Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, Azmi Bishara.
He is bleeding after being beaten together with several Palestinian members of the Israeli parliament for their attempt to stop the demolition of a Palestinian home in Haifa, June 10, 2005. |
| We later realized this room was a torture chamber. On some days, we could hear screams coming from the room. It was a sickening experience. However, we continued participating in the occupation because Israeli politicians persuaded us that we were in the midst of a "peace process." So effusive were they in their lectures on how Israel "only wants peace" that we were blinded from seeing the reality of how the state is brutally oppressing, subjugating and dehumanizing the Palestinian people. |
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Israel: A Call for Divestment |
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March 16, 2005 By Shamai Leibowitz The assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has led to an explosion of "people power" in the streets of Beirut, in which hundreds of thousands of Lebanese citizens have called for an end to Syria's occupation of their land. These calls have been celebrated and echoed in other capitals, and nowhere more so than in Washington. However, there is another area in the Middle East where a struggle to end foreign occupation has brought the natives only death and destruction. For decades, Israel has crushed the 3.5 million Palestinians living under military domination, beating them into submission while taking away their civil rights and their land. |
Sharon making excuses for not withdrawing from Palestinian cities:
Palestinians are responsible for failure of the Jericho talks |
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Nanci Pelosi — U.S. House Democratic leader — Congresswoman California, 8th District
Speaking at the AIPAC agenda May 26, 2005
This article below from:
The Daily Life of Kawther Salam http://www.kawther.info/ US Officers planned the Beit Hanoun Massacre
If you find the images in this article revolting, like me, think of the following: people everywhere in Palestine see such images on a daily basis not as pictures but live and anywhere they go, and that this genocide is supported equally by ALL western countries, the EU and the UN.
If you live in any "western" country, your taxes are very probably financing what you see here.
Speak with your politicians if you do not like what you see.
When the psychopaths and moral degenerates who commit these acts with the help of your governments stop commiting them, I (and others) will stop publishing these images.
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Since the criminal State of Israel denied me the right to work as a journalist in my homeland Palestine and forced me to flee to Europe, I often ask myself why the U.S.A does not stop donating to Israel the bombs which they use against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
What, ever, have we done to the USA?
Why did the U.S.A send military detachments to Israel after the Israeli lost the war in the south of Lebanon?
The Israeli military radio, 'Tsahal Radio' announced these news.
They said that the American detachment of officers had arrived in Israel to take part in the 'Autumn Clouds' operation in Gaza.
That they helped the Israeli military to perform their 'killing duties' without any loss.
American officers were involved in the last Beit Hanoun massacre, in which in one incident 20 Palestinians were killed, at least 60 innocent children, old men and women were injured.
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The question poses itself, why is the political discourse of the European countries still fixated on the crimes against the Jews over 60 years ago?
All the while allowing and even supporting the perpetration of the big disaster which befalls my homeland Palestine?
Why do all European politicians keep silence about all the crimes which the Israeli perpetrates in Palestine?
Are they scared that the Jews will return to Europe, or are they themselves involved in these crimes?
Is it logical that the European countries signed the convention against Genocide, and then they impose a siege against the Palestinian.
Create conditions for real starvation for another nation in another land?
Why does the international media impose a veil of silence over what is happening in Palestine?
The concentration camps which are Gaza and the West Bank?
Never anything comes out in the media, the TV, the newspapers.
The media only relates minor incidents, or, in a hugely inflated manner, when something small happens against the Israeli occupation terrorists.
As far as I am concerned, all the western media is complicit in this genocide.
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The Beit Hanoun massacre, a day of bloody clouds.
On November 1, 2006, the number of the Palestinians who were killed in Gaza during the 'Autumn Clouds' Israeli military terror operation reached 86, and at least 265 were injured.
This happened before the criminals of the Israeli State perpetrated the now generally known massacre in Beit Hanoun.
The morning of November 8, 2006, Israeli tanks shelled Palestinians in their homes in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.
They fired eleven shells into six homes, killing at least 20 Palestinians, wounding some 60 more.
The Irony is that this attack comes a day after Israeli troops pulled out of the town after a week-long offensive in which dozens of Palestinian died, and hundreds were injured.
