Gaza and Israel VI

[url=http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/568482][b][color=red]Toronto Star: Jewish dissenters speak out over Gaza[/color][/b][/url]

Quote:

[b]Judith Weisman[/b], 78, is a Toronto psychotherapist. She grew up in "a very Zionist family" in Baltimore but "began to change when Israel supported the Vietnam War." ...

On Wednesday, a dozen Jewish women "occupied" the Israeli consulate on Bloor St., demanding an end to the Israeli siege of Gaza.

The group included [b]Judy Rebick[/b] and [b]Judith Deutsch[/b], president of Science for Peace (whose former presidents include George Ignatieff, the late father of Liberal leader, Michael, who has just joined the Stephen Harper Tories in giving blanket immunity to Israel).

The women expressed "outrage at Ottawa's refusal to condemn the massacres," said spokesperson [b]Miriam Garfinkle[/b]. They urged the media to report that "many Jewish-Canadians do not support Israel's violence and apartheid policies."

On Thursday, four prominent Jewish Canadians held a news conference.

[b]Anton Kuerti[/b], internationally acclaimed concert pianist, said:

"I am not an expert on what is a war crime but I can recognize one when I see one ...

"What if almost a thousand Israelis had been killed by F-16s and helicopters and 1,000-pound bombs? There'd be immense outrage throughout the world ...

"Israel's behaviour makes me ashamed of being a Jew, and Canada's servile support of the United States position - `it's all Hamas' fault' - makes me ashamed of being a Canadian."

Deutsch read from a prepared statement: "The words `never again,' so fraught with memories of the Holocaust, means `never again' for all peoples."

Others who spoke were Weisman; [b]Michael Mandel[/b], professor of international law at Osgoode Hall, once a visiting professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and the venerable [b]Ursula Franklin[/b], retired U of T research physicist, Companion of the Order of Canada and a Pearson Medal of Peace recipient.

Read the whole article.

Quote:

Effectively opposing the carnage in Gaza then means not only calling for a ceasefire or a halt to the bombing. [b]A "ceasefire," though important to prevent the killing, would still only restore (and potentially worsen) the every-day apartheid reality separating Israelis and Palestinians.[/b] A "ceasefire" that provides only guarantees of Israeli security, but doesn't lift the siege on Gaza, or that fails to ensure that those responsible for the war-crimes committed by Israel are brought to justice, would only reward the Israeli military for its on-going violations of international law. It would tell Israel that it's okay to resume the current level of mass killing anytime in the future.

When the current fighting stops, Palestinian refugees - kicked out of their homes in 1948 and now numbering over 5-million - will still be denied the right to return to their homes. After the current fighting stops, Palestinians who have "citizenship" in Israel, will still continue to live as second-class citizens in their own country. They will still be legally prevented from owning land or living in large areas of Israel, marrying who they want, or even enjoying the same citizenship rights and privileges as Jewish Israelis. After the current fighting stops, Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank will continue facing a brutal military occupation, including arbitrary arrests, torture, killings, detentions, various forms of collective punishment, etc.

[b]The struggle against Israeli apartheid is, therefore, a long-term struggle. If we want to support the Palestinian struggle against this racist regime, we need to commit ourselves to building a Palestine solidarity movement that effectively challenges Israel's apartheid system and that effectively responds to what Palestinians are telling us they expect from supporters.[/b] By isolating apartheid Israel, including Israeli government officials, institutions and companies that benefit from the current situation, Israel and its supporters will be given a strong message that violations of basic Palestinian rights will not be tolerated.

[url=http://socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet176.html][color=mediumblue][u]So...

A very good read:

Quote:

[b]
Turn off the Canadian Media, Please[/b]

Written by Justin Podur

If national media help make a nation, then we all need to stop reading
and listening to conventional Canadian media if we want to make a
decent Canada. Benedict Anderson, perhaps the leading scholar of
nationalism, wrote that the daily newspaper (along with other
innovations like novels, maps, censuses, museums) played a key role in
creating national consciousness. People in a country like Canada use
their own media - public (CBC) and private (CanWest, TorStar,
CTVglobemedia) - to know what is happening in their own country. Media
are also an important part of forging a national identity. They are
supposed to represent the broad spectrum of Canadian opinion. When they
present information on the rest of the world, they do so from a
Canadian perspective and have the Canadian audience in mind.

