Muslim Publics Oppose Al Qaeda's Terrorism, But Agree With Its Goal of Driving US Forces Out

A study of public opinion in predominantly Muslim countries reveals that very large majorities continue to renounce the use of attacks on civilians as a means of pursuing political goals. At the same time large majorities agree with al Qaeda's goal of pushing the United States to remove its military forces from all Muslim countries and substantial numbers, in some cases majorities, approve of attacks on US troops in Muslim countries.

In nearly all nations polled more than seven in 10 say they disapprove of attacks on American civilians. "Bombings and assassinations that are carried out to achieve political or religious goals" are rejected as "not justified at all" by large majorities ranging from 67 to 89 percent. There is a growing belief that attacks on civilians are ineffective, with approximately half now saying that such attacks are hardly ever effective.

At the same time large majorities endorse the goal of al Qaeda to "push the US to remove its bases and its military forces from all Islamic countries," including 87 percent of Egyptians, 64 percent of Indonesians, and 60 percent of Pakistanis.

Asked specifically about the US naval forces based in the Persian Gulf, there is widespread opposition across the Muslim world. Across eight Muslim publics on average, 66 percent said it was a bad idea; only 13 percent called it a good idea. Opposition is largest in Egypt (91%) and among the Palestinians (90%), but opposition is also large in America's NATO ally Turkey (77%).

Significant numbers approve of attacks on US troops based in Muslim countries, presumably as a means to apply pressure for their removal. Respondents were asked about US troops based in Iraq, the Persian Gulf, and Afghanistan. Large majorities approve of attacks in Egypt (78-83%), the Palestinian territories (87-90%), and Jordan (66-72%). In Turkey and Pakistan views are more divided. However, only minorities support attacks in Indonesia and Azerbaijan.

Opposition to US military presence appears to be related to largely negative views of US goals in relation to the Muslim world. A key belief is that the US has goals hostile to Islam itself. Large majorities ranging from 62 percent in Indonesia to 87 percent in Egypt say they believe that the United States seeks "to weaken and divide the Islamic world."

The survey, which was the latest in a series dating back to 2007 conducted by PIPA, was designed to gauge public opinion about al-Qaeda and the United States in predominantly Muslim countries.

Compare them.

Is what Israel is doing in Gaza Genocide?

What Israel has been doing in Gaza and Palestine comes very close to genocide according to the provisions of the Genocide Convention (1948), reiterated in the Rome Charter of the International Criminal Court (2002), which includes: (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

Article 2 of the genocide Convention stipulates that any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

An important aspect of genocide is that one has to talk about intent. So we must examine if a given government entity has an intent to completely eradicate a population. The litmus test is intent. If one considers the past six decades of racist statements and declarations coming from Israeli leaders, Zionist ideologues, members of the Knesset, the Grand Rabbi of Israel and the anti-Arab and Islamophobic brochures distributed to Israeli soldiers attacking Gaza by Religious leaders, and some IDF Commanders, the intent becomes fairly clear.

I personally agree with Professors Richard Falk, Francis Boyle, Noam Chomski, James Petras, and a growing number of others who have seriously examined the Question of Palestine and have concluded that a case is to be made for bringing Israel to account under the 1948 Genocide Convention.

The text taken from an interview of International Lawyers Without Borders with Dr Franklin Lamb with the title Israel’s Attack on Gaza: Legitimate Self Defense or War Crime?

Amnesty International Calls on SOS Clinton To Call for Investigation of Israel's Gazan Invasion

The pale blue 155mm rounds are clearly marked with the designation M825A1, an American-made white phosphorus munition.

"The pain is piercing. It's as though a fire is burning in my body. It's too much for me to bear. In spite of all the medicine they are giving me the pain is still so strong."

The words of Samia Salman Al-Manay'a, 16 years old, who was asleep in her home in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, when a phosphorus shell landed on the first floor of the house on January 10th, ten days later, from her hospital bed.

A new report released just hours ago reveals that U.S.-made white phosphorus artillery shells among other U.S. weapons were found throughout Gaza. When white phosphorus munitions are used in densely-populated civilian areas as Israel has, it violates international humanitarian law’s prohibition on indiscriminate attacks and amounts to a war crime.

In light of this new finding, we are urging Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to immediately call for:

• an investigation into Israel’s use of U.S. arms in Gaza
• a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel and
• to urge the United Nations to impose an arms embargo on all parties in the conflict

Since 2001, the U.S. has been the largest supplier of arms to Israel. The U.S. has also provided considerable funding each year for Israel to buy arms despite U.S. legislation that restricts such aid to consistently gross human rights violators. Since 2002 Israel received over $21 billion in U.S. military and security assistance. Put simply, Israel's military intervention in the Gaza Strip has been equipped to a large extent by US-supplied weapons, munitions and military equipment paid for with U.S. taxpayers’ money.

Sign the petition for AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL US.

Read also Investigate misuse of US weapons in Gaza and stop arms transfers to Israel.

"Israeli Apartheid Week": Carleton University Administration violates free expression - bans and confiscates posters

The poster was created by noted cartoonist Carlos Latuff and depicts a situation - a child being killed by aerial bombardment ? that occurred over 430 times in Israel's latest attack on Gaza according to United Nations reports.

This is part of a wider pattern of repression of academic freedom and rights to free expression, especially on Israel/Palestine, on Canadian campuses, including Carleton University. It is accompanied by double standards. When 56 Carleton professors asked President Roseanne Runte to condemn Israel's bombardment of the Islamic University of Gaza, the President refused. Neither the direct killing of hundreds of children nor the direct bombing of a campus are enough to elicit condemnation, but her administration has decided that a poster inviting people to discuss the conflict ought to be banned. Instead of being lauded by their university, students affirming the humanity of all peoples and the universality of international law have been threatened by Carleton University's Provost with expulsion.

The Carleton administration had already taken a biased political stand on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and is now violating free expression to prevent alternative views. Both the current and former Carleton Presidents have taken very clear positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict by condemning the academic boycott of Israel out of hand, offering no alternative to this justice-oriented civil-society initiative. Students and faculty at Carleton have requested that the administration hold a public debate on the issue, to allow the Carleton community to determine the most responsible course of action, yet have been repeatedly rebuffed.

Far from defending human rights, the Carleton administration is treating them with contempt. In a memo to students on February 12, the Provost wrote that "all reported incidents of racial or religious intolerance will be investigated vigorously and addressed regardless of the persons or groups involved." The administration should begin a vigorous investigation of its own behaviour, including its discrimination against students who seek an open debate on a political issue but are being silenced because they happen to disagree with the president's stand.

That Carleton's administration is using human rights grounds to violate free expression on its campus is a double insult. Internationally, the movement against Israeli apartheid has been endorsed by hundreds of universities, unions, religious groups and social justice organizations. This campaign is proudly anti-racist, and founded on the principles of opposition to all forms of racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. It draws its inspiration from the global campaign to end South African apartheid and is led by many of the same individuals who were at the forefront of that earlier struggle. By contrast, the administration that banned the poster could not summon enough concern for human rights or the right to education to speak against the bombing of a Gazan university.

Read further here.

Watch also the clip.

Israel calls this democracy. South Africa called it apartheid. Nazi Germany called it fascism.

Under Article 4 of its Basic Law: The Knesset:

"The Knesset shall be elected by general, national, direct, equal, secret and proportional elections, in accordance with the Knesset Elections Law." Every Israeli citizen 18 or older may vote, including Arabs who are nominally enfranchised, may serve in the parliament, but can't govern or in any way influence policy.

Knesset seats are assigned proportionally to each party's percentage of the total vote. A minimum total is required to win any seats. Jewish parties alone are empowered. Arab parliamentarians have no decision-making authority. They're also constrained by the 1992 Law of Political Parties and section 7A(1) of the Basic Law that prohibits candidates from denying "the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people."