A person from Gaza, who also sent me most of the pictures of this article, posted this on that day:
It has been the 7th day of the israeli aggression against citizens in gaza strip town of Bieth Hanoon, till this moment they have killed more than 90 citizen withen those 7 days.
What is most important about this, is the kind of strange weapons used in the attack.
These bombs explode in a strange way to make fatal damage of human body.
Cuts and burns more than any bomb we have ever experienced ... so this is why the number of kills is very high till now.
And for the most important even the wonded, thay almost have no hope to cure, as the damage that happens to their bodys .. the Palestinian Health ministray believes that some nuclear radiations might be contented in these weapons, as they can not really understand what is going on till now.
As i said more than 90 were killed and more than 500 wonded, tens in danger ... and more than 100 handdicapped as the type of weapons they use ..
The israelis destroyed many houses, and they killed many trees in simple words a New Jenin Camp.
If you remember what happened in Jenen, they destroyed roads, electricity and water nets.. in simple words what happened was an earth quack.
During searching some houses they stole what they found, some cellphones and PCs and gold.
What is happpening now that they Israelis partially withdrawn from Beith Hanoon, but not completely as some media say.
For that more than 9 were killed yesterday morning by Israeli snipers, or air raids and the army still ocuupying and having terrorist militant activities against civils.
Tonight some thing that happened which might be good to consider here, is an Israeli airstrike against the house of Jamila AL-Shanty, the member of the Palestinian Legaslative Council.
This caused the death of her sister and her sister's husband and an other passerby.
About the school bus that happened the day before, they shot the female teacher inside the bus in front of little kids about 4 and 5 years old.
Imagine how would they grow up?
Today there has been aggression using arsenal.
The Israeli arsenal killed more than 20 civilians as they bombed houses over the heads of the inhabitants.
So many kids and women were killed or injured this morning..."
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Each time I read about the criminal Israeli operation in Gaza, seeing the increase in the number of the civilian victims, I swallowed my pain and closed the computer.
Until that evening, a day after the Beit Hanoun massacre, when I saw a group of Jews lead a demonstration against an Austrian rightist group which has its office near my house.
Suddenly the questions started coming:
How can it be that such a criminal nation has the gut to complain about the deplorable things which befell them in the past?
While they are perpetrating massacres and crimes on a daily basis.
Often worse than the most extreme crimes attributed to the Nazis.
Against the civilians of another nation.
The Palestinian population jailed in Gaza and the West Bank?
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The Israeli practices in Gaza and the West Bank is indescribable.
The daily crimes of Israel in Palestine are uncountable.
Their hateful and shameless incitements against the Arab world increase day after day....
In Beit Hanoun, some of the shells landed on a home, killing 11 members of one family called Al-'Athamneh, including a 9-year-old child and a 73-year-old woman.
The other shells landed on other five homes at Hamad Street in Beit Hanoun.
Other victims were from the Al-Kafarneh family.
Muhammad Athamneh described the massacre to Palestinian newspaper Hayat Al-Jadidah.
He said that the killed were children, women, and old men, that they had killed his mother, sister, uncle and his six sons, and four sons of his second uncle.
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Athamneh said that it was 5:30 at the morning, everybody were sleeping, when they heared the very strong blast of the first explosion which landed at his cousins house, followed by screaming and crying.
He ran out, found his relatives, old and young men running in the streets, escaping from the shelling and looking for protection in other places, but that this did not help them to escape from the Israeli shelling.
The "Autumn Clouds" rained missiles on their heads.
They all were killed on the roads.
The whole place was converted into a collective grave.
Athamneh was shocked, he did not know how to save the life of his family and relatives, everybody was bleeding and the floor was covered by a big pool of blood!
He saw the horrible death in front of his eyes.
His cousin’s wife died with her two children while he was screaming and seeking the Ambulance.
Nobody was able to come near under the heavy, blind shelling killing everybody moving in the area.
The sky rained blood that day.
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Today Saturday, the US, who said in advance that Israel has the right to defend itself and gave the Palestinian resistance the responsibility for the massacre, vetoed a draft UN Security Council resolution condemning an Israeli attack in the Gaza Strip that killed 20 Palestinian civilians and injured more 60.
The disgusting American Psychopath Bolton described the text as 'unbalanced' and 'biased against Israel and politically motivated'.
Does anyone wonder why the Palestinian resistance is shooting missiles toward Israel, which by the way never really reach anything?
