During the fighting in the Gaza Strip, the religious media - and on two occasions, the Israel Defense Forces weekly journal Bamahane - were full of praise for the army rabbinate. The substantial role of religious officers and soldiers in the front-line units of the IDF was, for the first time, supported also by the significant presence of rabbis there.
The chief army rabbi, Brigadier General Avichai Rontzki, joined the troops in the field on a number of occasions, as did rabbis under his command.
Officers and soldiers reported that they felt "spiritually elevated" and "morally empowered" by conversations with rabbis who gave them encouragement before the confrontation with the Palestinians.
Puppet Masters
The sickening horrors to which the Zionists have subjected the Palestinians for more than sixty years defy credulity. I received this message from Barbara Lubin, founder of Middle East Children's Alliance today:
I entered the Gaza Strip on Wednesday night with my friend and fellow activist Sharon Wallace after waiting ten hours at the Egypt/Gaza. The destruction and trauma is even greater than I expected. In just two short days I met with families who were given minutes to evacuate their homes and are now living in overcrowded UN schools; I saw the ruins of bombed greenhouses; I looked out the window at fields and roads torn up by the tread of Israeli tanks; and I visited two universities where MECA supports students with scholarships-severely damaged by Israeli bombs.
Out of all the devastation I have seen so far, there is one story in particular that I think the world needs to hear. I met a mother who was at home with her ten children when Israeli soldiers entered the house. The soldiers told her she had to choose five of her children to "give as a gift to Israel." As she screamed in horror they repeated the demand and told her she could choose or they would choose for her. Then these soldiers murdered five of her children in front of her. The concept of "Jewish morality" is truly dead. We can be fascists, terrorists, and Nazis just like everybody else.
I entered the Gaza Strip on Wednesday night with my friend and fellow activist Sharon Wallace after waiting ten hours at the Egypt/Gaza. The destruction and trauma is even greater than I expected. In just two short days I met with families who were given minutes to evacuate their homes and are now living in overcrowded UN schools; I saw the ruins of bombed greenhouses; I looked out the window at fields and roads torn up by the tread of Israeli tanks; and I visited two universities where MECA supports students with scholarships-severely damaged by Israeli bombs.
Out of all the devastation I have seen so far, there is one story in particular that I think the world needs to hear. I met a mother who was at home with her ten children when Israeli soldiers entered the house. The soldiers told her she had to choose five of her children to "give as a gift to Israel." As she screamed in horror they repeated the demand and told her she could choose or they would choose for her. Then these soldiers murdered five of her children in front of her. The concept of "Jewish morality" is truly dead. We can be fascists, terrorists, and Nazis just like everybody else.
Egypt has proof that the majority of weapons that are smuggled into the Gaza Strip come from Israel, said the general secretary of Egypt's National Council for Human Rights Mukhlis Qutb.
In an interview with the state owned Al-Ahram newspaper, Qutb said Egypt has the necessary documentation and confessions proving that weapons are smuggled into Gaza by people possessing Israeli citizenship.
He also alleged that some members of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are involved in the smuggling and selling of Israeli weapons to the Strip. Qutb added that the deals and payment for the weapons are struck inside Israel.
In an interview with the state owned Al-Ahram newspaper, Qutb said Egypt has the necessary documentation and confessions proving that weapons are smuggled into Gaza by people possessing Israeli citizenship.
He also alleged that some members of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are involved in the smuggling and selling of Israeli weapons to the Strip. Qutb added that the deals and payment for the weapons are struck inside Israel.
Its call sign has always been Air Force One. But on Tuesday, it was Special Air Mission 28000, as former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura returned home to Texas on a plane full of family, friends, former staff and memories of eight years in the White House.
The former president and his wife thanked each passenger, showing the thoughtfulness and grace so characteristic of this wonderful American family.
A video tribute produced warm laughter and inevitable tears. There was no bitterness, but rather a sense of gratitude -- gratitude for the opportunity to serve, for able and loyal colleagues, and above all for our country and its people.
Yet, as Mr. Bush left Washington, in a last angry frenzy his critics again distorted his record, maligned his character and repeated untruths about his years in the Oval Office. Nothing they wrote or said changes the essential facts.
To start with, Mr. Bush was right about Iraq. The world is safer without Saddam Hussein in power. And the former president was right to change strategy and surge more U.S. troops.
© AP
A video tribute produced warm laughter and inevitable tears. There was no bitterness, but rather a sense of gratitude -- gratitude for the opportunity to serve, for able and loyal colleagues, and above all for our country and its people.
Yet, as Mr. Bush left Washington, in a last angry frenzy his critics again distorted his record, maligned his character and repeated untruths about his years in the Oval Office. Nothing they wrote or said changes the essential facts.
To start with, Mr. Bush was right about Iraq. The world is safer without Saddam Hussein in power. And the former president was right to change strategy and surge more U.S. troops.
Until today, China wonks have had little sense of how the new Obama administration will handle relations with Beijing. Today's written testimony from Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner hinted at a new, tougher tone.
"President Obama - backed by the conclusions of a broad range of economists - believes that China is manipulating its currency," Geithner wrote, adding that Obama would "use aggressively all the diplomatic avenues open to him to seek change in China's currency practices."
