neverbeforecampaign YouTube Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:54 EST
If one wants to know why and how the conflict started in Palestine more than 60 years ago, the "confessions" of Israeli and Zionist leaders should make it very clear.
700,000 Palestinians (more than half of the Palestinian population at the time) were expelled in 1948.
More than 600 towns and villages were ethnically cleansed.
Thousands were killed and maimed.
... the crimes continue to this date, and so does the unjustified condoning attitude of "civilized" governments.
Kabul - NATO forces mistakenly killed seven Afghan soldiers and police in an air strike during a battle while searching for two missing American soldiers in Afghanistan, the Afghan Defense Ministry said on Saturday.
The NATO-led force said none of its troops were killed but five were wounded, along with at least 20 Afghans, in a battle that took place on Friday during a manhunt for the two soldiers who went missing on Wednesday.
"Yesterday, in a NATO air strike, seven Afghan (soldiers and police) were martyred in Badghis province," Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman General Zaher Azimy said, adding that other members of the Afghan security forces were wounded.
Bouthaina Shaaban Counterpunch Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:10 EST
When you read a news story saying that "the United Nations called on Israel to stop demolishing Palestinian homes and put an end to the policy of forced evictions in East Jerusalem, warning that there are 60,000 Palestinians threatened of becoming homeless," you cannot but wonder about the role of the international organization today and about the goal for which it was created on the eve of the victory of the forces of freedom against Nazism and Fascism and whether it is the same organization authorized by history and the world's peoples to guarantee the right to 'self determination'? Is it the same organization charged with "putting an end to colonialism"? Is it the same organization which believes in the right of all peoples to freedom without discrimination in terms of race or religion? If it is the same organization, why does it allow Palestinian civilians suffer from the brutality of armed settlers?
The evasive and shameful language of the UN's call comes in the context of the submission of the Security Council to the Zionist will, and consequently commits a historic disgrace in the form of ignoring the legitimate political, civil and human rights of the Palestinian people including their right to life and freedom. For the UN not to take any initiative or measure which leads to giving the Palestinian people the right to self determination will remain a disgrace in the history of the organization which will never be removed.
The Palestinians have been under a racist settler form of colonialism for over sixty years; and they are targeted with a campaign of ethnic cleansing launched by armed gangs of settlers supported by Israel's police and army.
This is unparalleled in the 21st century in terms of the crimes which include siege, murder, food poisoning, starvation, assassination, demolishing houses, scorching crops, destroying farms, raping prisoners, trafficking in the organs of captives and preventing Palestinians from moving between their villages, farms and schools.
Israel displays hundreds of tonnes of weapons it says were bound for Lebanese militia disguised as bulldozer parts
Hezbollah and its Iranian and Syrian backers have flatly rejected Israeli claims that a shipment of arms and ammunition intercepted at sea was destined for the Lebanese militia group.
As Israel moved quickly to exploit the propaganda value of the find to highlight the role of Iran, Hezbollah "categorically" denied any connection to the case.
The Israeli government spokesman, Mark Regev, said he hoped the weapons seizure would be a "wake-up call to those few in the international community who up until now have still held illusions about the true character of the extremist, radical regime in Tehran".
Arab commentators and Iran suggested Israel's announcement of the weapons find was an attempt to undermine or divert attention from the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel of war crimes in its attack on Gaza this year. Israel is working to highlight the danger of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons that could challenge its own nuclear monopoly.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday said that he will transmit the Goldstone report to the UN Security Council at the request of the General Assembly.
"As requested by the General Assembly, I will transmit the report of the Fact Finding Mission to the Security Council," Ban told reporters here after he briefed 15-nation Security Council on the current situation in Afghanistan.
"I know that all of you have recently followed the vote yesterday in the General Assembly concerning the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict that was led by Justice (Richard) Goldstone," a former prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, he added.
Israel could begin a new military operation in Lebanon in spring 2010, Jordan's Ad-Dustour daily wrote on Friday, citing French parliamentary and military sources.
According to anonymous sources in the French parliament, plans of possible military operation in Lebanon in spring 2010 were discussed in France, at a meeting of French, U.S. and Israeli military experts.