The reason is simple: the big concentration camp which is Gaza, where a million and a half people are caged, impoverished and hungry, and where almost all civilian infrastructure has been left in ruins caused by Israel.
The increased poverty and real hunger which the Palestinians suffer in their reclusion:
The shortage of food for the children,
The damaged infrastructure which the occupation left behind,
The closed entrances of the city,
The daily killings and destruction — including the bombing of the power station — in Gaza,
These reasons are enough for anyone to fight against the Genocide and look for a better life to live.
Does anyone wonder how much the face of the Israeli occupation is bloody, ugly and inhuman?
Does anybody wonder how much the American leaders are criminals in their support to Israel?
When will the world give Israel a firm ultimatum to stop the occupation, the genocide which has been going on for about 60 years now?
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Seeking International Military Forces in Palestine
Why did the European politicians not adopt the request of the Palestinians, who asked for European military forces to be sent to Palestine to protect them and the infrastructure from the Israeli crimes?
We are really seeking International military forces to stop the bloody crimes against Palestine, to make a halfways normal life possible.
The Palestinians Authority does not really exist any more.
Abbas and the people around him don’t have even the power to protect their underpants.
The Palestinian civilians lost their trust to the P.A. long time ago, when it became evident that they are a bunch of corrupt, sold-out traitors.
The Palestinian civilians are seeking protection against the Jewish criminals, and they will be thankful for anybody who will stop the crimes commited against them.
Please, send military forces to stop the Israeli rampage in Gaza and the West Bank.
Part of the images here come from the Al-Ittihad newspaper, part of them were submitted by somebody from Beit Hanoun who lost seven friends and relatives during this last Israeli rampage.
His only comment was "that's life", because he knows, as all those who live in Gaza, that his life is worth nothing.
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The United States will stand with Israel now and forever. Now and forever. |
29 July 2007
Israel hails US military aid rise
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has confirmed that the United States is planning a significant increase in military and government aid to Israel.
US Democrats and Republicans Have Enough Votes To End The Palestine Israel conflict
[If They Choose To Do So]
US Democrats and Republicans simply have to block passage of any bill that would continue to fund the Israel government.
This requires not 67 or 60 US Senate votes, or even 51, but just 41 — the number of US senators needed to maintain a filibuster and prevent a bill from coming up for a vote.
In other words, the US Democrats and Republicans have more than enough votes to end the Palestine conflict — if they choose to do so.
The US Democratic and Republican leadership may believe — rightly or wrongly — that such a strategy would entail unacceptable political costs, especially with the high level funding from AIPAC and other Israel backed monetary support.
But that's very different from being unable to affect policy.
To insist that the US Congress cannot stop the Palestine conflict obscures the actual choices facing the US people — by confusing "can't" with "won't. |
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The Nation — March 16, 2005 — by Shamai Leibowitz
A Call for Divestment
As an Israeli Jew committed to peace for Israel and our neighbors, I was shocked and disgusted by the recent terror attack in Tel Aviv, which took the lives of innocent Jews.
Such acts of terror have made headlines and been rightfully condemned by the international community.
However, deadly Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians have not received significant press attention in the West or led to appropriate, decisive international action.
For decades the Israeli army, equipped with US arms and technology, has killed, maimed, beaten and tortured tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.
Evidently, in the eyes of the West the people power of Palestinians does not count.
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From 1986 to 1991 I served in the Israeli army in the occupied territories.
During this period I was shocked and disgusted at what my comrades and I were repeatedly ordered to do to Palestinian civilians.
To crush the uprising for independence and statehood, we were ordered to brutalize them.
In one of our army bases in the West Bank, there was a mysterious room.
Every day we watched Palestinians being led into it.
After a couple of days our commanders would lead the Palestinians out, black and blue from bruises and their faces swollen.
They resembled sacks of potatoes more than human beings. |
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March 31, 2005
American Complicity in Israeli Settlements
By JEFF HALPERThe End of a Viable Palestinian State Jerusalem.
T he fatal flaw in most analyses of the Israel-Palestine conflict is the assumption that if the Palestinians can just get a state of their own, then all will be fine.
A state on all the Occupied Territories (UN Resolution 242), on most of the Occupied Territories (Oslo and the Road Map to the Geneva Initiative), on even half the Occupied Territories (Sharon's notion) — it doesn't matter. Once there's a Palestinian state the conflict is over and we can all move on to the next item on the agenda.
