Please join Chatham Peace Initiative
to Protest the US Support of Israel's attack on the People of Gaza

Monday, January 12 from noon to 2 pm
in front of U.S. Representative Kirsten Gillibrand's office
at 446 Warren Street, Hudson, NY

We urge our Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand to condemn Israel's brutal attacks on a civilian population entrapped in what is commonly termed an "open air prison" created by the Israeli occupation.

If you have questions please contact Bob at poetapoetus (at) fairpoint.net or call me at 392-9477. Unfortunately my email isn't working properly so I can't read any incoming emails. - Thanks Susan Davies for Chatham Peace Initiative

Amira Haas, an Israeli jounalist for Haaretz, was interviewed in early December weeks before the current attacks. She briefly described life in Gaza:
It's a big prison, and it has been so for the last 18 years, because this policy is not new, it's only accumulative. Just imagine that you are confined to a place and not allowed to leave . . . ever. When you are in prison, you know you have five years, 20 years, you have a date. Even if it's forever, but it's clear. Here people don't know how long will this last and this is, I think, the main feature that dictates people's lives, and the feeling of despair and being suffocated. Nobody can really live like this. The life of a human being in the sense of building expectations, making plans, building a future, is all confined to this place. Then, of course, the fact that so many people cannot work, because Israel controls the economy by having a closure, and the Palestinian Authority helps Israel by ordering people in Ministries and not giving them work, they get the salary but don't work. So, many people don't work and feel useless, they feel nobody needs them and it also adds to the kind of despair and the feeling of being not alive, but vegetating. These are the main features, but there are also environmental hazards because of the closure and the water problem. People live in a permanent fear of existence, a very basic fear of existence. This is very much stronger than the issue of food, because there is food, very often not healthy and not nutritious, there's problem of malnutrition, but the main issue is being in prison.
And in Alternet on January 6th Stephen Zunes writing about the US Democrats' support for Israel's brutality towards the Palestinians concluded by saying:

"For ulimately, the issue is not about Hamas versus the Israeli govenment, or even Palestine versus Israel, but between supporters of international humanitarian law and those who believe the United States and its allies are somehow exempt."

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The Gaza Boomerang
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
At a time when Israel is bombing Gaza to try to smash Hamas, it’s worth remembering that Israel itself helped nurture Hamas.

When Hamas was founded in 1987, Israel was mostly concerned with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement and figured that a religious Palestinian organization would help undermine Fatah. Israel calculated that all those Muslim fundamentalists would spend their time praying in the mosques, so it cracked down on Fatah and allowed Hamas to rise as a counterforce.

What we’re seeing in the Middle East is the Boomerang Syndrome. Arab terrorism built support for right-wing Israeli politicians, who took harsh actions against Palestinians, who responded with more terrorism, and so on. Extremists on each side sustain the other, and the excessive Israeli ground assault in Gaza is likely to create more terrorists in the long run.

If this pattern continues, we may eventually see Hamas-style Palestinians facing off against hard-line Israelis, with each side making the others’ lives wretched — and political moderates in the Middle East politically eviscerated.

I visited Gaza last summer and found many Palestinians ambivalent in a way that Americans and Israelis often don’t appreciate. Many Gazans scorn Fatah as corrupt and incompetent, and they dislike Hamas’s overzealousness and repression. But when they are suffering and humiliated, they find it emotionally satisfying to see Hamas fighting back.

Granted, Israel was profoundly provoked in this case. Israel sought an extension of its cease-fire with Hamas, and Egypt offered to mediate one — but Hamas refused. When it is shelled by its neighbor, Israel has to do something.

But Israel’s right to do something doesn’t mean it has the right to do anything. Since the shelling from Gaza started in 2001, 20 Israeli civilians have been killed by rockets or mortars, according to a tabulation by Israeli human rights groups. That doesn’t justify an all-out ground invasion that has killed more than 660 people (it’s difficult to know how many are militants and how many are civilians).

So what could Israel have reasonably done? Bombing the tunnels through which Gazans smuggle weapons would have been a proportionate response, if Israel had stopped there, and the same is true of airstrikes on certain Hamas targets. An even better approach would have been to ease the siege in Gaza, perhaps creating an environment in which Hamas would have extended the cease-fire. It was certainly worth trying — and almost anything would be better than lashing out in a way that would create more boomerangs.

“This policy is not strengthening Israel,” notes Sari Bashi, the executive director of Gisha, an Israeli human rights group that works on Gaza issues. “The trauma that 1.5 million people have been undergoing in Gaza is going to have long-term effects for our ability to live together.

“My colleague in Gaza works for an Israeli organization. She’s learning Hebrew, and she’s just the kind of person we can build a future with. And her 6-year-old nephew, every time a bomb drops from the air, is at first scared and then says — hopefully — maybe the Qassam Brigades will now fire rockets at the Israelis.”