Under the law for Arabs and Jews, no candidate may challenge Israel's fundamental Jewish character or demand equal rights, privileges, and justice. The essential Zionist identity is inviolable. The law works only for Jews. Israeli Arabs have no rights. They're denied equal treatment and justice, even those elected to public office. Israel calls this democracy. South Africa called it apartheid. Nazi Germany called it fascism.

Anne Miller: Stimulate Peace, Not War

The Iraq war and subsequent occupation, a "pet project" of the Bush administration and consistently financed by most members of Congress, will very likely cost the American taxpayer more than $3 trillion dollars by 2010, when interest on the debt and much-needed veterans benefits are factored in to the costs of the war. Even former President Bush, as reported in the Wall Street Journal in December 2008, acknowledges that increased military spending during his tenure in the White House has contributed to the federal budget crisis.

And just how much has the increase been? In the past eight years, U.S. military spending has nearly doubled; when nuclear weapons spending and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are factored in, the U.S. taxpayer will be footing a Pentagon bill of an estimated $711 billion in 2009 -- approximately $2,300 for every person living in the United States. $711 billion is roughly equivalent to what the rest of the world spends combined on military spending. There is no indication that President Obama plans to cut the military budget any time soon; in fact, he may be requesting some increase.

So what about wasteful Pentagon spending? The moral implications of spending half of every discretionary U.S. tax dollar on "defense" aside, it would seem prudent for the fiscally minded to scour the Pentagon budget to clean up and dispose of wasteful and unnecessary programs. Rep. Barney Frank, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, has spoken out repeatedly about the possibility of shearing 25 percent from the military budget, and has outlined some programs cuts to get there. Where is the support of fiscal conservatives for this proposal?

For those who believe our defense budget makes us safer: An ever-increasing military budget does little but provide security to Congressional incumbents and military contractors. According to the Center for American Progress and its recently published Unified Security Budget, 87 percent of security resources in the 2009 federal budget are being spent on the military. Only 8 percent are dedicated to homeland security, and a paltry 5 percent to non-military engagement. As the old saying goes, "When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

National security cannot and should not be defined in terms of our capacity to wage war abroad. National security is when the most vulnerable among us have access to adequate education, health care and housing; when we address the very real and growing threat of climate change; and when those Americans who want to work can support their families with a living wage. It will be achieved when we invest abroad in programs that address the root causes of terrorism including poverty, access to food and clean water, and education. It will be achieved when we make nuclear nonproliferation a priority, and lead the world in helping secure loose nukes and fissile materials, and begin serious negotiation of the abolition of nuclear weapons.

The stimulus' $787 billion is a great deal of money. However skeptical I am about the prospects of the package succeeding in any measurable way, I'd rather have my tax dollars go to "pet projects" that may staunch the bloodletting of American jobs than wasteful Pentagon programs whose primary purpose is to find effective and creative ways to kill human beings.

A Jew mother speaks : Will Gaza Change you Forever?

Of the 1,330 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military during the 22-day invasion of Gaza, 437 were children. Let me repeat that: 437 children -- each as beautiful and precious as our own.

As a Jew, an American and a mother, I felt compelled to witness, firsthand, what my people and my taxdollars had done during this invasion. Visiting Gaza filled me with unbearable sadness. Unlike the primitive weapons of Hamas, the Israelis had so many sophisticated ways to murder, maim and destroy-unmanned drones, F-16s dropping "smart bombs" that miss, Apache helicopters launching missiles, tanks firing from the ground, ships shelling Gaza from the sea. So many horrific weapons stamped with Made in the USA. While Hamas' attacks on Israeli villages are deplorable, Israel's disproportionate response is unconscionable, with 1,330 Palestinians dead vs. 13 Israelis.

If the invasion was designed to destroy Hamas, it failed miserably. Not only is Hamas still in control, but it retains much popular support. If the invasion was designed as a form of collective punishment, it succeeded, leaving behind a trail of grieving mothers, angry fathers and traumatized children.

To get a sense of the devastation, check out a slide show circulating on the internet called WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT - Gaza: Massacre of Children. It should be required viewing for all who supported this invasion of Gaza. Babies charred like shish-kebabs. Limbs chopped off. Features melted from white phosphorus. Faces crying out in pain, gripped by fear, overcome by grief.

Anyone who can view the slides and still repeat the mantra that "Israel has the right to self-defense" or "Hamas brought this upon its own people," or worse yet, "the Israeli military didn't go far enough," does a horrible disservice not only to the Palestinian people, but to humanity.

Compassion, the greatest virtue in all major religions, is the basic human emotion prompted by the suffering of others, and it triggers a desire to alleviate that suffering. True compassion is not circumscribed by one's faith or the nationality of those suffering. It crosses borders; it speaks a universal language; it shares a common spirituality. Those who have suffered themselves, such as Holocaust victims, are supposed to have the deepest well of compassion.

The Israeli election was in full swing while was I visiting Gaza. As I looked out on the ruins of schools, playgrounds, homes, mosques and clinics, I recalled the words of Benjamin Netanyahu, "No matter how strong the blows that Hamas received from Israel, it's not enough." As I talked to distraught mothers whose children were on life support in a bombed hospital, I thought of the "moderate" woman in the race, Tzipi Livni, who vowed that she would not negotiate with Hamas, insisted that "terror must be fought with force and lots of force" and warned that "if by ending the operation we have yet to achieve deterrence, we will continue until they get the message."

"The message," I can report, has been received. It is a message that Israel is run by war criminals, that the lives of Palestinians mean nothing to them. Even more chilling is the pro-war message sent by the Israeli people with their votes for Netanyahu, Livni and anti-Arab racist Avigdor Lieberman.

How tragic that nation born out of the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust has become a nation that supports the slaughter of Palestinians.

Text taken partly from Once You See What Truly Happened in Gaza, It Will Change You Forever.

Petition United Nations for the Creation of a Special Tribunal to Try Israeli War Criminals, Click here to sign the petition.

Israel assassinating Iran's nuclear scientists.

Israel is assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists as part of a covert war against the Islamic Republic's illicit weapons program, the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday quoted Western intelligence analysts as saying.

The British daily said Israel's Mossad espionage agency was rumored to be behind the death of Ardeshire Hassanpour, a top nuclear scientist at Iran's Isfahan uranium plant, who died in mysterious circumstances from reported "gas poisoning" in 2007.

Other recent deaths of important figures in the procurement and enrichment process in Iran and Europe have been the result of Israeli "hits", intended to deprive Tehran of key technical skills at the head of the program, according to the analysts. …

"With co-operation from the United States, Israeli covert operations have focused both on eliminating key human assets involved in the nuclear programme and in sabotaging the Iranian nuclear supply chain," …

Read further the article.

Israel fears Resolution 377 and Call for Action

According to UN General Assembly Resolution 377, emergency special sessions of the General Assembly are warranted to act when the Security Council “fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.” The government of Israel itself has ensured the failure of the Security Council to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.

That Israel’s violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Gaza are so flagrant, and that Israel rejects the authority of the Security Council prime facie, suggests as the only route possible — a last resort for the Palestinian people in Gaza — the convening of an emergency session of the General Assembly where no veto could be invoked, to impose on Israel an immediate ceasefire backed by credible collective measures.

Urgent call for action

As stated by the Palestinian human rights community in their 30 December call to invoke Resolution 377[3]: “The civilian population of the occupied Gaza Strip will inevitably continue to suffer heavy losses without the external intervention of the international community.”

In renewing the call to invoke Resolution 377, we support Special Rapporteur Richard Falk’s demand on “all Member States, as well as officials and every relevant organ of the United Nations system, to move on an emergency basis not only to condemn Israel’s serious violations, but to develop new approaches to providing real protection for the Palestinian people.”