Wrong.
A Palestinian state can just as easily be a prison as a legitimate state that addresses the national aspirations of its people. The crucial issue is viability.
Israel is a small country, but it is three times larger than the Palestinian areas.
The entire Occupied Areas — the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza — make up only 22% of Israel/Palestine.
That means that even if all of the territories Israel conquered in 1967 were relinquished, it would still comprise a full 78% of the country.
Would the Palestinian areas constitute a viable state? Barely.
Just the size of the American state of Delaware (but with three times the population before refugees return), it would at least have a coherent territory, borders with Israel, Jordan, Syria and Egypt, a capital in Jerusalem, a port on the Mediterranean, an airport in Gaza, a viable economy (based on Holy Land tourism, agriculture and hi-tech) and access to the water of the Jordan River.
International community enjoying trade with its neighbors
An accepted member of the international community enjoying trade with its neighbors — and enjoying as well the support of a far-flung, highly educated and affluent diaspora — a small Palestinian state would have a shot at viability.
This is what Israel seeks to prevent.
Ever since becoming the head of the Ministerial Committee on Settlements in the Begin government back in 1977, Ariel Sharon has been completely up-front about his intention of securing the entire Land of Israel for the Jewish people.
"Security" has nothing to do with Israel's expansionist policies.
Successive Israeli governments did not establish 200 settlements because of security.
Nor did they build a massive infrastructure of Israeli-only highways that link the settlement blocs irreversibly into Israel for security reasons.
Nor can the route of the Separation Barrier, nor the policy of expropriating Palestinian land and systematically demolishing Palestinian homes be explained by "security."
They all derive from one central goal: to claim the entire country for Israel.
Period.
Still, Israel cannot "digest" the 3.6 million Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories.
Citizenship would nullify Israel as a Jewish state
Giving them citizenship would nullify Israel as a Jewish state; not giving them citizenship yet keeping them forever under occupation would constitute outright apartheid.
What to do?
The answer is clear: establish a tiny Palestinian state of, say, five or six cantons (Sharon's term) on 40-70% of the Occupied Territories, completely surrounded and controlled by Israel.
Such a Palestinian state would cover only 10-15% of the entire country and would have no meaningful sovereignty and viability: no coherent territory, no freedom of movement, no control of borders, no capital in Jerusalem, no economic viability, no control of water, no control of airspace or communications, no military — not even the right as a sovereign state to enter into alliances without Israeli permission.
And since the Palestinians will never agree to this, Israel must "create facts on the ground" that prejudice negotiations even before they begin.
Last week's announcement that Israel is constructing 3500 housing units in E-1, a corridor connecting Jerusalem to the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim, seals the fate of the Palestinian state.
As a key element of an Israeli "Greater Jerusalem," the E-1 plan removes any viability from a Palestinian state.
It cuts the West Bank in half, allowing Israel to control Palestinian movement from one part of their country to another, while isolating East Jerusalem from the rest of Palestinian territory.
Non-viable reservations
Since 40% of the Palestinian economy revolves around Jerusalem and its tourist-based economy, the E-1 plan effectively cuts the economic heart out of any Palestinian state, rendering it nothing more than a set of non-viable Indian reservations.
If there is any silver lining in the E-1 plan, it is that it has highlighted American complicity in Israel's settlement expansion.
The Bush Administration, while calling the E-1 plan "unhelpful," nevertheless formally recognized the Ma'aleh Adumim settlement bloc, together with E-1, in last year's agreement between Bush and Sharon — a fundamental American policy change that was ratified almost unanimously by Congress.
This puts the US in the very uncomfortable position of undermining its own Road Map initiative, which stems from the "Bush vision" of an Israeli-Palestinian peace.
It also neutralizes completely America's role as an honest broker, and pits it against the other three members of the Road Map Quartet — Europe, the UN and Russia — who deplore the change in American policy.
Most tragically, American support for Sharon's settlement project destroys forever the possibility of a viable Palestinian state, dooming the peoples of Israel-Palestine to perpetual conflict.
How this squares with American interests in a stable Middle East is anybody's guess.
Jeff Halper is Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). |
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The Nation — March 16, 2005 — by Shamai Leibowitz
A Call for Divestment
We later realized this room was a torture chamber.
