Gaza in Plain Language

Source: Dissident Voice
By: Joe Mowrey / January 19th, 2010
http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/01/gaza-in-plain-language/

In articles acknowledging the one year anniversary of the assault on Gaza, blunt and unsparing language about what really happened is often avoided. Despite sympathy for and support of the Palestinian people in their struggle against dispossession and oppression, the description of what took place in January 2009 is sometimes buffered by a misguided sense of political correctness. Yes, it’s terrible. Yes, it is unjust. But we don’t want to be inflammatory or risk offending the sensitivities of those who through their own willful ignorance cling to the notion that Israel is a victim state, fighting for its very survival. The argument is that we should reach out to them and attempt to educate them and win them over.

I’ll be more forthright in this commentary.

The sociopathic Zionist administration of Israel, as part of its continuing brutal colonization of Palestine, set out to deliberately devastate the already nearly-incapacitated infrastructure which supports the existence of one and a half million human refugees. The people of Gaza, second-, third-, and fourth-generation dispossessed Palestinians, are living in forced exile from land their families inhabited and cultivated for generations. Half of them are children under the age of fifteen. Their culture and their economy has been systematically ravaged by Israel for decades and since 2006 a criminal siege supported by the United States, as well as much of the international community, has deprived them of all but the most minimal resources for subsistence. This oppressed and brutalized population was then bombed, bulldozed and terrorized mercilessly for twenty-three days.

Below is a small sampling of facts concerning what the fourth largest military in the world did to a captive and defenseless population. The source materials used to substantiate these statistics are available on request. If the reality presented here goes beyond the stretch of your imagination, you can verify the data yourself. Though you’d better hurry. Much of this information appears to be disappearing down Google’s memory hole, just as is the fate of the people of Gaza. A source referencing the percentage of agricultural land destroyed in the onslaught which was used for a shorter version of this article just a few weeks ago is no longer archived in Google’s cache. Surprise, surprise.

You will also find that exact figures vary somewhat depending on the source. But whether it was 21,000 structures or 22,000 structures destroyed, whether 280 schools were destroyed or badly damaged verses 230, the overwhelming truth of the physical devastation which took place in Gaza and the fact that this destruction was deliberate and premeditated is irrefutable. Even the Goldstone Report, itself a document with severe pro-Zionist overtones issued by a declared Zionist and a supporter of Israel, states unequivocally, “…[the] deliberate actions of the Israeli forces and the declared policies of the Government of Israel … cumulatively indicate the intention to inflict collective punishment on the people of the Gaza Strip in violation of international humanitarian law.”

We’ve heard time and again that more than 1400 Palestinians were killed, over 80% of them civilians, including 342 children. It has become a familiar talking point in discussions of last year’s assault, so much so that it may have lost its impact on our consciousness. But what we often aren’t reminded of is the horrific level of carefully-planned destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza orchestrated by Israel during Operation Cast Lead.

Financed and armed by the United States, the Israeli military destroyed fifteen percent of the structures in Gaza, approximately 22,000 buildings, including 5300 housing units destroyed or subject to major damage. Another 52,000 homes received some form of structural damage. Over 200 factories and 700 stores and businesses were destroyed or badly damaged. Of the residences, factories and businesses completely destroyed, 1300 of the homes and approximately 25% of the commercial property was deliberately and painstakingly bulldozed or exploded by Israeli ground forces. Eight hospitals and 26 primary health care clinics were damaged or destroyed. More than 280 schools were damaged or destroyed.

Water and sewage treatment facilities as well as electricity infrastructure were deliberately targeted leaving vast segments of the population with little or no power or clean water for the duration of the assault and for weeks and months to follow. Massive amounts of agricultural lands were systematically bombed or bulldozed. Some estimates suggest that as much as 80% of the arable land in Gaza has been ruined or declared off-limits to the people of Gaza over the last decade. Two million litres of wastewater at Gaza City’s sewage treatment plant, bombed during the assault, leaked into surrounding agricultural land making it unusable.

An Israeli television station boasted that Israeli war planes alone, without accounting for tank, ground troop and warship ammunition, dropped approximately one thousand tons of bombs on Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. The effort involved months, if not years, of carefully-considered target selection, giving lie to any claim that the devastation was incidental. It requires a stunning level of denial and self-delusion to pretend the destruction which was achieved in Gaza had anything to do with Israel’s “security” or the targeting of Hamas militants. This was savage and barbaric collective punishment unleashed on a civilian population, nothing more. Any suggestion to the contrary must be sharply and immediately ridiculed as absurd.