Israel’s strategy has been to make ordinary Palestinians suffer in hopes of creating ill will toward Hamas. That’s why, beginning in 2007, Israel cut back fuel shipments for Gaza utilities — and why today, in the aftermath of the bombings, 800,000 Gaza residents lack running water, Ms. Bashi said.

“The Israeli policy on Gaza has been marketed as a policy against Hamas, but in reality it’s a policy against a million-and-a-half people in Gaza,” she said.

We all know that the most plausible solution to the Middle East mess is a two-state solution along the lines that former President Bill Clinton has proposed. It’s difficult to tell how we get there from here, but a crucial step is to strengthen President Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority.

Instead, initial reports are that the assault on Gaza is focusing Arab anger on Mr. Abbas and moderate neighbors like Jordan, undermining the peacemakers.

My courageous Times colleague in Gaza, Taghreed el-Khodary, quoted a 37-year-old father weeping over the corpse of his 11-year-old daughter: “From now on, I am Hamas. I choose resistance.”

Barack Obama has said relatively little about Gaza. At first, given the provocations by Hamas, that was understandable. But as the ground invasion costs more lives, he needs to join European leaders in calling for a new cease-fire on all sides — and after he assumes the presidency, he must provide real leadership that the world craves.

Aaron David Miller, a longtime Middle East peace negotiator for the United States, suggests in his excellent new book, “The Much Too Promised Land,” that presidents should offer Israel “love, but tough love.”

So, Mr. Obama, find your voice. Fall in tough love with Israel.

•
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Kucinich: Bush Administration Must Enforce Arms Export Control Act


Capitol at Night




Washington, Jan 7 -

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) made the following statement about Israel’s violation of the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (AECA) on House Floor this morning.

The AECA makes it clear that any defense articles sold or leased by the United States must not be used to escalate conflict. The disproportionate and collective punishment nature of the attacks on Gaza assure an escalation of conflict in violation of the AECA.

In a letter to Secretary of State, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Kucinich yesterday informed administration officials of a violation of AECA, which, under AECA law, should trigger a Presidential report on the violation. Kucinich is expecting a response by the end of business today.

The text of the speech follows:

January 7, 2009

“We cannot truly celebrate a New Year, a new Congress and a new administration if all we see is the same old destruction in the Middle East with US weapons being illegally used to kill children.

“I oppose Hamas' rocket attacks on Israel. The rocket attacks, even to try to end the blockade, have no moral justification, are illegal and must stop.

“But how can Israel claim self defense when it bombs Gaza which has no army, no air force, no navy and has been under a constant blockade?

“How can Israel claim self defense when its bombs destroy UN schools, killing children?

“The children of Palestinians and the children of Israel both deserve life. But the lives of the children of Gaza are cynically discounted as "human shields". Massacres are being rationalized. Israel's "moral high ground" in Gaza, a growing pile of small bones in a graveyard.

“The Administration knows Israel is using US weapons, paid for by US taxpayers, with disproportionate force creating a collective punishment of Gazans, assuring an escalation of conflict, clear violations of the Arms Export Control Act.

“Israel was given U.S. weapons on condition they would not be used for aggression or escalation. The outgoing Administration must finally stand for the rule of law, not the rule of force.”

###
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Published on Thursday, January 1, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Letter to Bush on Gaza Crisis
by Ralph Nader

Dear George W. Bush,

Cong. Barney Frank said recently that Barack Obama's declaration that "there is only one president at a time" over-estimated the number. He was referring to the economic crisis. But where are you on the Gaza crisis where the civilian population of Gaza, its civil servants and public facilities are being massacred and destroyed respectively by U.S built F-16s and U.S. built helicopter gunships.

The deliberate suspension of your power to stop this terrorizing of 1.5 million people, mostly refugees, blockaded for months by air, sea and land in their tiny slice of land, is in cowardly contrast to the position taken by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. That year he single handedly stopped the British, French and Israeli aircraft attack against Egypt during the Suez Canal dispute.

Fatalities in Gaza are already over 400 and injuries close to 2000 so far as is known. Total Palestinian civilian casualties are 400 times greater then the casualties incurred by Israelis. But why should anyone be surprised at your blanket support for Israel's attack given what you have done to a far greater number of civilians in Iraq and now in Afghanistan?

Confirmed visual reports show that Israeli warplanes and warships have destroyed or severely damaged police stations, homes, hospitals, pharmacies, mosques, fishing boats, and a range of public facilities providing electricity and other necessities.

Why should this trouble you at all? It violates international law, including the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter. You too have repeatedly violated international law and committed serious constitutional transgressions.

Then there is the matter of the Israeli government blocking imports of critical medicines, equipment such as dialysis machines, fuel, food, water, spare parts and electricity at varying intensities for almost two years. The depleted UN aid mission there has called this illegal blockade a humanitarian crisis especially devastating to children, the aged and the infirm. Chronic malnutrition among children is rising rapidly. UN rations support eighty percent of this impoverished population.

