Massacre in Gaza: Israeli strikes kill more than 200

Funny, this was not the main focus on CBC news. Nope. The main focus was on how kind Israel was being in allowing food and water to be sent to Gaza. The press only mentioned rockets being launched at Israel.

It should have been the main focus.

It is a terrible situation. I am not sure what is to be done,

This analysis is very interesting.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050155.html

That was a horribly biased and slanted article.

Israel = Good Hammas = Bad

I'm listening to Radio-Canada and the coverage is very factual - not Israel-apologetic at all.

What of a hell of a time of year to have to mobilise against this atrocity. I'll be in touch with the Palestine solidarity people here.

One of Israel's worst political crimes is to have sidelined and crushed the left and progressive forces among Palestinians which were active, even dominant, in the 60s and 70s, and directed Palestinians into the Islamic dead ends of Hamas, Jihad and the like - capturing a soldier here and there, shooting some rockets, and presiding over Israel's genocidal destruction of the Palestinian people, their dreams and aspirations. That's when Hamas and Fatah are not waging their murderous internecine battles.

Yes, the world must continue to denounce and isolate the Israeli war criminals. But sooner or later, a leadership must arise in that region to unite all inhabitants, regardless of religion or ethnicity, in common struggle to expel all foreign influence and live together in peace.

As you can probably tell by the fog on the screen, I'm not holding my breath.

According to AP:

"With 200 mortars and rockets raining down on Israel since the truce expired a week ago, and 3,000 since the beginning of the year, pressure had been mounting in Israel for the military to crush militants."

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/558600

It is as though Hamas was trying to provoke a confrontation. This is terrible.

Through occupation and the subsequent land, sea and air blockade, military repression has been the main instrument through which Israel provokes its enemies, by suffocating the Palestinian people, young and old alike.  Israel maintains the status quo through violence because it purposefully avoids peace, because real peace requires significant concessions and a return of gains acquired through aggression.  Something they are incapable of doing because of internal political considerations.  The oppressed are left with no choice but to struggle against overwhelming odds.

"Funny, this was not the main focus on CBC news. Nope. The main focus was on how kind Israel was being in allowing food and water to be sent to Gaza. The press only mentioned rockets being launched at Israel."

The front page article on CBC.ca/news is now the reporting on the attack by Israel. As Lagatta says of RC's coverage, it's pretty factual and middle of the road. 

That is pretty simplistic.

 One of the fundamental aspects missing from this analysis is the fact that the left allowed itself to be corrupted, and worse, it also failed partly because it too, more often than not, was not free of associations with imperial designs of the Soviet Union. The left, where it has achieved government in the Arab world has also used brutal means of oppression, in the name of leftist principles. On the brighter side of the spectrum of Arab socialists one can say that Nasser had substantive political legitimacy, but then we have Assad in Syria, and worse Hussien in Iraq.

The track record of "the left" in the Arab world is hardly very progressive, and not very inspiring. Blaming the failure of the left on western agression, and Israeli Malfeasance is a cop-out.

Cueball:  Saddam Hussein was only as "left" as Stalin.  A journalist who visited Hussein saw the complete works of Stalin in Hussein was surprised and asked the Iraqi president "You're not really a communist, are you?" to which Hussein reportedly answered "Neither was Stalin".  (Lost the source, but it was a British or a US journalist.)  I'd leave him off the list.

It's easy to blame corruption of the left parties for their own demise.  It's a little more complicated than that, of course.  Israel favoured Hamas in the beginning to divide Palestinians and weaken the PLO.  They also worked  systematically to destroy the PFLP  and other left groups, with the tacit or even active cooperation of monarchical Arab states (Jordan, Saudi Arabia...) who feared the rise of a socialist secular state in the region.  ("The enemy of my enemy is my friend" - we've seen it many times in history.)

Israel is an unholy mess, its economy tied in and beholden to  militarism and arms production (as one of the top developers and exporters of military systems).  The extremists will play the Palestinian threat as a card with which to distract the people from the real domestic issues.  

Cueball, you are blackening the Left in the Arab world with a pretty broad brush there. There is truth in all you say, but there are leftists in the Arab world who have not fallen victims to corruption, and nowadays the Soviet influence is a memory.

I know progressives in the territories; suppose that historically at least they were associated with PFLP. Not perfect by any means, but not the extreme corruption - and now, collaboration, to be found in Fateh or the extreme social reaction of religious fundie Hamas. Sure, they are in solidarity with Hamas against Israeli aggression, but are none the less critical of its agenda against women and against personal freedoms.

Israel DID do a lot to destroy the Left in Palestine, thinking that it would be better to deal with religious parties.

This makes the combat of Palestinian progressives - and in particular of Palestinian feminists - all the more arduous. The real burial shrouds of families destroyed by Israeli shelling are far worse than the symbolic shrouds women are forced to don, but that does not excuse the symbolic shroud.

correction - above comment

"saw the complete works of Stalin in Hussein's study"  (accidentally erased - sorry)

"I'm listening to Radio-Canada and the coverage is very factual - not Israel-apologetic at all"(Lagatta)

Whaaaat?!!!

I just listened to the radio news on Première chaîne and it featured, as usual, Sionist mouthpiece Danielle Kriegel mouthing the official line from Jerusalem - including the announcement of more Israeli strikes!!!!!!!!! -  with analysis limited to the predictable speculation by unnamed Israeli sources about "fear of reprisals".

ETA: Last sentence of the 1 p.m. broadcast: "President Ehud Barak warned that reprisals would continue and intensify as long as it would be necessary." (my translation)

If you really believe that this perspective is factual, lagatta and Le T, I suggest you record one of her reports and transcribe it by hand, including her white-washing word choices, e.g. describing exchanges of gunfire "between soldiers and Palestinians". Kriegel is an Israeli government flunky who probably would have described the Sabra and Chatila massacre as agitation in Palestinian strongholds! The fact that Radio-Canada seems unwilling to give voice to a more objective journalist about the war on Palestine is a bloody shame and probably a direct reflection of Canadian and Israeli govt censorship.

For a more realistic perpsective, check out Al-Jazeera's treatment of this horrible renewed assault by a terrorist State, surfing on Canada's uncritical support.

Or don't you trust Arabs?

Bradley Burston / The worst anti-Israel charges you'll hear in wartime








By Bradley Burston, Haaretz Correspondent



 



 






It
is, abruptly and again, wartime. Across the globe, the selective
pacifists of the left and the recliner Rambos of the right are spoiling
for their next battle, the war in Gaza.



They will fight one another in letters to Congress, in cable news
sound bites, in raucous talk-radio phone-ins, in the virtual
mega-heroics of the online battlefield of the talkback.



They will fight one another in the United Nations as well, unashamedly one-sided in their concern for human life.






 
 


 

Herewith
the first in a two-part guide to the 10 most gratuitous, least
productive, most resolutely ingenuous claims likely to be hurled in an
effort to attack Israel.



The first five are arguments of the anti-Israel left, claims which are, curiously, as tired as they are unflagging.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050421.html [16]

Martin, it wasn't Danielle Kriegel, who is indeed as you say; it was just a file story. You were listening to a later version of the news. Calm down; I'm not one to swallow the Israeli government lie or "distrust Arabs".

Don't you follow babblers' posting histories? I took part in the PAJU vigils for many years, and was involved in Palestine solidarity decades before that.

Sometimes you just seem pissed-off at everybody.

And sometimes what I hear doesn't correspond to what people say about it. The file story you heard may have seemed balanced compared to CBC coverage, but Radio-Canada Nouvelles is not and has never been to my knowledge anything less than systematically pro-Israel in that conflict. Their continuing relationship with Kriegel as their local correspondent should demonstrate as much.

