Gaza Still Under Siege

Just a short explanatory video - to explain what's all about! -

Take some time out and see for your self......

Links; The European Campaign to end the Gaza siege

A light for Gaza

Gaza Mourning - 1 year after the war

Go to "Pics uncensored" for photos ....

Join

Facebook Group;

"The first annual commemoration of the war on Gaza"

PLEASE Invite your friends to join our group.

من فضلك أرسل دعوة لأصدقائك للانضمام إلى المجموعة

Breaking; 26 Dec. 2009 ; Six Palestinians killed in West Bank, Gaza attacks by IDF - Israeli Armed Forces

Make Peace not War

Maybe it's time to rethink the war in Afghanistan..Join the movement to stop the war

Follow the link and become a Peacemaker.

"Rethink Afghanistan War" is still a U.S. organization only, but Denmark as an active ally in Afghanistan, would be an ideal place to bring the movement across the ocean.

The tale that our soldiers are fighting, dying, loosing limbs and livelihoods in order for America/Europe/world to be "Safe" is wearing a bit thin....

It's now painfully obvious that at no point, before or during this war, has the Al Qaeda been severely hit nor impaired. The elusive Al Qaeda is not one group, orderly organized in a hierarchy with Osama Bin laden as the all mighty "Capo di tutti capi"- This is not the Cosa nostra, where the promise of Witness Protection will make some high ranked Captain wanna sing his heart out, later to be viewed as dramatised documentary on National Geography; This is not about money, the good life nor macho pride nor glamour- This is a deep, deep felt conviction of "Us Vs Them", Right Vs wrong, Divine Simplicity Vs Mundane Pleasures - This is a myriad of cells spread all over world - Bombing/shooting an already extremely poor and "underdeveloped" country into Smithereens or somewhere way beyond the Stone age, will not stop a group of fanatics in Bali/Paris/Helsinki/Moscow/Copenhagen nor Kansas from doing whatever they intend to do....

Europe is playing along on the "Us Vs Them song" - In Denmark we even help the extremists by condoning the ever growing hatred, isolation and division, by voting a xenophobic party into government....

So instead of war faring and a lengthy siege of a sovereign state, we should start to unify and integrate in our home countries; In Denmark i.e. Build Mosques worthy of worship of God, Cleanse the Media of apparent and subliminal discrimination and/or full blown racism, stop in the name of all our "freedoms"; Forcing all foreigners to be Danish with a big, bombastic, capital D.... instead of embracing and welcoming diversity....

Maybe if we started to do these few things; the recruitment of young men, willing to die for the cause, would dwindle in numbers..... Maybe not... But I can't say what it does to people to be left outside of the community all their life. All I know, is that I would huddle up with my own kind as well and build a wall in order to defend my "Homies" - instead of venturing out into a world, where I'm not in the very least welcome and when a trip "behind enemy lines" is inevitable, I would never go "unarmed"one way or the other..... Oh, but ain't that exactly what our troops are doing in Afghanistan.... !!?!

5th July 09 : Free Gaza; "Prisoners"

This is a 5 min video; which explains how Israel keeps thousands in jail, either the "real prison" or by just having to live in Gaza - People have been incarcerated for years without fair trials

- Take 5 min off your busy day and watch this Free Gaza org. video and then act, do something! Just in any way that you know how! You can start by forwarding this post to your friends, - We can no longer proclaim innocence and "no knowledge" of these crimes committed against humanity and use this as an excuse for keeping our hands folded and doing nothing.....

Free Gaza.org

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And I want to give you another link to a fantastic video made and posted on FB by Sameh Brill; Caution, the video contains graphic images! - Here's the 3 major points Brill touches in this excellently edited video;

1- Amnesty International official report on Gaza, (released July 2009) regarding the 22-day Israeli assault reveals that Israel committed war crimes and carried out reckless attacks and acts of wanton destruction in its Gaza offensive. Hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed using high-precision weapons, while others were shot at close range, the report concluded that Israel committed frank war crimes in Gaza.

