. by bus and private car from the Ben Gurion University Gate.
Yad Mordechai Junction: 12.00 noon the convoy will congregate, from all points.
Contributions for the purchase of supplies may be sent to P.O. Box 3322, Tel Aviv 61033, and cheques should be made out to “Gush Shalom” and labelled “For the Gaza convoy”, or you may make your donations to organisers actually at the demonstration.
Gaza Blackout - Day 2
For the second day in a row, Gaza’s 1.5 million residents have had to survive without electricity. The first lights of dawn brought the news that in addition to two Palestinians killed in airstrikes on Gaza overnight, five patients in intensive care units passed away due to the fact that their emergency life support equipment could not function without electricity.
In addition to cutting off fuel and electricity, Israel has continued to ban the entry of emergency food supplies on which the majority of Gaza’s population depend on for survival. Not content to let the people die due to a lack of medicine or health equipment, Israel is now directly starving 1.5 million human beings.
This morning, there was a feeling amongst Gaza’s population that they should forcibly open the Rafah crossing with Egypt, if only to allow critically ill patients to receive medical attention. Several ambulances drove out to the border early in the morning, but the Egyptian authorities refused to allow anybody through. The Hamas political leadership has said that they are negotiating with the Egyptians, but the military factions on the ground have already threatened to blow up the border wall. When people are dying due to this siege, I believe opening the border without waiting for Egypt’s inexcusable dallying is a humanitarian necessity.
Despite widespread condemnation at both the official and popular level, Israel (and Egypt) remain unrelenting. Demonstrations broke out across the Arab world in several European cities protesting against the mass punishment going on in front of the world’s eyes, with the UN, EU, UK, France and Portugal amongst those calling on Israel to immediately end the siege. The UN and EU clearly stated that what is going on in Gaza is a war crime.
Tonight, the siege continues and Gaza is once more under total darkness. As families huddle together around fires or under blankets to keep out the freezing cold, Oxfam has announced that Gaza is mere hours away from having no running water at all. Only 37 of the Strip’s 122 water pumps were functioning by 5PM local time (about 6 hours ago).
Israel’s War Minister, the man directly responsible for all of this immorality, has now ordered the Israeli authorities to begin the second stage of the siege, banning the entry of mail and electronic equipment.
I just don’t understand how supporters of the siege can justify this. The rocket fire won’t stop, because it is a response to an illegal military occupation. Israel’s political and military establishments have admitted time and time again that there is no military solution to the rocket fire. Why can’t they take the logical step forward and push for a political solution instead? Hamas (which hadn’t been the group firing rockets for the last few months) suggested a truce only weeks ago, yet Olmert wasted no time in refusing it. Why?
Why are 1.5 million human beings being denied their basic right to life?
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Gaza Blackout Update
As expected, the Gaza Strip, with its 1.5 million inhabitants, went dark at 8PM local time today. Thats 1.5 million human beings now devoid of drinking water, dialysis equipment, neonatal units, heart and oxygen machines, electric light, heat, televisions. Additionally, with Israel banning the entry of basic food supplies into the strip for two days now, there is a food shortage.
Hospital generators have used up their fuel, and several hundred patients are facing the possibility of death tonight.
This is known as collective punishment of a civilian population. Under international law, this is a war crime, and it is being committed under the eyes of the entire world.
From the feedback, I've heard people say that this is all a PR stunt orchestrated by Hamas, that it was Hamas who shut down the reactor, and that Israel continues to supply two thirds of Israel's electricity. From somebody living in Palestine, and somebody constantly in touch with his family in the Gaza Strip, let me make several things clear:
Firstly, this was not a publicity stunt and to suggest so is to dehumanize Palestinians. We do not willingly murder our own civilians for publicity. Use yours minds, and what little humanity you seem to have.
Secondly, Israel does indeed supply most of Gaza's electricity, but it has been cut off, contrary to what Israeli officials are saying. My information isn't coming from Israeli press releases-it is coming from the people in Gaza, and the television broadcasts that attest that the Strip is under total darkness tonight.
I cannot fathom the stupidity of those who think that these draconian measures will cease the firing of homemade projectiles from Gaza on its occupiers. When the situation is as grave as it is now, you owe it to yourself to think beyond empty rhetoric and admit the core issues at hand-there is an illegal occupation. Those under occupation have the legitimacy to attack their occupiers.
What Israel is doing is occupying a nation, and then committing war crimes when the occupied population dares to fight back.
Gaza out of fuel, out of electricity
At 8PM local time today, Gaza's only power plant will shut down it's last remaining generator after the fuel it uses to run was denied entry by Israel. The entire strip, with its 1.5 million population, will have no electricity at all. There is a real and terrible fear that, with hospitals out of generator fuel, tens of patients, including those on oxygen machines, life support machines, and premature babies in neonatal units, will not last the night.
Without electricity, there is also no safe drinking water left. This is a war crime. This is not baseless propaganda. Gaza's population is facing mass punishment of the cruelest kind. I suppose they only have God left to turn to now.
War Crimes in Gaza
With the Israeli Occupation Forces escalating its military offensive against Gaza the last few days, leaving 39 dead since Tuesday, many are wondering how far Israel will go in its quest to crush the tiny, isolated, impoverished strip.
Yesterday, Israeli War Minister Ehud Barak, he of the famous ‘generous offer’, ordered that all of Gaza’s crossing points be totally closed off to the movement of humans and goods-including, for the first time, the emergency food supplies administered by the UN and on which most of Gaza’s population depend on for survival. In addition, fuel and electricity supplies were halted completely. This morning, the last of Gaza’s factories and industrial shops closed. Only 20% of Gaza City has electricity. People are burning cardboard to stay warm and cook, and many schools and universities were unable to open.
Amazingly, the intensive care units at Gaza’s hospitals are now losing power. They have run out of fuel to supply their emergency generators. The absence of fuel has also meant that transportation is extremely limited-with students and medical patients bearing the brunt of it.
Yesterday, the 72nd victim of Israel’s medical blockade on Gaza, 15 year old Mahmoud Hussein, died. Since June, Israel has severely limited the number of critically ill patients allowed entry to Israel for emergency medical care. Many of those victims, like Mahmoud, were cancer victims. Equally disturbing is the fact that Israel has also restricted the entry of basic medicines into the Strip, increasing the number of those dependent on foreign treatment, who are in turn denied that same treatment by the state that made them dependent on it in the first place.
I don’t know how much longer this insanity will last. Never in history have an occupied people been subjected to an international siege of this magnitude. In the 21st century, the UN and the world’s great powers sit idly by as the starvation and destruction of 1.5 million human beings goes on in front of the world’s eyes. The UN mumbles minor expressions of concern about the welfare of Gazans while doing nothing in its power to hold Israel in check, and then denouncing these peoples' resistance to their occupiers and killers. The United States, ever the expert on international law and human rights, verifies that Israel has full legitimacy to continue in its war crimes. I don’t care what your position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is, but anybody with the least bit of humanity will realize that what is going on in Gaza is wrong and murderous.