And today, if you want to have the first idea what is happening in
Israel/Palestine (or most of the rest of the world), the best thing to
do would be to turn them off completely.

In the face of a major ongoing crime like that of Israel's siege and
assault on Gaza, Canadians turn to the Canadian media in good faith to
try to learn and understand what is happening, who is to blame, and
what they might be able to do to help the victims. On each of these
counts, the Canadian media fails. But the days when Canadians would be
stuck listening to local radio, picking up the local print newspaper,
or watching local television packaged by Canadian media corporations
for their consumption are over. There is, for the time being, media
choice. And given the choice, on Israel/Palestine, it would be foolish
to turn to the Canadian media.

These days I actually don't have the stomach to do an exhaustive survey
of Canadian coverage of these massacres. I have done such surveys in
the past (see my letter to
the Toronto Star's Mitch Potter from a few years back), and I spent a
lot of time and energy thinking about how to democratize the mainstream
Canadian media and pressure it to be more open. These days, though, I
mainly follow my own advice. A friend of mine, Brooks Kind, spent some
time going through the least biased of the Canadian media, CBC radio,
over the past two weeks. He found that the CBC suppressed crucial
facts, presented an unrepresentative spectrum of opinion, and falsified
the historical record. The suppressions and omissions are in the
service of the perspective of the US and Israeli governments (and
Canadian politicians), but they are no less false for that. With the
reminder that I am picking on the CBC not because it is the worst, but
because it is by far the best, here are just a few examples.

First, remember that the pretext for Israel's attack is that Hamas
refused to renew the June 19/08 ceasefire and started rocket attacks in
December/08. But Israel violated the ceasefire in two ways. First, by
continuing to starve Gaza (as Israeli officials openly admit and have
done for years), and second, by attacking Gaza on November 4/08 and
killing six Hamas people. Why is this important? There is a pattern
here: Israel has repeatedly broken truces, ceasefires, and peace talks
with spectacular assassinations that involve killing large numbers of
people. This has been a pattern for many years, and has included the
assassinations of many of Hamas's leaders (Abd-el-Aziz Rantisi, Sheikh
Ahmad Yassin, and many, many others). It is an explicit part of
Israel's strategy to provoke its opponents and get pretexts for further
attacks. But this timeline, and the November 4/08 attack by Israel, is
not part of the 'boilerplate' provided when the attack on Gaza is
reported in the Canadian media.

Second, Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in
the Occupied Territories, has been making very strong statements about
Gaza in recent months. Falk is an acclaimed scholar and a highly
credible source. He works for the United Nations, which Canadians
supposedly have special respect for. When Falk traveled to Israel, he
was detained, strip searched, and deported. Israel's contempt for the
United Nations could hardly have been more starkly revealed. Except,
perhaps, when the Israelis killed a Canadian UN observer (Paeta Derek
Hess-von Kruedener) in Lebanon in 2006, along with 3 others (Du Zhaoyu
of China, Jarno Makinen of Finland, and Hans-Peter Lang of Austria).
Or, perhaps, when the Israelis bombed the UNRWA school in Jabaliya on
Jan 3/09, killing 43 Palestinians and wounding 100. Unlike much of the
UN, whose main response to these killings might as well be to apologize
for getting in the way of the bombs, Falk has provided urgent warnings
to the world about the seriousness of the situation. But Falk's story
is not given any prominence in any Canadian media. An entire story on
the UN aspects
of the situation quotes Israel's envoy to the UN and Palestinian Prime
Minister Abbas, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and others, but
not the important and strong voice of the UN's Special Rapporteur on
the Occupied Territories.