Palestine Remembered -

http://www.palestineremembered.com/index.html

in order to create Israel, 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed and their occupants killed or forced to find new housing. Yet the Western media - including, unfortunately, Canada's - commemorates Israel's "60th anniversary" and talks about their "war of independence" without saying a word about the other half of the story - what the Palestinians call Al Nakba.

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

http://LASIK-Flap.com [20] ~ Health Warning about LASIK Eye Surgery

What is being set up in solidarity with the victims?

There are over 400 wounded (which our whitewashing msm always refers to as "injured" as if the wounds were accidental) in need.  

That might be more constructive, and our arguments start to seem rather petty, frankly 

Emergency demo in Montréal:

Demonstration to commemorate Palestinian victims of Israeli massacre in Gaza

------------------------------
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 28th, 13h00
Norman Bethune Square
corner: Guy & de Maisonneuve
(metro Guy-Concordia)
------------------------------

In response to the latest massacre of Palestinians executed by the Israeli apartheid regime.

At least 200 Palestinians have been killed in the latest Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, while the threat for further bloodshed still hands heavily over the skies in Palestine as the current Israeli assault over Gaza continues.

This is the single largest massacre in Gaza since Israel illegally occupied Gaza in 1967, many among the dead are civilians and the numbers keeps mounting.

Israel's military operation "Cast Lead" has echoes of previous Israeli raids into Gaza that have been characterized by indiscriminate attacks on civilian population centers, mass detentions, violent house demolitions and other forms of collective punishment against the Palestinian people.

Additionally this demonstration will address the Canadian government's total support towards Israel, best exemplified increased bilateral military, political and economic links.

Israel's latest massacre in Gaza occurs with official Canadian complicity towards Israel's illegal siege and ongoing sanctions over the civilian population in Gaza. Over the past two years the Gaza Strip has been undergoing the daily violence of a wide-ranging humanitarian catastrophe triggered by severely reduced access to energy, food, and medicines. In effect, Gaza is the world's largest open air prison.

At this moment, we can only reaffirm our commitment in the strongest possible terms to continue mobilizing friends and allies in other progressive social movements to respond to the call by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations for a comprehensive campaign of boycott, sanctions and divestment (BDS).

As H.E. Father Miguel D'Escoto Brockman, President of the United Nations General Assembly state in a recent speech: "More than twenty years ago we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we agreed that sanctions were required to provide a nonviolent means of pressuring South Africa to end its violations. Today, perhaps we in the United Nations should consider following the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations."

Join us on the streets tomorrow as people of conscience to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza and an end to Israeli apartheid.

Organized by:
Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) and Tadamon! Montreal

I got it from someone in Palestinians and Jews United (Paju) so assume they are attending as well.

Operation Disproportionate Response XXXIII

The fact is that the main line of left wing political organizations among Arabs were for many generations associated with Stalin and his heirs, as was the case throughout the world, both out of conviction, and for the sake of political expedience. These are facts. Trying to reshuffle the historical deck because its a convenient way of not taking a position supportive of the non-leftist Arab resistance to the Israeli occupation (of which Hamas is most definitely a legitimate representative), and not engaging in a fulsome critique of the "left" legacy in the Arab world is only to make ones position irrelevant to the actual process as it unfolds.

Sure, I would prefer that it was the PFLP that was calling the shots in the Gaza Strip. But that is not the way it is, and so, in the balance, and in context, one necessarily has to take a firm position supporting the legitimate resistance to the Israeli occupation, and clearly there is no other effective organization defending Palestinian interests, as all others, even the late Yasser Arafat's Fatah, are hopelessly corrupt, if not in fact direct tools of the occupation. This corruption of the left, in particular, the corruption of Fatah, (nominally a social democratic left organization, and a member of the Socialist International) is precisely the cause of the advances made by other organizations, such as Hamas and Hexboallah, which operate under the banner of an ideology of indigenous origins, and not tainted by past failure and betrayal, often enabled by the paternalistic attitudes of all-knowing western "leftist".

Perhaps its time we westerners stopped lecturing Arabs about what kind of resistance is best for them, and let them determine the form of their own destiny.

You think that's what's held them back for the past 60 years - westerners lecturing the Arabs? North Americans coopting their resistance organizations?

And you don't like my theory - that the problem is Israel, supported by the most powerful imperialisms in the world - and their puppets like the Saudis and others?

Ok, you pursue your theory, and I'll pursue mine.

The best thing we can do to help is to pressure our own country to sever all ties, and cease all support, for Israel and its prime backers. That includes condemning Harper for cutting off aid to the Palestinian Authority when Hamas was elected as the government. It does not include creating illusions that the wingnuts of Hamas will ever save their people. They won't.

     Collective punishment is a war crime.  The question is, how does the civilized world (or whats left of it) enforce international law?  How can we make a difference when our government endorses American imperialism?  Is it so hard just to stop killing people?

There will be a demonstration outside the Israeli Consulate in Toronto.

Where: 180 Bloor Street West

When: 2:00 p.m. on Sunday 28th December 2008.

Supported so far by:
Canadian Arab Federation

Palestine House

Women in Solidarity with Palestine (WSP)

Not In Our Name (NION): Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism

Muslim Association of Hamilton

International Jewish anti-Zionist Network - Toronto

Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid

North Americans? Not precisely that. Sorry to say it but I include Soviet Socialism as a European ("Western") ideological formula, derived from the same body of ideas, complete with the overweaning, "we know better" attitude born in the so-called "enlightenment", that was enforced by the raw power of the Soviet state, and cynically manipulated toward supporting the "percieved" interests of the Soviet state, regardless of the consequences to those directly involved.

Of course this is a two way street, and just saying that Nasser, for example, was a merely a puppet of the Soviet State would be absurd, but, it is a fact that the "left-socialist" cause has largely been discredited as an effective mode of achieving the national aims of most Arab peoples, and also (often) seen as direct agent of their opression, along with those icons of the era who are associated with it, or used those associations to further their political goals.

Really, of those only the family of Assad remains, and the speed with which these political movements withered and died, after the collapse of the Soviet Union is a testement to how chimeric was their hold on popular opinion.

And just which of the Palestinian liberation organizations would you qualify as being Soviet proxies in that time?

Well, aside from the fact that I just wrote a whole paragraph outlining that I thought saying that the Pan-Arabist socialist movement was "merely a puppet (proxy) of the Soviet State would be absurd", and that your question is based on a patented distortions of what I said, I will point out, that if you bothered to read about the history of the PLO, you would know that the PLO begins life as a "proxy" (to use your word) force of the major players in the Arab League, in particular Egypt and Syria, and was generally concieved of not as "liberation movement" for Palestinians per se, but as a military force comprised of displaced Palestinians that would be organizationally subservient to the interests of the major players in the Arab League and in particular the Pan-Arabist vision of Nasser.

In fact, asserting "independence" from the Arab league, and the various political ambitions of its members, and becoming truly a "Palestinian" organization that put Palestinian interests above those of its sponsors was an important political power struggle within the PLO that was an major political concern for Yasser Arafat, and primary to his rise and control over the organization. Black September comes to mind.

But that is just history, so who cares?

Maybe this is the Zionists final solution for the Gaza Ghetto.

Cueball, you're angry with someone or something. Why not forget about this ideological debate, which is out of place in this thread, and let people here be united in the face of this barbaric attack. I will continue to wish well to the Palestinian people and hope, from afar, that they develop their own leadership (currently non-existent) to lead them to the realization of their aspirations. Meanwhile, I will support all forces that work for unity of all peoples in the region against the enemy (Israel and its backers), and I will work for that same cause here in Canada.

Reuters is reporting at least 229 people killed and over 700 injured.

What a clown. 

Sure, I am angry at your idiotic and contradictory and stupid statments, and your flat distortions of what I have said.