On some days, we could hear screams coming from the room.
It was a sickening experience.
However, we continued participating in the occupation because Israeli politicians persuaded us that we were in the midst of a "peace process."
So effusive were they in their lectures on how Israel "only wants peace" that we were blinded from seeing the reality of how the state is brutally oppressing, subjugating and dehumanizing the Palestinian people.
As many Israelis realize today, when Israeli governments talked about the peace process during the Oslo period, they were pulling the wool over the world's eyes.
Israel continued colonizing the West Bank and Gaza with its Jewish-only settlements and, at the same time, entrenching a cruel military regime over Palestinians.
The same is true today with Ariel Sharon's "disengagement" plan, which is being marketed by Israeli propaganda as a "painful concession" toward peace.
Many of us who live in Israel and visit or serve in the occupied territories recognize the truth: Israel is continuously intensifying its military rule in the West Bank while stealing more Palestinian land and building more illegal Jewish-only settlements.
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For years, American taxpayer money has funded the occupation — the torture chambers, the military apparatus, the bulldozers used in house demolitions, the building of settlements and now the construction of the West Bank wall, declared illegal by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Americans should be held accountable for where their money is going.
After years of failed political efforts by the Israeli and international human rights community aimed at ending the occupation, it is clear that new approaches must be implemented.
It is time for American civic institutions to support a multi-tiered campaign of strategic, selective sanctions against Israel until the occupation ends.
Since the Israeli government is flagrantly disobeying the ICJ decision, international law mandates the use of sanctions to force Israel to comply with UN resolutions and human rights treaties. |
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The Nation — March 16, 2005 — by Shamai Leibowitz
A Call for Divestment
The first step for American institutions is to engage in selective divestment — withdrawal of their investments from companies that are, directly or indirectly, funding the occupation.
First and foremost, states, cities, universities, churches, unions, banks and pension funds should divest from Israel Bonds, which finance the occupation, and from any company that sells arms, ammunition or other military equipment to Israel.
This should include companies like Caterpillar, which manufactures and sells the bulldozers that have flattened thousands of Palestinian homes, and General Dynamics, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Northrop-Grumman, Raytheon and other corporations, because these companies play an active role in enabling Israeli forces to engage in practices that violate international humanitarian law.
Second, the West should hold Israeli military personnel and political leaders personally accountable for human rights violations, including trial before international courts and bans on travel to other countries.
This strategy has been implemented in other conflicts (Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo and South Africa, for example), proving its deterrent value and effectiveness.
Prohibiting the sale of arms and military equipment to Israel is, in fact, called for by existing US law.
According to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 USC §2304), "No security assistance may be provided to any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." |
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The Nation — March 16, 2005 — by Shamai Leibowitz
A Call for Divestment
The current hypocritical American Administration is not enforcing this law with regard to Israel.
It is, therefore, up to American civil society to uphold the law and prevent the sale of any military equipment to Israel by pressuring the government, filing complaints against companies that violate this law and withdrawing all investments from such companies.
The Presbyterian Church took a positive step in this direction when in July 2004 its General Assembly passed a resolution calling for selective divestment from companies that profit from the occupation.
This past February the World Council of Churches, which brings together more than 340 churches worldwide, issued a similar resolution.
While criticizing the severe human rights abuses inherent in the occupation and the construction of the illegal West Bank wall, these resolutions also affirm the right of the State of Israel to exist securely and peacefully, and they categorically reject the tragic cycle of indiscriminate violence perpetrated by both sides against innocent civilian populations. |
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The Nation — March 16, 2005 — by Shamai Leibowitz
A Call for Divestment
Sanctions are a powerful and nonviolent means to insure that the Israeli government abides by international law and ends its appalling human rights violations in the occupied territories.
Divestment resolutions are long overdue.
We have witnessed the power of worldwide economic pressure in the collapse of the South African apartheid regime.
If American civic institutions follow the same strategy, we could see the end of the Israeli occupation in our lifetime.
Americans should stand up for human rights and justice, follow their own law and take the most productive step toward peace and security in the Middle East. |
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The Palm Sunday March Against the Occupation
March 18, 2005
"We have many, many children coming," says Jubran, "a hundred or more, and for the children the demonstration will be organized in two parts.