This was arguably the first aerial bombing campaign ever conducted on a defenseless civilian population held captive within a fenced enclosure and not allowed to escape the assault. It is a measure of the cynical mindset of the Israeli military that leaflets were sometimes dropped in neighborhoods about to be bombed suggesting the residents flee. We are about to destroy your home; you had better get out. Flee to where? Gazans are not allowed to leave their open-air prison, not even when under attack. This tactic on the part of Israel also gives lie to the claim that homes and buildings were targeted because there were Hamas militants “hiding” inside. Why then warn them to leave before destroying the structures?

Given this litany of horror and the coldly premeditated nature of its execution, we need to ask what kind of society condones this level of savagery on the part of their government? What precedent is there for such monstrous disregard for even the most basic tenets of human decency? We need look no further than the behavior of our very own United States, of course. In Iraq, the toll of our psychotic militarism is well over a million human beings (not counting the years of punishing economic sanctions) and a large part of the infrastructure of an entire nation of more than 26 million people has been obliterated. Let’s not even begin to tally up the deaths resulting from U.S. imperialism around the globe in the last sixty years alone. It would put the Zionists to shame–mere pikers in the annals of human slaughter.

And what of Gaza today, one year later? Israel’s continued illegal siege, enabled by the U.S., Egypt (a U.S. client state) and the international community has prevented any substantial amount of building materials from entering Gaza. Essentially, no reconstruction has been possible. The people of Gaza live amongst the rubble left to them by Israeli hatred and aggression. They are attempting to rebuild their society using mud bricks and materials salvaged from the wreckage.

The next time someone attempts to argue, “Israel has a right to defend itself,” or uses what I call the abusive spouse defense, ”Look what you made me do,” tell them, “No.” Tell them there is no and can never be any acceptable justification for the deliberate devastation of entire societies, no matter what political, ideological or “security” issues, real or imagined, may be at stake. It is unconscionable. It is wrong. Plainly put, there is no sane argument in favor of such behavior. Those who believe there is must be contradicted and opposed at every available opportunity.

Gaza in Plain Language



Video Source: Anthony Lawson

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Joe Mowrey is an anti-war activist and an advocate for Palestinian rights who lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He can be reached at: jmowrey@ix.netcom.com

Students arrested in LA for heckling Israeli envoy

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=118327§ionid=3510203


At least eleven students have been arrested over their interruption of a lecture by the Israeli ambassador to the US at the University of California, Irvine.

Michael Oren was invited to the university by the Jewish Federation of Orange County to speak about Israeli views on the status of the Middle East and Tel Aviv's relationship with Washington.

However as the ambassador was addressing the crowded auditorium, he was interrupted for at least ten times by anti-Israeli students.

"Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech," the first of the ten students yelled before being led away by university police.

The remainder of Oren's speech was drowned by similar remarks, with some students shouting "killer" and "how many Palestinians did you kill?"

By the end of the night, 11 students were arrested and cited for disturbing a public event.

They could face misdemeanor charges as well as university disciplinary hearings that could result in suspensions or dismissals, Cathy Lawhon, Media Relations Director at the UC-Irvine campus said.

The University's Muslim Union was not available for contact but it did issue a statement prior to the event, saying that it strongly opposed and condemned the ambassador's visit, a Press TV correspondent reported from Los Angeles.

"Israel continues its human rights violations, thereby breaking international law and law of Israeli accord," the group had said.

It also added that Israel has committed war crimes against the Gaza Strip and is responsible for the massacre of thousands of Palestinians.

US lawmakers press Obama on Gaza siege

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117153§ionid=351020202


A number of US congressmen have written to President Barack Obama, urging him to pressure Israel to ease the blockade of the Gaza Strip over humanitarian concerns.

"We ask you to press for immediate relief for the citizens of Gaza as an urgent component of your broader Middle East peace efforts," said a letter signed by 54 lawmakers.

The impoverished coastal sliver has been under an Israeli blockade since June 2007. The siege has hampered the ability of relief agencies to distribute much needed aid amongst some 1.5 million people.

