Showing posts with label Blagojevich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blagojevich. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 01, 2015

Yemen, Israel, Palestine, Saudi, Wahabbi, God


THE ABSURD TIMES





Caption: School in Yemen.  See? Schools in Chicago ain't so bad.


            Quite overwhelming is the amount of absurdity today, so much so that it is difficult to know where to begin.  One thing is certain, to begin at the beginning is even more absurd.



            We can start with Yemen, the country that Obama pointed to as his model for dealing with terrorism.  Yet who is going to believe that he actually thought of it that way?  Well, the same people who remember that he called ISIS the "Junior Varsity".  The rest, well, they will simply either have to take our word for it, or search though back issues here to find the documentation.  There is no eagerness to relive all of that.  All that need be said is that all of what follows is an accurate reflection of what we have been told by our government and what we know is true, although not always at the same time.



            Saudi Arabia likes us because we believe in God.  They did not like the Soviet Union because they did not believe in God, at least not officially.  Our Constitution makes it official that we do not have to believe in a God, but it helps.  So, we are friends.  Everybody with us so far?  Ok. Good.



            Now Yemen is our model for combating terrorism,  or at least was.  Al-Quaeda is evil, but they believe in God and has a center in Yemen.  The thing is, they don't like us, so they try to bomb us with underwear and such stuff.  They even have the nerve to have people on the Web talking about God.  We do too, but our people are good -- you just have to take our word for it.  If not, we have drones. 



            But then there is a group called "Houtis", and the closest I can find of an Arabic word for that is "whale," and this is entirely unrelated to these people, as is the case with everything else with everybody else.  The Saudis (remember them?), good, don't like the Houtis because they have an Iranian God.  Now how did Iran get into this, you ask.  They used ships, we are told.  Right.  So our Christian ships often block the Shiite ships to protect the Sunni, or Wahabbi, really, bombers.  Or, to paraphrase, "God is Great"! 



             So, in order to preserve democracy, remember Democracy?, good, we have to support Israel.  That gets us into another problem because Israel says it is a "Jewish" state.  However, it is imposed on a Palestinian State.  Palestinians are basically secular, except for those in Gaza, so they are bombed in violation of any of the International laws one can think of.  Moreover, Jews can not be Israelis and Zionists at the same time (according to the original Zionist beliefs and most current Jewish beliefs).  Being Apartheid in nature, Jesus would not like the whole idea, but then Jesus never met Netanyahu.  One of our ex-Presidents, Jimmie Carter, who teaches Sunday School, called it apartheid and worse than ever, but then he is getting very old, so he doesn't count anymore.  See how it all fits together?  No?  Well, then, next paragraph.



            We carried out sanctions against south Africa because they were Apartheid, but at the time we supported Mandella staying in prison.  The only country to support South Africa towards the end was Israel because that is what God wanted.  See how it all fits together now?  Yep.



            So, Ukraine.  How did we get here?  Well, Ukraine is not Russia, you see.  Now, the Government in Kiev that we installed is called fascist by many, but according to those who are currently demonstrated, not fascist enough.  Some have called them "Neo-Nazis," but they do not like the "neo" part of that.  Hitler, after all, considered himself a good Catholic.



            Therefore, Putin snapped into action, distributing a video of himself and Medydev (as close as we are going to get to the spelling) exercising using weight machines and then having a barbeque.  Clearly, sacrilegious behavior. 



            So, who is going to straighten out all of this?  Donald Trump recently interviewed online by Sarah Palin.  She did not ask him what newspapers he read and he did not ask her to be his Vice President. 



            There is a God.



            But not in Chicago.  Rahm Emmanuel is the worst mayor Chicago has had since Kennelly, the guy who thought reform meant reform.  No understanding of Chicago at all.  Calamity Jane Byrne, Michael Blandeck, none of them come even close to Rahm Israel Emmanuel, and none had a more foul mouth, either (that was his one good trait -- at least you could communicate with him.  He is also the reason Obama's first term was such a disaster and why so many sane people left the staff as soon as possible.  Rod Blagojevich could probably get elected if an election were held today.  After trying to sell off the school system, he appeased the populace by calling out a mass of law enforcement offices to pursue cop killers near Fox Lake, north of Chicago.  The Fox River Valley extends all the way from there, past Chicago, and down towards rural Illinois.

 



             Here is some documentation on Yemen (remember Yemen?), good.:




TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

Despite Global Ban, Saudi-Led Forces Kill Dozens in Yemen Using U.S.-Made Cluster Bombs

Human Rights Watch has accused Saudi Arabia of using U.S.-made cluster munition rockets in at least seven attacks in the Yemeni city of Hajjah between late April and mid-July. Dozens of civilians were killed or wounded, both during the attacks and later, when they picked up unexploded submunitions that detonated. Neither the United States, Saudi Arabia or Yemen have joined the global convention banning the use of cluster munitions. Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch criticized the U.S. stance on cluster munitions. "The U.S. thinks that cluster munitions are legitimate weapons," Roth said. "The U.S. still hasn't signed onto the landmines treaty. So, the U.S. is very much behind the rest of the world."