And here we go again, starting with "forget the ideological debate" and then following with the hope that they "develop their own leadershp", which is (according to you) is "currently non-existent", expressed in the most cloying and maudlin tones. What could be more ideological than denying the very existance of the Hamas leadership that was duly elected to office by popular vote? What is your problem? Is it that you can't reconcile your own need to preach socialism to the heathen Muslims, with the principles you are preaching, one of which is no doubt the "right of self-determination."

I would say that the Palestinian people expressed their "aspirations" when 46 percent of them voted to elect Hamas as their government. Your problem is that you just can't swallow it. But Unionist will work for "their cause" here in Canada by denying the validity of their votes.

Too bad you never worked in a union. You'd see the need to have friends. Which also means allowing people their ideas, while paying attention to their actual stands in life.

You have no clue how hard it can be for a son of Nazi genocide survivors to condemn Israel and work wholeheartedly and publicly for justice for the Palestinian people. You call people names who make such sacrifices, just because they challenge your notions.

It's better to have friends.

Emergency demo in Vancouver on Monday, against Israeli War Crimes.

************ *********

PROTEST ISRAELI WAR CRIMES
Monday December 29th @ Noon
US Consulate (1075 West Pender)
Gather on HASTINGS side (corner Thurlow)

Organized by various Palestinian solidarity groups.
Endorsed by:
Al-Awda - Vancouver
Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign
Canada Palestine Association - Vancouver
Voice of Palestine - Vancouver
The Canadian Arab Federation - National
Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights - University of British Columbia
StopWar Coalition.
Canadians Against War
Adala - Arab Justice Committee

For more information or to add your endorsement: vancouver.gazaprote st@gmail. com.

************ *********

Please come out rain, snow or shine to demonstrate your outrage and our collective humanity in response to the latest massacre of Palestinians.

At least 200 Palestinians have been killed and over 800 injured in the latest Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, while the threat for further bloodshed still hands heavily as air strikes continue. This is the single largest massacre in Gaza since Israel illegally occupied Gaza in 1967, many among the dead are civilians and the numbers keeps mounting.

Israel’s latest massacre in Gaza occurs with official US and Canadian complicity towards Israel’s illegal siege and ongoing sanctions over the civilian population in Gaza. Over the past two years the Gaza Strip has been undergoing the daily violence of a wide-ranging humanitarian catastrophe triggered by severely reduced access to energy, food, and medicines. In effect, Gaza is the world’s largest open air prison.

Demonstrations are planned all over the world in the next few days including in the Canadian cities of Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa. Join us in Vancouver as people of conscience to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza and to demand an end to the siege of Gaza and Israeli apartheid.

I've been asked to pass this along by rabble's publisher:

Take Action to End Israeli Attacks on Gaza
December 27, 2008
 
Today, the Israeli Air Force attacks on the occupied Gaza killed more than 200 people and injured hundreds more. These lethal attacks on an overcrowded Gaza come after months of a brutal siege that has seen the civilian population of Gaza deprived of food, fuel, medicine, electricity, and other necessities of life.
 
Israel's bombing of Gaza today would not have happened without the complacent and complicit silence of the international community. Any just solution has to be anchored in international, humanitarian and human rights law.
 
Therefore, we need to take action to protest these attacks and demand that our government call for an immediate cease-fire, the lifting of the siege to allow for the delivery of aid, medicine, fuel etc... free access for international humanitarian organisations, journalists and diplomats, which Israel has blocked.

For background information, please read Gush Shalom's statement on today's attack, which puts blame for the end of the truce squarely on Israel: http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/events/1230387660  (full article pasted at the end for convenience)
 
TAKE ACTION
 
1. Contact the Prime Minister's Office to protest the attack and demand that the Canadian government request an immediate cease-fire, lifting of the siege imposed on Gaza . Call 613-992-4211 and email pm@pm.gc.ca [38]

2. Call the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Phone:  613-944-4000 - and/or send a FAX:  613-944-4500 – and/or email to L.Cannon@international.gc.ca [39] ; Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca [40] , and cc to Obhrai.D@parl.gc.ca [41]  ; Ignatieff.M@parl.gc.ca [42] ; Layton.J@parl.gc.ca [43] ; Duceppe.G@parl.gc.ca [44] ; leader@greenparty.ca [45] ; RaeB1@parl.gc.ca [46] ; Patry.B@parl.gc.ca [47] ; Martin.K@parl.gc.ca [48] ; Goodale.R@parl.gc.ca [49] ; Leblanc.D@parl.gc.ca [50] ; Dewar.P@parl.gc.ca [51] ; Paquette.P@parl.gc.ca [52] ; Faille.M@parl.gc.ca [53] .

3. Contact your Member of Parliament (MP) to let them know your concerns. To find your MP and their contact info, click HERE and enter your postal code.

4. Contact your local media by phoning into a talk show or writing a letter to the editor.

To view this document on the department's website, please click on the following link:
http://w01.international.gc.ca/MinPub/Publication.asp?Language=E&publication_id=386703&docnumber=252 [54]

December 27, 2008 (2:30 p.m. EST)
No. 252

Statement by Minister Cannon on the Situation
in Israel and the Gaza Strip

The Honourable Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement regarding the situation in Israel and the Gaza Strip:
 
"Canada is deeply concerned by the escalation of violence in Southern Israel and the Gaza Strip and by the loss of life and the suffering sustained by all sides.

"Israel has a clear right to defend itself against the continued rocket attacks by Palestinian militant groups which have deliberately targeted civilians. First and foremost, those rocket attacks must stop. At the same time, we urge both sides to use all efforts to avoid civilian casualties and to create the conditions to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access to those in need in Gaza.

"In addition to calling for immediate calm, we urge renewed efforts to reach a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel and for Israeli and Palestinian leaders to remain committed to finding a comprehensive peace settlement."

- 30 -

For further information, media representatives may contact:

Foreign Affairs Media Relations Office
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
613-995-1874
www.international.gc.ca/index.aspx [55]

The statement from our government is of the same moral cowardice that turned away Jewish refugees fleeing an evil, racist regime almost 70 years ago. Two generations have passed and still our governments stand with evil and racism.

Did rabble's publisher also ask you to post that slimy press release from the Minister of Foreign Affairs? 

Is there a demonstration in Ottawa, opposite the Israeli Embassy? With the number of people from the Middle East (and Maghreb) in Ottawa and Gatineau, and others, that should be doeable.

Cueball, not all "Arabs" think alike. My cues as a socialist on this matter are from socialists and feminists IN THOSE COUNTRIES.

I have been in plenty of friggin unions. Yet another presumtuous and ignorant statement of precisely the kind you are making when you are ignorantly strutting about and telling Arab-Palestinians that they are too stupid to have organization and leadership, because you don't approve of the ones they choose.

Allowing people their "ideas" is one thing. Allowing them to propogate false and elitist notions about entire groups of people, working and living in conditions of almost total physical degradation, while under the threat of violent physical assault, from the comfort of their keyboard, at home, or at the union office, in Canada, is quite another.

I guess that's why 44 percent of Palestinians voted for "Change and reform" (aka the Hamas list). Who brought that up? Oh yeah, it was me. You might infer from such a statement that I was aware that 56 percent voted for others. What did the collective "Alternative" of the leftist parties and the PFLP get in the last election... 6%... or something?

I have no idea why I am being favoured with this lecture about the diversity of views in the Arab world, but be that as it may, if you think that getting 5% of the popular vote qualifies an organization as being a legitimate voice of leadership and opinion on Palestinian issues, you might agree that getting 7 times that amount does not disqualify Hamas from similar respect even if people here don't like their world view.

I feel that the goal of understanding a complex situation, such as the one faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, is best served not by turning off what we don't like in favour of listening to voices that we approve.

Speaking of diversity, and avoiding blanket distortions, lets also not forget, that "Change and Reform" was not just a Hamas list, but also a list comprised of many independents, and one that also ran women and Christians on their slate.