The paper said a recent report from the UN secretary general could serve as an indirect indicator of a possible military operation in Lebanon. The report concerns the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which prohibits storing weapons in the security zone between the Litani River and the Blue Line, which is the Lebanese-Israeli border. The area is under the observation of UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
In the report, "only [Shiite armed group] Hezbollah is accused" of violating the provisions of the resolution, while "Israel is freed from any responsibility."
Palestinian women continue to suffer abuse and denial of basic human rights at the hands of Israeli settlers and soldiers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
This is in flagrant violation of Israel's obligations as a signatory to the UN Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). CEDAW is the first international human rights treaty devoted to the rights of women.
According to the Convention, discrimination against women represents a violation of the principles of equality and human dignity, and is considered an obstacle to the participation of women, on an equal footing with men, in the political, social, economic and cultural life of their country.
The Convention obliges all state parties to take appropriate measures, legislative and non-legislative, to prohibit all forms of discrimination against women.
Prime Minister Netanyahu opened the Knesset's winter session by blasting the Goldstone Report that accuses Israel of committing war crimes and vowing that he would never allow Israelis be tried for them. But that was not his main message. It was an appeal, delivered I thought with a measure of desperation, to the "Palestinian leadership", presumably the leadership of "President" Abbas and his Fatah cronies, leaders who are regarded by very many if not most Palestinians as American-and-Israeli stooges at best and traitors at worst.
Netanyahu again called on this leadership to agree to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, saying this was, and remains, the key to peace. And he went on and on and on about it.
"For 62 years the Palestinians have been saying 'No' to the Jewish state. I am once again calling upon our Palestinian neighbours - say 'Yes' to the Jewish state. Without recognition of the Israel as the state of the Jews we shall not be able to attain peace... Such recognition is a step which requires courage and the Palestinian leadership should tell its people the truth - that without this recognition there can be no peace... There is no alternative to Palestinian leaders showing courage by recognising the Jewish state. This has been and remains the true key to peace."
As Ha'aretz noted in its report, Netanyahu's demand for Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state is for him "a way on ensuring recognition of Israel's right to exist as opposed to merely recognising Israel" (my emphasis). This, as Ha'aretz added, is the recognition which Netanyahu and many other Israelis see as the real core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Aditya Ganapathiraju Palestine Monitor Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:19 EST
More than 95% children in Gaza experienced artillery shelling in their area or sonic booms of low flying jets
It's the most terrifying place I've ever been in... it's a horrifyingly sad place because of the desperation and misery of the way people live. I was unprepared for camps that are much worse than anything I saw in South Africa. - Professor Edward Said 1993 [1]
They may be living but they're not alive. - Journalist Philip Rizk [2]
Gaza is a place that needs a million psychologists. - Ayed, a psychotherapist from Northern Gaza [3]
Over 40 years of Israeli military occupation have had a devastating effect on Gaza; airstrikes, artillery shelling, ground invasions, jet flybys and their sonic booms have all led to an epidemic of suffering among Gaza's most vulnerable inhabitants.[4]
Qalandiya
Monday afternoon, 2.11.2009
Phyllis W. and Natanya G. (reporting)
15:30: We drove past Atarot CP on our way to Qalandiya. Twenty-five vehicles were wending their way slowly past the CP.
15:40 - Qalandiya: Already on our arrival a Palestinian ran to ask us to go into the checking area where an elderly couple from Gaza had had their permit to return home confiscated. We found them and discovered that the man had had an operation (we think he had a stent inserted). A taxi to take them to Erez CP was waiting on the Jerusalem side of Qalandiya, but when they tried to go through the CP, their permit was taken from them and they were told to return to Ramallah. They had no where to go and no money left -- the woman was in tears. Phyllis phoned operations headquarters and asked to be connected with the DCO representative. It turned out that the couple was expected and after a short interval they were allowed into the DCO area.
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"The free press is the mother of all our liberties and of our progress under liberty" Adlai E. Stevenson
"There is no more important struggle for American democracy than ensuring a diverse, independent and free media. Free Press is at the heart of that struggle." Bill Moyers
"This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go undebated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths." Simon Heffer in The Daily Mail, 7 June 2000
"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823
"A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press, must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the right of the people to know.": Murray I. Gurfein
One of the shrewdest ways for human predators to conquer their stronger victims is to steadily convince them with propaganda that they're still free. N.A. Scott
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