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn right now to Yemen. We turn to Yemen because, well, a Saudi-led airstrike killed 36 civilians working at a bottling plant in the northern province of Hajjah on Sunday. Another attack on the Yemeni capital Sana'a hit a house and killed four civilians. The news comes amidst new evidence the Saudi-led forces have used cluster munitions in Yemen. Human Rights Watch said it found U.S.-made cluster munition rockets likely used in at least seven attacks in Hajjah between late April and mid-July. Dozens of civilians were killed or wounded, both during the attacks and later, when they picked up unexploded submunitions that denotated. Neither the United States, Saudi Arabia or Yemen have joined the global convention banning the use of cluster munitions.
Yesterday I spoke to Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth and started by asking him what Human Rights Watch found in Yemen.
KENNETH ROTH: As you note, the fact that the relevant countries have not ratified the cluster munitions treaty, while it would be helpful to do so, it's not decisive, because all of them have ratified the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit indiscriminate warfare. And cluster munitions are, by definition, indiscriminate. They scatter over wide areas, so they should never be used in civilian-populated areas to begin with. Plus they leave a residue. Not every munition explodes on contact with the ground, and they become antipersonnel land mines for people to just stumble upon and die. So the U.S. should be using pressure on the Saudis not to be using these weapons at all, but certainly not to be using them in populated areas where, as we're seeing, Yemenis are being killed.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what these weapons are and what they do.
KENNETH ROTH: They're essentially area-denial weapons. There is a canister with, you know, upwards of 200 submunitions, little bombs, inside. The canister opens in the sky and spreads these submunitions over a wide area. Each one of those is lethal, so you don't want to be in that area as these things rain down on you. You also don't want to walk through that area afterwards, but it becomes effectively a land mine field, because these cluster munitions are unreliable and a significant number don't initially explode. They only explode later, when somebody touches them or stands on them.
AMY GOODMAN: How do they affect the human body?
KENNETH ROTH: They're devastating. They're like standing on a land mine. They, at minimum, will rip off your limbs, and they very frequently are completely lethal.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to a video released by Human Rights Watch featuring interviews with victims of cluster munitions in Yemen.
AZIZ HADI MATIR HAYASH: [translated] We were together, and a rocket hit us. It exploded in the air, and cluster bombs, submunitions, fell out of it. Before we left the house with the sheep, two submunitions fell down while others spread all over the village. One exploded, and the other still remains. My cousins and I were wounded.
FATIMA IBRAHIM AL-MARZUQI: [translated] Three brothers were killed—two children and one adult. It hit us while we were sleeping, and we were all wounded, including my brothers. I can't walk. My mother carries me. She gets me out, washes me, as well as my brother. My whole body is wounded. My dress was burned that night. My hands were burned, and my bones were broken.
AMY GOODMAN: Those were victims of cluster munitions in Yemen. Ken Roth is executive director of Human Rights Watch, which put out this video. So, talk about what Saudi Arabia is doing right now in Yemen.
KENNETH ROTH: Well, Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition which is fighting the Houthi rebel forces in Yemen, and it's repeatedly using indiscriminate forms of warfare. A big part of the problem has been these cluster munitions, but we've seen time and time again that even more targeted weapons are being targeted in the wrong place. These are sophisticated weapons; the Saudis should be able to target them only at military targets. But we're finding often that they're not. And that's why we're seeing such a significant civilian toll.
AMY GOODMAN: So they're being used to terrorize.
KENNETH ROTH: Well, they're being used at least without much care as to who is hit. There is a sense that, particularly in the northern areas, which are predominantly Houthi, that there's not so much concern about civilians.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, the U.S. just sealed a deal with Saudi Arabia for military weapons and jets that's the largest deal in the world.
KENNETH ROTH: The U.S. obviously views Saudi Arabia as a major supporter of the U.S. military complex, you know. And airplane producers and the like need these contracts—think they need these contracts, in order to continue to be profitable. That shouldn't be happening at the expense of civilians on the ground. The U.S. should be willing to live by the principles that it is theoretically signed up for in the Geneva Conventions and ensure that anybody it sells arms to is not using those arms to indiscriminately kill civilians, as the Saudis have been doing.
AMY GOODMAN: Human Rights Watch is calling for a U.N. inquiry into violations on all sides in Yemen?
KENNETH ROTH: Absolutely. In fact, there is a conference coming up reviewing compliance with the new cluster munitions treaty. And one of the problems is that the U.K., Canada and Australia, all of which had joined the cluster munitions treaty, are pushing to water down this inquiry. They're trying to put "allegedly" in front of the evidence we have that Saudi clusters have killed civilians in Yemen.
AMY GOODMAN: Why?
KENNETH ROTH: They're doing the U.S. bidding.
AMY GOODMAN: Why does the U.S. want to water this down?
KENNETH ROTH: Well, I mean, the U.S. thinks that cluster munitions are legitimate weapons. The U.S. still hasn't signed onto the land mines treaty. So, the U.S. is very much behind the rest of the world. As most nations of the world want to ban these inherently indiscriminate weapons, the U.S. has a huge arsenal of them, it doesn't want that arsenal limited, and it hates the idea of treaties that are restraining the Pentagon on humanitarian grounds. It lives with the Geneva Conventions because it understands that those help to fight a better war. But the add-ons that Human Rights Watch and others have pressed—the land mines treaty, the cluster munitions treaty and the like—the Pentagon hates and has prevented Obama from signing onto them, and is trying to undermine enforcement, using U.S. allies around the world to do that.
AMY GOODMAN: How much difference does mass protest make around something like this?
KENNETH ROTH: I think it makes all the difference in the world. In other words, Obama doesn't want to be seen as underwriting indiscriminate warfare, even if it is on the other side of the world. If it happens under the radar screen, if the Pentagon is able to push this quietly, there's no big political cost to Obama. But I think rabble-rousing and publicity helps make Obama responsible, and he's going to have a hard time standing up and saying, "I don't really care about indiscriminate warfare."
AMY GOODMAN: Just to be clear, the land mine treaty that the U.S. also has not signed onto, that's the one that Princess Di was pushing so many years ago, right, among many other people?
KENNETH ROTH: Precisely. And, in fact, the U.S. government is—has limited the use of land mines. And even though it hasn't joined onto the treaty, it recognizes that these are weapons that are extremely difficult to use because of public relations problems. And so, there has been a real shift at the Pentagon. We haven't seen that shift yet, in any significant way, with cluster munitions.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you have this situation where people are being struck, civilians are being struck, by cluster munitions by the Saudi-led attacks on Yemen, yet Saudi Arabia continues to lead a blockade against people leaving. Can you explain what's happening there?
KENNETH ROTH: Well, there's an enormous humanitarian crisis in Yemen. It is already a country that is very dependent on international assistance for basic things like water and the like. And because the Saudis have been blockading the country, trying to prevent fuel and other things from getting into Yemen as part of its effort to fight the Houthi rebels, the Yemeni people are suffering. And we're seeing enormous numbers of people who are facing malnutrition and even starvation because of the deprivation caused by this blockade.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, the figures are amazing. According to the U.N., 21 million Yemenis, a staggering 80 percent of the population, need assistance. And half the population is facing hunger, famine. More than 15.2 million people lack access to basic healthcare, and over 20 million lack access to safe water.
KENNETH ROTH: Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely horrendous, and it really underscores the importance of making clear that if you're going to go to war, yes, you shoot at the other side's combatants, but you can't use means that cause the entire civilian population to suffer. And that's what the Saudi-led coalition is doing in Yemen today.
AMY GOODMAN: Human Rights Watch executive director Ken Roth speaking here in New York. This is Democracy Now! 


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Thursday, June 30, 2011

Nukes and the Flotilla, part 2


How weary can one get?

A wildfire has reached Los Alamos nuclear facilities.  We are told that the 55,000 barrels of radioactive waste are safe.  Although that may be true, are we?

It could all be balanced by the two Nuclear Power plants in Nebraska that may become flooded.  It could go down the Missouri river, or Mizzurah river (if you are over 65 and have a double digit IQ), and thence to the Mississippi.  Perhaps it will all meet up in the gulf which, as well all know, is environmentally safe.

The Flotilla is still having problems from sabotage.  One in Turkey was sabotaged.

Rod Blago was convicted of being a typical Illinois Governor.  Fitzgerald, a Republican prosecutor, finally got a jury to agree on most counts.  The fact that Blago didn’t get a cent out of this is irrelevant.

This prosecutor did not get much done in the Valerie Plaime affair, except convict “Scooter” Libby.  He named himself Scooter because of his baseball hero, Phil Rizzuto.  I don’t get no respect.  I tell ya.  If I tried to name myself after my favorite all-time players, first choice would be “Dizzy,” the hell with that.  Second choice: Jungle Jim.  C’mon!  Third choice?  “Spaceman.”  Screw that!  I tell ya, life ain’t fair.

If you want to go after what people call corrupt, and want a Governor, just look at South Carolina.  That Tea Party woman beats everything Illinois has ever produced, and that’s saying a lot.  Use Google.