Only the General Assembly can impose, where the Security Council fails, an immediate ceasefire on Israel.

We call upon human rights groups, lawyers and legal organizations, trade unions, intellectuals, the anti-war movement and all people of conscience to support President d’Escoto-Brockmann, demand that an emergency session of the General Assembly be convened under authority of Resolution 377, and to participate in the growing international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel.

We call upon the UN human rights system to authorize an effective investigation of Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity, including its wilful killings, use of internationally prohibited weapons, destruction of civilian infrastructure, targeting of schools, higher education institutions, mosques and civilian shelters, and even international humanitarian aid workers. The UN Human Rights Council has an obligation to investigate these elements of genocide and in doing so contribute to ending it.

As a signal to Israel, we call upon all states to cut diplomatic relations with Israel forthwith and for the High Contracting Parties of the Geneva Conventions to hold an immediate conference to re-establish respect for international humanitarian law. On the basis of its past and present impunity, Israel should be expelled from the United Nations.

All should demand an immediate Israeli ceasefire, the immediate withdrawal of all belligerent Israeli military forces, and the end of the blockade. Upon realization, collective measures should be taken at all levels to end Israel’s occupation of Palestine and to oblige Israeli society to respect the equality of human rights. Until the occupation of Palestine ends, we underline the legal and guaranteed right of the Palestinian people to resist Israeli aggression by all means.

The BRussells Tribunal Committee

Also read Israel Braces for Wave of Lawsuits.

Rebuilding the Islamic University of Gaza

Academics are calling for solidarity with Palestinian universities under siege.

Since Israel's bombing of the buildings housing scientific laboratories at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) on 28 December, the rubble that remains debunks Israeli claims that those labs were used to manufacture weapons. Of course such allegations are preposterous; indeed it would be quite foolish for IUG to even entertain the notion of producing weapons given the way in which Palestinian universities have been under constant Israeli attack since the founding of Birzeit University in the West Bank in 1975.

Rather, it is Israeli universities that contain the laboratories where the weaponry used to destroy Palestinian lives in Gaza and elsewhere is developed. In the 14 June 2007 issue of The Nation, US journalist Naomi Klein makes it clear that the relationship between the State of Israel, its academic institutions and its military are intertwined:

"Thirty homeland security companies were launched in Israel in the past six months alone, thanks in large part to lavish government subsidies that have transformed the Israeli army and the country's universities into incubators for security and weapons start-ups (something to keep in mind in the debates about the academic boycott)."

The way that Israel binds together its universities (all of which are state-run and funded) and its military can be gleaned from any number of Israeli universities and their laboratories, which serve as incubators of destruction while the Palestinian people inevitably become its guinea pigs. In a recent article in the Tel Aviv University Review (Winter 2008-2009) entitled "Lifting the Veil of Secrecy," Gil Zohar lays out the collaboration between Israeli universities and Israel's colonial military project quite clearly:

"... Tel Aviv University [TAU] is at the front line of the critical work to maintain Israel's military and technological edge. While much of that research remains classified, several facts illuminate the role of the university. MAFAT, a Hebrew acronym meaning the [Research and Development] Directorate of the Israel Ministry of Defense, is currently funding 55 projects at TAU. Nine projects are being funded by DARPA -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US Department of Defense."

What is significant is that the US government and its military are complicit in the research leading to the destruction and devastation of Palestinian lives through their funding of these research projects, projects that inevitably lead to acts of aggression such as the bombing of IUG.

Read further the article here.

So Why Iran?

Nobody has yet explained why “the world cannot live with a nuclear Iran”.

The world lives with nuclear America, with nuclear Russia, nuclear China, and India, and Pakistan, and nuclear France, and United Kingdom, with nuclear Israel, and probably a host of other nuclear countries - and nobody threatens a war against them for this reason. Somehow, the world is safer, when countries have nuclear deterrence capabilities. Nobody questions their rights to develop nuclear programs for peaceful or military purposes. So why Iran?

The truth is that, after witnessing Israeli war crimes in Lebanon and in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, the world cannot afford to live with nuclear Israel. As opposed to Iran, Israel has secretly developed hundreds of nuclear warheads and delivery weapons outside of any supervision by international community. Iran continues to run its nuclear program in cooperation with the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Read further Israel ready to launch a military offensive against Iran by Lech Biegalski.

Divesting from Israel’s “Weapon of Mass Destruction”

God whispered in the Church of England’s ear and it dumped its shares in Caterpillar.

This House of God had about £2.5m invested in a company that manufactures one of Israel’s weapons of mass misery and destruction. After saying for years that they couldn’t see anything unethical about it, Church bosses finally agreed with the rest of us that Caterpillar’s D-9 bulldozer, which is used in the Holy Land for the ugly purpose of demolishing Palestinian homes, uprooting olive groves and destroying civilian infrastructure, is more like a vicious weapon in Israel’s hands than a civil engineering tool.

Caterpillar simply didn’t look good on the Church’s ethical investments list any more.

The wholesale destruction of Palestinian homes, and Caterpillar’s part in it, has been going on for a very long time. At the Jenin refugee camp in March/April 2002 Israel’s massive, armoured D-9 Caterpillar bulldozers - driven by army reservists - worked non-stop for three days and nights. More than 300 homes in the densely packed camp were flattened. The bulldozer drivers were instant heroes and showered with medals for valour.

One such driver did not get down from the cab of his Caterpillar for 75 hours straight.

"For three days I just erased and erased… the entire area. I took down any house from which there was shooting. To take it down, I would take down several more. The soldiers warned with a speaker, that the tenants must leave before I came in, but I did not give anyone a chance. I did not wait… I would just ram the house with full power, to bring it down as fast as possible. I wanted to get to the other houses. To get as many as possible. Others may have restrained themselves, or so they say. Who are they kidding? Anyone who was there, and saw our soldiers in the houses, would understand they were in a death trap… I didn’t give a damn about the Palestinians, but I didn’t just ruin with no reason. It was all under orders.

Many people where inside houses we set to demolish. They would come out of the houses we where working on. I didn’t see, with my own eyes, people dying under the blade of the D-9. and I didn’t see house falling down on live people. But if there were any, I wouldn’t care at all. I am sure people died inside these houses, but it was difficult to see, there was lots of dust everywhere, and we worked a lot at night. I found joy with every house that came down, because I knew they didn’t mind dying, but they cared for their homes. If you knocked down a house, you buried 40 or 50 people for generations. If I am sorry for anything, it is for not tearing the whole camp down…"

This was the largest single orgy of destruction carried out by the Israeli army, according to Amnesty International. The al-Hawashin quarter was completely destroyed and two further areas of the refugee camp were partially destroyed, leaving more than 800 families, totaling some 4,000 people, homeless.

An armored IDF Caterpillar D9R bulldozer, nicknamed "דובי" (Teddy bear) in Israel. Its armor allows it to work under heavy fire.

House demolition has been a central plank in Israel’s solution to the ‘Arab problem’ from the start, and the bulldozers have been highly successful in dislocating Palestinian society and tearing communities apart.

ICAHD reports that between 1948 and the 1960s Israel systematically demolished 418 Palestinian villages inside what has become the State of Israel. Residents who were put to flight could not return and their lands were turned over to the Jewish population.

The Israeli township of Sderot, which the world is meant to feel sorry for, is built on stolen lands belonging to a Palestinian village that was ethnically cleansed and erased.

At the start of the Occupation in 1967 demolition was carried across the ‘Green Line’ into the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. Since then some 12,000 Palestinian dwellings have been destroyed, many of them the homes of people who had fled from the bulldozers in 1948.

Dozens of ancient homes were destroyed in the Mughrabi Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City to make room for a plaza for the Wailing Wall.