How do these incontrovertible facts affect you? Do you have any empathy or what you have called Christian charity?

What would a vastly shrunken Texas turned in an encircled Gulag do up against the 4th most powerful military in the world? Would these embattled Texans be spending their time chopping wood?

Gideon Levy, the veteran Israeli columnist for Ha'aretz, called the Israeli attack a "brutal and violent operation" far beyond what was needed for protecting the people in its south. He added: "The diplomatic efforts were just in the beginning, and I believe we could have got to a new truce without this bloodshed.....to send dozens of jets to bomb a total helpless civilian society with hundreds of bombs-just today, they were burying five sisters. I mean, this is unheard of. This cannot go on like this. And this has nothing to do with self-defense or with retaliation even. It went out of proportion, exactly like two-and-a-half years ago in Lebanon."

Apparently, thousands of Israelis, including some army reservists, who have demonstrated against this destruction of Gaza agree with Mr. Levy. However, their courageous stands have not reached the mass media in the U.S. whose own reporters cannot even get into Gaza due to Israeli prohibitions on the international press.

Your spokespeople are making much ado about the breaking of the six month truce. Who is the occupier? Who is the most powerful military force? Who controls and blocks the necessities of life? Who has sent raiding missions across the border most often? Who has sent artillery shells and missiles at close range into populated areas? Who has refused the repeated comprehensive peace offerings of the Arab countries issued in 2002 if Israel would agree to return to the 1967 borders and agree to the creation of a small independent Palestinian state possessing just twenty two percent of the original Palestine?

The "wildly inaccurate rockets", as reporters describe them, coming from Hamas and other groups cannot compare with the modern precision armaments and human damage generated from the Israeli side.

There are no rockets coming from the West Bank into Israel. Yet the Israeli government is still sending raiders into that essentially occupied territory, still further entrenching its colonial outposts, still taking water and land and increasing the checkpoints This is going on despite a most amenable West Bank leader, Mahmoud Abbas, whom you have met with at the White House and praised repeatedly. Is it all vague words and no real initiatives with you and your emissary Condoleezza Rice?

Peace was possible, but you provided no leadership, preferring instead to comply with all wishes and demands by the Israeli government-even resupplying it with the still active cluster bombs in south Lebanon during the invasion of that country in 2006.

The arguments about who started the latest hostilities go on and on with Israel always blaming the Palestinians to justify all kinds of violence and harsh treatment against innocent civilians.

From the Palestinian standpoint, you would do well to remember the origins of this conflict which was the dispossession of their lands. To afford you some empathy, recall the oft-quoted comment by the founder of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, who told the Zionist leader, Nahum Goldmann:

"There has been anti-Semitism the Nazis Hitler Auschwitz but was that their [the Palestinians] fault? They only see one thing: We have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?"
Alfred North Whitehead once said: "Duty arises out of the power to alter the course of events." By that standard, you have shirked mightily your duty over the past eight years to bring peace to both Palestinians and Israelis and more security to a good part of the world.

The least you can do in your remaining days at the White House is adopt a modest profile in courage, and vigorously demand and secure a ceasefire and a solidly based truce. Then your successor, President-elect Obama can inherit something more than the usual self-censoring Washington puppet show that eschews a proper focus on the national interests of the United States.

Sincerely,
Ralph Nader

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Israel's Collective Punishment of Gaza

by Prof. Marjorie Cohn



Global Research, January 6, 2009



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Since Israel began its war on Gaza 11 days ago, more than 560 Palestinians – about a quarter of them civilians – have been killed. Some two thousand Gazans, including hundreds of children, have been wounded. Israel 's "Operation Cast Lead" marks an escalation of Israel 's two-year blockade of the Gaza Strip which has deprived 1.5 million Palestinians of necessary food, medicine, fuel and other necessities.

Israel is using white phosphorous gas, an illegal chemical weapon that burns to the bone. Dr. Mads Gilbert, a member of a Norwegian triage medical team working in Gaza , has documented Israel 's use of Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME), which cuts its victims to pieces and reportedly causes cancer in survivors. Gilbert, who has worked in several conflict zones, said the situation in Gaza is the worst he has ever seen. Two United Nations schools have been hit by airstrikes, killing at least 30 people. The New York Times reported on Monday that Gazan hospitals are full of civilians, not Hamas fighters.

The targeting of civilians violates the Fourth Geneva Convention. Since the rockets fired from Gaza into Israel cannot distinguish between civilians and military targets, they are illegal. But Israel's air and ground attack in Gaza violates Geneva in four ways. First, it constitutes collective punishment of the entire population in Gaza for the acts of a few militants. Second, it targets civilians, as evidenced by the large numbers of civilian casualties. Third, it is a disproportionate response to the rockets fired into Israel . Fourth, an occupying power has an obligation to ensure food and medical supplies to the occupied population; Israel 's blockade has created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza .

Israel's airstrikes and ground assault on the people of Gaza have little to do with the Gazan rockets, which hadn't killed any Israelis for a year before Israel 's current military operation. Israel 's leaders are bombing and attacking Gaza in order to gain an advantage in the upcoming Israeli elections in February.

Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni is locked in a tight race with Benyamin Netanyahu, who has criticized Livni for her "soft" treatment of the Palestinians. The Israeli government seeks to do as much damage as possible to Gaza while Bush is still in office. The New York Times cited several Middle East experts who "believe that Israel timed its move against Hamas, which began on Dec. 26, 25 days before Mr. Bush leaves office, with the expectation of such backing in Washington." Obama, in spite of his unequivocal support for the policies of Israel during the campaign and his deafening silence about the recent casualties, is an unknown quantity.

Israel would be unable to carry out its aggressive policies in Gaza without the support of the United States , which gives Israel $3 billion in U.S. taxpayer money each year. The F-16 bombers and Apache attack helicopters Israel is using on Gaza were bought with U.S. money.

The war on Gaza also violates U.S. law. The Human Rights and Security Assistance Act mandates that the United States cease all military aid to Israel , which has engaged in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights. The Arms Export Control Act prohibits U.S. weapons from being used for any purpose other than inside the borders of a country for self-defense. Targeting schools, police stations and television broadcast centers is not self-defense.

Although Israel 's supreme court ordered the government to allow international media into Gaza to report on the sit uation there, Israel has refused. But, according to the New York Times, Israel has given "full access to Israeli political and military commentators." Ethan Bronner, the Times bureau chief in Jerusalem , said, " Israel has never restricted media access like this before, and it should be ashamed . . . It's betraying the principles by which it claims to live."

In spite of the one-sided pro-Israel media coverage in the United States , Newsweek said, "Does it make sense for America to support [ Israel 's] policy of punishing Hamas by making life unbearable for 1.5 million Gazans by denying aid and economic development? The answer is no." An editorial in the Los Angeles Times called for "an end to a blockade that amounts to the collective punishment of Palestinians under Hamas rule." And the New York Times editorialized that "the longer the Israeli incursion. . . the more Hamas's popularity grows among its supporters."

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world are protesting Israel 's aggression in Gaza . Ten thousand demonstrated in Israel and scores have taken to the streets in Europe, the Middle East and throughout the United States .

A recent Rasmussen Reports poll found that Americans generally "are closely divided over whether the Jewish state should be taking military action against militants in the Gaza strip." But Democratic voters overwhelmingly oppose the Israeli offensive by a 24-point margin (31-55%). Republicans, on the other hand, overwhelmingly support it (62-27%). Nevertheless, Democratic Party leaders have followed Bush in their uncritical support for Israel .

The United States has blocked a ceasefire resolution in the Security Council. In the absence of council action, the General Assembly is empowered to act under the Uniting for Peace Resolution 377. Assembly president Miguel D'Escoto, who has been critical of Israel 's actions in Gaza said that "the time has come to take firm action if the UN does not want to be rightly accused of complicity by omission." The Human Rights Council should send a high level f act finding mission to Gaza .

It's time to call a halt to the violence and bloodshed.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and the president of the National Lawyers Guild. She is the author of " Cowboy Republic : Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law." Her articles are archived at www.marjoriecohn.com.

Marjorie Cohn is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Marjorie Cohn


--------------

Avanza tu bandera agujereada
--

Richard Falk
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories
Posted January 2, 2009 | 11:00 AM (EST)
Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe
For eighteen months the entire 1.5 million people of Gaza experienced a punishing blockade imposed by Israel, and a variety of traumatizing challenges to the normalcy of daily life. A flicker of hope emerged some six months ago when an Egyptian arranged truce produced an effective ceasefire that cut Israeli casualties to zero despite the cross -border periodic firing of homemade rockets that fell harmlessly on nearby Israeli territory, and undoubtedly caused anxiety in the border town of Sderot. During the ceasefire the Hamas leadership in Gaza repeatedly offered to extend the truce, even proposing a ten-year period and claimed a receptivity to a political solution based on acceptance of Israel's 1967 borders. Israel ignored these diplomatic initiatives, and failed to carry out its side of the ceasefire agreement that involved some easing of the blockade that had20been restricting the entry to Gaza of food, medicine, and fuel to a trickle.


Israel also refused exit permits to students with foreign fellowship awards and to Gazan journalists and respected NGO representatives. At the same time, it made it increasingly difficult for journalists to enter, and I was myself expelled from Israel a couple of weeks ago when I tried to enter to carry out my UN job of monitoring respect for human rights in occupied Palestine, that is, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as Gaza. Clearly, prior to the current crisis, Israel used its authority to prevent credible observers from giving accurate and truthful accounts of the dire humanitarian situation that had been already documented as producing severe declines in the physical condition and mental health of the Gazan popu lation, especially noting malnutrition among children and the absence of treatment facilities for those suffering from a variety of diseases. The Israeli attacks were directed against a society already in grave condition after a blockade maintained during the prior 18 months.