The congressmen sympathized with Israel over what they described as threats from Palestinian activists in Gaza but said the blockade has resulted in "the de facto collective punishment of the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip."

The letter written by Democrat Representatives Jim McDermott from Washington and Keith Ellison from Minnesota was also signed by several leftist organizations, including Americans for Peace Now and J Street.

They called for facilitation of movement into and out of Gaza, while urging Israel to allow the import of building materials for the reconstruction of homes and infrastructure devastated during Israel's January 2008 offensive, which killed far more than 1,400 Palestinians.

The letter prompted a response by the Israeli Embassy in Washington. It said the blockade would stand "as long as Hamas continues to attack Israel with missiles and other means."

"Israel will not allow a neighbor that calls for its destruction to enjoy the benefits of an open border," it stressed.

Tel Aviv is irked by missiles and rockets fired into southern Israel from Gaza. The projectiles normally land in deserted areas and hardly cause any casualties or damage to properties.

The missiles are, Palestinians say, a response to Israeli air-strikes, murder and abduction of Gazans, and the ongoing siege of the coastal strip.

Rwanda's genocide leader 'lives freely in France'

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116928§ionid=351020603


A Rwandan rebel leader belonging to Armed Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and accused of genocide is reportedly living as a free man in a suburb of Paris.

Callixte Mbarushimana, executive secretary of the FDLR rebel group, coordinates the rebels' daily activities in Rwanda and its neighboring countries, AP reported Saturday.

Based on the report, the 46-year-old former UN employee is able to regularly send out press releases from his apartment in the French capital.

FDLR is one of several groups accused of creating instability in the African nation as many of its members are accused of taking part in Rwanda's genocide.

The Genocide was the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda's Tutsis and Hutu political moderates by the Hutu dominated government.

An estimated 800,000 people were massacred in the genocide.

French Foreign Ministry has refused to extradite Mbarushimana to Rwanda whose men are accused of killing at least 700 civilians last year.

"France does not extradite the citizens of countries which apply the death penalty, as was the case in Rwanda, or whose justice systems do not fully guarantee their rights," French Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bernard Valero said.

Relations between two countries have reached a new low as Rwanda's government accuses France of playing an active role in the 1994 genocide.

The FDLR group is also accused of decapitating several hundred people a few months ago in the village of Busurungi in DR Congo.

The war, centered mainly in eastern DR Congo, has involved nine African nations and directly affected the lives of 50 million Congolese.

An estimated 5 million people died in Congo from disease and hunger as a result of the civil war which raged from 1998 to 2003.

Their First Goal is to Stop Gaza War Crimes Revelations

By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth

5 August 2009

In a bid to staunch the flow of damaging evidence of war crimes committed during Israel’s winter assault on Gaza, the Israeli government has launched a campaign to clamp down on human rights groups, both in Israel and abroad.

It has begun by targeting one of the world’s leading rights organizations, the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), as well as a local group of dissident army veterans, Breaking the Silence, which last month published the testimonies of 26 combat soldiers who served in Gaza.

Additionally, according to the Israeli media, the government is planning a “much more aggressive stance” towards human rights groups working to help the Palestinians.

Officials have questioned the sources of funding received by the organizations and threatened legislation to ban support from foreign governments, particularly in Europe.

Breaking the Silence and other Israeli activists have responded by accusing the government of a “witch hunt” designed to intimidate them and starve them of the funds needed to pursue their investigations.

“This is a very dangerous step,” said Mikhael Mannekin, one of the directors of Breaking the Silence. “Israel is moving in a very anti-democratic direction.”

The campaign is reported to be the brainchild of the far-right foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, currently facing corruption charges, but has the backing of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Early last month, Mr Lieberman used a press conference to accuse non-government organizations, or NGOs, of replacing diplomats in setting the international community’s agenda in relation to Israel. He also threatened reforms to curb the groups’ influence.

A week later, Mr Netanyahu’s office weighed in against Human Rights Watch, heavily criticizing the organization for its recent fund-raising activities in Saudi Arabia.

HRW has pointed out that it only accepts private donations, and has not accepted Saudi government funds, but Israeli officials say all Saudi money is tainted and will compromise HRW’s impartiality as a human rights watchdog in its treatment of Israel.