In 1971 Ariel Sharon, then in charge of Southern Command, cleared 2,000 houses in the Gaza refugee camps to facilitate military control. After becoming Prime Minister in 2001 he oversaw the demolition of another 1500 homes in Gaza.

At least 2,000 houses in the Occupied Territories were destroyed in a bid to quell the first Intifada in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Nearly 1,700 more were demolished by the Civil Administration during the Oslo peace process (1993-2000).

Since the start of the second Intifada in September 2000, the Israeli military has destroyed 4,000 to 5,000 Palestinian homes, including hundreds in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron and other cities of the West Bank, and more than 2,500 in Gaza. Tens of thousands of other homes have been left uninhabitable. Altogether around 50,000 people were left homeless. Hundreds of shops, workshops, factories and public buildings, including Palestinian Authority ministry offices in all the West Bank cities, have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair.

Figures suggest that 60% of the Palestinian homes demolished in the Occupied Territories were bulldozed as part of military “clearing operations,” 25% for being “illegal” (not having permits), and 15% for collective punishment. Amnesty International says that more as than 3,000 hectares of cultivated land were cleared during this time. Wells, water storage pools and water pumps which provided water for drinking, irrigation and other needs for thousands of people, have also been destroyed, along with miles of irrigation networks.

Text taken from here

Israel’s Rationale for Murder: No One is Innocent

"When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle."

– Israeli Army Chief of Staff Raphael Eitan, 1983

"Before [the Palestinians] very eyes we are possessing the land and the villages where they, and their ancestors, have lived… We are the generation of colonizers, and without the steel helmet and the gun barrel we cannot plant a tree and build a home."

– Famous Israeli Army Commander Moshe Dayan

Israel’s official excuses for extinguishing over 1,300 Palestinian lives—half of them civilian and one-third of them children— are oft-repeated by its apologists: Hamas’ rocket fire made the invasion unavoidable, and its tactics made civilian casualties inevitable.

Do these positions dovetail with—or decapitate—history? Are they logical? Are they moral? Or are they smokescreens, designed to disguise troublesome facts about both Israel’s strategy and its very origins?

Read further the article by M. Junaid Levesque-Alam here.

Palestine were DIMEd to Death

The specific weapon is called a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME). In 2000, the U.S. Air Force teamed up with the University of California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The weapon wraps high explosives with a tungsten alloy and other metals like cobalt, nickel, or iron in a carbon fiber/epoxy container. When the bomb explodes the container evaporates, and the tungsten turns into micro-shrapnel that is extremely lethal within a 13–foot radius. Tungsten is inert, so it doesn't react chemically with the explosive. While a non-inert metal like aluminum would increase the blast, tungsten actually contains the explosion to a limited area.

Within the weapon's range, however, it's inordinately lethal. According to Norwegian doctor Mad Gilbert, the blast results in multiple amputations and "very severe fractures. The muscles are sort of split from the bones, hanging loose, and you also have quite severe burns." Most of those who survive the initial blast quickly succumb to septicemia and organ collapse. "Initially, everything seems in order…but it turns out on operation that dozens of miniature particles can be found in all their organs," says Dr. Jam Brommundt, a German doctor working in Kham Younis, a city in southern Gaza. "It seems to be some sort of explosive or shell that disperses tiny particles…that penetrate all organs, these miniature injuries, you are not able to attack them surgically." According to Brommundt, the particles cause multiple organ failures.

If by some miracle victims resist those conditions, they are almost certain to develop rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), a particularly deadly cancer that deeply embeds itself into tissue and is almost impossible to treat. A 2005 U.S. Department of health study found that tungsten stimulated RMS cancers even in very low doses. All of the 92 rats tested developed the cancer.

While DIMEs were originally designed to avoid "collateral" damage generated by standard high-explosive bombs, the weapon's lethality and profound long-term toxicity hardly seem like an improvement.

It appears DIME weapons may have been used in the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, but not enough to alarm medical workers. But in Gaza, the ordinance was widely used. Al-Shifa alone has seen 100 to 150 victims of these attacks.

Text taken from Gaza: Death's Laboratory

Is Canada Becomes Israel?

Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper's government publicly supported Israel's brutal assault on Gaza and voted alone at the UN Human Rights Committee in defense of Israel's actions three weeks ago. Now Canada has taken over Israeli diplomacy. Literally.

In solidarity with Gaza, Venezuela expelled Israel's ambassador at the start of the bombardment and then broke off all diplomatic relations two weeks later. Israel need not worry since Ottawa plans to help out. On 29 January, The Jerusalem Post reported that "Israel's interests in Caracas will now be represented by the Canadian Embassy." This means Canada is officially Israel, at least in Venezuela.

Prior to the recent bombing in Gaza, the Harper government made it abundantly clear that it would support Israel no matter what that country did. It publicly endorsed Israel's 2006 attack on Lebanon, voted against a host of UN resolutions supporting Palestinian rights and in January 2008 refused to criticize illegal Israeli settlement construction at Har Homa near Jerusalem (even Washington publicly criticized these settlements). Canada was also the first country (after Israel) to cut off financial aid to the elected Hamas government and Ottawa has provided millions of dollars as well as personnel to create a US-trained Palestinian police force to act as a counterweight to the Hamas government and to oversee Israel's occupation.

Harper's support for Israel is extreme, but despite what many well-meaning commentators claim, it is not a break from Canada's role as an "honest broker" in the Arab-Israeli conflict. There is a long history of Canadian support for Zionism, a European settler ideology that has violently dispossessed Palestinians for more than six decades.

The idea for a Middle Eastern Jewish homeland to serve Western imperial interests has a long history in Canada. Since at least the 1870s Christian Zionists called for their biblical prophesies to be fulfilled under British auspices. By November 1915, Solicitor General (and then Prime Minister) Arthur Meighen publicly proclaimed, "I think I can speak for those of the Christian faith when I express the wish that God speed the day when the land of your [Jewish] forefathers shall be yours again. This task I hope will be performed by that champion of liberty the world over -- the British Empire." Two decades later Prime Minister RB Bennett began a national radio broadcast of the United Palestine Appeal with a speech about how the Balfour declaration and British control over Palestine was a step towards Biblical prophecies. "Scriptural prophecy is being fulfilled," he noted. "The restoration of Zion has begun."

During the 1947 UN negotiations over the British mandate of historic Palestine, Canada played an important role in creating Israel. Lester Pearson (then under-secretary of state for External Affairs) who chaired two different UN committees dealing with the mandate and Supreme Court Justice Ivan C. Rand, a member of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), played central roles in the negotiations that led to partition. In State in the Making, David Horowitz (the first governor of the Bank of Israel and first director general of Israel's ministry of finance) writes: "It may be said that Canada more than any other country played a decisive part in all stages of the UNO [United Nations Organization] discussions of Palestine."

The UN's 1948 partition plan gave the new Jewish state the majority of Palestine despite the Jewish population owning roughly seven percent of the land and representing a third of the population. Rand's assistant on UNSCOP, Leon Mayrand, provides a window into the dominant mindset at External Affairs: "The Arabs were bound to be vocal opponents of partition but they should not be taken too seriously. The great majority were not yet committed nationalists and the Arab chiefs could be appeased through financial concessions, especially if these accompanied a clearly declared will to impose a settlement whatever the means necessary." A dissident within External Affairs, the department's only Middle East expert, Elizabeth MacCallum, claimed Ottawa supported partition, "because we didn't give two hoots for democracy."

Above all else support for partition was driven by a geostrategic worldview. An internal report circulated at External Affairs explained: "The plan of partition gives to the western powers the opportunity to establish an independent, progressive Jewish state in the Eastern Mediterranean with close economic and cultural ties with the West generally and in particular with the United States." The Ottawa mandarins largely supported Israel as a possible western outpost in the heart of the (oil-producing) Middle East.