I don't see what the problem is. Of course I defend the people of Gaza against Israeli strikes, no matter what government they voted in.

But no, I don't like the worldview of Hamas, for whom I am shit by virtue of being a woman, and filth by virtue of being an atheist. Now, that doesn't affect me here - it does affect progressives, especially women, in that part of the world. All of whom (at least all I know) defend the Gazan people (and hence the elected Hamas government) against Israeli aggression, but don't agree with its reactionary world-view.

I think you are essentialising "Arab" people in a culturalist mode. And I think that due to Palestinians, not "Westerners". That is why the reminder - not a "lecture" - cripes, stop insulting everyone - that not all "Arabs" think alike.

Not recognizing the legitimacy of Hamas as a leadership movement among the Palestinians people, as Unionist is doing, is by extentsion deligitimizing its right to govern as the duly elected and responsible government of the PA, as chosen by the Palestinian people, and is therefore not defending "the Gazan people" or the right of the Palestinian people to determine their own destiny, but rather, playing into propaganda tropes (such as the one about "terrorist infrastructure" -- really Palestinian police facilities -- that we see in the quote from the IDF in the OP) that aid the forces of occupation. 

 To me, your view comes off as more simplistic western anti-Islamic prejudiced half-baked in western war on terror stereotyping, and not in accord with the facts.

Hamas' campaign among women helped victory

I think you're "essentializing" Hamas in terms of a cheap western stereotype about Muslims, the majority religion of the Arab people. 

When speaking of feminism, the voice of Palestinian women should count for something don't you think? Or can we just dismiss that because the vehicle they chose to express their disatisfaction with the status quo is unappealing from the standpoint of our own idealized, but hardly realized western conceptions?

Here's an idea... they know something we don't. Possible, or no?

Press release from the Coalition Against Israeli Aparthied for tomorrow's rally in Toronto:

Media Advisory
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
People respond with outrage to the latest massacre of Palestinians: Toronto
gets set for Demonstrations condemning recent Israeli attacks on Gaza
WHEN: 2 p.m., Sunday December 28, 2008
WHERE: Israeli Consulate, 180 Bloor Street West
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, December 28, 2008 (TORONTO) - Canadian
civil society organizations will be holding a demonstration to protest the
latest Israeli aggression against the people of Gaza today. The rally is
being organized by the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA), Palestine
House Cultural and Educational Centre, Canadian Arab Federation (CAF), Women
in Solidarity with Palestine (WISP), Not in our Name: Jewish Voices Opposing
Zionism (NION), and other concerned community organizations.
Over 225 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military in the last
twenty-four hours, making it the single worst massacre in Gaza since it was
illegally occupied in 1967. As many as 700 others have been injured and the
threat of further killings still hangs heavily over the skies of Palestine.
Israeli Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, stated yesterday that: 'this is only
the beginning' of what Israel calls 'Operation Cast Lead.'
The Israeli military is carrying out air strikes against a population that
lives in the most densely populated area in the world. Gaza has been under
an illegal and internationally condemned siege since April 2006. With little
reprieve, this two-year siege has restricted all flow of aid, medical
supplies, fuel and other necessities of life into the territory. A
humanitarian catastrophe has been unfolding in Gaza – this latest military
assault will only worsen the situation in an area where there is already
insufficient medicine, food, or fuel for people to survive on.
The Canadian government has become an ardent supporter of Israel's policy of
aggression and siege aimed at Gaza and has increasingly supported Israel's
on-going regime of apartheid. Stephen Harper's government was the first to
implement the siege on Gaza, which was most recently described by UN Special
Rapporteur Richard Falk as including "wide-ranging violations of the
fundamental human right to life."
As such, several sectors within Canadian society are renewing their call and
intensifying their efforts for a comprehensive campaign of boycott,
divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel and its apartheid practices.
This international campaign was recently endorse by United Nations General
Assembly President H.E. Father Miguel D'Escoto Brockman: "More than twenty
years ago we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we
agreed that sanctions were required to provide a nonviolent means of
pressuring South Africa to end its violations. Today, perhaps we in the
United Nations should consider following the lead of a new generation of
civil society, who are calling for a similar non-violent campaign of
boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations."

Cueball defends Hamas because it is (his words) "indigenous". That's a code-word for Muslim.

He contemptuously dismisses all non-Islamic organizations as follows:

It is difficult to debate such a Manichean world outlook.

In any event, it is off topic, and I got sucked into the thread drift initially, and I ask joc and lagatta and others to take this to another thread, please. We need at least one thread  (like this one) to deal with news of the disaster and of the worldwide resistance to Israeli aggression.

Thanks Unionist. I hate when threads like this get ugly when we need to take action of some kind. 

You are right, unionist. The important thing is mobilising - in many ways - and keeping up the pressure against Israel. I'll never agree with cueball anyway.

Winnipeg:

Thanks Maysie - still nothing in Ottawa? Bizarre.

Israel launches fresh air strikes

Israel is obviously encouraged by the stands (or silence) of the world community.

Canada, of course, was among the first to react by condemning Hamas rockets and not even mentioning the savage Israeli air strikes.

Obama, another staunch ally and inciter of Israeli savagery, spoke to Condie Rice for eight minutes [72] about Gaza and South Asia, and then sent his spokesperson to say that "there is one president at a time". Thank you, Obama.

We have to go back to July 8, 2008 to understand why Israel feels they are on solid ground in carrying out these war crimes (from the same AFP story):

"very hard to negotiate with a group that is not representative of a nation state, does not recognize your right to exist, has consistently used terror as a weapon, and is deeply influenced by other countries."

Guess Obama can't see or refuses to see that this applies to Israel. I still do not fully understand the ties to Israel that our heads of nation have. 

Israel destabilizes the Middle East, attacks and divides the Arab people, disrupts the formation of a secular pan-Arab nationalism of the kind that Nasser and others represented in embryo, provides a convenient external enemy to divert attention from domestic problems in the region, keeps the despotic pro-U.S. tyrants in power (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Gulf states, etc. etc.) - and ensures an uninterrupted flow of oil to the White Christian Fathers. Occasionally, where the system breaks down (e.g. Iraq), direct intervention by the Fathers is required, but often enough (Lebanon, Iran, also Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and the disinherited Palestinians), Israeli military might or merely the threat of its use suffices to keep the natives in check.

No, it's not love of Jews, or evangelical Christianity, or the "Jewish lobby", or any of the other pretexts for covering up pure imperial aims - no more than it was when the Ottomans and then the British and French ran roughshod over the region. It is selfish imperial greed, and no number of cadavers is too many to slake the thirst of the beast.

It is very convenient to put hate quotes around the words "Jewish lobby" - as if to deny its existence - when it is in fact operating at full spin to detract news media from reporting realistically on the horror.

And it is very convenient to attack Hamas at the same time Israel is attacking Gaza.

Blood on your hands.

Martin, cool off, I'm not going to call you names, because you're an ally. Better yet, reflect, then edit your post.

Beyond the platitudes, Arundhati Roy on Palestine and Kashmir.

Grab on tight to that moral high road, Unionist, Palestinian blood is making it slippery.

Peut-on défendre Israël
?

MICHEL
COLLON



Parmi les
nombreux messages qui me parviennent, un petit nombre veut défendre Israël en
invoquant tel ou tel comportement palestinien. Voici, en quelques mots, une
brève réponse.



Je pense qu’il faut toujours en revenir au point de
départ : Israël est un Etat colonialiste qui a chassé les Palestiniens de leur
terre en 1948. Il refuse leur retour qui ne serait pourtant que le respect du
droit.