Exactly what that's going to mean for policy is unclear. Geithner did not say whether the Treasury would formally name China as an exchange rate manipulator in its annual currency report. "The question is how and when to broach the subject in order to do more good than harm," he said.
"President Obama - backed by the conclusions of a broad range of economists - believes that China is manipulating its currency," Geithner wrote, adding that Obama would "use aggressively all the diplomatic avenues open to him to seek change in China's currency practices."
Exactly what that's going to mean for policy is unclear. Geithner did not say whether the Treasury would formally name China as an exchange rate manipulator in its annual currency report. "The question is how and when to broach the subject in order to do more good than harm," he said.
The usual historical reference to what is happening in Gaza is the Holocaust. Most Jews resent Israel being compared to Nazis, but there are other historical parallels that are more difficult to dismiss.
Twelve hundred years before Christ, The Israelites were warring with the Philistines. At one point during a deadlock, a giant Philistine named Goliath called for one Israelite to face him. No soldier volunteered but David, a shepherd boy, felled Goliath with a stone from his slingshot and cut off his head.
It turns out that the land occupied by the Philistines was the modern Gaza strip, north to beyond Ashdod in Israel. And in an ironic reversal, the Philistines' descendants now play the role of David.
Twelve hundred years before Christ, The Israelites were warring with the Philistines. At one point during a deadlock, a giant Philistine named Goliath called for one Israelite to face him. No soldier volunteered but David, a shepherd boy, felled Goliath with a stone from his slingshot and cut off his head.
It turns out that the land occupied by the Philistines was the modern Gaza strip, north to beyond Ashdod in Israel. And in an ironic reversal, the Philistines' descendants now play the role of David.
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Cute, cuddly, harmless-looking, liberal Barack Obama. Now there's a guy to get the U.S. back on track! If he can just 'win' the primary (s)election process, and then the (s)election process after that, what's it called...oh yeah, the (p)residential (s)elections, he'll bring an end to the mindless massacring of innocent civilians for profit that has come to define the "war on terror", and the American people need never again be stirred out of their mind-numbing complacency by stories of small brown children being decapitated by a brave American teenager with a .50 caliber machine gun. I mean, Viet-nam and My Lai was containable, it was successfully pitched as an "American tragedy", but this Iraq business is getting out of hand! After all, the harsh realities of war 'over there' are meant to stay 'over there', not ooze out of the carefully manipulated American daily broadsheets and into the fragile mind of the average American.
So Obama's the man to fix it all, right? He'll stop the Republican rot! Or am I missing something?
A propaganda battle designed to promote the plan to spread war throughout the greater Middle East is now under way and will soon hit the airwaves in the United States. The plan will be presented as a television advertising campaign to promote Israel as the victim of terrorism backed by the government of Iran. The advertising campaign is due to air on television during the inauguration period of President-elect Barack Obama.
The organization responsible for this soon to be aired propaganda is "The Israel Project". "The Israel Project" touts themselves as an international non-profit organization that "provides journalists and leaders accurate information about the Middle East". For some reason they make a point of declaring to the public that they are "not related to any government or government agency".
© Francisco Goya
"The sleep of reason that produces monsters"
"The sleep of reason that produces monsters"
Reason has fled, all rationality is gone, we are therefore called to act in defiance of the genocidal murderers in Palestine. In just the same way as the economy is being used to control us, we can exert similar pressure on Israel by boycotting all Israeli goods, all Israeli services and any company that does business with Israel however small.
A four-month ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza was in jeopardy today after Israeli troops killed six Hamas gunmen in a raid into the territory.
Hamas responded by firing a wave of rockets into southern Israel, although no one was injured. The violence represented the most serious break in a ceasefire agreed in mid-June, yet both sides suggested they wanted to return to atmosphere of calm.
Israeli troops crossed into the Gaza Strip late last night near the town of Deir al-Balah. The Israeli military said the target of the raid was a tunnel that they said Hamas was planning to use to capture Israeli soldiers positioned on the border fence 250m away. Four Israeli soldiers were injured in the operation, two moderately and two lightly, the military said.
One Hamas gunman was killed and Palestinians launched a volley of mortars at the Israeli military. An Israeli air strike then killed five more Hamas fighters. In response, Hamas launched 35 rockets into southern Israel, one reaching the city of Ashkelon.
Hamas responded by firing a wave of rockets into southern Israel, although no one was injured. The violence represented the most serious break in a ceasefire agreed in mid-June, yet both sides suggested they wanted to return to atmosphere of calm.
Israeli troops crossed into the Gaza Strip late last night near the town of Deir al-Balah. The Israeli military said the target of the raid was a tunnel that they said Hamas was planning to use to capture Israeli soldiers positioned on the border fence 250m away. Four Israeli soldiers were injured in the operation, two moderately and two lightly, the military said.
One Hamas gunman was killed and Palestinians launched a volley of mortars at the Israeli military. An Israeli air strike then killed five more Hamas fighters. In response, Hamas launched 35 rockets into southern Israel, one reaching the city of Ashkelon.
Comment: A rare and sickening look into the dark and twisted minds of Israeli military and religious leaders. Obviously, they are aiming at nothing less than the final solution to "the Palestinians question".