When the first Palestinian intifada broke out in 1987, then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney told the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) that Israel's brutal suppression of rock throwing Palestinian youth was handling the situation with "restraint." When questioned by a CBC reporter about the similarity between the plight of Palestinians and Blacks in South Africa, Mulroney replied that any comparison between Israel and South Africa was "false and odious and should never be mentioned in the same breath."

A decade later, Ottawa signed a free trade agreement with Israel. It was only Canada's fourth free trade agreement. Begun January 1997, the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement includes the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of where Israel's custom laws are applied.

The political motivation for supporting Israel has not changed significantly over the years. The government in Ottawa today receives limited electoral support from the Jewish community, but is close to a right-wing Christian Zionist movement. Most importantly, the Harper government strongly supports Western (US-led) imperialism in the Middle East. This is why Canada has taken over Israeli diplomacy in Venezuela.

Text taken from here.

Ashamed of Israel, an American Jew wrote to George Mitchell.

Dear Mr. Mitchell,

American corporate media and special interest groups who favor Israel have hidden the suffering of Palestinians from the American public for far too long. But now, thanks to valiant journalists and a new global media that disseminates truth NOT controlled by America and Israel, by AIPAC, by Christian Zionists, and by myopic U.S. Jews, more Americans are learning the truth about Israel's brutality toward the Palestinians. More Americans are realizing daily that tens of billions of their hard earned dollars are being awarded to a nation whose primary intent is to exterminate the Palestinians and enjoy sole domain over a historically shared land.

Point of fact Mr. Mitchell, as an American Jew, I'm deeply ashamed of Israel. I've even signed a petition to renounce my Right of Return. I hold no allegiance to a nation that engages in ethnic cleansing or to a people who commit the same horrors upon innocents that were once committed upon them. Has Israel no shame? Has America no shame?! And you, Sir? Will you feel the shame of this perversion and use your power to finally end it?

Mr. Mitchell, I understand Israelis have also suffered from the violence in the region. But in comparison, the Palestinians have suffered and continue to suffer decidedly and horribly more. If the United States doesn't help them soon, the Palestinians face potential extinction. Considering the forthcoming change in the Israeli government, and the recent change in ours, this is the optimal time to establish a new humane agenda.

I implore you Mr. Mitchell to meet with the women of Gaza. I implore you to go to Gaza and use your honored Presidential appointment, your humanity, and your gifts of diplomacy to save and protect Palestinians from further annihilation. Defer our tax dollars from the perpetrator, Israel, to the Palestinians and provide them the necessities for living that Israel systematically denies.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who I believe is America's greatest living statesman, has publicly proclaimed his faith in you as a diplomat and a man of honor. Please Mr. Mitchell, prove President Carter correct. Be that man of honor and end America's support of this genocide. If you truly possess the wisdom and humanity that President Carter claims, then please visit Gaza. Please visit the West Bank. Please speak with the women and children. See the checkpoints. See the lack of sanitation. See the water system in disrepair. See the rubble. Visit the graves. Observe and comfort the wounded. Witness the brutality the Palestinians endure -- AND END IT ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!

The time has long since come!

Salam. Shalom.
Linda Milazzo
American Jew
Los Angeles, CA

Text from here.

Israel Weapons used during Gaza onslaught

Two Surgeons from the UK, Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr Swee Ang, managed to get into Gaza during the Israeli invasion. Here they describe their experiences, share their views, and conclude that the people of Gaza are extremely vulnerable and defenseless in the event of another attack.

The wounds of Gaza are deep and multi-layered. Are we talking about the Khan Younis massacre of 5,000 in 1956 or the execution of 35,000 prisoners of war by Israel in 1967? Yet more wounds of the First Intifada, when civil disobedience by an occupied people against the occupiers resulted in massive wounded and hundreds dead? We also cannot discount the 5,420 wounded in southern Gaza alone since 2000. What we describe below refers only that of the invasion as of 27 December 2008.

Over the period of 27 December 2008 to the ceasefire of 18 Jan 2009, it was estimated that a million and a half tons of explosives were dropped on Gaza Strip. Gaza is 25 miles by 5 miles and home to 1.5 million people. This makes it the most crowded area in the whole world. Prior to this Gaza has been completely blockaded and starved for 50 days. In fact since the Palestinian election Gaza has been under total or partial blockade for several years.

Israeli weapons
The weapons used apart from conventional bombs and high explosives also include unconventional weapons of which at least 4 categories could be identified.

Phosphorus Shells and bombs
The bombs dropped were described by eye witnesses as exploding at high altitude scattering a large canopy of phosphorus bomblets which cover a large area.
During the land invasion, eyewitnesses describe the tanks shelling into homes first with a conventional shell. Once the walls are destroyed, a second shell - a phosphorus shell is then shot into the homes. Used in this manner the phosphorus explodes and burns the families and the homes. Many charred bodies were found among burning phosphorus particles.

One area of concern is the phosphorus seems to be in a special stabilizing agent. This results in the phosphorus being more stable and not completely burning out. Residues still cover the fields, playground and compounds. They ignite when picked up by curious kids, or produce fumes when farmers return to water their fields. One returning farming family on watering their field met with clouds of fumes producing epistaxis. Thus the phosphorus residues probably treated with a stabilizer also act as anti-personnel weapons against children and make the return to normal life difficult without certain hazards.

Surgeons from hospitals are also reporting cases where after primary laparotomy for relatively small wounds with minimal contamination find on second look laparotomy increasing areas of tissue necrosis at about 3 days. Patients then become gravely ill and by about 10 days those patients needing a third relook encounter massive liver necrosis. This may or may not be accompanied by generalized bleeding , kidney failure and heart failure and death. Although acidosis, liver necrosis and sudden cardiac arrest due to hypocalcemia are known to be a complication of white phosphorus it is not possible to attribute these complications as being due to phosphorus alone.

There is real urgency to analyze and identify the real nature of this modified phosphorus as to its long term effect on the people of Gaza. There is also urgency in collecting and disposing of the phosphorus residues littering the entire Gaza Strip. As they give off toxic fumes when coming into contact with water, once the rain falls the whole area would be polluted with acid phosphorus fumes. Children should be warned not to handle and play with these phosphorus residues.

Heavy Bombs
The use of DIME (dense inert material explosives) were evident, though it is unsure whether depleted uranium were used in the south. In the civilian areas, surviving patients were found to have limbs truncated by DIME, since the stumps apart from being characteristically cut off in guillotine fashion also fail to bleed. Bomb casing and shrapnel are extremely heavy.

Fuel Air Explosives
Bunker busters and implosion bombs have been used . There are buildings especially the 8 storey Science and Technology Building of the Islamic University of Gaza which had been reduced to a pile of rubble no higher than 5-6 feet.

Silent Bombs
People in Gaza described a silent bomb which is extremely destructive. The bomb arrives as a silent projectile at most with a whistling sound and creates a large area where all objects and living things are vaporized with minimal trace. We are unable to fit this into conventional weapons but the possibility of new particle weapons being tested should be suspected.

Executions
Survivors describe Israeli tanks arriving in front of homes asking residents to come out. Children, old people and women would come forward and as they were lined up they were just fired on and killed. Families have lost tens of their members through such executions. The deliberate targeting of unarmed children and women is well documented by human right groups in the Gaza Strip over the past month.

Targeting of ambulances
Thirteen ambulances had been fired upon killing drivers and first aid personnel in the process of rescue and evacuation of the wounded.

Cluster bombs

The first patients wounded by cluster were brought into Abu Yusef Najjar Hospital. Since more than 50% of the tunnels have been destroyed, Gaza has lost part of her lifeline. These tunnels contrary to popular belief are not for weapons, though small light weapons could have been smuggled through them. However they are the main stay of food and fuel for Gaza. Palestinians are beginning to tunnel again. However it became clear that cluster bombs were dropped on to the Rafah border and the first was accidentally set of by tunneling. Five burns patients were brought in after setting off a booby trap kind of device.