Here are a few transcripts proving that there are males on the flotilla.  The featured one is Jewish and armed (with a harmonica):

June 30, 2011

Debunking the Israeli-US Effort to Thwart Gaza Freedom Flotilla: “We Are Committed to Non-Violence”

In addition to fears of ship sabotage and threats from the Israeli military, the U.S. citizens trying to sail to Gaza aboard U.S.-flagged ship “The Audacity of Hope” in the humanitarian flotilla are dealing with another challenge: their own government. The U.S. Department of State has warned U.S. passengers they could face "fines and incarceration" for taking part in the flotilla and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears to have given Israel the green light to use force. Last week, Clinton said the flotilla would be [provoking] actions by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves." The threat of violence comes just one year after Israeli forces killed nine passengers in the first flotilla to Gaza after storming their ship. The passengers aboard the U.S. ship this year are a diverse group — parents, grandparents, young people, lawyers, doctors, nurses, social workers and peace activists. They include a Jewish survivor of the Nazi Holocaust, 87-year old Hedy Epstein; and the acclaimed writer, poet and activist Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Color Purple." As The Audacity of Hope prepares to depart from Greece, Democracy Now! producers Aaron Maté and Hany Massoud spoke to crew member and former Israeli air force pilot, Yonatan Shapira, about the Israeli-U.S. effort to thwart the ship’s journey.
Yonatan Shapira, former Israeli Air Force pilot turned peace activist who is now a crew member on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla’s U.S.-flagged ship, “The Audacity of Hope.”
Aaron Maté, Democracy Now! producer reporting from Athens, Greece where he is covering the Audacity of Hope’s journey, part of the Second Freedom Flotilla to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza.
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JUAN GONZALEZ: Organizers of the humanitarian flotilla to the Gaza strip say another one of their ships has been sabotaged. The engine of an Irish ship docked in Turkey was reportedly so badly damaged it would have sunk in the middle of the ocean threatening the lives of the passengers on board. It’s at least the second flotilla vessel to be targeted this week following damage to a Greek-Swedish ship docked in a port near Athens.

Activists have accused Israel of orchestrating the sabotage but say they have no direct proof. The Israeli government is trying to stop the ships from leaving port and has vowed to intercept them should they set sail. An Israeli official quoted in the Jerusalem Post said the more "they have to run in place in Athens, the better it is for Israel."
AMY GOODMAN: Well one of the ships in the ten-vessel flotilla is the U.S.-based "Audacity of Hope," named after President Obama’s best-selling book. At least three dozen U.S. citizens are on board, carrying letters from Americans to the people of Gaza. Democracy Now! Producer Aaron Maté and videographer Hany Massoud are in Greece to cover the Audacity of Hope’s journey. On Wednesday, Yonatan Shapira — a former Israeli Air Force pilot turned peace activist who is now a crew member on the U.S. boat — gave Democracy Now! a rare look inside the ship and talked about the threat of sabotage. For our tv audience, we had to shoot this video carefully at the request of flotilla organizers who don’t want to give away the ship’s location.
YONATAN SHAPIRA: So, we are now inside the "Audacity of Hope". My name is Yonatan Shapira and I’m a crew member on the Audacity of Hope together with four other people. We have a captain from the United States, another crew member from Washington and two other crew members from the U.K. and I’m from Israel. And we have the passengers that are about 36-40 and probably around 10 media persons who are going to be on board. The boat is approximately 35 meters. It was bought in Greece and yeah, we are hoping to leave soon to Gaza. We are carrying a very dangerous weapon it’s letters from people in the United States to Gaza. I have my own very dangerous weapon that is my harmonica I hope the Israeli navy will not choose to do the mistake and stop us and arrest us for carrying letters to Gaza. So let me show you upstairs real quick.
It’s a lovely deck and that would be the place where probably we will spend most of the time cause it’s nice breeze and comfortable benches. What we know already happened to other boats, it was all published in the last 24 hours, is that the boat of the Swedish-Norwegian-Greek group was sabotaged by divers and I guess everyone can guess who did it. It’s my brothers from Israel. What they did is they cut, small cuts in both of the shuts that goes to the propellers and as soon as the captain of their boat, just for checking the engine, turned it on it completely "bended" it. The boat is now dry docked and they hope to be ready in maybe a couple of days or so.
They are definitely trying whatever they can not to let us go. Yesterday as an act of safety I dived around the boat in this quite filthy water, but we wanted to make sure that our boat is still fine, but we have to guard 24 hours a day and make sure that no one is sabotaging our boat, which of course is an act of crime, it’s a completely criminal thing to sabotage engines, propellers of a boat, it can create an accident, it can create a very very dangerous potential harm for passengers or crew. So we have to be very very careful, but determined with a lot of audacity and a lot of hope.
AMY GOODMAN: Israeli air force pilot Yonatan Shapira on the Audacity of Hope, the U.S. flag ship that contains more than 50 people, we’ll go there live in a moment, that are trying to set sail to challenge the Israeli blockade to Gaza. When we come back we’ll hear Yonatan Shapira’s own story.

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AMY GOODMAN: We’re on board the Audacity of Hope right now with Aaron Maté, Democracy Now! Producer. Aaron can you tell us what’s happening? It’s afternoon, Athens, Greece, time. Are you setting sail right now?
AARON MATÉ: Amy I’m standing on the Audacity of Hope. We’re still moored at dockside. They’ve just unveiled the banner on the side of the ship, it says "To Gaza With Love." And they’ve put an American flag on top of the boat to remind Israelis that they expect to intercede, that this is an American ship with U.S. citizens sharing the cargo, which I can see right now they’ve spread out some of the cargo, it’s a bunch of, they’re to Gaza residents, from U.S. citizens, I’m looking at one right now, I’m picking one up, it says, "To Gaza With Love," and it’s from Jason 5, and there’s a picture of a rainbow and a sun.
The passengers are here. They’re excited they’re getting ready to go. Of course there’s been a lot of raids. The police have been here a lot. Of course the ship has been held up by Greek authorities because there was a complaint filed by an Israeli group. But the spirit here is one of defiance. People are ready to go. And actually I’m going to pass you right now to one of the passengers, her name is Hedy Epstein, she’s an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor, and she’s right here.
AMY GOODMAN: Aaron is turning to her right now. It’s not a great line, but they are on the Audacity of Hope, so we’re going to give this a try. Hedy Epstein why are you trying, why are you on this boat attempting to get to Gaza?
HEDY EPSTEIN: Why would I not want to go to Gaza? If I can go anywhere in the world, I go to Gaza because the Israelis don’t want me to go there. That’s not a good reason for me not to go. I’m determined to go. This is my try to go to Gaza and if I don’t make it this time [inaudible], until we can go to Gaza at any time we want to.
AMY GOODMAN: Hedy Epstein, a Jewish survivor of the Nazi Holocaust. She is 86 years old, on board the Audacity of Hope. We will continue to cover the attempted journey of the Audacity of Hope. They were expected to leave last Saturday. We will update you on our website, at democracynow.org. Hedy Epstein thank you for joining us. Democracy Now!’s Aaron Maté on board the ship he will be covering this journey.

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Monday, July 19, 2010

Blago Not Guilty and Other Wisdom






Not Guilty

Other comments below article:





Lonna Saunders

Posted: July 19, 2010 11:10 AM

Blagojevich Trial: Where's the Beef?

After the government rested its case months ahead of schedule, it became apparent to anyone who was paying attention that what we have here is a perfectly premature prosecution.

The government's wiretaps of ex-governor Rod Blagojevich and his trusted advisors show a lot of trash talking going on. Options being offered and rejected. Cursing, Venting. But no action. In fact, what those secretly taped conversations show is Blago as a man of all talk and no action.