“A human rights organization raising money in Saudi Arabia is like a women’s rights group asking the Taliban for a donation,” Mark Regev, a government spokesman, told the right-wing Israeli daily newspaper the Jerusalem Post.

HRW recently published reports arguing that the Israeli army had committed war crimes in Gaza, including the use of white phosphorus and attacking civilian targets.

HRW is now facing concerted pressure from Jewish lobby groups and from leading Jewish journalists in the US to sever its ties with Saudi donors. According to the Israeli media, some Jewish donors in the US have also specified that their money be used for human rights investigations that do not include Israel.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Foreign Ministry is putting pressure on European governments to stop funding many of Israel’s human rights groups. As a prelude to a clampdown, it has issued instructions to all its embassies abroad to question their host governments about whether they fund such activities.

Last week the Foreign Ministry complained to British, Dutch and Spanish diplomats about their support for Breaking the Silence.

The testimonies collected from soldiers suggested the Israeli army had committed many war crimes in Gaza, including using Palestinians as human shields and firing white phosphorus shells over civilian areas. One soldier called the army’s use of firepower “insane”.

The Dutch government paid nearly 20,000 euros to the group to compile its Gaza report, while Britain funded its work last year to the tune of 40,000 GBP.

Israeli officials are reported to be discussing ways either to make it illegal for foreign governments to fund “political” organizations in Israel or to force such groups to declare themselves as “agents of a foreign government”.

“Just as it would be unacceptable for European governments to support anti-war NGOs in the US, it is unacceptable for the Europeans to support local NGOs opposed to the policies of Israel’s democratically elected government,” said Ron Dermer, a senior official in Mr Netanyahu’s office.

He added that many of the groups were “working to delegitimize the Jewish state”.

Jeff Halper, the head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, said the government’s position was opposed to decades-old developments in human rights monitoring.
Every dictator, from Hitler to Milosevic, has said that there must be no interference in their sovereign affairs, and that everyone else should butt out. But international law says human rights are universal and cannot be left to individual governments to interpret. The idea behind the Geneva Conventions is that the international community has a duty to be the watchdog on human rights abuses wherever they occur.
Mr Halper, whose organization last year received 80,000 euros from Spain to rebuild demolished Palestinian homes, was arrested last year for sailing to Gaza with peace activists to break the siege of Gaza.

Other groups reported to be in the Foreign Ministry’s sights are: B’Tselem, whose activities include providing Palestinians with cameras to record abuses by settlers and the army; Peace Now, which monitors settlement building; Machsom Watch, whose activists observe soldiers at the checkpoints; and Physicians for Human Rights, which has recently examined doctors’ complicity in torture.

The government’s new approach mirrors a long-running campaign against left wing and Arab human rights groups inside Israel conducted by NGO Monitor, a right-wing lobby group led by Gerald Steinberg, a professor at Bar Ilan University, near Tel Aviv.

NGO Monitor has also targeted international organizations such as Oxfam and Amnesty International, but has shown a particular obsession with HRW. Mr Steinberg recently boasted that HRW’s trip to Saudi Arabia in May reflected the loss of major Jewish sponsors in the US following the publication of its Gaza reports.

In an article in the Jerusalem Post on Sunday [1 August], Mr Steinberg claimed that European governments treated their funding of Israeli human rights organizations “as ‘top secret’, reflecting the realization that such activities lack legitimacy”.

Mr Mannekin said the Breaking the Silence report listed donors on the first page. “We are far more transparent than NGO Monitor. We don’t know who funds them.”

NGO Monitor, which according to its website is chiefly funded by the shadowy Wechsler Family Foundation in the US, is closely linked to Dore Gold, a hawkish former adviser to Ariel Sharon.

Mr Mannekin added: “The government cannot suppress information about what happened in Gaza by shutting us down. You can’t send 10,000 soldiers into battle and not expect that some of the details will come out. If it’s not us doing it, it’ll be someone else.”

The government’s current campaign follows a police raid on the homes of six Israeli women peace activists in April.

The women, all members of New Profile, a feminist organization that opposes the militarization of Israeli society, were arrested and accused of helping Israeli youngsters to evade the draft. The women are still waiting to learn whether they will be prosecuted.
-----------------------
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilizations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

A version of this article originally appeared in The National, published in Abu Dhabi.