2-Biased Corporate Media in America, and how media in the united states are neither objective nor completely honest in their portrayal of important issues, as they convey the news with lack of neutrality.

3-On Tuesday June 30 afternoon Israeli Naval Forces attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, 23 miles off the coast of Gaza, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries. Which is an outrageous violation of international law, The Boat held humanitarian andReconstruction supplies to be given to the people of Gaza whom 80% of Gazans depends on UN aid since the Israeli blockade on the Gaza strip which is currently still on. This incidence was not the first, months earlier IDF navy boats rammed DIGNITY boat which on a humanitarian mission to Gaza.........

Convoy through Egypt into Gaza....

Shame, shame shame on men without humanity!

We watch in horror as the Egyptian Govt. unload the clothes, blankets, food, tents, toys, shoes, and anything else they deem not being "medical aid". How they could deny this aid to their neighbours left homeless after the recent war is truly mind boggling. And the people of Gaza continue to suffer through yet another crime done against them.........!

Letters from Gaza - Now collected -

Dear Brothers and Sisters; 

Our Diary "Remaining Human" - now becomes a book! 

And within the book; the story of three weeks of bloodshed, 

written to the best of my ability, in situations of extreme insecurity. Often transcribing, in the midst of the surrounding inferno, on a crumpled notebook, bent over, in an ambulance with the siren racing.... 

Frenetically tapping the keys on a computer of luck

within buildings shaking as crazy pendulums by the explosions all around. 

Be advised that only leafing through this book could be dangerous, 

pages are harmful, soiled with blood,impregnated with white phosphorus and sharp splinters of explosive. 

If read in the quiet of your bedroom, walls will echo of 

our screams of terror, 

and I worry for the walls of your hearts

I know not yet how to soundproof them from pain. 

Set the volume right, just to be sure - Near the children; This to enable them; To know right now about a world, which are not far away, where indifference and racism are intact, and where children treat their peers, as were they rag dolls. 

In such a way; Maybe a vaccination at an early age, will help 

against this epidemic of violence and lead towards the other face of injustice and sloth. 

For one day being able to Remain Human. 

The proceeds of the book by the author; IE Vittorio Arrigoni, myself! 

Will go ENTIRELY to the children of Gaza! All of them surviving victims of this horrendous massacre-

To ensure that their wounds can heal quickly....

(And give back my part and help those of Il Manifesto at the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution, website: http://www.pcdcr.org/eng/, to fund a series of games and social assistance aimed at children, who were severely injured or traumatized). 

Despite attractive offers; Like a tour around Italy with Noam Chomsky, I've decided to stay in hell, here in Gaza.

Not only because I am very difficult to evacuate from this open-air prison (An Israeli government spokesman said: "He arrived by sea, he'll have to leave the Strip by sea"), but above all; Because there is yet much to be done and most violated human rights on these moors, are often missed by the outside world. 

Promoting my book from here, with the support of all those who have demonstrated friendship, brotherhood, closeness, empathy. 

I ask you to buy some books and try to sell them if not almost door to door, to friends and acquaintances, work colleagues, fellow university fellows 

volunteers, of life. 

And further still, to propose it to a library -aggressive libraries interested in a project of truth and solidarity.

Go to the centers for social and cultural associations close to where you are. 

We could organize readings in various cities, (I could speak by phone, the events would be advertised on The Manifesto, on our blogs and Internet sites) 

and this could also be an interesting opportunity to count, to know, 

and to bound. 

We are not few, are many,and we can really count - believe me!

The book can be found right now at newsstands with Il Manifesto. And soon in bookstores. (Only in Italian as of yet!

I trust in you, 

that trust in me, 

not for the dead 

but for the deathly wounded of this horrible massacre.

A hug as big as the Mediterranean that separates - unites us!

We are humans. 

Yours, but never tamed;

Vik.

(This is a translation partly by Google translation tool [it shows here and there] and partly by me; your humble Blogger [which also shows everywhere (",)]

Reality in Gaza ....