When did talking without action become a crime? With all the focus in recent weeks on whether Chicago's 28-year-old handgun ban would survive a Second Amendment Supreme Court challenge, did the First Amendment in Illinois, get lost in the shuffle? Don't U.S. citizens have the right to speak with friends and trusted advisors without fear of governmental eavesdropping? Because it is not clear from what the government played in court that the wiretapping was warranted.
Instead of being a criminal plotting crimes, Blagojevich came across on those secretly recorded government tapes as frankly an inept, insecure and indecisive chief executive. A waffler. Changing his mind from day to day. From hour to hour even. Heavily dependent on his advisors to tell him what to do. What was legally permissible. Or not.
Many of these same trusted advisors are now testifying against him in attempts to save their own necks. One after another on the stand, admitting they have law degrees and even law licenses, then claiming not to be lawyers. Not to be giving Blago legal advice. But on the wiretaps, Blago asks them for advice as to what is legal and what is not, and they give him that advice. So when is a lawyer not really a lawyer? Let's stop parsing around.

As to choosing who would replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate, it became a game of musical chairs. Who'd be left standing when the music stopped? Lisa Madigan, Tammy Duckworth, Dan Hynes, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Valerie Jarrett, Oprah Winfrey, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jan Schakowsky, Rahm Emanuel, Danny Davis, even Blago himself.
Everybody had a list. President Obama. Senate leader Harry Reid. Heck, Reid's list was splashed on the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times' January 4, 2009 edition. Blago had his own list and then added everyone else's picks to it.

Blagojevich's ultimate appointment of Roland Burris would not have come about if Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan had rallied his troops to hold a special election for the seat as had been expected that he would do in the aftermath of Blago's arrest. Both then Lt. Governor Pat Quinn and still Gov. Blagojevich, were pushing for Madigan to pull the trigger. Madigan never did.
So Blagojevich, in order to comply with state law because he would have been derelict in his duties as governor if he hadn't, was legally forced to make an appointment. After all, the people of Illinos were entitled to be fully represented by two Senators at the start of the new session of Congress in January, 2009. Not half-representation, especially with a new president from the Land of Lincoln, pushing for change we can believe in.

On the secretly recorded tapes, Blagojevich appeared to be leaning towards Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan before his arrest. Was he being offered any money to do this? Was he being offered any goods or services or a higher governmental position? No, he was doing it in the hope of currying brownie points with her father, House Speaker Michael Madigan, according to the tapes played in court. Nothing illegal about that. No exchange of nuttin' here. No quid pro quo.
Blago did end up appointing another attorney general to the seat, Roland Burris, the first African-American to win a statewide election in Illinois. No quid pro quo evidence presented in federal court about that appointment either.

Blagojevich did not in fact sell Obama's senate seat. He did not quid pro quo it. He replaced an African-American male with another African-American male, and if he hadn't there would be zero African-Americans in the US Senate. Something to think about.

In contrast to the uproar about the possiblity that Blago might appoint himself to President Obama's senate seat, there was not a lot of yelling and screaming going on recently, when West Virigina Governor Joe Manchin floated the notion of appointing himself to fill the seat of the longest serving member of Congress, the late US Senator Robert Byrd. Manchin ended up tapping his chief lawyer, Carte Goodwin. How cozy is that? It is reported that Manchin still plans to run for the seat.

It's true that as of January 1, 2009, the new state ethics law went into effect, prohibiting seeking campaign contributions from those doing a certain dollar amount of state business. But that wasn't illegal in 2008 when Blagojevich did it.

The prosecution has rested its case but the public has the right to ask, "Where's the beef?"
P.S. The Patti Melt sandwich being sold for lunch at the courthouse cafeteria, doesn't count.

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

That, obviously, came from the Huffington Post.  I thought I'd share it.

Some other observations:

An H-Bomb is a terrible thing to waste.

We could get rid of these bombs simply by using them. 

There were days, long ago, when kids in the public schools were sent to the floor below, forced to cross their legs and bends their heads down, all to practice for a nuclear attack.  Many people say this gave the kids complexes.

Nonsense!  For many, it was the only sign of hope.  One day all this could be over.

We could clear up the whole gulf oil mess with 3 or 4 H-Bombs.  We have them.  Why not use them?

It would stop all complaints about global climate change.  Let's just get it over with instead of dragging it out.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Easter, Miracles, and Pirates


THE ABSURD TIMES

Easter has just come and gone. Easter is a religious holiday celebrating Jesus' rising from the dead. If he sees his shadow, there are 6 more centuries of colonialism to come.

The release of the Captain of a cargoe ship was seen as an Easter miracle. This show how supersititious people really are. It is as clear as daylight that it was the hanging of yellow ribbons that saved the captain. this is based on a logical proposition called, in Latin, POST HOC, ERGO PROMPTER HOC. First the yellow ribbons, then the release of the captain.

Clear as can be.

It is confusing why the crewmembers of the ship had to be debriefed by the FBI, however. No one explained how the removal of their underwear helped one iota in this situation other than to satisfy the perverted inclinations of the agents.

Watching carefully on Fox News, we were told that National Mariners' Day is coming up in May. This is important information we ignore at our peril.

Often we were told that the ship had been surrounded by United States' warships to "send a message." Now this is an interesting concept. We also piled tons of Warship material in the straits of Hormuz to "send a message" to Iran a couple of years ago. The projected missles to be aimed at Russia from Poland is supposed to "send a message" to either Russia or Iran (it has never been clear which). Tell me, if we are having such budget problems, why don't we use e-mail to send our messages? It's cheaper by far and less likely to be misunderstood.
I didn't mean to stray: We were also told that the Captain voluntered to be a hostage because he was like a good shepherd (in keeping with the Easter spirit, I suppose).

National security also was mentioned, and that leads to the following issue:
I am still wondering why no one has brought up Dick Cheney's assertion to John King on CNN that the Oklahoma City bombing was done by Al-Quada. I guess Timothy McVeigh was secretly a Moslem?

Oh well, now over 200 mariners are safe and sound due, don't forget, to the hanging of yellow ribbons.

Finally, will someone tell the FBI to return the mariners' underwear?

Unfortunately, since the "rescue," a congressman's plane was mortared, about 4 other ships captured, and the crew is still waiting unification with its captain, currently considered a "hero," right up there with Achilles and Hector.

Meanwhile, Blagojevitch appeared in court and tricked the media so they couldn't get photos of him. This is further proof of how corrupt he is, but he said "not-guilty," and threatened that now the "truth will come out." Fitzgerald had better be careful -- there may be a few Republican involved.


Friday, January 09, 2009

Gaza and US

THE ABSURD TIMES

SPECIAL MIDEAST EDITION


Illustration: I have one of our loyal reader's to thank for this caption: "She's a real bitch and a half, the Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Hate to meet her in a
dark alley, or anywhere.....she looks like a bad mix of Hillary and Sarah, ugh."
I'll keep my own remarks short as I'm including articles by people much better able to speak on the issue than I.
Instead, notice how fast the Illinios legislature is moving to impeach Blagojevitch? And what did he do? Simply ask money for favors, all in 6 figures or less. Compare this to the U.S. Congress where impeachment was "off the table" concerning Bush and Cheney for lying to Congress, killing over 4,000 American soldiers, killing or dispalcing over 4 million Iraquis, rewarding Haliburton, and causing the impending Depression.
Anyway, I've noticed that only about 5 or ten minutes a day on all TV news outlets combined are devoted to the invasion of Gaza. Al-Jazeria covers it almost 24/7. You can get it online free, in English, at Al-Jazeria.com -- it runs at 50k, is in RealVideo, so you may have to download the player, which you can do for free.
Now on with some real information:

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

In the US, Gaza is a different war

The images of two women on the front page of an edition of The Washington Post last week illustrates how mainstream US media has been reporting Israel's war on Gaza.

