27th December 2008, Gaza, Palestine - Human Rights Defenders from Lebanon, the UK, Poland, Canada, Spain, Italy and Australia are present in Gaza and are witnessing and documenting the current Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Due to Israel's policy of denying access to international media, human rights defenders and aid agencies to the
Occupied Gaza Strip, many of these Human Rights Defenders arrived in Gaza with the Free Gaza Movement's boats.
FGM boats have broken Israel's siege of Gaza five times in the past four months.


"At the time of the attacks I was on Omar Mukhtar street and witnessed a last rocket hit the street 150 meters away where crowds had already gathered to try to extract the dead bodies. Ambulances, trucks, cars - anything that can move is bringing injured to
the hospitals. Hospitals have had to evacuate sick patients to make room for the injured. I have been told that there is not enough room in the morgues for the bodies and that there is a great lack of blood in the bloodbanks. I have just learned that among the civilians killed today was the mother of my good friends in Jabalya camp." - Eva Bartlett (Canada) International
Solidarity Movement

"Israeli missles tore through a children's playground and busy market in Diere Balah, we saw the aftermath - many were injured and some reportedly killed. Every Hospital in the Gaza strip is already overwhelmed with injured people and does not have the medicine or the capacity to treat them. Israel is committing crimes against humanity, it is violating international and human rights law, ignoring the United Nations and planning even bigger attacks. The world must act now and intensify the calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel; governments need to move beyond words of condemnation into an active and immediate
restraint of Israel and a lifting of the siege of Gaza" - Ewa Jasiewicz
(Polish and British) Free Gaza Movment

"The morgue at the Shifa hospital has no more room for dead bodies, so bodies and body parts are strewn all over the hospital." - Dr. Haidar Eid, (Palestinian, South African) Professor of Social and Cultural
Studies, Al Aqsa University Gaza

"The bombs began to fall just as the children were on the streets walking back from school. I went out onto the stairs and a terrified 5
year old girl ran sobbing into my arms."- Sharon Lock (Australian) International Solidarity Movement

"This is incredibly sad. This massacre is not going to bring security for the State of Israel or allow it to be part of the Middle East. Now
calls of revenge are everywhere." Dr Eyad Sarraj - President of the Gaza
Community Mental Health Centre


"As I speak they have just hit a building 200 metres away. There is smoke everywhere. This morning I went to the building close to where I
live in Rafah that had been hit. Two bulldozers were immediately attempting to clear the rubble. They thought they had found all the
bodies. As we arrived one more was found." Jenny Linnel (British) International Solidarity Movement

(messages continued below)

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I see on Yahoo news a headline: "US urges Hamas to cease rocket attacks on Israel (AP)"

Absolutely disgusting. Israel can do no wrong. Disgraceful.

Here are some alternate sources of information. Ha'aretz is an Israeli newspaper, sort of like their NY Times or Washington Post... but you will get more honest information about what Israel is doing with your tax dollars from this Israeli newspaper than you can find here.

Electronic Intifada

Ha'aretz

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

B'Tselem: Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

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Stating that he saw Jerusalem as the unified capital of Israel while bulldozers plowed asunder Palestinian homes a stones throw away (in breech of international law and US brokered peace agreements), is what makes this continuing travesty of morality and justice possible- change you can bank on (literally)....
Having said that, I shudder to think of the civillian casualties that will follow with the wave of suicide bombing that this will spawn.

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CNN, Fox, Drudge, NY Times all show pictures of Israeli settlers sitting in their basement, supposedly hiding from Hamas Rockets. Hamas Rockets may have killed an Israeli woman today.
In Gazza, 240 killed so far (after being starved and denied electric power and medical supplies for months), mostly civilians. Hundreds of others maimed by Israeli F16s today. I would like to see the coverage if it were 250 Israelis were killed.
Israel is miscalculating. In the long term, The magnitude of the injustice will create hundreds or thousands of Hamas supporters all across the Arab and Muslim World..
Neither Israel nor the US will not be able to deny 7 million Palestineans the right to a homeland - Free and independent and dignified - no Israeli check points or settlers from US or Russia to kill them and tell them that God gave us your homes. Arabs and Jews can live together and have done so since the Abraham in this land. But Radicals on both sides - and in the US radical right -stand in the way of a just solution.
In The Muslim world, Everything Israel does is blamed naturally and justifiably on the US, the biggest supporter of Israel. The US voting population deserves the truth about Gazza.

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You should (all of you) feel as much sympathy for the Israelis who have lived every day under rocket fire from terrorists as you do for the terrorists. There is no country in the world would have been so patient as was Israel. Gazans are the biggest bunch of bullies I have ever seen. "You had no right to hit me back" Whine, whine, whine.