"The younger children, 5-10 years old, will leave the demonstration as soon as we come close to the checkpoint.
"The teenagers are going to continue with the march, but they will move to the final end, not in the first rows or the middle.
"They have been trained how to protect themselves in case they are attacked, but if there is any trouble at the front end of the march, they have been trained to run away.
"We have made arrangements for first aid and ambulances and we have alerted local hospitals, but we don't want any children to be hurt.
"That's the main thing."
At least half the marchers will be women says Jubran, but once again as a precaution, women will not approach the checkpoint in the first line. "We don't want any women to be beaten or hurt or humiliated in any way, because that may spark emotions that cause people to lose control."
Marchers in solidarity with the Palestinians will come from USA, Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain.
Two organizations will do the training for international marchers. Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) has been working in nearby Hebron since 1995 and has experience training Americans for local activism.
The Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People (PCR) has a working relationship with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and therefore has been exposed to a variety of nationalities in peace work and nonviolence resistance.
On Saturday, after separate training has been completed for Palestinians and international marchers, everyone will be brought together.
"We have things we want to accomplish on Saturday," says Jubran, "but we want people to participate so we don't have a clear agenda.
We will sit together all of us, Palestinians and internationals, and we will think of the best way to do things.
Important also is the process, not just the activity by itself. Nonviolence is something we have practiced for years, and now we are trying it again. We will try to strengthen ourselves."
Hasam Jubran, co-director of the Peace and Reconciliation Department for the Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem
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ESTIMATED NUCLEAR WARHEADS, STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL The United States has conducted 1,127 nuclear and thermonuclear tests — 217 in the atmosphere.
The Soviet Union/ Russia conducted 969 tests — 219 in the atmosphere.
France, 210 tests, 50 in the atmosphere.
The United Kingdom, 45 tests — 21 in the atmosphere.
China, 45 tests — 23 in the atmosphere.
India and Pakistan — 13 tests underground.
Israel — possible 1 test atmosphere South Africa 1979.
North Korea — 1 test underground, October 2006.
“The United states had drawn up a battle plan for the potential use of nuclear weapons in Iraq and the United States has been involved in planning potential nuclear use scenarios for Iran.”“The United States is now involved in a massive program to overhaul its nuclear arsenal. In fact they're working to replace every nuclear warhead and all of the existing delivery systems in the arsenal to ensure prompt precision global strike capabilities.”Jackie Cabasso — Western States Legal Foundation |
Western Elite militarismWestern Elite Terror StatesWestern Elite War Crimes
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Nanci Pelosi — U.S. House Democratic leader — Congresswoman California, 8th District
Speaking at the AIPAC agenda May 26, 2005
There are those who contend that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. This is absolute nonsense.
In truth, the history of the conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: it is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist.
The greatest threat to Israel's right to exist, with the prospect of devastating violence, now comes from Iran.
For too long, leaders of both political parties in the United States have not done nearly enough to confront the Russians and the Chinese, who have supplied Iran as it has plowed ahead with its nuclear and missile technology....
In the words of Isaiah, we will make ourselves to Israel 'as hiding places from the winds and shelters from the tempests; as rivers of water in dry places; as shadows of a great rock in a weary land.'
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The United States will stand with Israel now and forever.
Now and forever.
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April 30 / May 1, 2005
Marla Ruzicka, Rachel Corrie and "Credibility"
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
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W hatever sour emotions I entertained while reading accounts of the funeral of Marla Ruzicka had nothing really to do with the death on April 16 of a brave young woman in Baghdad.
On many accounts and I have had a detailed conversation with a close friend of Marla's whose judgment I respect she was an idealistic person whose prime political flaw seems to have been the very forgivable one of naivety.
Both in Afghanistan and Iraq, in furtherance of her humanitarian schemes, Marla Ruzicka elected a stance of studious neutrality in ascribing responsibility for the victims of US bombings and ground fire.
This pursuit of "credibility" certainly yielded its ironic reward in the political range of those who publicly mourned her.
A US senator Barbara Boxer attended Ruzicka's funeral in Lakeport, northern California. Bob Herbert of the New York Times poured out an emotional column honoring Ruzicka.
So did Robert L. Pollock, a writer for the Wall Street Journal editorial page.
"America has lost a peerless and unique ambassador," Pollock wrote on April 19.