On the left was a Palestinian mother who had lost five children. On the right was a nearly equally sized picture of an Israeli woman who was distressed by the fighting, according to the caption.

As the Palestinian woman cradled the dead body of one child, another infant son, his face blackened and disfigured with bruises, cried beside her.

The Israeli woman did not appear to be wounded in any way but also wept.

Arab frustration

To understand the frustration often felt in the Arab world over US media coverage, one only needs to imagine the same front page had the situation been reversed.

If an Israeli woman had lost five daughters in a Palestinian attack, would The Washington Post run an equally sized photograph of a relatively unharmed Palestinian woman, who was merely distraught over Israeli missile fire?

When the front page photographs of the two women were published on December 30, over 350 Palestinians had reportedly been killed compared to just four Israelis.

What if 350 Israelis had been killed and only four Palestinians -- would the newspaper have run the stories side by side as if equal in news value?

Like many major news organisations in the US, The Washington Post has chosen to cover the conflict from a perspective that reflects the US government's relationship with Israel. This means prioritising Israel's version of events while underplaying the views of Palestinian groups.

For example, the newspaper's lead article on Tuesday, which was published above the mothers' photographs, quotes Israeli military and civilian sources nine times before quoting a single Palestinian. The first seven paragraphs explain Israel's military strategy. The ninth paragraph describes the anxiety among Israelis, spending evenings in bomb shelters. Ordinary Palestinians, who generally have no access to bomb shelters, do not make an appearance until the 23rd paragraph.

To balance this top story, The Washington Post published another article on the bottom half of the front page about the Palestinian mother and her children. But would the paper have ever considered balancing a story about a massive attack on Israelis with an in-depth lead piece on the strategy of Palestinian militants?

Context stripped

Major US television channels also adopted the equal time approach, despite the reality that Palestinian casualties exceeded Israeli ones by a hundred fold. However, such comparisons were rare because the scripts read by American correspondents often excluded the overall Palestinian death count.

By stripping the context, American viewers may have easily assumed a level playing field, rather than a case of disproportionate force.

Take the opening lines of a report filed by NBC's Martin Fletcher on December 30: "In Gaza two little girls were taking out the rubbish and killed by an Israeli rocket -- while in Israel, a woman had been driving home and was killed by a Hamas rocket. No let up today on either side on the fourth day of this battle."

Omitted from the report was the overall Palestinian death toll, dropped continuously in subsequent reports filed by NBC correspondents over the next several days.

When number of deaths did appear -- sometimes as a graphic at the bottom of the screen -- it was identified as the number of "people killed" rather than being attributed specifically to Palestinians.

No wonder the overwhelmingly asymmetrical bombardment of Gaza has been framed vaguely as "rising tensions in the Middle East" by news anchors.

With the lack of context, the power dynamic on the ground becomes unclear.

ABC news, for example, regularly introduced events in Gaza as "Mideast Violence". And Like NBC, reporters excluded the Palestinian death toll.

On December 31, when Palestinian deaths stood at almost 400, ABC correspondent Simon McGergor-Wood began a video package by describing damage to an Israeli school by Hamas rockets.

The reporter's script can be paraphrased as follows: Israel wanted a sustainable ceasefire; Israel needed to prevent Hamas from rearming; Hamas targets were hit; Israel was sending in aid and letting the injured out; Israel was doing "everything they can to alleviate the humanitarian crisis". And with that McGregor-Wood signed off.

Palestinian perspective missing

There was no parallel telling of the Palestinian perspective, and no mention of any damages to Palestinian lives, although news agencies that day had reported five Palestinians dead.

For the ABC correspondent, it seemed the Palestinian deaths contained less news value than damage to Israeli buildings. His narration of events, meanwhile, amounted to no less than a parroting of the official Israeli line.

In fact, the Israeli government view typically went unchallenged on major US networks.

Interviews with Israeli spokesmen and ambassadors were not juxtaposed with the voices of Palestinian leaders. Prominent American news anchors frequently adopted the Israeli viewpoint. In talk show discussions, instead of debating events on the ground, the pundits often reinforced each other's views.

Such an episode occurred on a December 30 broadcast of the MSNBC show, Morning Joe, during which host Joe Scarborough repeatedly insisted that Israel should not be judged.

Israel was defending itself just as the US had done throughout history. "How many people did we kill in Germany?" Scarborough posed.

The blame rested on the Palestinians, he concluded, connecting the Gaza attacks to the Camp David negotiations of 2000. "They gave the Palestinians everything they could ask for, and they walked away from the table," he said repeatedly.

Although this view was challenged once by Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former US official, who appeared briefly on the show, subsequent guests agreed incessantly with Scarborough's characterisation of the Palestinians as negligent, if not criminal in nature.

According to guest Dan Bartlett, a former White House counsel, the Palestinian leadership had made it "very clear" that they were uninterested in peace talks.

Another guest, NBC anchor David Gregory, began by noting that Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian president, "could not be trusted", according to Bill Clinton, the former US president.

Gregory then added that Hamas had "undercut the peace process" and actually welcomed the attacks.

"The reality is that Hamas wanted this, they didn't want the ceasefire," he said.

Columnist Margaret Carlson also joined the show, agreeing in principal that Hamas should be "crushed" but voicing concern over the cost of such action.

Thus the debate was not whether Israel was justified, but rather what Israel should do next. The Palestinian human tragedy received little to no attention.

Victim's perspective

Arab audiences saw a different picture altogether. Rather than mulling Israel's dilemma, the Arab news networks captured the air assault in chilling detail from the perspective of its victims. The divide in coverage was staggering.

For US networks, the bombing of Gaza has largely been limited to two-minute video packages or five minute talk show segments. This has usually meant a few snippets of jumbled video: explosions from a distance and a momentary glance at victims; barely enough time to remember a face, let alone a personality. Victims were rarely interviewed.

The availability of time and space, American broadcast executives might argue, were mitigating factors.

On MSNBC for example, Gaza competed for air time last week with stories about the economy, such as a hike in liquor sales, or celebrity news, such as speculation over the publishing of photographs of Sarah Palin's new grandchild.

On Arab TV, however, Gaza has been the only story.

For hours on end, live images from the streets of Gaza are beamed into Arab households.

Unlike the correspondents from ABC and NBC, who have filed their reports exclusively from Israeli cities, Arab crews are inside Gaza, with many correspondents native Gazans themselves.

The images they capture are often broadcast unedited, and over the last week, a grizzly news gathering routine has been established.

The cycle begins with rooftop-mounted cameras, capturing the air raids live. After moments of quiet, thunderous bombing commences and plumes of smoke rise over the skyline. Then, anguish on the streets. Panicked civilians run for cover as ambulances careen through narrow alleys. Rescue workers hurriedly pick through the rubble, often pulling out mangled bodies. Fathers with tears of rage hold dead children up to the cameras, vowing revenge. The wounded are carried out in stretchers, gushing with blood.

Later, local journalists visit the hospitals and more gruesome images, more dead children are broadcast. Doctors wrap up the tiny bodies and carry them into overflowing morgues. The survivors speak to reporters. Their distraught voices are heard around the region; the outflow of misery and destruction is constant.

Palestinian voices

The coverage extends beyond Gaza. Unlike the US networks, which are often limited to one or two correspondents in Israel, major Arab television channels maintain correspondents and bureaus throughout the region. As angry protests take place on a near daily basis, the crews are there to capture the action live.