As always in relation to the underlying conflict, some facts bearing on this latest crisis are murky and contested, although the American public in particular gets 99% of its information filtered through an exceedingly pro-Israeli media lens. Hamas is blamed for the breakdown of the truce by its supposed unwillingness to renew it, and by the alleged increased incidence of rocket attacks. But the reality is more clouded. There was no substantial rocket fire from Gaza during the ceasefire until Israel launched an attack last November 4th directed at what it claimed were Palestinian militants in Gaza, killing several Palestinians. It was at this point that rocket fire from Gaza intensified. Also, it was Hamas that on numerous public occasions called for extending the truce, with its calls never acknowledged, much less acted upon, by Israeli officialdom. Beyond this, attributing all the rockets to Hamas is not convincing either. A variety of independent militia groups operate in Gaza, some such as the Fatah-backed=2 0al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade are anti-Hamas, and may even be sending rockets to provoke or justify Israeli retaliation. It is well confirmed that when US-supported Fatah controlled Gaza's governing structure it was unable to stop rocket attacks despite a concerted effort to do so.



What this background suggests strongly is that Israel launched its devastating attacks, starting on December 27, not simply to stop the rockets or in retaliation, but also for a series of unacknowledged reasons. It was evident for several weeks prior to the Israeli attacks that the Israeli military and political leaders were preparing the public for large-scale military operations against the Hamas. The timing of the attacks seemed prompted by a series of considerations: most of all, the interest of political contenders, the Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in demonstrating their toughness prior to national elections scheduled for February, but now possibly postponed until military operations cease. Such Israeli shows of force have been a feature of past Israeli election campaigns, and on this occasion especially, the current government was being successfully challenged by Israel's notoriously militarist politician, Benjamin Netanyahu, for its supposed failures to uphold security. Reinforcing0Athese electoral motivations was the little concealed pressure from the Israeli military commanders to seize the opportunity in Gaza to erase the memories of their failure to destroy Hezbollah in the devastating Lebanon War of 2006 that both tarnished Israel's reputation as a military power and led to widespread international condemnation of Israel for the heavy bombardment of undefended Lebanese villages, disproportionate force, and extensive use of cluster bombs against heavily pop ulated areas.


Respected and conservative Israeli commentators go further. For instance, the prominent historian, Benny Morris writing in the New York Times a few days ago, relates the campaign in Gaza to a deeper set of forebodings in Israel that he compares to the dark mood of the public that preceded the 1967 War when Israelis felt deeply threatened by Arab mobilizations on their borders. Morris insists that despite Israeli prosperity of recent years, and relative security, several factors have led Israel to act boldly in Gaza: the perceived continuing refusal of the Arab world to accept the existence of Israel as an established reality; the inflammatory threats voiced by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad together with Iran's supposed push to acquire nuclear weapons, the fading memory of the Holocaust combined with growing sympathy in the West with the Palestinian plight, and the radicalization of political movements on20Israel's borders in the form of Hezbollah and Hamas. In effect, Morris argues that Israel is trying via the crushing of Hamas in Gaza to send a wider message to the region that it will stop at nothing to uphold its claims of sovereignty and security.
There are two conclusions that emerge: the people of Gaza are being severely victimized for reasons remote from the rockets and border security concerns, but seemingly to improve election prospects of current leaders now facing defeat, and to warn others in the region that Israel will use overwhelming force whenever its interests are at stake.

That such a human catastrophe can happen with minimal outside interference also shows the weakness of international law and the United Nations, as well as the geopolitical priorities of the important players. The passive support of the United States government for whatever Israel does is again the critical factor, as it was in 2006 when it launched its aggressive war against Lebanon. What is less evident is that the main Arab neighbors, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, with their extreme hostility toward Hamas that is viewed as backed by Iran, their main regional rival, were also willing to stand aside while Gaza was being so brutally attacked, with some Arab diplomats even blaming the attacks on Palestinian disunity or on the refusal of Hamas to accept the leadership of Mamoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority.