Gaza's Reality




While on the subject of forgotten realities; Here's one from Gaza - The video was uploaded in Nov. 2006 - Don't think that it has gotten any better since!  - Wrangle 5 min out of your busy Twitter/Facebook/Myspace/Whatever social media, which takes your fancy and watch a bit of this great Documentary; "Occupation 101" - I have posted the full movie before!-

Oh and the promise from yesterday about Anders Østergård? Well, the day is not over yet (",)

Waltzing with Bashir - A Lebanon War Story - revisited!

Well, I wrote about "Waltz with Bashir" - The animated movie about the bombing of the Chatila and Sabra Refugee Camps in Lebanon.. The posting was before the Golden Globe award to Ari Folman, director... And congrats!! - Even if it was a bit disappointing, that he didn't say a word about the war in Gaza, which was full on, at the time of the event. But maybe he'll mention it, in an aside, if Ari Folman wins again tonight at the Oscars?

                                             

 I hadn't seen the film, at the time I wrote the post, but now I have. And I must agree with Gideon Levy in "Haaretz"  in his very harsh critique of the movie. Yes, it does have a propaganda-ish nature, yes it is a beautifully animated and very talented film... Yes, Ari goes to war, sees some horrible things, drinks a bit, cries a lot, calls his therapist at midnight and sings love songs to Lebanon while crushing it under Israeli tanks! Let it roll, baby - what a great Isareli army! But it's not the IDF's hands, that held the guns, that killed the innocent lives in the Palestinian refugee camps on Lebanese territory - And in the end of the film, when the real footage comes up, with real people in real pain - That's where you see the real massacre... But according to this very talented and very astute Israeli filmmaker; 

"Shame on the murderers, but it was not us, we didn't do it!"

How to Justify Injustice -A letter from Reem

Justifying Israeli War Crimes
By: Reem Salahi
 
Having left Gaza now, I am trying to come to terms with what I saw, what I heard and honestly, what I don't think I will ever understand – the justification.  While Israel's recent offensive has been the most egregious of any historical attack upon the Palestinians in Gaza, it is just that, one of many.  Gaza has been under Israeli bombardment and sanctions for many years.  Prior to the Israeli pullout in 2005, Gaza was under the complete control and occupation of Israel.  Nearly 8000 Israeli settlers occupied 40% of Gaza while the 1.5 million Palestinians occupied the remaining 60%.  Settlements were located on the most fertile lands and along Gaza's beautiful coastal regions and checkpoints prevented Palestinian mobility.  Despite being one-fifth the size of Rhode Island, 25 miles long by 4-7.5 miles wide, Gaza was divided into three sections and Palestinians had to pass through multiple checkpoints to get from one section to the next.  Often Israeli forces would close these checkpoints and not allow the Palestinians access to the other regions in Gaza as a form of collective punishment.  
 
Yet with Israel's pullout in 2005, the Palestinian experience has not improved.  Rather, it has become even more unpredictable and isolated.  Palestinians who celebrated the exodus of the Israeli settlers and the return of their land could not have imagined what would follow and how Israel would subsequently unleash its brutal force against them.  As the saying goes, nothing in life is free and the Palestinians have paid, and continue to pay, a dear and unforgivable price for Israel's withdrawal from their legally rightful land.
 
From the first moments of Israel's military campaign on December 27, Israel's indifference to civilian casualties was clear.  Its first attacks started at around 11:30 AM, at a time when children leave the morning session of school and the afternoon students arrive.  The streets were packed with civilians – children no less.  Within moments, hundreds of Palestinians were killed and even more Palestinians were injured (at least 280 Palestinians were killed on the first day, and 700 wounded including more than a dozen policemen attending a graduation ceremony at the Gaza City police station).  One of the little girls in Jabalia told me that she was in school when the attacks started.  She fainted from the overwhelming fear and was not able to go home and see her family for days.  When she did go home, she remembers seeing dead and injured bodies stranded all over street and hearing the thundering sound of missiles falling.  
 