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Hamas just doesnt get it...or maybe they do.

They attack Israel with scores of rockets knowing full well that Israel have to retaliate.

Hamas then places their operations in civilian areas - what we then have is a planned use of civilians as a shield knowing full well they will be hurt - and a great PR event at the expense of a few children...what wonderful people.

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about the region, and also some other news, look to http://www.uruknet.info/ , which relays from a number of different sources -- some main stream and also alternative and regional.

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they want the land. They can't get that through diplomacy and negotiations, but they are militarily superior, so they do what they can to exacerbate the hostilities, hoping to get it through violence.

George Galloway covered the attack and situation tonight. You should be able to download the mp3 by tomorrow sometime (and also past shows) at http://www.georgegalloway.com/
page.php?page=content/tsarchive.html or at http://www.spiderednews.com/

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How long is this tit for tat skirmishes going to go on? It is obvious that neither side wants peace. The only thing left to do is to unleash both of these dogs and let them fight to the death.

These problems will be solved with our imminent mega-pandemic. With our air travel and much more urban lifestyles, the Spanish Flu is going to look like a head cold. Remember, the Black Death was the catalyst for the renaissance. What marvels will half of the world see after this centuries cleansing?

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Period.

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I don't have to tell you what the definition of insanity is.

If Obama allows Israel to continue on the path they never deviate from, then maybe it's time we pass the hat and get some real weapons for the Palestinians and just get this over with.

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Israel has gone through contortions to seize any cash going to the Palestinian's, for essentials, yet there is always an abundance of these anemic rockets and motars that come down like 'rain' but have Never hit anything!

Upon examination, something political Israel can't tolerate, we'll find Israel has generated the most detailed phony and fraudulent production diabolic deceit only rivaled by hollywood, Israel's kissing cousin of bullshit.
It started in earnest w/their 'made for TV' 6 Day War.

Please Israel stay behind your wall, marked 'damaged goods' and leave America out of your inexhaustable supply of deceit, its made America a very sick place.

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How does Israel always get away with these atrocities???

Moreover, some day soon they are going to set off WWIII!!!

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Both sides are guilty of terrorism. The US is only responsible for Israel's version.
This is what we pay $10 million/day for?
I hope Obama/Hillary have read The Geneva Conventions.

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and are laying the ground-work for an all-out invasion.

This is going to get really, really ugly very soon.

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my heart with the poor citizens of Gaza.

Yet, for months we have heard about rockets that were shoot from Gaza to Israeli cities.
Last week I heard on the TV the Israeli politiciens ask for a period of calm, ut the Palestinian PM wais no.

I must admit that it really surprised me: Israel has the strongest army in that poor region, so why pushing it to a corner????

The Palestinian government should leave and take responsibility

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Reuters quotes Egypt's foreign minister:

"We are waiting for the wounded Palestinians to cross. They are not being allowed to cross," he told reporters. Asked who was to blame, he said: "Ask the party in control on the ground in Gaza."

Once again, in a sinister, nefarious and deadly propagandist game, Hamas precipitates a crisis by ending the cease fire and lobying hundreds of missiles into civilian population centers in Israel.

Israel, after attempting to negotiate a continued ceasefire, and indeed after keeping the border open and allowing fuel, medical supplies and food to continue to enter Gaza, has finally done what any other country would have done to defend its civilian population.

Trying to avoid unnecessary bloodshed among the Palestinians, the Israelis even dropped leaflets in Gaza announcing the attack.

Even more sinister is the revelation that Iran has been supplying Hamas in Gaza with newer longer range rockets, through the Egypy-Gaza border, so as to promote this conflict, some say even providing timing and logistical support. Is it any surprise that the escalation of rockets being murderously shot into Israel comes as the price of petroleum hits new lows? Ahmedinajad is the architect behind this, Palestinians are merely pawns playing out their scripted parts in a deadly game designed to increase tensions in the Middle East, so as to enrich the Iranian regime's faltering position.

Israel should never have given Gaza up and allowed self governing there. Indeed many have pressaged these events, and foretold the situation Israel faces now.

Instead of building a Palestine, Hamas doggedly seeks to destroy Israel - more of the same Fatah criminality under a new guise. Palestinians are being stepped on by their own leadership, stepped on with a dirty shoe that tracks bloodthirsty revenge, chaos and sinister purpose.

Israel should re-occupy Gaza and send all the Palestinians there to Iran or Egypt.

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I am writing to call on you to call on your colleagues in the [Senate] to join with you in demanding of our Administration that it demand that Israel halt its assault on Gaza and lift the siege, now, and enter into serious good faith negotiations with both Hamas and the PA, on pain of losing all US aid and support.