War Crimes,Terrorism & Propaganda

By: Stewart Brennan

War Crimes, Terrorism and Propaganda

After the Second World War ended in 1945, Nuremberg Germany was the focus of the first War Crimes Trial in recorded history. Nazi Germany was on trial for the crimes committed in the name of fascism most notably the aggressive invasion of other countries and the resulting deaths of tens of millions of people. The consensus among nations and result of this trial was to make future war a crime.

Chief Justice Robert Jackson, the American Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, was the laws champion. The law simply put, states that war of aggression is considered a War Crime and a Crime against humanity. High standing morals became International Law and all nations were, bound by it.

What is Terrorism?

When people resist their military occupation they are referred to as terrorists by their occupiers. A good example of this is in the 1900's when Irish Nationals were declared terrorists by England because they did not play by the military game book and instead chose to greet their brutal occupiers by with covert force.

During the Second World War, the occupying Germans called members of the French Resistance terrorists, and today, the Iraqi resistance to their U.S. occupation is no different than the French resistance fighting occupying Nazi's in World War 2. I think under the circumstances, everyone would defend their home against an occupying army, wouldn't you? At any rate, War boils down to one thing, “Economic Greed”.

Propaganda and the News Media / Medium:

An early example of 20th century propaganda was 1930's German Radio when it filled the homes of listeners who were bombarded with nationalistic propaganda to promote the wishes of the dictatorship.

Today, there is no difference when we look at the USA. There is an all out Propaganda Blitz on their citizens by corporate owned media. In fact the same corporations also inform their workers on who to vote for in regards to their corporate interests. I know this from experience because I saw it in the newsletters I received from my American employers here in Canada.

There is no doubt in my mind that corporations are tied into the political structure and news mediums, whatever big business wants, big business gets and those interests are conveyed at political fundraising events and over the broadcast airwaves.

Proof of the propaganda and lies that the U.S. News Media and Politicians are telling their own people can be seen by the overwhelming approval of the Iraq War in 2003 by the American people. Even though the evidence was fabricated and proven to be a fabricated, the government went to war anyways. US citizens were hyped up into a war frenzy by their television while the broadcast news ignored the truth and withheld it from public.

Now in 2007, after hundreds of thousands of lost lives, support for the War in Iraq is fading. Why?...because the Whitehouse got caught lying to the American people about weapons of mass destruction and that they were being questioned on who was really responsible for terrorist attacks in 2001.

Why are the Americans in Iraq? I believe that this might have something to do with oil, and that the military dominance the USA enjoys over the World depends on Oil. (Personal opinion)

Propaganda in the USA today is mostly delivered by the television, but it is replicated in all forms of mainstream news. The Television Station owners are funded by huge corporations through commercials that turn into profits for shareholders. The same owners are not interested in reporting the truth or the facts anymore because it just isn’t as profitable as a War. Bribery comes in the guise of billions of advertising dollars...

Who makes the bombs, guns, bullets, aircraft, tanks, etc. for the American government? Who sponsors billions of dollars to News programming? What do corporations require to keep going? How many oil companies does it take to screw the world? How many companies or Corporate C.E.O.’s are in collusion with the US government? Or should I ask, how many U.S. Government officials are in collusion with big business interests?

6 Corporations That Control Your Perception | Think Tank

Source: Breaking the Set 

(Video Added to post in June 2013)

Conclusion:

The Laws that were created in Nuremberg at the end of World War two should be applied to every country, with no exception, because countries who prescribe to war through propaganda and aggression are no better than the fascists of Nazi Germany. There is plenty of room on the planet for everyone. Global solutions should not be dictated by propaganda or by hostile or aggressive acts of War, but negotiated. Justice should no longer be sided with who shouts loudest, but by just laws created for all of mankind. Why should the World excuse the USA for invading Iraq in 2003 or even Israel for invading Lebanon in 2006. The U.S.A. and Israel are not above these laws. Civilization demands A War Crimes Trial for American and Israeli aggression. The laws were created for all nations; therefore, the United States must abide by international law regardless of its position or stature within the U.N.

The World Community needs to progress together in harmony and respect for one another if we are to survive. Civilization demands it. Otherwise, the United Nations will be doomed to fail and mankind will travel a very dark road in the not too distant future.

Regards,
Stewart Brennan