Reported here.

No More Blank Check for Israel!

Children from the Samouni family lie in the morgue in the al-Zeitoun area of Gaza City. (Mohamed Al-Zanon/MaanImages)

1200+ Sign Declaration on the Crisis in Gaza. The New York-based Campaign for Peace and Democracy is sending a declaration to President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Middle East Envoy George Mitchell entitled “No More Blank Check for Israel!”.

The declaration says that

“No country should have to face rockets fired at its citizens, and we condemn Hamas's launching of rockets into Israeli civilian areas. But the solution is not raining bombs and missiles down on one of the most densely populated sites in the world, making massive civilian casualties inevitable, and which, apart from its immorality, guarantees only another generation of hatred towards Israel. The solution -- as the Israeli peace movement, human rights groups, and the United Nations have urged -- is to lift the economic blockade imposed on Gaza and end the Occupation.” The statement ends with a call for an immediate end to U.S. military aid to Israel. “We do not want our tax dollars or the leaders who speak in our names to continue supporting the attacks on the Palestinian people.”

The full list of signers is available on request or at www.cpdweb.org.

Read also US lawyers report on Israeli crimes in Gaza and UN moves to charge Israel with war crimes.

Open Letter to UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon

Dear Secretary General,

The United Nations, the world’s preeminent law-making body, together with its Charter, provides the basis for laws and principles; therefore, people of conscience everywhere look to the UN with hope for upholding its Charter and its pledge to end the scourge of war. As the Secretary General, you, sir, are expected to at least speak words that honour this Charter and its principles.

However, while people of good conscience world-wide are expressing revulsion at Israel’s terrorist attack on the defenseless in Gaza, you are already seeking to minimize war crimes of monumental proportions while echoing the disinformation of Israel and its supporters.

For instance, on January 16th, 2009 the headlines read: “Ban urges unilateral ceasefire in Gaza conflict; meets with Palestine Leaders.”

You did not meet with “Palestinian leaders,” sir. Palestinian leaders are either detained in Israeli or West Bank prisons, murdered by Israeli assassins, or in Gaza, where the world, in its sick attempts to placate Israel, refused to allow them to govern the people who elected them.

You met with traitors, the Palestinian Authority, whose party, Fatah, decisively lost the January 2006 election, yet they refused to go quietly or to work with the people’s representatives. And here you are giving credence to Judas Abbas and his sick collusion with the killers of the Palestinian people, declaring with unbridled audacity, that you “underscore your full support for President Abbas’s leadership.”

On January 21st, 09 you urge all Palestinians to “work to restore one Palestinian government within the framework of the legitimate Palestinian Authority under President Abbas.”

Not so fast, sir. Tell me how do you determine that a party who lost an internationally-monitored election is the legitimate authority?

And since his term as President was to officially end on January 9th, 09, continuing to refer to Abbas as “President” is misleading.

Hamas won 76 of 132 seats in the Palestinian Parliament, Fatah, a mere 43. The people had spoken. Instead of accepting the overwhelming victory of Hamas and urging the nations of the world to abide by the election results, Abbas and friends created one obstacle after another to prevent Hamas from rightfully assuming power. In fact, Abbas, to his everlasting shame, became a pathetic “yes man” for Israel and the United States, and his people and their wishes be damned.

The people of occupied Palestine, sickened by Fatah’s corruption, exercised their democratic right (or so they thought!) and voted for Hamas. However, much of the world cravenly followed Israeli dictates and refused to recognize Hamas and to work with the legitimately elected party in its efforts to bring about positive change in the West Bank and Gaza. The UN, itself, sir, sat idly by while Gaza became the world’s largest concentration camp, strangled to the point of starvation and economic ruin by a brutal, unrelenting occupier.

On January 21st, 2009, you stated that the people of Gaza “were caught throughout this crisis between Hamas’s unacceptable and irresponsible actions and Israel’s blockade and use of excessive and disproportionate military force.”

So you consider defending one’s people and what’s left of their homeland as “unacceptable and irresponsible,” do you?

In just the past three years, Israeli forces have killed many hundreds of people in Gaza. Hundreds more died because Israel wouldn’t allow them to leave Gaza to receive medical care. And on December 27th, 2008, when Israeli forces began their long-planned assault on Gaza and its people, what protection did 1.5 million people have?

Did you see any F-16 bombers piloted by members of the military wing of Hamas? Did you see them launching missiles aimed at vapourizing their defenseless targets? Did you see them driving tanks? Using white phosphorous and other banned, or experimental weapons? Hell, not!

What you and the world saw was a sophisticated assortment of weapons being unleashed with merciless abandon on people whose only means of defence were guns and homemade projectiles. What’s wrong with this picture, sir?

“Use of excessive and disproportionate military force”, you say? Oh, it was a lot more than that, sir, and while you echo the usual catch phrase of the UN and gutless world leaders in describing the pre-meditated slaughter of human beings in occupied Palestine, you seem to have forgotten that under international laws and Conventions, the Palestinian people have every right to protect themselves against the racist, genocidal killers who have been murdering them with impunity for over 60 years.

On January 20th, 2009, you visited Sderot, in the company of war criminal, Ehud Olmert, and to the astonishment of people of good conscience everywhere, you classified “Palestinian militants’ projectiles as indiscriminate weapons and Hamas attacks are violations of basic humanitarian law” going on to describe Hamas’ rocket fire against Israel as “appalling and unacceptable.”

“Appalling and unacceptable”, sir? First of all, it might behoove you to remember that Sderot is built on the ashes of the ethnically cleansed Palestinian town of Naid, whose inhabitants were forced from their homes and lands by Jewish terrorists in 1948. That is appalling, and yet you failed to mention it. Do you feel, sir, that ethnic cleansing (or slow-motion genocide as many call it) becomes acceptable with the passage of time?

Did you suggest to Olmert that Israel remove its inhabitants from Sderot and return it to its rightful owners? I don’t think so.

Before you start prattling about “violations of basic humanitarian law,” I suggest you look at the never-ending Israeli attacks on the people of Gaza and, in fact, all of occupied Palestine. Men, women, children. Israel does not differentiate. There are no bomb shelters in Gaza, are there, sir? There are no warning signals to announce another deadly bomb or missile attack.

And there are no “homemade projectiles” landing in Gaza to cause you to be “appalled,” are there, sir? Nothing so rudimentary for Israel with its latest in war toys — bombs, missiles, tanks, white phosphorous, and who knows what experimental weapons there are in its arsenal. You don’t have a problem with this? Or are you attempting to equate homemade rockets with Israel’s weaponry?

I’m curious, sir. If you consider homemade rockets falling, for the most part, harmlessly into Sderot as “appalling and unacceptable” and “violations of basic humanitarian law”, describe for us, please, how you view the brutal 60-year occupation of someone else’s homeland, with ongoing deadly terror attacks?

If you want examples of “violations of basic humanitarian law”, how about the Israeli war crimes in refusing the Palestinian people the right to exist, to move freely and safely in their own land, to live, work, and play, and to enjoy the basic human, civil, social, and economic rights that I have, that you have?

On January 21st, 09, you state: “I have condemned from the outbreak of this conflict the excessive use of force by the Israeli forces in Gaza. I view the rocket attacks into Israel as completely unacceptable.”

Interesting that the Israeli actions are only “condemned” whereas the rocket attacks are “completely unacceptable”. In other words, you do not trample on the often blurted “Israeli right to defend itself,” (i.e., the aggressor’s right to protect itself from retaliation) so you couldn’t say the excessive force was “completely unacceptable,” could you?

Excessive force? Is that what you call three weeks of continual bombardment of over a million people with nowhere to go, no protection, no one to help them? I call it a premeditated massacre, sir.