The humanitarian catastrophe that is unfolding in Gaza will be the stuff of legends, like the siege of Leningrad, or the sack of Jerusalem by the Romans and again by the Crusaders. If the US continues with its open and nearly full support for Israel we will be known to the world and to a hundred generations to come as among the villains in this drama, violators of all modern standards of international law and morality, responsible for mass murder and destruction of a people. No short-term political or strategic calculation can justify this.

All of Palestine, including Gaza, is an occupied territory, giving Israel a definite set of responsibilities under international law to maintain basic services and certain basic human rights and to adequately supply basic necessities. The fact that Israel has withdrawn from Gaza in no way absolves them of their responsibility, given that they strictly control all access to the strip and maintain the right to arrest or kill people there at will. Nor do acts of resistance by the Gazans absolve Israel. We don't have to like Hamas or agree that their taking power in Gaza met international norms of democracy to recognize that in fact Hamas does control and lead the people of Gaza. Refusing to talk with Hamas while killing and starving the people of Gaza until they repudiate Hamas and drive them out is illogical, immoral and unlikely to succeed this side of mass starvation.

Next to come will be suicide bombings in Israel, the only tool left to Hamas to strike back with, followed by a huge, draconian Israeli response, which it is foreseeable that the US will justify and abet. The suicide bombers will be denounced as cowards, but not those who drop 1000-lb bombs from the air or fire missiles from distant bases. You know in your hearts that this is cant and hypocrisy, and most of the world will see through it.

Also foreseeable is that some Israeli citizen of Arab descent, driven by despair, outrage and the anger of a lifetime of enduring petty Apartheid, will undertake a bombing in Israel, followed by a massive outpouring of hate against and massive repression and expulsion of Arab citizens - a step toward the ethnic cleansing that some in Israel are demanding. The US must not let events reach that point.

It's time to stop this insanity. It's time to speak out and call on your colleagues to call on our government to compel Israel to stop.

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The progressive standard to use to evaluate the actions of either side is the rule of law. Considering a decent definition of "terrorism" (see below) any attacks on civilians are criminal.

Israeli attacks and actions that harm or kill civilians through direct attacks or collective punishment are criminal. The definition below specifies "nature" or "context" as key to intent to harm. A missile fired into a heavily populated area is therefore terrorism by context—killing or maiming civilians is predictable. Current Israeli actions towards Gaza people are crimes against humanity and terrorism.

That said, Palestinian militia groups that fire rockets aimed at civilians are also committing crimes. That is terrorism. That is a crime against humanity.

So we have a cycle of violence, and it is disproportionate, favoring the powerful side armed by the US.

The solution is to end the occupation, to implement the Geneva accord and the Saudi plan, to implement UNSC 242, etc.

If the US wanted a solution, our government would make abiding by law a requirement for aid to Israel, and aid to Palestinians.

The US government doesn't want a solution. Not yet. Let's hope Obama changes that.

Here is the best definition of terrorism I've seen:

The report of the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change included a working definition of terrorism as:

“any action, in addition to actions already specified by the existing
conventions on aspects of terrorism, the Geneva Conventions and
Security Council Resolution 1566 (2004), that is intended to
cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants,
when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intim-
idate a population, or to compel a Government or an international
organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.”

http://www.stanleyfoundation.org
/publications/report/UNND807.pdf

(The above link is split into two parts.)

http://lib-unique.un.org/lib/unique.nsf

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It's interesting but ultimately sad, how everyone seems to pick a side and dig in their heels, completely ignoring the arguments and points of the other side. To me it is blatantly obvious what the problem is: they're all assholes.

Just this morning I wrote, in regards to a different article here on alternet:

"I'm quite pessimistic about our future, Obama notwithstanding, and frankly, I'm not impressed with humanity in general; we are capable of extraordinary compassion, sensitivity, beauty, art, innovation, etc. yet, as any glance at human history (or daily headlines from every corner of the world) will show: Humanity is overrated. Sad but true."

The middle east will never ever have peace, nor will mankind in general, and it's all just fucking depressing as hell. Happy new year.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world
/2008/dec/28/israel-gaza-hamas

Israel mounts PR campaign to blame Hamas for Gaza destruction

Foreign minister briefs Rice, Miliband, and Solana

Toni O'Loughlin, Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 December 2008 15.45 GMT

Israel has mounted a public relations campaign to convince international hearts and minds that Hamas is to blame for the death and destruction they are seeing on their television screens.

Stung by the wave of international criticism earlier this year when Israel invaded Gaza to stop militants firing rockets, in an operation dwarfed by its current attack, Israel decided to go on the offensive.

[...]

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Why are Zionists treated differently than their European bretherns in South Africa?