The people of Gaza are victims of geopolitics at its inhumane worst: producing what Israel itself calls a 'total war' against an essentially defenseless society that lacks any defensive military capability20whatsoever and is completely vulnerable to Israeli attacks mounted by F-16 bombers and Apache helicopters. What this also means is that the flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, as set forth in the Geneva Conventions, is quietly set aside while the carnage continues and the bodies pile up. It additionally means that the UN is once more revealed to be impotent when its main members deprive it of the political will to protect a people subject to unlawful uses of force on a large scale. Finally, this means that the public can shriek and march all over the world, but that the killing will go on as if nothing is happening. The picture being painted day by day in Gaza is one that begs for renewed commitment to international law and the authority of the UN Charter, starting here in the United States, especially with a new leadership that promised its citizens change, including a less militarist approach to diplomatic leadership.

www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-falk/understanding -the-gaza-ca_b_154777.html?view=print

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Venid a ver la sangre por las calles

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Red Cross demands Gaza access, cites 'shocking' discoveries

Red Cross: Workers found weak kids with dead mothers during trip into Gaza City

Team found wounded people, corpses, Red Cross says

Red Cross official: Israeli military didn't help the wounded

International Committee of the Red Cross demands access to Gaza

(CNN) -- The International Committee of the Red Cross called on Israel to allow it immediate access to Gaza, saying a trip into Gaza City revealed weak children laying with their dead mothers and other "shocking" scenes....

www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/07/gaza.red.cross/index.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------



Ashraf Amra, AP

A Palestinian medic carries the body of a girl who apparently died in the bombardment.

www.democracynow.org/

www.democracynow.org/2009/1/7/40_killed_in_israeli_strike_on

40+ Killed in Israeli Strike on Gaza School Sheltering Refugees


In the deadliest attack since Israel launched its assault on Gaza twelve days ago, up to forty-two Palestinians died on Tuesday after Israel fired mortars at a United Nations school that was sheltering Palestinians who had been forced to flee their homes. Fifty-five Palestinians were also wounded in the attack. Doctors said all of the victims were civilians, including many children. We speak with Christopher Gunness of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

[includes rush transcript]

www.democracynow.org/

www.democracynow.org/2009/1/7/40_killed_in_israeli_strike_on

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Oigan, pues, para que se enamoren de veras
-------------------------------------------------------

=========================================================================

www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/


New - January 5, 2009

"Riveting" Account of U.S. Presidents an d the Middle East Details Inconsistent Policies and influence of Foreign Leaders

New Patrick Tyler book narrates "A World of Trouble"; Documentary highlights posted on Archive Web site

New - January 7, 2009

"Body count mentalities": Colombia's "False Positives" Scandal, Declassified

Documents Describe History of Abuses by Colombian Army

www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/


----

Et à l'aurore, armés d'une ardente patience, nous entrerons aux splendides villes

-------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-marzook6-2009jan06,0,7077954.story

