Friday, January 16, 2009
UN accuses Israel over phosphorus
In 8 years: 20 Israelis die from Gaza rockets, 4000 from car accidents
On the number of Israeli deaths, Gordon said: "between ten and twenty people, Israelis, have died from rockets in the eight years that rockets have been launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel. During the same amount of time, 4,000 Israelis have died from car accidents."
But Israel still used that as an excuse to bomb Gaza.
"From these twenty people, we’re allowed to enter into the Gaza Strip and bomb them from the air into their cage and kill 275 children," said Gordon, who is also the author of the book Israel’s Occupation.
On the media war, Gordon noted: "Israel is dealing with a propaganda war. Israel is the one that disseminated a video of Hamas shooting rockets from a school, a video that’s almost two years old, claiming that the video was taken a day or two earlier. So Israel is in a propaganda war."
Gordon noted that "although Hamas did launch an incredible amount of rockets at the end of the ceasefire," it was Israel which broke the ceasefire on November 4th "when it attacked in the Gaza Strip."
and that Israel promotes state sponsored terrorism
"Yes, the Hamas is fighting out from a civilian population, but Israel has the choice whether it’s going to bomb the civilian population or not, and it is intentionally deciding to bomb the civilian population. So in terms of intentionality in bombing areas where there are civilians, Israel is acting like a state terrorist. So, if your definition of terrorism doesn’t take into account the identity of the actor—and state actors can also be terrorists—then when you bomb a school and when you bomb a university and when you bomb a neighborhood and you’re killing much more civilians than militants, then you’re doing something that is an act of terror," he explained.
Very interesting read. Don't miss it.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
This is really insane...no respect for anyone or anything
Israel launched the offensive Dec. 27 to end Hamas rocket attacks on Israel. Gaza medics say about 1,100 Palestinians, half of them civilians, have died; 13 Israelis have also been killed.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, visiting Israel, said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told him the attack on the U.N. compound was a "grave" error and apologized for it.
"I conveyed my strong protest and outrage to the defense minister and foreign minister and demanded a full explanation," said Ban, who arrived Thursday from Egypt.
Israel's chief military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu, said the military had not clarified the incident and that an investigation was under way.
"If it becomes clear that we returned shots at the source of fire, we will say so, and if it turns out we operated by mistake, we will not hesitate to confess," Benayahu told Israeli television.
Ging described the Israeli claim as "total nonsense" and "typical misinformation."
He said his staff in Tel Aviv was told by the Israeli liaison office "that there were no militants in the compound. There were militants operating ... in the area, but no militants or any firing from our compound. That's the official position of the Israeli authorities that deal with us. It happens, to my knowledge here, to be representative of the facts."
Changed the blog template
Leaders Lie, Civilians Die --- very apropos
Is Hamas going to say: "Wow, this blitz is awesome – we'd better recognise the state of Israel, fall in line with the Palestinian Authority, lay down our weapons and pray we are taken prisoner and locked up indefinitely and support a new American 'peace process' in the Middle East!" Is that what the Israelis and the Americans and Gordon Brown think Hamas is going to do?Read the article.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The real numbers of Israelis killed vs all others
Twenty Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure indeed. But 600 Palestinians dead in just over a week, thousands over the years since 1948 – when the Israeli massacre at Deir Yassin helped to kick-start the flight of Palestinians from that part of Palestine that was to become Israel – is on a quite different scale. This recalls not a normal Middle East bloodletting but an atrocity on the level of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. And of course, when an Arab bestirs himself with unrestrained fury and takes out his incendiary, blind anger on the West, we will say it has nothing to do with us. Why do they hate us, we will ask? But let us not say we do not know the answer.Read this article. It is very interesting how Mr. Fisk gets the other side, while all other mainstream journalists are just government mouthpieces.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Robert Fisk’s World: Wherever I go, I hear the same tired Middle East comparisons
It took Fintan O'Toole, The Irish Times's resident philosopher-in-chief, to speak the unspeakable. "When does the mandate of victimhood expire?" he asked. "At what point does the Nazi genocide of Europe's Jews cease to excuse the state of Israel from the demands of international law and of common humanity?"When are we going to stop blaming the victim and victimizing the culprit? Check this other quote.
My favourite moment came when I pointed out that journalists should be on the side of those who suffer. If we were reporting the 18th-century slave trade, I said, we wouldn't give equal time to the slave ship captain in our dispatches. If we were reporting the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp, we wouldn't give equal time to the SS spokesman. At which point a journalist from the Jewish Telegraph in Prague responded that "the IDF are not Hitler". Of course not. But who said they were?