Even in Israel, Arab reporters are employed, and Israeli politicians are regularly interviewed. But so are members of Hamas and the other Palestinian factions.

The inclusion of Palestinian voices is not unique to Arab media. On a number of international broadcasters, including BBC World and CNN International, Palestinian leaders and Gazans in particular are regularly heard. And the Palestinian death toll has been provided every day, in most broadcasts and by most correspondents on the ground. Reports are also filed from Arab capitals.

On some level, the relatively small American broadcasting output can be attributed to a general trend in downsizing foreign reporting. But had a bloodbath on this scale happened in Israel, would the networks not have sent in reinforcements?

For now, the Israeli viewpoint seems slated to continue to dominate Gaza coverage. The latest narrative comes from the White House, which has called for a "durable" ceasefire, preventing Hamas terrorists from launching more rockets.

Naturally the soundbites are parroted by US broadcasters throughout the day and then reinforced by pundits, fearing the dangerous Hamas.

Arab channels, however, see a different outcome. Many have begun referring to Hamas, once controversial, as simply "the Palestinian resistance".

While American analysts map out Israel's strategy, Arab broadcasters are drawing their own maps, plotting the expanding range of Hamas rockets, and predicting a strengthened hand for opposition to Israel, rather than a weakened one.


Habib Battah is a freelance journalist and media analyst based in Beirut and New York. The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Al Jazeera.


From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20189
******************************

Inside Gaza

An Eyewitness Report
January 08, 2009 By *Ewa Jasiewicz*

Ewa Jasiewicz's ZSpace Page </zspace/ewajasiewicz>
WHEN I got there, the gates of Beit Hanoun hospital were shut, with
teenage men hanging off them. The mass of people striving to get inside
was a sign that there had been an attack. Inside the gates, the hospital
was full. Parents, wives, cousins, emotionally frayed and overwhelmed,
were leaning over injured loved ones.
The Israeli Apache helicopter had attacked at 3.15pm. Witnesses said
that two missiles had been fired into the street in Hay al Amel, east
Beit Hanoun, close to the border with Israel. With rumours of an
imminent invasion this empty scrubland is rapidly becoming a no-man's
land which people cross quickly, fearing attack by Israeli jets.
But the narrow, busy streets of the Boura area rarely escape the
intensifying airstrikes.
Eyewitnesses said children had been playing and waiting in the streets
there for their parents to finish praying at the nearby mosque. "We
could see it so clearly, it was so close, we looked up and everyone ran.
Those that couldn't were soon flat on the ground," said Khalil Abu
Naseer, who was lucky to have escaped the incoming missile.
"Look at this, take it," insisted men in the street, handing me pieces
of the missile the size of a fist, all with jagged edges.
"All the windows were blown out, our doors were blown in, there was
glass everywhere," explained a neighbour. It was these lumps of missile,
rock and flying glass that smashed into the legs, arms, stomachs, heads
and backs of 16 people, two of them children, who had been brought to
Beit Hanoun Hospital on Thursday afternoon.
Fadi Chabat, 24, was working in his shop, a small tin shack that was a
community hub selling sweets, cigarettes and chewing gum. When the
missile exploded, he suffered multiple injuries. He died on Friday
morning in Kamal Adwahn Hospital in Jabaliya. As women attended the
grieving room at Fadi Chabat's home yesterday to pay their respects,
Israeli F16 fighter jets tore through the skies overhead and blasted
four more bombs into the empty areas on the border. Two elderly women in
traditional embroidered red and black dresses carrying small black
plastic shopping bags moved as quickly as they could; others disappeared
behind the walls of their homes, into courtyards and off the streets.
At Fadi's house the grief was still fresh. Nearly all the women were
crying, a collective outpouring of grief and raw pain with free-flowing
tears.
"He prayed five times a day, he was a good Muslim, he wasn't part of any
group, not Fatah, not Hamas, not one, none of them, he was a good
student, and he was different," said one of his sisters. She took me to
see Fadi's younger brother, who had been wounded in the same airstrike.
Omar, eight, was sitting on his own in a darkened bedroom on a foam
mattress with gauze on his back covering his wounds.
"He witnessed everything, he saw it all," the sisters explained. "He
kept saying, I saw the missile, I saw it, Fadi's been hit by a missile'."
The memory sets Omar off into more tears, his sisters, mother and aunts
breaking down along with him.
Nine-year-old Ismaeel, who had been on the street with his sisters
Leema, four, and Haya, 12, had been taking out rubbish when they were
struck by the missiles.
Ismaeel had been brought into the hospital still breathing and doctors
at first though he would pull through, but in the end he died of
internal injuries.
Within the past six days in Beit Hanoun alone, according to hospital
records seven people have been killed, among them three children and a
mother of ten other youngsters. Another 75 people have been injured,
including 29 children and 17 women.
As well as the fatalities and wounded, hundreds of homes have had their
windows blown out and been damaged by flying debris and shrapnel. Two
homes have been totally destroyed. Nearby the premises of two
organisations have been reduced to rubble. One of them, the Sons of the
City Charity, associated with Hamas, was blasted with two Apache-fired
missiles, gutting a neighbouring apartment in the process and breaking
windows at Beit Hanoun Hospital. The Cultural Development Association
and the offices of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,
were levelled by bombs dropped from F16 jets.
It is hard to imagine what the Israeli pilots of these aircraft see from
so far up in the sky. Do they see people walking; standing around and
talking in the street; kids with sticks chasing each other in play? Or
are the figures digitised, micro-people, perhaps just blips on a screen?
Whatever is seen from the air, the victims are often ordinary people.
Last Thursday night saw volunteers from the Palestinian Red Crescent
Society in Beit Hanoun take to the streets in an effort to save lives.
Like all emergency medical staff in Gaza, they risk death working in the
maelstrom of every Israeli invasion, during curfews and night fighting.
In one of the ambulances during an evening of total darkness caused by
nightly power cuts, I meet Yusri, a veteran of more than 14 years of
Israeli incursions into the Beit Hanoun district of Gaza. Moustachioed,
energetic, and gregarious, Yusri is in his 40s and a local hero. Seen by
people within the community as a man who rarely sleeps, he is a
front-line paramedic who zooms through Gaza's streets to reach
casualties, ambulance horn blaring as he shouts through a loudhailer for
onlookers and the dazed to get out of the way.
"Where's the strike?" Yusri asks locals, as we pick our way through a
gutted charred charity office and the house of the Tarahan family. Their
home, on the buffer zone, has been reduced to a concrete sandwich. There
are six casualties, but miraculously none of them are serious.
Beit Hanoun Hospital is a simple, 48-bed local facility with no
intensive care unit, decrepit metal stretchers and rickety beds. I drink
tea in a simple office with a garrulous crowd of ear, nose and throat
specialists, surgeons and paediatricians. The talk is all about
politics: how the plan for Gaza is to merge it with Egypt; how Israel
doesn't want to liquidate Hamas as it serves their goal of a divided
Palestine to have a weak Hamas alienated from the West Bank.
The chat is interrupted by lulls of intent listening as news crackles
through on Sawt Al Shab ("The Voice Of The People"), Gaza's grassroots
news station. Almost everyone here is tuned in. It is listened to by
taxi drivers, families in their homes huddled around wood stoves or
under blankets and groups of men on street corners crouched beside
transistor radio sets.
It feeds live news on the latest resistance attacks, interspersed with
political speeches from various leaders, and fighter music - thoaty,
deep male voices united in buoyant battle songs about standing up,
reclaiming al-Quds (Jerusalem) avenging fresh martyrs, and staying
steadfast.
News is fed through on operations by armed wings of every political
group active in Gaza; the Qasam (Hamas), the Abu Ali Mustapha Martyrs
Brigade (PFLP), the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (which is affiliated with
Fatah) and Saraya al-Quds (Islamic Jihad). One thing is widely
recognised - the attack on Gaza has brought all armed resistance groups
together. However, everybody adds wryly that "once this is all over,
they'll all break apart again".
One of the surgeons asks me about whether I'm scared, and whether I
really think I have protection as a foreigner here. I talk in detail
about Israel's responsibility to protect emergency services; to cease
fire; to facilitate movement;, to respect the Geneva Conventions,
including protection of civilians and injured combatants. The surgeon
talking to me is an intelligent man, highly respected in the community,
in his late 40s. He takes his time, explaining to me in detail that all
the evidence from everything Gazans have experienced points to Israel
operating above the law - that there is no protection, that these laws,
these conventions, do not seem to apply to Israel, nor does it abide by
them, and that I should be afraid, very afraid, because Gazans are afraid.
He recounts a story from the November 2006 invasion which saw more than
60 people killed, one entire family in one day alone. About 100 tanks
invaded Beit Hanoun, with one blocking each entrance for six days. He
remembers how the Red Cross brought water and food and took away the
refuse. All co-ordination was cut off with the Palestinian Authority.
The same will happen this time, he insists. He remembers too how one
ambulance driver, Yusri, a maverick, a hero, loved by all the staff and
community, faced down the tanks to evacuate the injured. Yusri, the
surgeon says, just drove up to the tank and started shouting through his
loudhailer, telling them to move for the love of God because we had a
casualty, then just swerved round them and made off.
Yusri has carried the injured and dead in every invasion in the past 14
years. He shows me a leg injury sustained when a tank rammed into his
ambulance. The event was caught on camera by journalists, and a case
brought against the Israel Occupation Forces, but they ruled the army
had acted appropriately in self defence.
"Look in the back of the ambulance here, how many people do you think
can fit in here? I was carrying 10 corpses at a time after the invasion,
there was a man cut in two here in the back, it was horrific. But you
carry on. I want to serve my country," he says.
During a prolonged power cut in that six-day invasion there was no
electricity to power a ventilator, and doctors took turns hand pumping
oxygen to keep one casualty alive for four hours before they could be
transferred. Roads were bulldozed, ambulances were banned from moving,
dead people lay in their homes for days, and when permission was finally
given for the corpses' collection, medics had to carry them on
stretchers along the main street.
Today in Gaza everyone is terrified that such events are now repeating
themselves, only worse. Gazans now feel collectively abandoned. The past
week's massacres, indiscriminate attacks and overflowing hospitals, and
the fact that anyone can be hit at any time in any place, has left
people utterly terrorised. No-one dares think of what might become of
them in these difficult and unpredictable days. As they say in Gaza,
"Bein Allah" - "It's up to God".
Ewa Jasiewicz is a journalist and activist. She is currently the
co-ordinator for the Free Gaza movement and one of the only
international journalists on the ground in Gaza
**************************