latimes.comOpinionHamas speaks
A Hamas official insists that a 'legacy of suffering' under Israel is what fuels Palestinian resistance.By Mousa Abu Marzook
January 6, 2009From Damascus -- While Americans may believe that thecurrent violence in Gaza began Dec. 27, in fact Palestinians have been dying from bombardments for many weeks. On Nov. 4, when the Israeli-Palestinian
truce was still in effect but global attention was turned to the U.S. elections, Israel launched a "preemptive" airstrike on Gaza, alleging intelligence about an imminent operation to capture Israeli soldiers;
more assaults took place throughout the month.The truce thus shattered, any incentive by Palestinian leaders to enforce the moratorium on rocket fire was gone. Any extension of the
agreement or improvement of its implementation at that point would have required Israel to engage Hamas, to agree to additional trust-building measures and negotiation with our movement -- a political impossibility
for Israel, with its own elections only weeks away.Not that the truce had been easy on Palestinians. In the six-month period preceding this week's bombardment, one Israeli was killed, while
dozens of Palestinians lost their lives to Israeli military and police actions, and numerous others died for want of medical care.The war on Gaza should not be mistaken for an Israeli triumph. Rather,
Israel's failure to make the truce work, and its inevitable resort to bloodshed, demonstrate again that it cannot permit a future built on Palestinian political self-determination. The truce failed because
Israel will not open Gaza's borders, because Israel would rather be a jailer than a neighbor, and because its intransigent leadership forestalls Palestinian destiny and will not make peace with history.
This week's war is not an attack on the Izzidin al-Qassam units -- our movement's military wing -- but is simply aggression targeting the people, infrastructure and economic life of Gaza, designed to sow terror
and loose anarchy; it aims to establish new "facts on the ground" -- that is, heaps of rubble with bodies trapped beneath -- in advance of the coming American administration.
Israel claims loudly that it had no other choice this week but to rain death on refugees in camps, killing dozens of women and children, while Defense Minister Ehud Barak (the once and would-be prime minister) --
his eye fixed on February elections -- employs mass murder as his party's latest vote-getting appeal, an electoral strategy fit to shame the most hardened Chicago political operative.
But, of course, options remained available. Israel might have relented months ago, for the sake of the truce, in its criminal determination to starve Gaza, cutting off much of its fuel and choking all commerce to a
trickle, blocking relief organizations from delivering food and medicine, and consigning Gaza's citizens to famine rations. Only the most cynical observer would call this grinding attrition "good faith"
adherence to the truce. Blockades, after all, are explicitly acts of war.Palestinians everywhere mark the closing of the Bush era with relief; nevertheless, skepticism runs high that any justice for our people might
come from a new president who remained ominously silent in the presence of the latest Israeli onslaught, and who has aligned himself so thoroughly with Israel's interests, so long in advance of taking power.
Barack Obama's helicopter ride two years ago above the Holy Land was not unusual in the annals of American parliamentarians junketed on "fact finding" trips by Israel's lobbyists; yet his fond remarks on what he
saw -- "houses and streets like ones you might find" in any American suburb -- were notable for their silence as to any troubling sights. Did he miss the security roads and checkpoints that riddle the West Bank, or
the construction of the wall, or the illegal settlements? Perhaps his helicopter flew too high.But now, amid Israel's latest attack on our people, as the death toll rises in the hundreds, with thousands wounded -- all victims of American
taxpayers' largesse -- Palestinians wonder how Obama will react to the escalating crisis. They demand of the next White House a new paradigm of respect and accountability, because when Palestinians see an F-16 with
the Star of David painted on its tail, they see America.Palestinians are understandably guarded about the coming administration, noting its appointments with trepidation. The soon-to-be secretary of
State is unforgettable for urging years ago U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's "undivided" capital, while the administration's chief of staff bears the stain of his father's service in the banned
terrorist Irgun paramilitary, a Zionist group responsible for numerous atrocities.Renewed calls today for our movement to "recognize the right of Israel to exist," in the face of murderous onslaught, ring as hollow as
Israel's continuing claims to be acting in "self-defense" as her jets bomb civilians. Without debating here the Zionist state's fictive, existential "right," which of the many Israels, precisely, would the
West have us recognize? Is it the Israel that militarily occupies land belonging to three of its neighbors, ignoring international law and scores of U.N. resolutions over decades? Is it the Israel that illegally
settles its citizens on other people's land, seizes water sources and uproots olive trees? Is it the Israel that in 60 years has never acknowledged the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their farms and
villages as the foundational act of its statehood and denies refugees their right to return?Through bitter experience, when we hear demands for "recognition" of Israel as a precondition to dialogue, what we hear is a call for
acquiescence in its crimes against us, validating the injustices that have been wrought in its name.Our spirit to fight on is the legacy of collective suffering: With tens of thousands dead or wounded by decades of the "peace process," you
cannot find a family in Palestine -- Muslim or Christian, Hamas, Fatah, PFLP or Islamic Jihad -- without a son or daughter killed, injured, jailed or tortured, or which does not count itself or its kin among the
millions of refugees living in U.N. camps.Hamas is not a handful of leaders. Israel may kill all of the current leadership in this round of violence, including me, and its organic,
social infrastructure will not go away. We are, simply put, a homegrown national liberation resistance movement, with millions of people who support our struggle for freedom and justice.
President-elect Obama spoke courageously in his campaign for a policy of open dialogue, absent preconditions, with those deemed inimical to U.S. interests, and we were listening. One former U.S. president -- a true
peacemaker -- has dared to visit with us and hear our side of this struggle, while offering us no shortage of criticism. It has been a refreshing exchange. Now is the time for the next U.S. president to do
the same.No American leader has ever visited a Palestinian refugee camp anywhere, much less in Gaza -- a startling fact, considering the central role America has played in our people's narrative. None has dared to look our
refugees in their faces and experience their suffering directly.In observance of the storied tradition of Arab hospitality to guests, and anticipating that day when an American president fulfills his
promise of change, we extend the invitation now, and we will put the kettle on.Mousa Abu Marzook is the deputy of the political bureau of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement.
Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Timeshttp://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-marzook6-2009jan06,0,7077954.story
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www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/us/05informant.html

nytimes.com

January 5, 2009

Activist Unmasks Himself as Federal Informant in G.O.P. Convention Case

By COLIN MOYNIHAN

When the scheduled federal trial begins this month for two Texas men w ho
were arrested during the Republican National Convention on charges of
making and possessing Molotov cocktails, one of the major witnesses
against them will be a community activist who acted as a government
informant.

Brandon Darby, an organizer from Austin, Tex., made the news public
himself, announcing in an open letter posted on Dec. 30 on
Indymedia.org that he had worked as an informant, most recently at last
year's Republican convention in St. Paul.

"The simple truth is that I have chosen to work with the Federal
Bureau of Investigation," wrote Mr. Darby, who gained prominence as a
member of Common Ground Relief, a group that helped victims of
Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

He added, "I strongly stand behind my choices in this matter."

Mr. Darby's revelations caused shock and indignation in the activist
community, with people in various groups and causes accusing him of
betrayal.

"The emerging truth about Darby's malicious involvement in our
communities is heart-breaking and utterly ground-shattering," said the
Austin Informant Working Group, a collection of activists from the city
who worked with Mr. Darby. "Through the history of our struggles for a
better world, infiltrators and informants have acted as tools for the
forces of misery in disrupting and derailing our movements."