Consider the research of Zionist-Israeli scholars:

"According to the Tel Aviv University historian, Prof. Shlomo Sand, author of "Matai ve'ech humtza ha'am hayehudi?" ("When and How the Jewish People Was Invented?"; Resling, in Hebrew), Jews of North Africa originated in indigenous tribes that became Jewish and are the main sources from which Spanish Jewry sprang.

In this work, the author attempts to prove that the Jews now living in Israel and other places in the world are not at all descendants of the ancient people who inhabited the Kingdom of Judea during the First and Second Temple period.

Sand: "My initial intention was to take certain kinds of modern historiographic materials and examine how they invented the 'figment' of the Jewish people. But when I began to confront the historiographic sources, I suddenly found contradictions. And then that urged me on: I started to work, without knowing where I would end up. I took primary sources and I tried to examine authors' references in the ancient period - what they wrote about conversion."

Inventing the Diaspora
"I started looking in research studies about the exile from the land - a constitutive event in Jewish history, almost like the Holocaust. But to my astonishment I discovered that it has no literature. The reason is that no one exiled the people of the country. The Romans did not exile peoples and they could not have done so even if they had wanted to. They did not have trains and trucks to deport entire populations. That kind of logistics did not exist until the 20th century. From this, in effect, the whole book was born: in the realization that Judaic society was not dispersed and was not exiled."

If the people was not exiled, are you saying that in fact the real descendants of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah are the Palestinians?

"No population remains pure over a period of thousands of years. But the chances that the Palestinians are descendants of the ancient Judaic people are much greater than the chances that you or I are its descendents. The first Zionists, up until the Arab Revolt [1936-9], knew that there had been no exiling, and that the Palestinians were descended from the inhabitants of the land. They knew that farmers don't leave until they are expelled. Even Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the second president of the State of Israel, wrote in 1929 that, 'the vast majority of the peasant farmers do not have their origins in the Arab conquerors, but rather, before then, in the Jewish farmers who were numerous and a majority in the building of the land.'"

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According to Neve Gordon: "The experiment in famine began on January 18, 2008. Israel hermetically closed all of Gaza's borders, preventing even food, medicine and fuel from entering the Strip. Power cuts, which had been frequent for many months, were extended to 12 hours per day. Due to the electricity shortage, at least 40 percent of Gazans have not had access to running water (which is channeled through electric pumps) for several days and the sewage system has broken down. The raw sewage that has not spilled onto the streets is now being poured into the sea at a daily rate of 30 million liters. Hospitals have been forced to rely on emergency generators leading them to cut back, yet again, on the already limited services offered to the Palestinian population. The World Food Programme has reported critical shortages of food and declared that it is unable to provide 10,000 of the poorest Gazans with three out of the five foodstuffs they normally receive.

Ehud Barak, Israel's Minister of Defense, did not stammer when he justified his decision to experiment with famine; he had no qualms about introducing a policy that historically only the most brutal leaders have adopted.

His argument seems rational. Barak said that no government in the world would tolerate the ongoing bombardment of its citizens from across the border. Since other measures -- like harsh economic sanctions, extra-judicial executions, the ongoing barrage of northern parts of the Strip as well as the bombardment of several critical infrastructure sites, like the electric power plant and Palestinian government offices -- did not do the job, Israel had no other option.

This ostensibly rational argument conveniently ignores the fact that since its victory in the January 2006 democratic elections Hamas has proposed several cease-fire agreements, the latest emerging just last week. In these proposals, Hamas agrees to stop launching missiles at Israeli citizens, in exchange for Israel ending its incursions into Gaza, the assassinations of militants and political leaders, and the economic blockade.

Hamas's proposals underscore two important facts. First, despite what Barak says the use of force is not the only option Israel has: The government could decide to open a dialogue with Hamas based on a cease-fire agreement. Second, it emphasizes, as Israeli critic Uri Avnery cogently observes, that Israel is cynically using the assaults on its own citizens as a pretext for attempting to overthrow the Hamas regime in Gaza and for preventing a Hamas takeover in the West Bank.

The central issue for Israel is not Hamas yes or no, but rather Palestinian sovereignty yes or no. The recent crisis reveals, once more, that Israel's August 2005 unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was not an act of decolonization but rather the reorganization of Israeli power and the implementation of neo-colonial rule. Israel realized that in order to maintain sovereignty all it would have to do is preserve its monopoly over the legitimate means of movement. Very different from the withdrawal of British forces from the various colonies of old, it accordingly continued to dominate Gaza's borders, transforming the Strip into a container of sorts whose openings are totally controlled by Israel.