Avec ses colonies, cet Etat raciste ne cesse de pratiquer
le nettoyage ethnique pour continuer à augmenter son territoire. Il viole toutes
les résolutions de l’ONU depuis soixante ans, se sachant protégé par l’Europe et
les Etats-Unis. Ceux-ci ont besoin d’un gendarme au Moyen-Orient pour contrôler
le pétrole. Israël se plaint des armes nucléaires éventuelles chez ses voisins,
mais il a lui-même deux cents têtes nucléaires, installées en toute
illégalité.



Israël se prétend “la seule démocratie au Moyen-Orient”
(comme si un régime d’apartheid pouvait être démocratique!). Mais les alliés
d’Israël au Moyen-Orient (Arabie saoudite, Koweït, Egypte...) sont des
dictatures abominables. En plus, lorsque les Palestiniens de Gaza “votent mal”,
Israël les punit par des blocus et des agressions sans fin.



Ceux qui
critiquent certains mouvements palestiniens actuels, oublient de dire que
précédemment, Israël a tout fait pour détruire les mouvements palestiniens de
gauche ou nationalistes. Et qu’il a systématiquement refusé de négocier avec
Arafat tout en prétendant le contraire.



Tout ceci peut être prouvé par
des études d’historiens (notamment israéliens), des déclarations de tous les
grands dirigeants sionistes eux-mêmes et des témoignages de juifs progressistes
d’aujourd’hui.



Les colonialistes se plaignent de tirs de roquettes et
d’attentats. Certes, toutes les méthodes de lutte ne conviennent pas. Mais
puisque les oppresseurs, surarmés, ont privé les oppressés de tout moyen
d’action légal, ils seraient bien aimables de dire comment il convient de
résister.



Il n’y aura pas de solution au Moyen-Orient sans établir
une vraie démocratie, pour tous. Et donc accorder tous leurs droits aux
Palestiniens.



Certes, des Israéliens souffrent également (d’ailleurs,
ils souffrent aussi de la pauvreté et de discriminations racistes imposées par
les dirigeants israéliens). Internet nous permet d’ouvrir avec chacun, ici et
là, un débat sur les véritables causes du problème. En dénonçant les
médiamensonges et les déformations de l’Histoire.



Pas de
paix sans Justice!



Michel Collon

28 décembre
2008

I guess. Of course, its merely the outlook of a large number of Palestinians, including Palestinian intellectuals such as the late Edward Said. When Palestinian say that Fatah is "corrupt", they do not mean that its ministers are taking bribes on the side (though there is that too), they mean it serves the ends of the occupation, and operates as the "indigenous" enforcers of the occupation.

The fact that such opposition would formulate itself around traditional organizational forms, founded in the local cultural traditions and organization, in this case Islamic ones that are clearly independent of the ideological trappings that tie it to the corrupted resistance is also predictable. But you can be forgiven your whimsical nostalgia for Nasserite, Pan-Arabism, because its clear you haven't actually read a lot of Palestinian commentary. Meaning, you would prefer not to listen so that you can impose the world view that you are comfortable with.  

Now, of course, nothing is black and white, and numerous principled secularist people, such as Marawan Barghouti, continue to carry on the struggle in Fatah, and elsewhere outside of the dynamics of the Fatah/Hamas split, but dismissing the legitimacy of Hamas as a representative of the Palestinian people, because it is founded in Islamic traditions, is a cop out.

Perhaps it will be that the left will one day be able to resurrect itself as a force in Palestinian politics, but denying the reality, in favour of comfortable fantasies, such as the idea that Hamas can be dismissed merely a creature of Israeli malfeasance, is not going to bring that goal any closer. Moreover, haughtily proclaiming your heartfelt desire that the Palestinians will one day find leadership, because it is "non-existent", is to exhibit extremely paternalistic attitudes.

You simply can not see anything outside of the European paradigms that you are comfortable with.

So, I said, indiginous, as opposed to Muslim, for a reason. As I have outlined most of the politics of the world over the last century were defined in the context of the ideas imposed on the rest of the world through the agency of European imperialism, and likewise the opposition to it found expression in the left/right split, and as often as not that left opposition took on imperialist forms.

One only has to look at the Soviet incorporation of the Muslim SSR's, over the heads of the "indigenous" opposition (often organized as Islamic parties) during the Russian civil war, its invasion of Iran in 1940, and the invasion of Afghanistan, to see this clearly.Is it any wonder that Arab resistance movements seek to formulate an alternate hegemony based in an ideological tradition entirely free of the taint of European ideas that not only failed to liberate, but also often exacerbated the problems faced by their people? 

You just can't stand the idea that Palestinians might be able to construct political ideas and organizations free of western tutelage. What was it you said? Oh yes: "You'd see the need to have friends. Which also means allowing people their ideas, while paying attention to their actual stands in life."

Martin, you wouldn't talk that way if you had spent the last 40 years actively mobilizing support for the Palestinian cause. You'd understand the need for allies.

"Which also mean allowing people their ideas", according to you. Fair enough, so whatever happened to that idea in the Palestinian context. The idea that Hamas is an effective tool for resistance to the occupation, shared by many Palestinians, doesn't seem to warrant much respect in your book. What kind of "ally" does that make you?

It would be, if I had done it. You see anti-Islamism everywhere. You should really slow down once in a while.

Hezbollah is a heroic, determined, highly successful organization, founded in Islamic traditions, which led the Lebanese people to drive the Israeli aggressor, and its Lebanese puppets, in humiliation out of south Lebanon. It is a major political player, a leader of Lebanese society on all fronts, an uncompromising champion of Lebanese independence, and a fierce adversary that Israel now fears, as it should.

Hamas, on the other hand, is a ragtag gang of hapless adventurers, far more successful in the battlefield against other Palestinians than against Israel - indeed, they have never won a battle against Israel. They declared an end to the ceasefire - brilliant brilliant move - then fired a couple of rockets, accidentally killing one person - and are now presiding over the death and destruction of the people who, in utter desperation and in disgust over Fatah's impotence and corruption, placed their confidence in Hamas.

How does this relate to Hamas's "Islamic traditions"? Not at all. There are Muslim heroes, and there are Muslim idiots and provocateurs and adventurists. Work it out.

It's not an easy task for the Palestinian people, besieged and slaughtered and oppressed on all sides, to build themselves a leadership and organized force like Hezbollah. But until they do, their disenfranchisement and humiliation and destruction will inevitably continue. All we can do is stay the hand of Israel's backers (like Canada, notably), and work for the isolation of the pariah that is apartheid aggressor Israel. But if you (or martin or anyone) decide that that means we have to praise the glorious resistance struggle of Hamas, you will isolate only yourself.

You did, and you did it again, just now while denying you were doing it. The concept of "Islamism" is a western ideological construct that is part of imposed western hegemony, which came into existence as a propaganda trope of the war on terror.

Your "besieged and slaughtered and oppressed on all sides" trope, more of the same. And a political cop out. What is the result of this cop out? A decent into blaming the victims of the occupation for the occupation.

Your charachterization of Hamas is arrogant vein and stupid. It was the actions of Hamas in the occupied territories during the first Intifada that brought Israel to the bargaining table, and gave Yasser Arafat a new lease on his political life, when he was in exile lollygagging about Tunisia.

Arabs rally against Israeli raids

http://www.road90.com/watch.php?id=GDeHtXwwxh

http://www.road90.com/watch.php?id=vVlDVNaOHs [87]

http://www.road90.com/watch.php?id=RqcRDjWhNF [88]

I'm real hesitant to get into this, because of the mentioned thread drift; but also because of the tone of the tiff between unionist and cueball.

But with that caveat, I have to say Unionist that your comparison between Hazbollah and Hamas shows an ignorance about the base of the latter's popularity.

Both Hezbolah and Hamas are highly effective political and social welfare organizations. Each of them fills a vacuum for serving the needs of an oppressed population not served by its putative leading organizations.

Hamas did not just run against Fatah's corruption- it succeeded on delivering the goods... which it has been doing since before the Oslo accords and the arrival in Gaza of the PLA.