You say you condemned the “the excessive use of force by Israeli forces in Gaza.” Are you suggesting that force against the Palestinian people is permissible so long as it is not “excessive”? Is that what you are telling us? That you support the cold blooded murder of Palestinians but not their right to retaliate with what minimal “weapons” they have?

That, sir, is what is completely “unacceptable.”

What has the UN and its Security Council ever done to protect the Palestinian people against continual Israeli aggression? Show me a single instance in UN history where action was taken to protect them from the bombs and tanks and missiles of Israeli terrorists.

Yes, sir. Terrorists. Israel and supporters love tossing that word about, insisting, for example, that Hizbollah and Hamas are “terrorist” organizations. However, over the past 60 years, and during the most recent attack on Gaza, the world has seen Israeli terror in all its horrific ugliness, and we will never forget. Yet, in those 60 plus years, the UN Security Council has never taken decisive action with respect to Israeli war crimes. Oh, there have been numerous resolutions, yes, but all have been ignored by Israel and never enforced by the UNSC. How is this inaction justified?

On January 20th, 09 you “visited the war-shattered Gaza Strip to demonstrate solidarity with the population and assure them of the full support of the United Nations and the international community.”

Excuse me, sir, but where were you and “the international community” for the past three years while the people of Gaza were being kept on a Zionist-imposed diet in the world’s largest concentration camp? Why did you wait until over 1300 of them were slaughtered in three weeks? What did the UN Security Council do? What did the “international community” (with the praiseworthy exceptions of Iran, Malaysia, Turkey and a few others) do? Nothing.

Instead of supporting the Palestinian people and their choice of government, the “international community,” which likes to blather on about “democracy,” choose to ignore the results of the most democratic elections held in the region, and showed its hypocrisy by adhering to the Israeli line and shunning a people and its government. Blackmail at its most repugnant.

What did you do about that, sir? What did you do to remove this criminal siege? You and your Security Council allowed this monstrous crime to continue for three years. Where were the sanctions, the enforced resolutions? The UN Security Council, obviously choosing under pressure from the US and UK which nations it imposes sanctions against, continued to ignore Israeli atrocities, and for crimes against the Palestinian people there has been nothing. How is that inaction justified?

What kind of “support” do you have for the people of Gaza now, sir? Assistance if they denounce their elected officials? The “international community” and the UN Security Council never gave a damn about Palestinian people being tortured, killed, and displaced in their homeland. Their cries for help have gone unheeded for over 60 years. Do you feel enough have been slaughtered now? Do you feel the devastation this time is sufficient? Is that it?

Israel never left Gaza, sir. Oh, there were great made-for-television moments when the illegal squatters were “removed,” but the terrorizing of a defenseless people continued with nightly incursions; assassinations of resistance fighters and others; murders of women, children, the elderly; destruction of homes; curtailment of all rights and freedoms.

And you have the unmitigated gall to refer to the actions of Hamas as “unacceptable and irresponsible actions”?

It might well surprise you, sir, that the Palestinian people have every right to defend themselves against ongoing Israeli terrorism. Yet for over 60 years they have been left on their own, struggling valiantly to hang on to their lives, their homes, their lands. No “world leader” has ever declared that the people of occupied Palestine have a right to defend themselves or that they have a right to exist. Why not?

The crimes committed by Israel since its inception, not only against the Palestinian people, but the Lebanese, and all others in the region, are monumental, but this nation, with more sadistic war criminals than any other on earth, continues to kill and destroy without even a smartly delivered slap to the wrist. Terrorism with impunity. How reprehensible is that?

So, Mr. Secretary General of the UN, when is the UN Security Council going to set up a War Crimes Tribunal to try Israeli politicians, soldiers, rabbis, and all others responsible for the war crimes and crimes against humanity they committed against the people of Gaza?

When is the UN Security Council going to revoke Israel’s membership in the UN for failing to honour its terms of admittance?

When is the UN Security Council going to demand that Israel make complete reparation to the people of Gaza for this monstrous act of death and destruction? Or will others, as per the norm, have to fix what this brutal regime has destroyed while it spends the billions it receives yearly from US taxpayers on more weapons?

Or will this be another Jenin? Another South Lebanon? Another Qana?

This time, sir, this war crime against Gaza and its people will not be swept under the proverbial rug. The good people of the world have seen evil and have recoiled in revulsion. The good people of the world have heard the never-ending litany of outlandish Israeli propaganda. The world is waiting, and watching, and listening. The UN, with its credibility at a minimum, cannot remain silent. People of good conscience will not, cannot, and must not allow it.

Sincerely,
Angie Tibbs

Text taken from here.

The intellectual dishonesty of those who don’t speak out against Zionism

Published by Christiaan on 2 January, 2009 in Palestine and Israel and Repression.

It’s deplorable the number of people, mostly so-called “liberals,” who choose to keep their mouths shut in the face of the scourge that is Zionism, something Ronnie Kasrils, a South African politician who was active in the fight against apartheid from the 60’s onwards, described as “far worse” than apartheid South Africa.

Imagine what these same people would be saying, or doing, if their own country had been unlawfully occupied and embargoed for 60 years of relentless oppression and repression, and all attempts at peaceful change had been forcefully prevented or scuttled.

And yet they don’t stay silent because they think Zionism is a just cause, surely; it’s clearly not. They stay silent because of 9/11 and the subsequent conflation of any Arab opposition to Western dominance as terrorism. They stay silent because of the Jewish Holocaust—something the Arabs had nothing to do with—because they’re too scared of been tarred with the brush of anti-Semitism.

And meanwhile we have aberrations like John Bolton—who have long torn up the lessons of WWII—still running around trying to start WWIII(video) on the back of it all.

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Watch also the video The neo-Zionist New World Order (1:38 duration).

The Petition of the Religious Leaders for 911 Truth

The religions of the world share universal values of love, truth, and justice, and believe in helping those who are oppressed or otherwise in need. Many religious persons try to engage in activities to make the world a better place, and they trust in a Higher Power to assist them.

When faced with actions that conflict with the universal moral principle that we should not do to others what we would not want done to ourselves or our loved ones, members of faith communities have a responsibility to voice their opposition to those actions. Many religious leaders throughout history have publicly challenged morally unacceptable practices---recently, for example, in the civil rights and anti-apartheid movements.

A significant moral challenge has emerged due to glaring discrepancies between the official version of the events of September 11, 2001, and the results of extensive independent research by individuals with relevant scientific or professional expertise.

“Independent” here means independent from the U.S. administration that was in power at the time of the 9/11 attacks. The official reports about 9/11 were not independent in this sense. The 9/11 Commission was run by its executive director, Philip Zelikow, who was closely associated with the Bush administration. The official reports on the World Trade Center were produced by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which, as an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, was run by people employed by the Bush administration.

The independent research, which has led to conclusions that differ radically from the official account, has been carried out by scientists and professionals in many relevant fields. It has led to the creation of several professional organizations, including Veterans for 9/11 Truth, S.P.I.N.E.: The Scientific Panel for the Investigation of Nine-Eleven, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Lawyers for 9/11 Truth, Healthcare Professionals for 9/11 Truth, and Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth.

As a result of this extensive research carried out by scientists and professionals, it can now be seen that the official account of 9/11 is false beyond any reasonable doubt.

This conclusion presents a significant moral challenge because this false account has been used as the pretext for the so-called War on Terror, which has had enormous negative consequences, including:

1. the killing and maiming of millions of innocent people;
2. the portrayal of Islam as an inherently violent religion, of Muslims as especially likely to be terrorists, and of Muslim nations as devoid of any right not to be attacked;
3. the employment of torture, extraordinary rendition, and other practices---including curtailment of the civil liberties of American citizens---that violate the US Constitution, international law, and the moral conscience of the world;
4. the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars for militaristic, imperialistic purposes; and
5. the acceleration of the ecological destruction of our planet, including widespread radioactive poisoning caused by depleted uranium munitions.