The experiment in Gaza is, in other words, not really about the bombardment of Israeli citizens or even about Israel's ongoing efforts to undermine Hamas. It is simply a new draconian strategy aimed at denying the Palestinians their most basic right to self-determination. It is about showing them who is in control, about breaking their backs, so that they lower their expectations and bow down to Israeli demands. The Palestinians understood this and courageously destroyed their prison wall while crying out into the wilderness for international support.

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The EGYPT/Gaza border is open and has always been, but Hamas uses it only for weapons. Thousands of rockets, grenades, rifles, anti-tank and mines have benn brought in.

So much for the hermetically closed borders, and the Haaretz articles. Truth is Hamas is only interested in destroying Israel. This is shown again and again and again.

Kill the Jews they shout, but expect us to hear liberate Palestine. Right.

We may not all speak arabic, but we are not all stupid. Well not all of us anyway.
Bluepilgrim - it's your cue...

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and claiming each has a patent to god. God is f**king freak .....................

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http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n01/roy_01_.html is a good summary of the recent situation.

If Gaza falls . . .
Sara Roy
Israel’s siege of Gaza began on 5 November, the day after an Israeli attack inside the strip, no doubt designed finally to undermine the truce between Israel and Hamas established last June. Although both sides had violated the agreement before, this incursion was on a different scale. Hamas responded by firing rockets into Israel and the violence has not abated since then. Israel’s siege has two fundamental goals. One is to ensure that the Palestinians there are seen merely as a humanitarian problem, beggars who have no political identity and therefore can have no political claims. The second is to foist Gaza onto Egypt. That is why the Israelis tolerate the hundreds of tunnels between Gaza and Egypt around which an informal but increasingly regulated commercial sector has begun to form. The overwhelming majority of Gazans are impoverished and officially 49.1 per cent are unemployed. In fact the prospect of steady employment is rapidly disappearing for the majority of the population.

On 5 November the Israeli government sealed all the ways into and out of Gaza. Food, medicine, fuel, parts for water and sanitation systems, fertiliser, plastic sheeting, phones, paper, glue, shoes and even teacups are no longer getting through in sufficient quantities or at all. According to Oxfam only 137 trucks of food were allowed into Gaza in November. This means that an average of 4.6 trucks per day entered the strip compared to an average of 123 in October this year and 564 in December 2005. The two main food providers in Gaza are the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the World Food Programme (WFP). UNRWA alone feeds approximately 750,000 people in Gaza, and requires 15 trucks of food daily to do so. Between 5 November and 30 November, only 23 trucks arrived, around 6 per cent of the total needed; during the week of 30 November it received 12 trucks, or 11 per cent of what was required. There were three days in November when UNRWA ran out of food, with the result that on each of these days 20,000 people were unable to receive their scheduled supply. According to John Ging, the director of UNRWA in Gaza, most of the people who get food aid are entirely dependent on it. On 18 December UNRWA suspended all food distribution for both emergency and regular programmes because of the blockade.

The WFP has had similar problems, sending only 35 trucks out of the 190 it had scheduled to cover Gazans’ needs until the start of February (six more were allowed in between 30 November and 6 December). Not only that: the WFP has to pay to store food that isn’t being sent to Gaza.
[...]

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Gaza raids hand propaganda coup to Hamas and Iran
Only one group of people can have derived any satisfaction from the footage of blood-covered children being pulled from the rubble in Gaza on Saturday night: the fanatics of Hamas.

Last Updated: 5:58PM GMT 28 Dec 2008

This terrorist organisation has been firing rockets into Israel ever since the breakdown of the ceasefire, in the hope of provoking a furious Israeli response. And that is precisely what materialised.
The first reaction of most commentators was that the air attacks on Gaza were unnecessarily savage. The deaths of about 270 Palestinians, including civilians, seems disproportionate to the small number of Israelis killed by rocket attacks. Hamas was not expecting retribution on this scale, but we can be sure that it will extract the maximum possible propaganda advantage from the slaughter. Israel's enemies in the liberal West are already pinning the blame squarely on "Zionists". So are most Muslims.
But, before we jump to conclusions, we should pay close attention to the response of Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian National Authority. He blamed Hamas for triggering the Israeli raids by not extending its truce. His Fatah party is engaged in a vicious feud with Hamas, so this is perhaps what one would expect him to say. But he is right, none the less. Hamas did engineer this crisis, by firing rockets whose range has been increased so they can reach southern Israeli cities.
The crucial point to bear in mind is that Hamas is not a reasonable political movement. It cannot thrive without crisis; the blood of innocents is its own lifeblood. These are not Palestinian nationalists who happen to be Muslims; they are totalitarian Islamists whose Palestinian identity is of secondary importance. They have nothing but contempt for Arab Muslim states. Instead, they draw inspiration and resources from non-Arab Iran, the most ruthless power in the region, which may well have put pressure on them to end the ceasefire. Only Iran can equal Hamas in its determination to wipe out Israel – and, eventually, every secular Arab state.
Ordinary Israelis sense that Hamas is crazed with hatred not just for their state but also for Jews; that is why many on the Israeli Left do not feel guilty about the weekend's events. President-Elect Obama, although sympathetic to the plight of ordinary Palestinians, must understand that a Hamas-Iranian axis poses a threat to the entire world, including the vast majority of observant Muslims. He must lose no time in communicating this message. Turning Arab states against religious fanatics is more important than trying to micro-manage the Israeli-Palestinian dispute; it is a precondition for peace.