"[S]he stood out from the crowd of journalists and self-proclaimed humanitarians — far too many of whom believed their mission was to bear witness to an American misadventure in Iraq that would, and should, fail."
The sourness in my soul stemmed from a contrast.
Almost exactly two years earlier, on March 16, 2003, another brave young woman in a foreign land lost her life, not to a suicide bomber, but under the blade of a 47-ton bulldozer made in America by the Caterpillar company specifically for house demolitions and driven by an Israeli soldier.
Maybe, in the last seconds of his life, that suicide bomber in Baghdad never even saw Ruzicka.
The soldier in Gaza surely saw Corrie, clearly visible in her fluorescent orange jacket, and rolled the bulldozer blade right over her.
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No US senator attended Rachel's funeral after her parents brought her home to the state of Washington. Both US senators ran in the opposite direction.
Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell both Democrats did nothing
Later the Corries disclosed that after their return to the US with their daughter's body, they contacted their US Senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats, and told them how their daughter had been deliberately murdered while peacefully demonstrating against house demolitions, which are violations of international law.
Murray and Cantwell, the Corries recall, were quick with expressions of outrage and promises of investigations.
The Corries never heard from Murray or Cantwell again.
Cindy Corrie's mailbox filled with disgusting letters abusing her for being a bad mother, and the Israel-right-or-wrong crowd began an unrelenting campaign of abuse of Rachel, to the overall effect that she had it coming to her, that "She was defending terrorists who smuggle weapons across the border to kill Israelis", that the International Solidarity Movement of which she was a member, was a terrorist symp group.
As Professor Steve Niva of Evergreen State College in Olympia wrote on this site shortly after Corrie's death, "There is no evidence that Dr. Samir Nasrallah, whose house Rachel was defending, or anyone in this neighborhood were concealing any tunnels or were engaged in any attacks on Israelis.
The Israeli army doesn't even make this insupportable claim.
His house was being demolished because, like dozens of others that have been bulldozed in Hay Salaam, his home was near the 'Apartheid Wall' Israel was building.
Moreover, the ISM has a policy of only protecting homes that are not suspected to be involved in tunnel activities."
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Niva duly received a torrent of e-mailed abuse.
And how did the Israel-right-or-wrong crowd on the Evergreen campus react?
Did Corrie's murder prompt them to any serious reflection on Applied Zionism in Gaza?
No. Niva tells me that after some initial heartfelt expressions of sadness for Corrie, the small Zionist groups began complaining that they felt uncomfortable as Jews to be on campus, and a few started raising concerns about alleged anti-Israel and possibly anti-Semitic sentiments getting a free pass at Evergreen.
They started to peddle charges about the Middle East Studies faculty — and rumors began to circulate at the local synagogue that there was a "crisis" regarding Jews at Evergreen.
Slurs against Niva continue to this day, as they do against Corrie.
Mother Jones ran a 7,000 word attack on Corrie and ISM, later convincingly demonstrated by Olympia's Phan Nguyen to have been plagiarized from extreme right sites and sources.
Nor was there measured lamentation from the Wall Street Journal's editorial page which surpassed itself in foam-flecked savagery in a piece by Ruhama Shattan, which managed to blame Corrie for the bombing death of the State Department officials that occurred in Gaza in October, 2004!
Shattan's piece had already run in the Jerusalem Post and actually prompted the press attache in the US embassy in Tel Aviv, Paul Patin, to write a letter to the Post denouncing it as "hateful incitement" and "disgusting abuse of the anniversary of the death of this American citizen".
Maybe this letter is what prompted the WSJ's editorial page editor, Paul Gigot to see Shattan's diatribe as suitable material for his pages.
Marla Ruzicka decided to work within the system, as they say.
Maybe, given the aims of her organization, CIVIC, that was an appropriate choice.
I'm not inclined to pass judgment on that.
The "system" duly mourned and honored her.
Rachel Corrie saw that the "system", with all its innumerable and fraudulent roadmaps, negotiated solutions, Oslo frameworks, processes of peace and so forth had no stopped, nay, was encouraging the daily outrages of demolitions of Palestinian homes and kindred barbarities. Corrie stood in the path of that system and died, and her murder was covered up by Israel and by the government of her own country.