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe

Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in
the Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy.
But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating
conclusions
January 08, 2009 By *Avi Shlaim*
Source: Guardian
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine>
Avi Shlaim's ZSpace Page </zspace/avishlaim>
The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gaza> is through understanding the
historical context. Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948
involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials
bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state.
On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary,
Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a
gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". I
used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel's vicious
assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration's complicity
in this assault, have reopened the question.
I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the
mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of
Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist
colonial project beyond the Green Line. The Israeli occupation of the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war had
very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial
expansionism. The aim was to establish Greater Israel through permanent
political, economic and military control over the Palestinian
territories. And the result has been one of the most prolonged and
brutal military occupations of modern times.
Four decades of Israeli control did incalculable damage to the economy
of the Gaza Strip. With a large population of 1948 refugees crammed into
a tiny strip of land, with no infrastructure or natural resources,
Gaza's prospects were never bright. Gaza, however, is not simply a case
of economic under-development but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate
de-development. To use the Biblical phrase, Israel turned the people of
Gaza into the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, into a source of
cheap labour and a captive market for Israeli goods. The development of
local industry was actively impeded so as to make it impossible for the
Palestinians to end their subordination to Israel and to establish the
economic underpinnings essential for real political independence.
Gaza is a classic case of colonial exploitation in the post-colonial
era. Jewish settlements in occupied territories are immoral, illegal and
an insurmountable obstacle to peace. They are at once the instrument of
exploitation and the symbol of the hated occupation. In Gaza, the Jewish
settlers numbered only 8,000 in 2005 compared with 1.4 million local
residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25% of the territory, 40% of the
arable land and the lion's share of the scarce water resources. Cheek by
jowl with these foreign intruders, the majority of the local population
lived in abject poverty and unimaginable misery. Eighty per cent of them
still subsist on less than $2 a day. The living conditions in the strip
remain an affront to civilised values, a powerful precipitant to
resistance and a fertile breeding ground for political extremism.
In August 2005 a Likud government headed by Ariel Sharon staged a
unilateral Israeli pullout from Gaza, withdrawing all 8,000 settlers and
destroying the houses and farms they had left behind. Hamas, the Islamic
resistance movement, conducted an effective campaign to drive the
Israelis out of Gaza. The withdrawal was a humiliation for the Israeli
Defence Forces. To the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza
as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But in the
year after, another 12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further
reducing the scope for an independent Palestinian state. Land-grabbing
and peace-making are simply incompatible. Israel had a choice and it
chose land over peace.
The real purpose behind the move was to redraw unilaterally the borders
of Greater Israel by incorporating the main settlement blocs on the West
Bank to the state of Israel. Withdrawal from Gaza was thus not a prelude
to a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority but a prelude to further
Zionist expansion on the West Bank. It was a unilateral Israeli move
undertaken in what was seen, mistakenly in my view, as an Israeli
national interest. Anchored in a fundamental rejection of the
Palestinian national identity, the withdrawal from Gaza was part of a
long-term effort to deny the Palestinian people any independent
political existence on their land.
Israel's settlers were withdrawn but Israeli soldiers continued to
control all access to the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air. Gaza was
converted overnight into an open-air prison. From this point on, the
Israeli air force enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs, to make
sonic booms by flying low and breaking the sound barrier, and to
terrorise the hapless inhabitants of this prison.
Israel likes to portray itself as an island of democracy in a sea of
authoritarianism. Yet Israel has never in its entire history done
anything to promote democracy on the Arab side and has done a great deal
to undermine it. Israel has a long history of secret collaboration with
reactionary Arab regimes to suppress Palestinian nationalism. Despite
all the handicaps, the Palestinian people succeeded in building the only
genuine democracy in the Arab world with the possible exception of
Lebanon. In January 2006, free and fair elections for the Legislative
Council of the Palestinian Authority brought to power a Hamas-led
government. Israel, however, refused to recognise the democratically
elected government, claiming that Hamas is purely and simply a terrorist
organisation.
America and the EU shamelessly joined Israel in ostracising and
demonising the Hamas government and in trying to bring it down by
withholding tax revenues and foreign aid. A surreal situation thus
developed with a significant part of the international community
imposing economic sanctions not against the occupier but against the
occupied, not against the oppressor but against the oppressed.
As so often in the tragic history of Palestine, the victims were blamed
for their own misfortunes. Israel's propaganda machine persistently
purveyed the notion that the Palestinians are terrorists, that they
reject coexistence with the Jewish state, that their nationalism is
little more than antisemitism, that Hamas is just a bunch of religious
fanatics and that Islam is incompatible with democracy. But the simple
truth is that the Palestinian people are a normal people with normal
aspirations. They are no better but they are no worse than any other
national group. What they aspire to, above all, is a piece of land to
call their own on which to live in freedom and dignity.
Like other radical movements, Hamas began to moderate its political
programme following its rise to power. From the ideological rejectionism
of its charter, it began to move towards pragmatic accommodation of a
two-state solution. In March 2007, Hamas and Fatah formed a national
unity government that was ready to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with
Israel. Israel, however, refused to negotiate with a government that
included Hamas.
It continued to play the old game of divide and rule between rival
Palestinian factions. In the late 1980s, Israel had supported the
nascent Hamas in order to weaken Fatah, the secular nationalist movement
led by Yasser Arafat. Now Israel began to encourage the corrupt and
pliant Fatah leaders to overthrow their religious political rivals and
recapture power. Aggressive American neoconservatives participated in