And then, of course, there are the cliches, the horrible cliches of this conflict. Like this story
about how "World leaders call for Mideast ceasefire as more
civilians die." They just "die", these civilians. The lead reads "World
leaders called for a ceasefire in the fighting between Israeli forces
and Hamas as civilian casualties climbed in the Gaza Strip." The
"casualties climbed", the "civilians died", of their own accord, with
no help from the Israelis. Israeli officials are allowed the grace of
their titles ("Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak") but Mahmoud Zahar
from the elected Hamas government is called "Gaza's Hamas strongman"
(there are no Western strongmen)...

http://atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/7328-turn-off-the-canadian-media-ple...
 

Wilf Day wrote:

Fatah, the PLO, and the Palestinian National Authority are clearly progressive, and more progressive than Hamas.

Or is that a controversial statement? 

Don't flatter yourself, Wilf. It's an idiotic statement.

You may as well ask, "who is more progressive - the leader of Hamas, or Obama?"

Or how about this:

"The Taliban, or Stephen Harper?"

If Gaza is under attack, and Hamas is their leadership, the whole world must rally to the defence of the people and their leaders.

When aggression, war crimes, and mass murder is going on, we don't compare convention resolutions of the warring parties to see whose fit some definitions better.

>Does anyone seriously think that the Israeli government has any interest in the pro-terrorist demonstrations in Canada?

Yes, it would welcome a pro-terrorist demonstration in Canada.  Since, what it is doing in Gaza is the textbook definition of terrorism. It is using violence against the civilian population in order to achieve political aims which is the destruction of the Palestinian cause.  Therefore, any demonstration in favour of this terrorism would be welcome by that government.

 The demonstration was in favour of the overwhelming international consensus and international law, namely freedom for Palestine within its 1967 borders and its 4 million inhabitants from Israeli military enslavement.

There are only two clear positions on this issue: 

One for international law and the freedom of Palestine and its people from this enslavment; and

The other is against international law and for the continued enslavement of Palestine and its people.

You seem to be for enslavement and against international law.

Look at counterpunch.org today  to get a good first-hand report from an aid worker (Eva Jasiewicz).   It captures the moment-to-moment horror of the situation.

Apparently, Canada has cast the sole opposing vote to a UN Human Rights resolution condemning Israel. Since I suck at posting HTMLs, the story can be found on AlJazeera.

ETA: Here's a short HTML

http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSLC328353

Interesting implications regarding our nay vote.

___________________________________________________________

"watching the tide roll away"

Olmert doesn't Yank the string too much, does he? 

And just when you think things can't get any more depraved:

Israeli military abducting as many Gaza youth as possible for "information." 

http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/01/israeli-military-abducting-as-many... 

From the link:

"When PNN first reported the story last week there were approximately 500 Palestinians in four detention camps throughout the Strip, however they have now been moved outside.

Zahalka noted that “most of the detainees are civilians, according to Israeli law.” He said, “The detainees from the Gaza Strip were not considered prisoners of war because they are not part of the regular army.” When the Israeli administration withdrew its settlers and military from inside the Gaza Strip in 2005, it enacted its own law that this meant that the occupation had come to and end. Under international law and the United Nations, the Israeli state remained the occupier. It is through the Israeli law that the status of the Palestinians taken from the Gaza Strip was established.

Zahalka said that hundreds of families in Gaza who have been searching for their children do not know whether the Israeli army took them or they have been killed. He appealed to the Red Cross and Barak to disclose the names of the imprisoned Palestinians so that families can know the fate of their children.

The MP pointed out that Israeli soldiers are trying to capture the largest possible number of young people in the Gaza Strip in order to obtain information from them through coercion and torture. The Israeli administration is also using extortion and people as bartering tool with the Hamas government, despite the fact that the Israelis have imposed a news blackout on the subject." 

 The point about the status of children kidnapped by the IDF means they are not covered by any laws concerning the treatment of POWs. Like the status of victims of Gitmo, this is the same evil strategy devised as part of the Morganthau Plan at the end of WWII when approx 1.5 million Axis POWs (most still officially listed as missing by the German government in the early 90s) were re-classified as DEF, disarmed enemy forces so that Geneva Convention rules did not apply. Canadian James Bacque wrote a book on the subject called "Other Losses." This and the book he wrote on the fate of German civilians under allied occupation between 1944-50, "Crimes and Mercies" are two of the most horrifying books I have ever read.

