Category: Israel

Israel Treated Gaza Like Its Own Private Death Laboratory

An article by Conn Hallinan of Foreign Policy in Focus detailing Israel’s use of its brand new arsenal of lethal weapons.

Erik Fosse, a Norwegian cardiologist, worked in Gaza hospitals during the recent war.”It was as if they had stepped on a mine,” he says of certain Palestinian patients he treated. “But there was no shrapnel in the wound. Some had lost their legs. It looked as though they had been sliced off. I have been to war zones for 30 years, but I have never seen such injuries before.”

Dr. Fosse was describing the effects of a U.S. “focused lethality” weapon that minimizes explosive damage to structures while inflicting catastrophic wounds on its victims. But where did the Israelis get this weapon? And was their widespread use in the attack on Gaza a field test for a new generation of explosives?

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‘It is not a war, It is murder’

The great Chris Hedges, author of the classic War is a force that Gives us Meaning, speaks out on Gaza.

Four Solutions

This is a response to Ali Abunimah’s excellent little book “One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian impasse.”

“I do not hate (Israelis) for being Jewish or Israeli but because of what they have done to us. Because of the acts of occupation. It is difficult to forget what was done to us. But if the reason for the hate will not exist, everything is possible. But if the reason remains, it is impossible to love. First we must convince in general and in principle that we have been wronged, then we can talk about 67 or 48. You still do not recognize that we have rights. The first condition for change is recognition of the injustice we suffered.”

– Said Sayyam, martyred in Gaza January 2009, to Ha’aretz, November 1995.

All Palestine is controlled by Zionism. The Palestinians (not counting the millions in exile) are half the population of Israel-Palestine, but they are victims of varying degrees of apartheid. The Jewish state has already lost its Jewish majority, and is more hated by the Arab peoples than at any time in its brief, violent history. Let’s take it as given that continuation of the present situation is untenable for everyone concerned. We need a solution.

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Two/one state solution is gone! What is left: Bantustan or Liberty

Haidar Eid has written an important article about the path forward for the Palestinian resistance. Eid also castigates the co-opted “NGO-ized” Palestinian intellectuals — the colonized minds — for their spineless adoption of false solutions and their craven acceptance of Israeli/American formulations.

The ongoing bloodletting in the Gaza Strip and the ability of the Palestinian people to creatively resist the might of the world’s fourth strongest army is being hotly debated by Palestinian political forces. The latest genocidal war which lasted 22 days, and in which apartheid Israel used F-16s, Apache helicopters, Merkava tanks and conventional and non-conventional weapons against the population, have raised many serious questions about the concept of resistance and whether the outcome of the war can, or cannot, be considered a victory for the Palestinian people. The same kind of questions were raised in 2006 when apartheid Israel launched its war against the Lebanese people and brutally killed more than 1,200 Lebanese.

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Taken in by the Hoopla?

The Israeli elections took place 24 days after a vicious Israeli attack on Gaza; it took place two days after the latest Israeli bombing of the Gaza-Egypt border. Yet, if one were watching the TV news coverage of the elections or the coverage of the mainstream press, one would not know that the dust has barely settled on Gaza. One would almost think that the elections were taking place in some far away country that wasn’t responsible for dropping the bombs and the war crimes. The reason for the exclusive “politics as a horse race” coverage is that it is part of the propaganda campaign surrounding the war. No sooner did the war end, the coverage switched to the inauguration of the US president; the economic crisis was equally competing for the headlines. And then the Israeli elections appeared full with flag-waving and blue-pom-pom shaking supporters, an image that reinforced the propaganda message of “Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East”. Never mind that several political parties representing the Palestinian citizens of Israel were banned by the right-wing’s mean-spirited ploys. Never mind the tilt towards fascism with a religious twist – that was not part of the message. Avigdor Lieberman is a more vicious fascist than Jorg Haider, yet while the election of the latter led to a boycott of the Austrian government, the “king-maker” role of Lieberman barely registers in the TV news.

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Irish Trade Unionists Launch Boycott

From the Belfast Telegraph:

Trade unionists are to launch a boycott of Israeli goods as part of a major campaign to secure a peaceful settlement in the Middle East, Stormont heard today.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) launched a report on Israel and Palestine compiled by senior members who visited the troubled region.

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Terrorism 101 – Opening Blind Eyes

Terrorism 101 is an excellent montage of recent audio and video footage from the Gaza massacre.

Academic Friends of Israel Prepare for Boycott

In an article in the Haaretz titled It’s ‘Boycott Israel’ Season Again in the UK, Ronnie Fraser reveals that Academic Friends of Israel are preparing to hamstring what he considers a popular boycott proposal through false legal claims of discrimination.  There’s nothing like doing things democratically — Academic Friends of Israel seem to believe that if you can’t win the debate you should stifle it.

UCU activists are up against it; challenged by the internal academic lobby and externally by the British Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM), a rather slick PR and media lobbying organisation, that created a group Stop the Boycott which has been effective at dominating main stream media debate on the topic.

Next month will be critical for the fight against academic boycotts of Israel in the U.K., according to the founder of Academic Friends of Israel, Ronnie Fraser. March is the month boycott proposals will be submitted to the academic organizations, making time of the essence, says Fraser – whose organization played a part in the 2007 shelving of a planned academic boycott of Israel by the University and College Union.
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An Issue Of Justice: Origins Of The Israel/Palestine Conflict

justice Finkelstein Israel PalestineThe Gaza massacre has re-ignited debate across the UK and elsewhere and prompted many people to want to learn more.  For those relatively new to the conflict, I usually point them towards Ilan Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Finkelstein’s An Introduction to the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Occupation 101 and this lecture, also by Norman Finkelstein, An Issue of Justice.  It is one of the best lectures I’ve heard and succinctly covers the main areas of the conflict in an hour.

As an aside, I don’t agree with Norman on the Israel lobby and the Iraq war or his position on the two state solution, however I do think his argument on the two state solution is useful for demonstrating that Israel and the US prevent peace in the region.

An Issue Of Justice: MP3

Panorama – Gaza: Out of the Ruins


[see the rest of the clips after the jump]

The BBC’s Panorama program is typically loaded with Israeli Government propaganda such as saying Hamas provoked Israel, rather than Israel provoking Hamas; it also fails to provide adequate context about who broke the ceasefire and the illegal military occupation and blockading of Gaza, hardly an ‘impartial’ way to frame events.
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