Because the false account of 9/11, besides being an enormous lie told to the American public and the world as a whole, has led to all these evils, it is incumbent on religious leaders, once they realize that the official account is a lie, to speak out, because to fail to speak out is to acquiesce to the cover-up.

Religious leaders from every tradition are encouraged to sign the petition and thereby become members of Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth. "Religious Leaders" are here defined as people who exercise (or have exercised) a leadership role, whether in a lay or professional capacity, in or on behalf of some religious community or organization, or who teach (or have taught) religion from a faith perspective.

Becoming a member of Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth will not necessitate any further action other than signing the petition---although further action to spread 9/11 truth is certainly encouraged.

If you are ready to join Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth and would like to sign the petition, go to the Sign the Petition page and state your name, religious affiliation, and leadership role, along with (optional) anything you would like to say about your reason for signing.

PETITION

WHEREAS religious leaders seek to promote various universal values, including love, justice, and truth; and

WHEREAS religious leaders throughout history have spoken out on moral issues; and

WHEREAS the official account of 9/11 has been shown by scientists and professionals in relevant fields to be false beyond a reasonable doubt; and

WHEREAS the official account of 9/11 has been used as a pretext for wars that have killed and maimed millions of innocent people and caused enormous ecological damage to our planet; and

WHEREAS the official account of 9/11 has been used to increase military spending and thereby to withhold needed spending for health, education, welfare, infrastructure, and the environment; and

WHEREAS the official account of 9/11 has been used to indict Islam as an inherently violent religion and to justify discrimination against Muslims and attacks on Muslim countries; and

WHEREAS the official reports about 9/11 have been produced by individuals closely affiliated with, or even employed by, the Bush administration;

THEREFORE we, the undersigned members of Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth, ask President Obama to authorize a new, truly independent, investigation into the attacks of 9/11 immediately, because such an investigation is long overdue, being owed to the 9/11 families, the American people, and the peoples of the world - especially the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Text taken form here.

Who Profit in Gaza?

The front page of whoprofits.org.

Two years ago the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace set up its project entitled, Who Profits from the Israeli occupation? The coalition has a track record of successfully mobilizing the Israeli public in protests against the occupation, for women's rights and social-economic justice. For instance, on the day Israel's onslaught in Gaza began, hundreds of protesters were demonstrating that evening in the streets of Tel Aviv. In January, the Coalition officially launched its on-line database, www.whoprofits.org, listing companies directly involved in the occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights.

Dalit Baum, coordinator of the project, explains to The Electronic Intifada contributor Adri Nieuwhof how the project came about. Read further the interview here.

Rabbi urged 'no mercy' in killing of Gazans

The Israeli Army's chief rabbi has caused controversy by calling on troops to 'show no mercy' in their attacks against Palestinians in Gaza.

Chief Military Rabbi Brigadier General Avi Ronzki (pic) had distributed pamphlets to Israeli troops implicitly sanctioning the killing of civilians.

"When you show mercy to a cruel enemy you are being cruel to pure and honest soldiers. These are not games at the amusement park where sportsmanship teaches one to make concessions. This is a war on murderers," the pamphlets read.

Human rights group Yesh Din has said that the pamphlet borders "on incitement and racism against the Palestinian people."

The group urged Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Army Chief General Gabi Ashkenazi to dismiss Ronzki.

The pamphlet also quotes statements made by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, the extremist leader of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank - who opposes any compromise with Palestinians.

"The Palestinians claim they deserve a state here, when in reality there was never a Palestinian or Arab state within the borders of our country," the pamphlet quoted Aviner as saying.

According to the right group, the pamphlet contains "degrading and belittling messages that border on incitement and racism against the Palestinian people. These messages can be interpreted as a call to act outside of the confines of international laws of war."

Thousands of people, including women and children were killed or wounded during Israel's Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli Army also used banned weapons, including white phosphorous and depleted uranium, to attack targets inside the populated area.

Reported here.
Read also Is Israel's Army Waging a Jewish Jihad?
and Religious Zionist Extremists Rising Through the Ranks: An IDF Jihad?

Bush War Crimes: European Activists Call For Bush To Be Tried For Torture

Now that former U.S. president George W. Bush is an ordinary citizen again, many legal and human rights activists in Europe are demanding that he and high-ranking members of his government be brought before justice for crimes against humanity committed in the so-called war on terror.

"Judicial clarification of the crimes against international law the former U.S. government committed is one of the most delicate issues that the new U.S. president Barack Obama will have to deal with," Wolfgang Kaleck, general secretary of the European Centre for Human and Constitutional Rights told IPS.

U.S. justice will have to "deal with the turpitudes committed by the Bush government," says Kaleck, who has already tried unsuccessfully to sue the former U.S. authorities in European courts. "And, furthermore, the U.S. government will have to pay compensation to the innocent people who were victims of these crimes."

Kaleck and other legal experts consider Bush and his highest-ranking officials responsible for crimes against humanity, such as torture.

Many agree that the evidence against the U.S. government is overwhelming. U.S. officials have admitted some crimes such as waterboarding, where a victim is tied up and water is poured into the air passages. Also, human rights activists have gathered testimonies by innocent victims of torture, especially some prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

In an interview with the German public television network ZDF, Austrian human rights lawyer Manfred Nowak, UN special rapporteur on torture, said that numerous cases of torture ordered by U.S. officials and perpetrated by U.S. authorities are well documented.

"We possess all the evidence which proves that the torture methods used in interrogation by the U.S. government were explicitly ordered by former U.S. defence minister Donald Rumsfeld," Nowak told ZDF. "Obviously, these orders were given with the highest U.S. authorities' knowledge."

"George W. Bush is without doubt responsible for crimes such as torture," says Dietmar Herz, professor of political science at the university of Erfurt, 235 km southwest of Berlin.

"According to the U.S. constitution, the U.S. president is responsible for all actions carried out by the executive," Herz told IPS. "Therefore, George W. Bush is responsible for the torture methods used by U.S. authorities, such as waterboarding."

International justice against crimes against humanity began in 1945, with the Nuremberg trials against Nazi criminals, says Kaleck. Leading prosecutor Robert Jackson said at the opening of the trials in October 1945 that "we are able to do away with...tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power against the rights of (the) people...only when we make all men answerable to the law."

But since then this promise has been fulfilled only in exceptional cases, Kaleck said.

"Crimes against humanity have been repeatedly committed ever since, but very few people have been brought before international courts for these crimes," he said, adding that this impunity is particularly obvious for leaders of the Allied countries (such as the U.S., France and Britain), who had organised the Nuremberg trials.

Nobody was ever judged for crimes against humanity committed in Algeria by France, in Vietnam and Latin America by the U.S., in Afghanistan by the Soviet Union and in Chechnya by Russia.

Only in the 1990s, after the Yugoslav wars of secession, the Rwanda genocide, and civil wars in countries such as Liberia and Sierra Leone were state criminals captured, judged and convicted.

"The creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002 in The Hague in the Netherlands marks a turning point in the prosecution of state officials accused of crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity or of war," Kaleck added.

But prosecution for crimes of war or for crimes against humanity continues to be highly selective. So far, only perpetrators from weak or failed states from south-eastern Europe, or from the south, especially Africa, have been brought to court. In a case such as that of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, Britain acted as an accomplice to protect him.

Over the last couple of years, human rights activists and some national courts in Europe have been fighting these arbitrary ways. They are appealing for, and in some cases even applying, a universal jurisdiction of national courts.

The Spanish judiciary has opened cases against Latin American dictators such as Guatemalan general Efraín Ríos Montt, who ruled the Central American country between 1982 and 1983, and Argentinean military officers involved in kidnapping and killing civilians.

Reported here by Julio Godoy.