Even your comparison of the two as military organizations- which is the only comparison you give- is a characturized projection. Hamas and Hezbollah militarily operate from virtually identical logics. The greater effectiveness of Hezbollah is a product from their far greater distance from the Israeli intellignce and war machine, and their easy proximity to supply lines. Hamas is not as you would argue more inherently "adventurist"... let alone that Hezboallah is more militarily "heroic". If all Hezbollah could manage was pathetic and obviously self-ruining rocket attacks- if the Hamas shoe was on their foot- that is also what they would do.

  1: Israel's true motive in bombing Gaza, is genocide against the Palestinian people and extermination of their right to statehood.
Israel's genuine interest in this campaign is strikingly similar to Hamas' interest in firing scores of rockets into Israeli population centers: Forcing a cease-fire on better terms than the one just ended.
For Hamas, this largely means easing Israeli economic sanctions against Gazans. For Israel, this centers on ending shelling by Qassam and Grad missiles and mortar shells. For both sides, this means a prisoner exchange, centering on Gilad Shalit and hundreds of jailed Hamas members.

  2: The Palestinians have no recourse but to defend themselves, and the makeshift rockets they fire are nothing compared to the world's most advanced warplanes and munitions, which the IDF is using against them.

The Human Rights Watch organization has been unequivocal in condemning the use of Qassam rockets as a direct violation of international humanitarian law and the laws of war. The firing of Qassams and mortars against civilian populations also
constitutes collective punishment
[91] against hundreds of thousands of innocent Israeli men, women and children.

Moreover, the firing of Qassams began not as a response to the siege against Gaza, but as a marathon celebration by armed Islamic fundamentalist groups following Israel's withdrawal of its troops and settlers from the Strip. To purposely add insult to injury, Islamic Jihad and other organizations used the ruins of settlements as launch platforms.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050421.html [16]

Hezbollah gave up "terror" attacks almost 25 years ago. Please explain why Hamas is shooting rockets at civilians. What is their goal, if not inciting genocidal retribution? Or is it stupidity? or desperation?

ETA: Actually, forget my questions, Ken. This is thread destruction initiated by cueball, into which I fell like a fool. I have no interest in debating this point in this thread, and have said so many times.

Aren't you the "educated" observer who thought Michelle Palmer was going to 6 year of hard time for having sex on the beech in Dubai? Whatever happened to that, anyway?

I see you posted some tripe propaganda footage about the Palestinian Blitz of toy rockets. I guess it never occurred to you that a responsible government, like the one of Winston Churchill during WW II, made every effort to remove civilians from areas targetted for attack. Of course, the powers that be in Israel prefer to have the posed propaganda footage of children hiding under tables so they can justify spending millions and million of dollars killing Palestinians by conducting military operations in Gaza, so they can look tough, as opposed to being sensible and relocating people from Sderot. 

That is how much the Israeli government "cares" about its people.

 While I concur with the general theme of your post, I have to say that there is nothing "self-defeating" about this mode of resistance. The alternative is to do nothing, in the face of a brutal campaign of starvation enforced by Israel and backed by the "international community" to punish all Gazans for having the temerity to vote for people "we" (Unionist included) don't like.

All of this begins with a deliberate and brutal attempt to supress a legitimate democratic process.

Lets not get to caught up in the Israeli propoganda. This massive and unprecedented assault has nothing to do with Qassam rockets and everything to do with shoring up the political fortunes of the so-called Israeli left in the upcoming elections. When one is losing in the polls, killing a few Arabs is always seen as a good way of boosting your political fortunes in Israel.

Only a few years ago, there were quite a few threads on this board, featuring excited chatter about how much of a "peacenick" Olmert is, and how the future of the peace movement would be served if he led that PM. What a joke. I wish I could dig up those threads now.

This gang is going out as they came in, with a brutal military adventure, justified by the flimsiest of pretexts.

 3: All that Hamas is asking, is recognition as the democratically elected government of Gaza, and an end to the Israeli economic embargo. Were they to attain these goals, there would be calm on both sides of the border.

It is both unrealistic and dangerous to believe that Hamas has abandoned its clearly stated and often reiterated goal of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in all of the Holy Land, including all land claimed, annexed by, or in any way occupied by Israel.

Beyond that, Hamas has strong alliances with the Egyptian opposition Muslim brotherhood, as well as working partnerships with the Iran-dominated Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

Israeli restraint, when practiced, has been met with contempt and additional Hamas and Hamas-tolerated strikes against civilian populations.

 4: The Israeli blockade against Hamas is state terrorism and any means to fight it are legitimate.

There is every reason to believe that Israel's economic siege against Gaza is misguided, but not for an essential cruelty, rather because Hamas taxes collected on the influx of goods imported through tunnels from Egyptian territory have subsidized and cemented Hamas rule.

 5: The world overwhelmingly sympathizes with the Palestinians against Israel, and unreservedly backs their struggle for independence.

In an era of global revulsion against radical Islamic terror, Hamas' protracted program of suicide bombings, drive-by murders and shelling of civilian populations, coupled with its refusal to renounce violence, recognize Israel, or accept past peace agreements, coupled with its ideology of militant jihad, have drained the Palestinians of international sympathy and have, in fact, legitimized Israeli arguments of military self-defense.

Nothing has been more instrumental in harming the cause of Palestinian independence than Hamas, with its brutal take-over of Gaza in a war with brother Palestinians, and its frank efforts to build a large-scale regular army force in the Strip.

Michelle Palmer?

Unionist: "you wouldn't talk that way if you had spent the last 40 years actively mobilizing support for the Palestinian cause"

I realize that this is what gives you the illusion of moral entitlement to attack Hamas alongside with Israel, a tragical delusion.

I do not "attack Hamas". I was the first on this board to condemn the Harper regime for being the first government in the world to withhold funding from the Palestinian Authority after Hamas was elected. I unconditionally defend the Palestinian people, and their government, against aggression by the Israeli murderers. I unconditionally defend their right to be represented by, and to choose, the government and the leadership that they want.

You and cueball care nothing about that. You want some simpering analysis that says that Hamas is a good thing - a great move for the Palestinians - the key to their liberation. You think people are fucking idiots??

From independentjewishvoices.ca [101]

Watch out, aka Mycroft, all hell will be unleashed on you. You have dared to criticize the firing of rockets on civilians. You have blood on your hands! So do all the Jews in the "Independent Jewish Voices"!

Down with unity! Long live defeat and isolation! 

I don't want any such thing. I want you to recognized the political legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance. This is not about your haughty judgements, at all. That is the point. I don't want you to pronouce that Hamas is good or bad. Think what you like.

I am affirming that Hamas is the legitimate, and democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people. Your entire line tries to side-step this fact, and only adds credibility to the preception that the blockade and the US backed Fatah coup against the elected government are justified.

At this point in time, given that Hamas is the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian people are under assault, obstensibly to attack "terrorist infrastruture" (actually the offices and security facilities of legitimate government of Palestinians), its unfortunate, but true that standing with Palestinians means standing by the democratic process they embarked on and completed, and the government they elected.

It does not mean further mystifying the situation by saying the Palestinians have "no leadership", or that the "civil war" between Hamas and Fatah, is something that both parties have mutual responsibility for, when in fact the power struggle results from the direct attempt to undermine the legitimate government of the Palestinian people by application of economic sanctions, and the illegal siezure of administrative power by Mamoud Abbas, and the attempt by Fatah to enforce that siezure of power by force, approved of by the United States, and backed up with direct infusions of military aid.

Those are the facts. Sorry if they are inconvenient. All of that must be opposed, regardless if Hamas is "good" or not. At this point in time standing with the Palestinian people, includes most definitely standing by Hamas, and by extension the democratic processes of the Palestinians, and their right to self-determination, which are yet again under attack by Israel and its backers.