In its offensive, Israel attacked UNRWA warehouses, schools, mosques, civilian neighborhoods, businesses, factories, hospitals, universities and the media center.  Its attacks took place during the day, night, during temporary ceasefires, and often without any notice or=2 0warning.  I would ask the Palestinians I met who had lost loved ones in the recent incursion whether they were warned about an oncoming attack by some flyer or radio announcement.  The majority would laugh at my question.  "Why would I stay in my home if I knew that it was going to be attacked?  Do you think I want to die?  Do you think I would want to put my family and children in danger?"  Most of the Palestinians had no notice that they were going to be attacked and bombarded until it was too late, and at that point, all they could do was stay in their homes, far from any window or door, and pray that their house would not be next.
 
Those, like Majid Fathi Abd al-Aziz al-Najjar, who were warned, tended to flee to "safer" areas.  Majid and his wife and children resided in a border town in Khan Younis.  Shortly after the start of its incursion, the Israeli military dropped flyers on his town, a copy of which he showed me.  It said in Arabic that militants had entered your area and as a result we are forced to react and attack this area.  Yet these flyers were only dropped in the center of town and Majid did not even realize that they were dropped until after the attacks on his way to see the rubble that used to be his home.  Realizing that Israeli tanks were planning on entering Gaza and would destroy anything that would block their entry, Majid packed his family and fled to his relatives home far from the border, in an area deemed safe.  Yet at 10 PM on January 3, 2009, a white phosphorus missile strayed off course and rammed right into the home that Majid and his family had taken refuge in, along with 15-20 other Palestinians.  The missile came through the roof and broke through the wall and hit Majid's wife, Hanan Abd al-Ghani al-Najjar, dead center in her chest.  She died immediately upon impact.  Six or seven others, including Hanan's elderly mother and Hanan and Majid's daughter were severely injured by shrapnel and rushed to the hospital.  Whereas Majid thought he had fled from certain death in his home on the border, death followed him to his place of refuge.  Yet the sad reality is that no matter where Majid fled, no place in Gaza was safe.  Hanan's death was not the unpredictable result of a misguided missile, but rather the predictable consequence of a one-sided war waged by the fifth largest army against a population that is trapped within a prison and weakened by decades of occupation and years of blockade.    
 
While Israel has perfected its many excuses in justifying innocent Palestinian death and destruction ("there were militants present…well we thought there were militants present" "we warned the m but they did not to leave" "missiles were being fired from that [insert location here]" "we are investigating this attack" "it was an accident"), Israel has fallen short of providing actual evidence to substantiate killing people like Hanan Al-Najjar, Kassab Shurrab, Mahmoud Masharrawi, Sabha's husband and the majority of others killed.  After attacking the UN-operated al-Fakhura School in Jabalia on January 6, where many families had taken refuge and killing at least 40 innocent women and children and injuring dozens more, Israel made a rare attempt to actually justify its attacks.  Not only did Israel use one of its staple excuses ("militants were firing from inside the school"), but it actually showed a video of militants firing mortars from the school.  Within a matter of days, though, the video was dated to 2007 and till now, Israel has not provided us with another staple excuse of why, two years later, the al-Fakhura School was attacked and the hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed and injured.  
 
How does Israel explain the executions, the shooting of Palestinians point blank in cold blood?  How does it justify Israeli soldiers shooting Kassab Shurrab with five bullets across the chest as he came out of his car with his hands to his side, especially as one of the Palestinian hostages sitting blindfolded by the soldiers heard the commander tell the soldier in Hebrew to shoot the civilians that were driving down the road.  What about the two daughters of Khaled Abed Rabbo, Amal, age 2, and Suaad, age 7, murdered by an Israeli soldier using a semi automatic rifle before their father 's eyes as the other Israeli soldiers ate chips and chocolate?  Let us not forget about Sameer Rashid Mohammad Mohammad, a 43 year old UNRWA worker, who was separated from his family by Israeli soldiers and taken to a separate room and shot in the chest?  For four days after killing Sameer, Israeli soldiers held his family hostage and would make the family prepare the murdered Sameer food.  Only when the Israeli soldiers left their home, did Sameer's children see that their father was executed and by their father's dead and bleeding body were piles of food.  How about Farah al-Halo, 1.5 years of age, who was shot in the stomach when her family was forced to evacuate from their home at 6:30 PM by Israeli soldiers who assured them of their safety?  Only 50 meters down the road they were shot at by other Israeli soldiers.  Farah, with her intestines spilling from her stomach, died on the side of the road a few hours later as the same soldiers that had assured their safety watched.
 