Michelle wrote:

Libby Davies' statement on Gaza

Well that is the best yet. Except that Gaza is not a state. One wonders if some copywriter was trying to avoid using anything associated with "occupation" while crafting that latter, as in "...government to uphold international law and work to stop this aggression by one state upon an occupied people."

Despite her best intentions, progressive people must be more clear about what is going on here. Condemning "all acts of violence" sounds very nice, but we must be clear on the fact that it is the occupation that is the root cause of the violence.

Too often "we" talk as if "the violence" is some kind of natural phenomena, or an act of god, not the expression of the material context of the oppression of Palestinian people.

But I guess that would amount to taking a side or something problematic like that. Libby makes a passing reference to UN resolutions regarding the "peace process", but fails also to mention resolution demanding and end to the occupation.

I guess there's a first time for everything. Remember, at the time of the events researched by Bacque, the war was over.

Regardless of what really happened to the Axis POWs or in Auschwitz, that was over fifty years ago - the horrors of Gaza are happening right now and that makes it infinitely worse.  

The Germans didnt treat a lot of Soviet POWs very well at all. Very many of them were, in fact, not taken POWs and were murdered by flamethrowers and by the first mass exterminations in Ukraine and Russia.

Meanwhile German POWs reported being treated badly by Russians in Russia, but many survived who were not mowed down by the Red Army at the infernal cauldron. Thousands of high-ranking nazis were ferreted to the west and given sanctuary from communism and Soviet justice.

And your repetitive and ambiguous references to National "Socialists" of Germany is duly noted.

aka Mycroft wrote:

Good protest today. Last time Star Spangled asked me if as a Jew I would feel safe in the protest had I been wearking a yarmulke. He should ask the three ultra-Orthodox rabbis who came to today's protest in full dress. They were very warmly received.

These are members of a group called Naturei Karta, which is as fringe as it gets in Judaism (they attended Iran's Holocaust denial conference for example) and disdained by every major Jewish group out tehre, including the staunchest of the anti-Zionists.

Boy, you do get around. I suppose you interviewed them personally. Your particular opinions about their beliefs, and were you think they sit in the political spectrum, based in your extremely powerful telepathic spidey sense, is not relevant.

I am sure no one cared what particular sect they came from, or what Zionists, such as yourself, think of them.

The point is they were not abused by the persons at the rally, which you suggested that they would be, if Jews showed up overtly dressed as Jews.

Cueball wrote:

Boy, you do get around. I suppose you interviewed them personally. Your particular opinions about their beliefs, and were you think they sit in the political spectrum, based in your extremely powerful telepathic spidey sense, is not relevant.

If you want to know what tehir beleifs are or what sort of thigns they've done in the past, just google "Naturei Karta". Or go to their own website. Or read statements condemning them by every major Jewish organization out there, including the Satmar hasidic movement which is as anti-Zionist as they come (and put their money where tehir mouth is).  Naturei Karta is as big a "shanda fur de goyim" as the JDL.

 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881888875&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

 "Pictures of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hugging hassidic men with side-locks, beards and long coats at a conference that questioned whether the Holocaust took place has sparked stern protest from an unexpected quarter.

The ultra-Orthodox, zealously anti-Zionist Eda Haredit, a Jerusalem-based amalgamate of various hassidic courts and haredi groups, including Neturei Karta, attacked their own peers - those blatantly Jewish-looking participants in the Iranian Holocaust denial conference - for vilifying haredi Jewry in general and Neturei Karta in particular.

"That tiny group of weirdos is liable to incite hatred against haredim," warned the editor of Ha'edah, the mouthpiece of the Eda Haredit, in an editorial that will appear Thursday evening.

"Those people's distorted anti-Zionist zealotry, which is sanctified in their eyes above and beyond the opinion of our Torah sages, brought them to that conference," argued Shmuel Popenheim, editor of Ha'edah and author of the editorial that claimed to reflect the opinions of the Eda Haredit rabbinic leadership. "

Yeah, the reason Satmar and Eda Chareidus condemn Naturei Karta is because of their "rabbinical garb."