Thanks for putting things more soberly, cueball. I fully agree with what you said. But on this board, among friends, I do have the right to ask: When will the Palestinian people overcome? When will they win? And how? Are they closer today than 60 years ago?

Palestinians and their supporters in Canada condemn Israeli attacks in Gaza

It's a pretty slanted article, but at least there are some reports coming out in the MSM.

Did any of you guys attend your respective demonstrations?

Not bad in Montréal; several hundred upon very short notice during the year's end holiday period. And for once the weather cooperated - it was balmy and the sun actually came out.

If Israel gave a damn about its civilians in Sderot, it would spend the money to relocate them. Israel is well funded in the department of relocation, and routinely relocates Jews from around the world to the environs of Jerusalem and the West Bank, obstensibly to protect them from danger. But for some reason, the citizens of Sderot must remain on the firing line.

Israeli citzens regularly play the foil in the political games of the power brokers of its society, as victims in Sderot, and tools of occupation and annexation in the West Bank.

Instead, Olmert and Netanyahu and their ilk would prefer to keep the fires hot, and spend billions on security and reprisals, since power in Israel is dictated by the need for a permanent national security emergency. To not be in a state of perpetual war would undermine the fundamental justifications of the Zionist cause, and as likely as not collapse the economy since the need for US aid would be superfluous.

The Israeli politicians and the IDF feed on war and crisis like flies on shit.

The Muslim Canadian Congress takes a typically treacherous position.

The Toronto demo was around 800 or so which is quite large when you consider the short notice and the fact that we are in the middle of holidays. There were about a dozen JDL counterprotesters across the street.

http://watch.ctv.ca/news/clip124801#clip124801

 Unfortunately, CTV reports this as being a Palestinian demo vs an Israeli demo despite the fact that there were probably more Jews in the Gaza solidarity demo than there were in the JDL demo. 

That is great, Mycroft. We were at least 500 - I'm short, so have a hard time estimating crowds. In any event, not pitiful.

Including more than one person you met at the historic Toronto Conference of Alternative Jewish Voices.

Important to keep up the pressure against this ongoing atrocity.

Israel assassin,

Harper, complice!

MCC calls for end to bombing
Condemns Hamas for inciting hostilities

TORONTO - The Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) has expressed alarm at the on-going Israeli attacks on Gaza and has asked the international community to intervene and bring about an immediate ceasefire. In a statement, the MCC condemned the disproportionate response by the IDF to the rocket attacks by Hamas, leading to hundreds of casualties.

The MCC statement also condemned Hamas for treating the Palestinian people as human-bait in a ploy to provoke Israel into launching an all-out attack on Gaza. In censuring Hamas, the MCC said, the Islamist group had deliberately put the civilian population of Gaza in danger as it played the role of Iran's agent provocateur in the region......"

http://www.muslimcanadiancongress.org/20081228.html

Israel bombs university in Gaza

Has the NDP made any statements on these recent crimes against humanity?

No.

Has the Liberal Party?

Pffft. Reading your sources, I now understand why you managed to allow the tabloid press to convince you that Michell Palmer was indeed going to do six years of hard time for frollicking on a beach in Dubai. 

Of course not. Ignatieff has issued two media releases this weekend, both praising dead Canadian soldiers for having given their lives "for a safe and secure Afghanistan" (I kid you not).

Nothing about Gaza - so I assume he shares Cannon's shameless support for the Israeli aggressors, don't you?

The Harper-Ignatieff coalition is having a fine holiday season.

I'd like to publicly retract my misplaced comments about Hamas, with apologies to cueball and martin.

My comments were born of frustration at the seeming dead end that the Palestinian struggle finds itself in. But the blame for that does not lie with the people or with the organizations and leadership that they have chosen.

Going back and re-reading this article by Ali Abounimah from last year helped me get my head screwed back on straight.

Well done, Unionist.

Looking at the Wikipedia article on JDL [121], I read that it is in fact a "violent extremist organization", a characterization given by none other than the FBI. It is also mentioned that JDL members have been involved in terrorism and have fundraised for the terrorist organisation Kahane Chai.

In the light of the above, I must say that presenting the JDL demo as an "Israeli" demo is primarily an insult to honest Israelis. Also, that counting these thugs as the "pro-Israeli equivalent" of the demonstrators against the aggression in Gaza is an insult to any democratic citizen...

So, here we have a civilin population caged, starved, brutalized and now bombed by a state that promotes ethnic supremacy and this thread is about Hamas? Chalk another small one up to the bad guys.

-deleted by Merowe-

Careful Frustrated Mess, I got my pee pee slapped for referencing good guys and bad guys in one of my posts- careful my friend :)

I think when those battles were going on a few months (year?) ago Israel thought they would plow over Hamas or Palastine defenses (not sure the correct term). Israel and the rest of the world was surprised when Israel got a wake up call and their forces were slowed down or even stopped. BIG bloody nose.

No one expected that. I think it embarassed the hell out of them and now they aren't taking any chances and want some good ol'revenge to make uyp for the face they lost.

Hamas was democratically elected wasn't it? Like legitimately voted in? I think  NATO should put a stop to Israel attacking a democracy, how come the states aren't condeming their actions?

Because NATO only "protects democracy" when it can bomb the shit out of countries that don't agree with western imperialism.  Israeli apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and slaughter of Palestinians fits in nicely with western imperialism, so obviously NATO has no problem whatsoever with it.

Hamas was a hell of a lot more democratically elected that George Bush was!

Here is a surprisingly good article from the Gazette (CanWest rag) about the demonstration and people's motivations for attending: http://www.montrealgazette.com/Angry+Montrealers+take+streets/1122092/st...

Sorry for the long link - alas I see NOTHING on my software about formatting links.

Just saw the headline "Germany's Merkel blames Hamas". Cripes.

Necessary to fight things out some times. No need to appologize to me. The situation is difficult and complex.

Didn't get anything in that link, and I would certainly like to take a look at that article. It sound interesting.

Sorry, cueball, here is the repaired link:

Engaging Hamas and Hizballah

Lagatta, type in a word you want to link. Then use your mouse to highlight it. When highlighted, the following image becomes visibile above the smiley face below the text entry window: Click that and then paste your link into the dialog that pops up.

Thanks for your honesty, Unionist. I didn't feel too good riding hodshod over your lengthy activism on the issue, but I also couldn't stand what I was reading.

Luckily my brainfart only lasted a few hours. If you want to know when my awakening came, I suddenly imagined a demo calling for Canada to get out of Afghanistan, and someone saying, "but the Taliban are bad too".

Anyway, back to the thread.

The accurate term is "Zionist lobby."  Many Jews are either anti-Zionist or opposed to the course Israel has taken, vis-a-vis the Palestinians, the last 40 years.

I agree fully, Josh, but Walt and Mearsheimer used the term "Israel lobby" to peddle their thesis that support for Israeli crimes is not really an "American" thing - it's the "Israel lobby" which has been influencing the U.S. for the past 60 years to act against "its true national interests". The "Isreal lobby", of course, turn out to be rich Jews. I consider that to be: (a) covering up for U.S. imperialist aims and ambitions; (b) thinly-veiled anti-Semitism. I realize, though, that not everyone shares my reading of these two Amerikan skolars.

I'm not sure I understand your point, but the term Israeli lobby is fine.

I think he is adding nuance to the point, by saying that the Israeli Lobby and American imperialism act in a strategic alliance, and that power brokers in Washington perceive that supporting Israel serves the interests of those power brokers, not that US policy is dictated by the "Israeli lobby" as some people suggest. The latter has anti-semitic overtones familiar to those who believe that Jews are running everything.

My point wasn't made clearly. I condemn the "Jewish lobby" terminology, and I agree with you on that.

I wanted to point to the danger of using "Israel lobby". From the Wikipedia entry about Walt and Mearsheimer's book:

It gives me the shivers.