telegraph.co.uk © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2008

see it here

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Standing outside the gates to Heaven, they refuse to budge, demanding that God first find, identify and punish the assailant.

How do you say 'pathologic denial' in Hebrew?

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The Hamas Definition of a "Truce"

In Hamas ideology a truce can be offered to the enemies of Islam only for tactical reasons — principally when the enemy is strong and the Muslims are weak. The truce period is to be used to change the balance of forces. When this is accomplished, and the stage has been set for a Muslim victory, the truce must be broken. This strategy follows the practice and teachings of Islam's founder, the Prophet Mohammed, who arranged a 10 year truce with the Quraysh tribe in 628, when his forces were not yet powerful enough to defeat the Quraysh. The truce has been known since then as the "Treaty of Hudaybiyah," after the site near the Quraysh city of Mecca where it was negotiated. Less than 2 years later, when Muslim forces were sufficiently strong, the Quraysh were defeated by the Muslims and Mecca captured. The Arabic term used to describe the truce with the Quraysh was hudna — the same word used by Hamas in their "truce" offers to Israel.

With this historical background the words of the recently released Hamas leader, Sheikh Yasin, can be properly understood:

It is impermissible for Muslims to stop jihad as long as an Islamic territory is occupied, only in [ie except for] cases of truce with the enemy and until a sufficient force for liberation is gathered. (interview in al- Muharrir (Paris) published on 26 December 1994) (Bold emphasis mine - IPF)

In a later interview Sheikh Yasin declared:

Reconciliation with the Jews is a crime ... If reconciliation means a truce and a cessation of fighting for a specified period of time, Islam allows the imam [leader] of the Muslims to undertake such a reconciliation if he believes that the enemy is strong and the Muslims are weak and need time to prepare and buildup. I single out Palestine in particular, because it is a land of holy places and an Islamic religious endowment (waqf) that cannot be conceded by any ruler, president or king. Nor may any generation concede it, because it is the property of all generations of Muslims until the Day of Judgement.
As for the permitted duration of the truce, many Islamic jurists are of the opinion that it must not exceed 10 years.(Filastin al-Muslimah (London), March 1995)

Excerpt from The Hamas "Truce" Offer: Genuine or Fake?
by Alex Safian, PhD
October 9, 1997
see it here

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Fake Fatah Video to Smear Hamas
IslamOnline.net & Newspapers



The fake video was not the only Fatah attempt to smear rival Hamas.

CAIRO — The Jerusalem Post on Monday, October 1, exposed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's intelligence officials' attempt to smear rival Hamas through a hoax video showing the lynching of a young girl.
The Fatah-controlled Intelligence service contacted the Israeli daily and sent them the "exclusive" video as a demonstration of the alleged brutality practiced by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The video shows the killing of a 16-year-old girl in July allegedly by Hamas members for dishonoring her family.

The pro-Fatah intelligence officials also supplied the Israeli daily with the phone numbers of two alleged witnesses who claimed they had witnessed the lynching of the girl.

The Israeli daily has removed an earlier article about the video after "ascertained that the supposed fresh 'evidence' of another such killing is actually a Fatah hoax."

It praised the "awareness of readers and bloggers" who helped expose the allegation.

The film actually shows the killing of an Iraqi girl from the Yazidis sect for having an affair with a Sunni.

Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip three month ago after bloody fighting with rival Fatah.

Abbas then sacked the Hamas-led national unity government of Ismail Haniya and appointed a caretaker cabinet led by West-favored economist Salam Fayyad.

Political Gains

When contacted by the Post, the intelligence officials claimed they were deceived by colleagues while their alleged eyewitnesses turned out to be former Fatah security officers in Gaza.

The Israeli daily described the whole episode as "part of a campaign to discredit Hamas."

It insisted that the timing of the video "was clearly intended to coincide" with Abbas's visit to New York and his talks with US President George Bush.

"The goal: to show that Fatah is combating terrorism and that the Hamas followers are ruthless murderers who don't hesitate to brutally kill a 16-year-old girl," said the Post.