Seems like trying to discredit any Jews on the basis that they don't support the state of Israel is yet another attempt to equate all Jews with Israel. Is that what you're after SSC?

I am not going to get into a serious discussion about the ins-and-outs of various religious sects inside judaism and their relationship to Israeli politics and Zionism. I am, actually quite familiar with all that.

The point was, that they were not shunned for looking overtly Jewish.

That stand regardless of who you think they are and what you think they think.

Actually, many of the more orthodox Rabbis, even among the settlers movement, implicitly reject Israel "the state".

You may go so far as to say "most." Until 1948, virtually everyone in "orthodoxy" was anti-Zionist.

Ok, before the issue gets way off topic Naturei Karta are not really relevant. They, like anyone else has a right to their opinion. There were far more secular, mainstream Jewish orgnizations at the Montreal march for example than the 3 or 4 Naturei Karta people.  They had signs identifying themselves as being Jewish and they had signs that displayed their horror at the latest attack on Gaza. As far as I saw, they were welcome and applauded and in fact no one paid particular attention in the sense that there is nothing weird or strange about their participation. This is a simple Human Rights issue.  Jewish demonstrators spoke to the crowd and were applauded.

The Montreal protest was not anti-Israel. The Montreal protest was against the war crime being perpetrated on the 1.5 milion human beings of Gaza. Not just the bombardments but the blockade which is starving the population and keeping medicine out etc. The Montreal protest was also for the freedom of Palestine as recognized by International Law and Consensue (i.e. 1967 borders).  This was what the Protest was about. 

What is relevant is that this protest was not for terrorirism infact it is against state terrorism on the innocent human beings of Gaza and it was not against Israel, or the Jewish people. It was welcoming, inclusive and actually about an issue on which there is no legal or international controversy save the US and Israel and the occasional country here and there.

 Everyone in the world is in agreement on this issue: there are two countries: Israel and Palestine.  Their border is the July 1967  border. Israel backed by the US blocks this and instead occupies, colonizes and subjugates the other country, Palestine.

So Star Spangled C..., it's a matter of those who support freedom for Palestine and those who are against this and want Palestine to be under military enslavement. 

So let us not confuse fringe groups of this or that denomination with the overwhelming international consensus (including Hamas' last vote at the UN) that there are two sovereign countries: Israel and Palestine as per the 1967 border. Only one of the two countries blocks this resolution. This is why there is no peace. Nothing else.

But Star Spangled C..., what does anti-Semitism have to do with the militaty subjugation of Palestine and its 4 million inhabitants against international law and ovewhelming international consensus?

There are always crackpots who go to rallies. The rallies weren't about the crackpots who join along.  They were about ending the siege and blockade on Gaza and freeing Palestine within its 1967 borders. The rallies had mainstream Jewish secular progressive groups as well as mainstream Muslim and Arab organizations, as well as mainstream Palestinian solidarity groups who all rallied for the mainstream international consensus of freeing Palestine from military enslavement.  

I've been to many, many protests and rallies and there is always the odd fringe group that joins along.

Agree with you completely, Tom. My point is that there needs to be a clear rebuke of this fringe in the strongest possible terms. If you look at videos of certain rallies, people are being openly anti-Semitic and people around them are laughing. These people need to be told to shut the fuck up, get the hell out of there and stop giving everyone else a bad name. When the media has an option of showing a clip of peaceful protesters waving signs about human rights or a clip of people waving hamas flags and yelling for Jews to go back to the oven, which one are they likely to use? When I talk to my (Jewish) family back in Toronto and Montreal, they're sick to death of this shit, they get tehir abcks up and they side with Israel cause they'd rather not be associated with people with Hezbollah flags calling Jews pigs. Have you heard of james Wilson's "broken window" theory? It states that when windows are broken and left that way, it sends a signal that it's okay. Apply the same principle here. When someone shows up at a rally shouting "heil Hitler" and isn't told in no uncertain terms to shut the hell up it sends a message that this shit is tolerated. If you're a t a rally and see someone pulling this shit, do us all a favour and smack him in the face and do your best to get it on camera.