I've been a way from a computer for the last few days and though I was following the Israeli massacre I didn't get to follow babble's coverage; I had looked forward to getting to read it today. I just wanted to thank everyone for this thread, its a great read and the back-and-forth between Unionist and Cueball was actually very good reading. I respect both of your posts a lot and I was a little surprised by Unionist's initial stance but it looks like its all resolved now. Unionist you summed it up so well with,

Which, after being so impressed with your posting history on Afghanistan over the years, is pretty much what I was thinking as I read along upthread.

Anyway thanks again, sorry I don't have anything really to add right now; frankly just getting caught up reading babble has me rather mentally warn out

As well, among the most influential elements of the Zionist lobby are evangelical Christians who are far more important and numerous in American politics (and elections) than the subsection of Jews who vote primarily based on what candidates say about Israel.

Yes, that's a good point.  The Christian Zionists are important in the Republican party's unconditional support for Israel.

"The path to sovereignty and nationhood can be accomplished by walking in the steps of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. King, not Syed Qutb and Osama Bin Laden."

What you mean, of course, is that Palestinians should learn to bleed and die quietly like good little victims.

How cheap is Palestinian blood? So cheap Zionist politicians readily spill it hoping for nothing more than a bump in the polls:

This is what Zionist supremacy looks like.

I'm a little confused... are you thinking of a different Dr. King? 

"It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. The bullshitter is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose."

Harry G. Frankfurt

What a load of bullshit ... Anyway ...

The planet's most impotent and useless body, the Arab League, will be meeting on Wednesday to eat little sandwiches and pretend to have relevance in the affairs of their own nations, according to a Reuters article that also says Ban Ki-moon, the so-called leader of the United Nations, the world's second most impotent and useless body, is ticked. Oh, dear! Has he gone over the top and composed a letter yet?

On our local news at eight am..Global didn't even mention it..they mentioned India, they mentioned a few other places ..no mention..very bizarre..the Globe allowed no comments either.

One wonders!

FM...couldn't agree more..this is about who has the most machismo..Livni or Netanyahu..as they impress the ultra right.

 The Palestinians  of Gaza are cannon fodder in a pen struggling to achieve the will of the majority who voted for them.  We like democracy as long as the "right" side wins..and only then.

 All animals are created equal but some animals are more equal than others.. (rough quote)

How stupid. The late Dr. Rantisi, one of the founder of Hamas, and Sheik Ahmed Yassin's second lieutenant, and immediate successor, started his political carreer organizing Palestinian tax strikes because he thought is was absurd that Palestinians should pay for their own occupation. It was not effective, and he joined Hamas. In fact, the great majority of Palestinian protest is non-violent, this is why you never hear about it.

If all Palestinians were violent in their opposition to the occupation, the streets of Israel would run with blood. There are after all more that 3 million of them.

But rather than convince you of that, I will pull out this excelent Israeli piece about the "Ghandi Riddle", and Israeli repression of peaceful Palestinian protest to the occupation.

Ran HaCohen -- Letter from Israel

 If you like later, I will show you some film footage of Israel soldiers breaking up an peaceful protest with rubber bullets and tear gas, and shooting protestors in the head with rubber bullets at less than fifty yard range, causing permanent brain damage to (not to mention almost killing)  an Israeli Jew who sympathizes with the Palestinian cause.

But then again, you actually argued tenaciously for 20 or so posts that Michelle Palmer was going to do hard time in Dubai for fucking on the beach, so probably no amount of discussion or evidence will undermine your prejudices.

New Democrat statement on the situation in the Middle
East

Mon 29 Dec 2008

Canada's New Democrats condemn the unacceptable escalation of violence in the Middle East causing death and injury to so many civilians in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

It is a tragedy that hundreds of civilians have again become the victims of violence in this conflict. The continuing airstrikes by Israel on civilians in the Gaza strip and the ongoing rocket attacks on Israeli civilians are serving to compound the existing civilian disaster and further harm chances for a negotiated peace.

We call on the Government of Canada to immediately call for an end to the aerial bombing of Gaza, the blockade of aid to civilians and the indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel. Indeed, the government must urge both sides to agree to end the current hostilities immediately, reinstate the ceasefire and return to the peace process.

The Government of Canada should also work to ensure that medical and food aid is provided to the civilians of Gaza through U.N. agencies.

New Democrats believe that Canada must pursue a balanced approach to the Middle East crisis, in keeping with Canadians' deep desire for peace in the Middle East and are ready to work with the new administration in the U.S. towards a lasting peace in the region. This goal cannot be achieved while citizens in such large numbers are being killed and endangered.

http://www.ndp.ca/press/new-democrat-statement-on-situation-in-middle-ea...

___________________________________________________________ "watching the tide roll away"

That quote is so selective it could have come from MEMRI, and it's a distortion of what Walt and Meirsheimer wrote.  Not only do they bend over backwards to point out that they don't believe the Israel Lobby is a conspiracy of rich Jews who run everything, they spend a lot of ink on the Christian end-time zealots who are part of the lobby.

Anyway, back to the thread topic:

 Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about [154]

"Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. According to the sources, Barak maintained that although the lull would allow Hamas to prepare for a showdown with Israel, the Israeli army needed time to prepare, as well."

So much for Hamas' homemade rocket attacks being the provocation for this crime against humanity.

Gee, could the NDP statement have been any weaker? The UN does provide medical and food aid to Gaza when Israeli allows the siege to be lifted long enough for some propaganda points.

Total garbage.

CBC at 6-ish:  "Israel has shied away from retaking the entire strip"

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/12/29/gaza-attacks.html

apparently because of possible 'drawn out urban warfare', implying that retaking the entire strip is a goal/threat, esp.if they have over 6k troops amassed on the border.

and rockets from the entrapped aimed now at Ashkelon, desired port of middleman BP gas to be taken from Gaza's offshore marine reserves and sold to Israel.  the telegraph UK reported on this in Nov. 07.

EU and Can/US quiet in cahoots with INOGATE www.inogate.com [158] (nice gas and oil maps) and other current partners.

Hey, be nice, it only took around 48 hours to release that statement. A lot of hard work went into it.

sorry, that was www.inogate.org and related maps are at:

http://www.inogate.org/inogate/en/resources/maps [161]

and here the earlier telegraph article, re British Gas,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643848/Gaza-doesn't-need-aid-it-has-a-andpound2bn-gas-field.html

likely you folks can find lots of better relevant pieces

No doubt. It takes quite a bit of effort to write a statement that says essentally nothing while managing to steer clear of  any appearance of having articulated an actual position. The Liberals would be proud.

and the Ashkelon link from this,

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/2008122994140674153.html

What is says to me is that 1 Israeli life is worth 300 odd Palestinians. This because each statement about the massive airial assault on Gaza, using the most technically advanced ordinance and delivery systems in the world in the hands of one of the most powerful armies in the world is "balanced" against miscelaneous toy rocket launches by unidentifieed Palestinians militants, as if they are similar activities, with simillar consequences.

 To call it mealy-mouthed would be kind. The NDP is fucked.

The NDP is ducking the issue, because they either are genuinely afraid of Zionist reaction (no small consideration -- even a mild rebuke of Israel elicits a sophisticated and long lasting campaign of vilification and defamation), are too craven to care about Gaza, or actually have individuals within the party pushing the Israeli hardline.

Harper's  bloodthirstiness is to be expected, but anyone with even the slightest sense of remorse or pity is in a tough position, not that that provides any excuses.

Craven.

[{quote]

"Israel is acting in clear self-defense in response to heinous rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza," Hoyer said in a statement issued by his office this afternoon. "As a sovereign nation, Israel has an unequivocal right to take action to ensure the security and safety of her citizens. Indiscriminate attacks by Hamas are a serious detriment to the peace process in the region.