Since the Hamas takeover, the Israeli army has banned Israeli journalists from entering the coastal area.

The Israeli media and most foreign journalists now rely on local reporters and Fatah officials as a main source of information.

The Jerusalem Post noted that the video was not the only Fatah attempt to smear rival Hamas.

The Israeli daily recalled that Fatah claimed last week that its security forces in the West Bank city of Bethlehem had thwarted an attempt by Hamas to launch rockets at Jerusalem.

It noted that Fatah later admitted that the "rockets" were old pipes apparently used by Palestinian children during a game.

Israeli army sources told the Post at the time that the pipes were not suitable for use as Kassam rockets.

IslamOnline.net October 1, 2007
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Saul Landau wrote in 2002:

"A July 19 Israeli Ha'aretz article reports that last May, Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau sent a group of rabbis to Peru for the purpose of converting to Judaism a group of impoverished descendents of the Incas. In two weeks the rabbis convinced some 90 Peruvians to convert to Judaism and as pioneers of Zion settle on Palestinian territory.

Rabbi David Mamo, the deputy president of the Conversion Court told Ha'aretz that the rabbis imposed "that condition [Incas must immigrate to Palestine] because in the remote areas where they live, there is no possibility of keeping kosher and it was important for us to ensure that they would live in a Jewish environment".

The 90 Peruvians went straight from the airport to new settlements in the West Bank with the blessing of the Jewish Agency responsible for making sure Jews from Western countries get to settle in Israel . The Agency director said that if the rabbis put the kosher stamp on converting Peruvian Jews, who was she to object.

"We are of Indian origin", says Nachshon Ben-Haim, formerly Pedro Mendosa, "but in Peru , in the Andes , there is no Indian culture left. Everyone has become Christian, and before we became Jews, we also were Christians who went to church".

Ben-Haim, wants to join the army after finishing his Hebrew course, "because I wasn't in the army in Peru and that is something I lack, and also because I want to defend the country and if there is no choice, I will kill Arabs. But I am sure that Jews kill Arabs only for self-defense and justice, but Arabs do it because they like to kill".

Livneh reports that the recently converted Peruvian explained his "scientific view of Judaism" as meaning that `the Arab has the instinct of murder and killing like all gentiles, and only Jews do not have that instinct - that is a genetic fact'".

Brainwashing? My grandmother, not an educated woman, used to cover my eyes when a nun wearing her habit would pass on the street. "Evil eye", she would mutter, along with some mantra in Yiddish. Superstition flourishes among the ignorant. Those missionaries who promise material wealth – like free land and housing to impoverished Latin Americans – naturally find conversion of poor people much easier than the Jehovah's Witnesses who offer them nothing but their peculiar road to God's truth.

Sholom Alechem's wise men of Helm might have scratched their heads in wonder at the chutzpah of the orthodox rabbis traveling to Inca country to recruit for their expansionist cause. And, inventing dogma to justify it! Like the Helm sages, the orthodox missionaries to Peru utilized crackpot logic to arrive at the convenient solution. Unlike the naïve sages of Helm, however, the orthodox rabbis colored supposed religious scruples with irrational dreams of an expanded Israel , populated by well, whoever they might designate as Jewish. So, Peruvian Jews now immerse themselves in Hebrew studies on Palestinian land and pick up army rifles to kill Palestinians, people they had barely heard of a few months ago.

This story should encourage people interested in Middle East peace to learn more of the daily reality of that area of conflict. Perhaps we might demand that western media moguls stop acting like morons from Helm and proclaim in their headlines and TV leads: "It's the Occupation, Stupid!" Stop it now and the peace process can move forward!

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How many of these jews are thieves, lawyers and other scumbag bottom feeders?
They are serial, mass murderers in the middle east and ENJOY murdering women & chilodren.
Why??
BECAUSE THEY ARE COWARDS.
How many can you name who are in positions of "power" and/or where they can suck the blood(money) of others?
oy vey, vat a bonch uff המזוין חזירים

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The Ottoman's 1878 census of the Jerusalem, Nablus, and Acre disticts (including area not currently in Israel) was 403,795 Muslims (87.3%), 43,659 Christians (9.4%), 15,011 Jews (3.2%); however, this did not count at least 10,000 Jews with foreign citizenship, did not include Bedouins. A 1912 estimate puts the Jewish population at 40,000 (7.0%), but other estimates are higher.

Unless specified, the figures below are for the Jewish population in Palestine, based on various sources.

Jewish population increase in Palestine since 1922:

1922: 11.14% Jewish (83,790), 9.50% Christian, 78.34% Moslem.