Mr. Darby's letter answered lingering questions in the c ase of the two
Texas men, David McKay and Bradley Crowder, both also from Austin. They
are scheduled to go on trial in Minnesota on Jan. 26, and if
convicted on all counts, each faces a prison sentence of up to 30 years.

Neither the United States attorney's office in Minnesota nor the
F.B.I. would comment on Mr. Darby's announcement.

"As a matter of policy, we're not going to confirm or deny the
identity of anybody who gives us information confidentially," said E. K.
Wilson, an F.B.I. spokesman in Minnesota.

But in a telephone interview, Mr. Darby said that he had provided
i nformation leading to the arrest of Mr. Crowder and Mr. McKay, and that
he planned to testify at their trial.

Mr. Darby would not provide details about his undercover activities, but
said he had also worked as an informant in cases not involving the
convention. He defended his decision to work with the F.B.I. as "a good
moral way to use my time," saying he wanted to prevent violence during the
convention at the Xcel Energy Center.

Documents that activists said were given to defense lawyers by the
prosecution and printed on F.B.I. letterhead indicated that an
informant — now identified as Mr. Darby — carried out a thorough
surveillance operation that dated back to at least 18 months before the
Republican gathering. He first met Mr. Crowder and Mr. McKay in Aust in six
months before the convention.

Mr. Darby provided descriptions of meetings with the defendants and dozens
of other people in Austin, Minneapolis and St. Paul. He wore recording
devices at times, including a transmitter embedded in his belt during the
convention. He also went to Minnesota with Mr. Crowder four months before
the Republican gathering and gave detailed
narratives to law enforcement authorities of several meetings they had
with activists from New York, San Francisco, Montana and other places.

One of his last conversations with Mr. McKay ended in an alley in
Minneapolis, according to court documents, with Mr. Darby recording Mr.
McKay talking about plans to use Molotov cocktails.

The F.B.I. reports mentioned dozens of people, most of whom have not been
accused of any crime. In addition to listing biographical and physical
particulars, Mr. Darby frequently offered observations on the motives,
attitudes and states of mind of activists with whom he dealt.

"Part of what intrigues me is not only how he operates but what is the
role of the F.B.I. in how he operates," said Lisa Fithian, an
organizer who is named in the reports. "We don't know what we're
dealing with here."

Some former friends of Mr. Darby have denounced him as a provocateur and
said he might have enabled or encouraged Mr. Crowder and Mr. McKay to
break the law. Mr. Darb y denied that.

An F.B.I. agent swore in an affidavit that at one point Mr. McKay
acknowledged that he intended to use firebombs. Such devices were
never used, and both defendants have pleaded not guilty.

"The claim that the case is solely based on the testimony of
informants is simply a wanton and willful untruth," Mr. Darby said in the
interview. "It omits the physical evidence, the confession and possibly
the testimony of many others."

In 2005, Mr. Darby went to New Orl eans after Hurricane Katrina struck,
joining Common Ground Relief as it provided medical attention and
helped repair homes. He became a visible member of the group,
sometimes acting as a spokesman and appearing on "The Tavis Smiley Show"
on PBS.

When The St. Paul Pioneer Press published an article in October that cited
an unidentified source who named Mr. Darby as an informant in the c ase
against Mr. Crowder and Mr. McKay, a co-founder of Common Ground, Scott
Crow, defended Mr. Darby publicly and warned against "rumors, conjecture
and innuendo."

"I put it all on the line to defend him when accusations first came out,"
Mr. Crow said. "Brandon Darby is somebody I had entrusted with my life in
New Orleans, and now I feel endangered by him."

Mr. Darby acknowledged that many people he spied on might not accept his
explanation that he was motivated by conscience.
"I am well aware," he said, "that I've stepped outside of accepted
behaviors and that I've committed a sin in the eyes of many activists."

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

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--

Explico Algunas Cosas
-------------------

(1) The Gaza Ghetto Uprising
electronicintifada.net/v2/article10110.shtml
Opinion/Editorial
by Joseph Massad, The Electronic Intifada, 4 January 2009

(2) Obama's deadly silence by Ali Abunimah,
The Electronic Intifada, 2 January 2009
electronicintifada.net/v2/article10097.shtml
(3) The Politics of An Israeli Extermination Campaign: Backers, Apologists and Arms Suppliers
By James Petras www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21613.htm
www.dissidentvoice.org/2009/01/the-politics-of-an-israeli-extermination-campaign-backers-apologists-and-arms-suppliers/

(4) Invasion a Monstrosity, Says UN Leader
www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/04-0

(5) An Open Letter to President Bush: America Must Stop Shirking Its Responsibility on Gaza

By RALPH NADERhttp://www.counterpunch.org/nader01022009.html

(6) www.alternet.org/audits/116855/america%27s_hidden_role_in_hamas%27s_rise_to_power/ ;

America's Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to PowerBy Stephen Zunes, AlterNet
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php