the sinister plot to instigate a Palestinian civil war. Their meddling
was a major factor in the collapse of the national unity government and
in driving Hamas to seize power in Gaza in June 2007 to pre-empt a Fatah
coup.
The war unleashed by Israel on Gaza on 27 December was the culmination
of a series of clashes and confrontations with the Hamas government. In
a broader sense, however, it is a war between Israel and the Palestinian
people, because the people had elected the party to power. The declared
aim of the war is to weaken Hamas and to intensify the pressure until
its leaders agree to a new ceasefire on Israel's terms. The undeclared
aim is to ensure that the Palestinians in Gaza are seen by the world
simply as a humanitarian problem and thus to derail their struggle for
independence and statehood.
The timing of the war was determined by political expediency. A general
election is scheduled for 10 February and, in the lead-up to the
election, all the main contenders are looking for an opportunity to
prove their toughness. The army top brass had been champing at the bit
to deliver a crushing blow to Hamas in order to remove the stain left on
their reputation by the failure of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon
in July 2006. Israel's cynical leaders could also count on apathy and
impotence of the pro-western Arab regimes and on blind support from
President Bush in the twilight of his term in the White House. Bush
readily obliged by putting all the blame for the crisis on Hamas,
vetoing proposals at the UN Security Council for an immediate ceasefire
and issuing Israel with a free pass to mount a ground invasion of Gaza.
As always, mighty Israel claims to be the victim of Palestinian
aggression but the sheer asymmetry of power between the two sides leaves
little room for doubt as to who is the real victim. This is indeed a
conflict between David and Goliath but the Biblical image has been
inverted -- a small and defenceless Palestinian David faces a heavily
armed, merciless and overbearing Israeli Goliath. The resort to brute
military force is accompanied, as always, by the shrill rhetoric of
victimhood and a farrago of self-pity overlaid with self-righteousness.
In Hebrew this is known as the syndrome of bokhim ve-yorim, "crying and
shooting".
To be sure, Hamas is not an entirely innocent party in this conflict.
Denied the fruit of its electoral victory and confronted with an
unscrupulous adversary, it has resorted to the weapon of the weak --
terror. Militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad kept launching Qassam
rocket attacks against Israeli settlements near the border with Gaza
until Egypt brokered a six-month ceasefire last June. The damage caused
by these primitive rockets is minimal but the psychological impact is
immense, prompting the public to demand protection from its government.
Under the circumstances, Israel had the right to act in self-defence but
its response to the pinpricks of rocket attacks was totally
disproportionate. The figures speak for themselves. In the three years
after the withdrawal from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire.
On the other hand, in 2005-7 alone, the IDF killed 1,290 Palestinians in
Gaza, including 222 children.
Whatever the numbers, killing civilians is wrong. This rule applies to
Israel as much as it does to Hamas, but Israel's entire record is one of
unbridled and unremitting brutality towards the inhabitants of Gaza.
Israel also maintained the blockade of Gaza after the ceasefire came
into force which, in the view of the Hamas leaders, amounted to a
violation of the agreement. During the ceasefire, Israel prevented any
exports from leaving the strip in clear violation of a 2005 accord,
leading to a sharp drop in employment opportunities. Officially, 49.1%
of the population is unemployed. At the same time, Israel restricted
drastically the number of trucks carrying food, fuel, cooking-gas
canisters, spare parts for water and sanitation plants, and medical
supplies to Gaza. It is difficult to see how starving and freezing the
civilians of Gaza could protect the people on the Israeli side of the
border. But even if it did, it would still be immoral, a form of
collective punishment that is strictly forbidden by international
humanitarian law.
The brutality of Israel's soldiers is fully matched by the mendacity of
its spokesmen. Eight months before launching the current war on Gaza,
Israel established a National Information Directorate. The core messages
of this directorate to the media are that Hamas broke the ceasefire
agreements; that Israel's objective is the defence of its population;
and that Israel's forces are taking the utmost care not to hurt innocent
civilians. Israel's spin doctors have been remarkably successful in
getting this message across. But, in essence, their propaganda is a pack
of lies.
A wide gap separates the reality of Israel's actions from the rhetoric
of its spokesmen. It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire.
It did so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November that killed six Hamas men.
Israel's objective is not just the defence of its population but the
eventual overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza by turning the people
against their rulers. And far from taking care to spare civilians,
Israel is guilty of indiscriminate bombing and of a three-year-old
blockade that has brought the inhabitants of Gaza, now 1.5 million, to
the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.
The Biblical injunction of an eye for an eye is savage enough. But
Israel's insane offensive against Gaza seems to follow the logic of an
eye for an eyelash. After eight days of bombing, with a death toll of
more than 400 Palestinians and four Israelis, the gung-ho cabinet
ordered a land invasion of Gaza the consequences of which are incalculable.
No amount of military escalation can buy Israel immunity from rocket
attacks from the military wing of Hamas. Despite all the death and
destruction that Israel has inflicted on them, they kept up their
resistance and they kept firing their rockets. This is a movement that
glorifies victimhood and martyrdom. There is simply no military solution
to the conflict between the two communities. The problem with Israel's
concept of security is that it denies even the most elementary security
to the other community. The only way for Israel to achieve security is
not through shooting but through talks with Hamas, which has repeatedly
declared its readiness to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with the
Jewish state within its pre-1967 borders for 20, 30, or even 50 years.
Israel has rejected this offer for the same reason it spurned the Arab
League peace plan of 2002, which is still on the table: it involves
concessions and compromises.
This brief review of Israel's record over the past four decades makes it
difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with
"an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". A rogue state habitually
violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and
practises terrorism -- the use of violence against civilians for
political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap
fits and it must wear it. Israel's real aim is not peaceful coexistence
with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination. It keeps
compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones.
Politicians, like everyone else, are of course free to repeat the lies
and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.
Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at the University
of Oxford and the author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World and
of Lion of Jordan: King Hussein's Life in War and Peace. This article
appeared in the Guardian on January 7, 2009.
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