1931: 16.90% (174,606)
1932: 17.90% (192,137)
1933: 20.59% (234,967)
1934: 23.38% (282,975)
1935: 27.15% (355,157)
1936: 28.10% (384,078)
1937: 28.24% (395,836)
1938: 28.65% (411,222)
1939: 29.66% (445,457)
1940: 30.01% (463,535)
1941: 29.90% (474,102)
1942: 29.90% (484,408)

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Zionist leaders and historians are not shy about the deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, yet the Zionists trolls have no shame about lying, and denying even that which Zionist scholars and leaders proudly admit.

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You can't have it both ways. Some posters claim the Jews aren't real Jews because they are not true ethnic descendants of the original inhabitants of Israel. Some posters claim Jews aren't real Jews because their ancestors converted. All these arguments are meant to de-legitmatize modern Israel.

Basically, you have Muslims waging war against Jews around the world and blaming it on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The Muslims blame Jews for occupying Arab land --never mind that Jews always lived there. Somehow every disaster or terrorist attack is always blamed on Jews. Did you know the tsunami in Indonesia was caused by Jews? Did you know that 9/11 wasn't the fault of Arabs? (The reason is that Arabs are too stupid to organize plane attacks.) Did you know the massacres in Mumbai were really done by the C.I.A., the Mossad and Hindu Zionists? What, you didn't know that? You thought the killers were Muslims? How silly of you.

When Muslims kill Muslims on a daily basis there's barely a peep from the Arab world. Occasionally non-Muslims kill Muslims, and you finally see protests. And when Muslims kill Jews, they hold a parade.

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U.S. failed , biased and destructive foreign policy will continue , since his pro zionist AIPAC conference he attended and his public position , that Israel can do what ever it wants .
That KUMBAYA feeling will never reach Arabs or Muslims by him or the U.S. media , that cenosred the much earlier attack on GAZA , by cutting off OIL , FOOD , and ELECTRICITY , including to HOSPITALS . Vicious moves by Israel , never considered by CNN or even covered , not to mention the 80% of land stolen by the zionist terrorist Regime , therefore Barack the Bulldozer happily jumps on his John Deere , running over any arab that dares get in the way of U.S. military and Israeli domination of the region .
More troops to Afghanistan , " protect out interests in Iraq " Barack the Bulldozer made it clear , perfectly clear (except for the Kumbaya koolAid drinkers, that FULL SPECTRUM dominence will CONTINUE and the fabricated war , will EXPAND .
The issue isnt even a " 2 state solution " it's if Palestinians will be forecably excepting the rigged , criminal offer by Israel and U.S. , that will require them to permantly give up 80% of land , no right of return , foreced check points , walls and the prison state of GAZA .

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These are the people that we consider vital to our interests. Never mind that they have an illegal nuclear arsenal. Never mind that they orchestrated the last entifada by Sharon visiting the Al Aksa mosque with 1000 Israeli troops. Never mind that they have maintained an ethnic cleansing policy for decades. Never mind that they haven't complied with a single UN resolution against them in their entire history. Never mind that they want us to fight and die for them to engage Iran on their say.
The only reason Israel is vital to us is because the Christian nutjobs, their politicos and the Jewish lobby sez it is. Its vital because it controls the Christian Holy lands. No other reason. No other reason at all. Strategically there is nothing special about Israel. If it didn't control the Holy lands and wasn't committing ethnic cleansing, it wouldn't be important at all. It would be just another third world ME country and our politicians would be far less likely to support it economically or politically.

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Well if Hamas cared about the children of Gaza and Israel they would not launch bombs into Israel, but they don’t!

Hamas is mainly Islamic. They launch bombs at Israel to punish non Islamic beliefs.

The extremist Islamic region (practiced by Hamas) was founded in the 7th century. Muslims consider the Qur’an to be the literal word of God. The Islamic faith believes that the verses of the Qur'an were revealed to Muhammad by God through the angel Gabriel. According to Hamas and Islamic faith homosexuality is punishable by death. The women must also be kept in her place, at the feet of men, not as an equal.

The war against HAMAS terrorism is being fought to protect homosexuals and women.

Israel is fighting for gay and women rights in the Middle East. They want a world where people can be free to persue their dreams and to protect all children regardless of sexual orientation and gender.

HAMAS are HOMO-PHOBIC and ANTI-FEMINISTS.

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They should set the example and raise the bar for humanitarian behavior. I am a Jew and my mother was born in Israel. I lived there for several years and it is a nation that is consumed by aggression. They should create a nuetral zone and avoid killing innocent woman and children at all costs. The compassion and mercy that was so lacking in the camps has now been adopted by Israel. I watched them run over Rachael Corey, an American citizen and kill her with no remorse. Israel has lost its humanity.

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