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Across the thirty years that I have written about the vast injustice done to Palestinians by successive Israeli governments, condoned and paid for by the US, I have read a thousand admonitions to support what peace plan was in train, to espouse solutions with "credibility".
Peace plans and roadmaps stand definitively revealed as the frauds they always were
And here we are now, when all the peace plans and roadmaps stand definitively revealed as the frauds they always were.
Any imagined evacuation of Israeli settlements from Gaza is pure distraction.
The story lies in the new settlements stretching out from East Jerusalem, amputating any conceivably viable Palestinian state.
In this enterprise, there's no "case for Israel" beyond violent, illegal occupation and eviction.
Two years after her murder I honor Rachel Corrie and enquire of those supposedly reasonable voices on the Zionist side of the aisle here in the United States, What have you got to say for yourselves now?
Rachel Corrie — YouTube
He was just shooting at children to amuse himself — The Tom Hurndall killing
More on Rachel Corrie — Photos of Rachel's Last Two Hours before her death
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Ahmed and Asma, story of two children dying — Lest we forget |
Atrocities committed by Israel — graphic pictures What CNN nor the BBC ever shows you |
| US ISRAEL MASS WAR CRIMES Israel Caused Holocaust Palestine Lebanon US Israel massacres — desire to kill one and half million people They keep sucking off the teat of America and the banking systems of Europe |
| ISRAEL MASS WAR CRIMES The horror of January 2009 Israel massacres — children bullets to the head I watched an Israeli soldier shoot dead my two little girls |
| US ISRAEL MASS WAR CRIMES February March 2008 US Israel massacres — desire to kill one and half million people The Story of Palestinians Childhoods |
| ISRAEL MASS WAR CRIMES January 19 - 21 Israel massacres — children bullets to the head Places flag on family home — East Gaza City |
| ISRAEL MASS WAR CRIMES January 14 - 18 2009 Israel massacres — desire to kill one and half million people They came up again with the Hamas-was-in-the-UN-school lie |
| ISRAEL MASS WAR CRIMES CONTINUE January 2nd week 2009 99% of US House joins 100% of US Senate in Supporting Israel with HRes34 The 42 vetoes of the US for Israel |
US Israel attack on Gaza City The Politics of Anti-Semitism 99 US Senators, 350 US House members attend AIPAC meeting |
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ISRAEL MASS WAR CRIMES CONTINUE January 2009 — Click here Israel killing — US paid army fires towards populations to cause death and injury The 42 vetoes of the US for Israel |
Israel, chemical weapons and phosphorous bombs New and unknown deadly weapons used by Israeli forces Undetectable poison-needle gun for 'clean' assassinations |
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Depleted Uranium — its use in Afghanistan, Iraq, Balkans Photos of Iraq children being born deformed
Torture and Bush — White House legal architect Yoo on
Foreign Ministry officials stated they will do everything possible to renew diplomatic ties, expressing sorrow over the "unfortunate incident". Projected mortality rate of Sudan refugee starvation deaths — Darfur pictures Suicide now top killer of Israeli soldiers 'Suicide bombings,' the angel said, 'and beheadings.''And the others that have all the power — they fly missiles in the sky.They don't even look at the people they kill.' Follow the torture trail... Cowardly attacks by air killing men women and children in their homes, often never seeing those they kill as the drones or aircraft fly back to the cowardly bases If they kill only the husband, see how they care for the family they have destroyed Afghanistan — Western Terror States: Canada, US, UK, France, Germany, Italy Photos of Afghanistan people being killed and injured by NATO When you talk with God were you also spending your time, money and energy, killing people? Are they now alive or dead? Photos July 2004 US Debt Photos June 2004 The real Ronald Reagan — Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, South Africa Photos May 2004 American military: Abu Gharib (Ghraib) prison photos, humiliation and torture — London Daily Mirror article: non-sexually explicit pictures Photos April 2004 The celebration of Jerusalem day, the US missiles that rained onto children in Gaza, and, a gathering of top articles over the past nine months Photos March 2004 The Iraq War — complete listing of articles, includes images Photos February 2004 US missiles — US money — and Palestine Photos January 2004 Ethnic cleansing in the Beduin desert Photos December 2003 Shirin Ebadi Nobel Peace Prize winner 2003 Photos November 2003 Atrocities — graphic images... Photos October 2003 Aljazeerah.info Photos September 2003 |
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