Further, how can Israel explain its use of the Palestinians as human shields?  Upon entering a village, Israeli soldiers would separate the men from the women.  Sami Rashid Mohammad Mohammad, Sameer's brother, was taken as a hostage and forced to accompany the Israeli soldiers for four days.  He was handcuffed and blindfolded and made to walk in front of the Israeli tanks and soldiers as bullets would whiz by.  At other times, he was made to sit on his knees in an open field for hours while Israeli soldiers would shoot from behind him and often at his feet.  These Palestinians were nothing more than entertainment for the soldiers, a child's play toy.  When I asked Sami whether he saw any Palestinian militants during his time as a human shield, he laughed and said that he only saw Israeli soldiers with their blackened faces and camouflage outfits.  "It was only Israeli soldiers shooting at each other," he remarked.  It is thus no wonder that between four to six Israeli soldiers were killed and 24 others injured in "friendly fire." 
 
Additionally, how can Israel explain the humiliation tactics it used against the Palestinians such as forcing Palestinian ambulance drivers to abandon their ambulance cars and drive donkey carts to pick up the dead and wounded as if to equate Palestinians with donkeys?  The soldiers would grant the ambulance drivers half an hour to clear the area using donkey carts and threatened to shoot after half an hour.  And what about the racist remarks painted on the walls of the Palestinian homes?  One of my co-delegates took pictures of the Hebrew writings graffitied on the walls of some of the Palestinian homes we visited in Zeitoun and had a friend translate them.  Among the things written were: "Death to Arabs" "War now between Arabs and Jews" "An Arab brave is an Arab in a grave" "Bad to the Arab=good for me" "He who dreams Givati [Israeli infantry brigade] does not expel Jews. He who dreams Givati kills Arabs!!!"  
 
The reality is that Israel cannot explain or justify any of these things, nor does it even care to do so.  When Israel's staple excuses are not readily consumed or when it is examined under a critical lens, Israel applies another tactic– threat and demonetization.  Israel has created one of the strongest lobby organizations in the U.S., AIPAC, which actively demonizes any opponent or criticizer of the State of Israel.  Due to John Ging's, the Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), open opposition to Israel's attacks in Gaza and his call for the investigation of Israeli attacks, he has been demonized and AIPAC recently introduced House Resolution 29 attacking UNRWA and alleging that it supports terrorists.  Even I have received a few threatening emails upon the issuance of NLG's Press Report which documented some of our findings.  One of the emails indicated that I, along with the other attorneys, will have our careers followed.  As the email stated, "Israel is smart not stupid, and will continue to do what they must as will America to survive even over the bodies of their leaders if necessary."
 
Almost every Palestinian I met in Gaza believes that Israel's recent attack will only be followed by another bloodier and more deadly attack on Gaza that will exterminate the Palestinians once and for all.  Considering the history of attacks on Gaza, the level of atrocities recently committed in Gaza and the lack of international redress, I do not think that these statements are mere paranoia.  Israel must be held accountable for its crimes in Gaza lest it commit larger and more egregious crimes in the future.  As one who has been trained in the legal profession, I demand that Israel engage the legal arena and provide the international community with real evidence, and not just staple excuses and dated videos, that can justify every single civilian murder and the widespread destruction of Palestinian civil society.  Until Israel is able to do so, the evidence in Gaza leads anyone willing to visit to the inevitable conclusion that Israel has committed war crimes.

Link to Free Gaza  

Palestine on Valentine;" In Gaza, the struggle within me"

© 2009 Łukasz Trzciński

Tuesday, 10 February 2009 09:51

Written by Natalie Abou Shakra

It is a curve, a curvy path. From the very top, till the very bottom. You can trace it with a light touch, from the inclined neck, down to the sensitive nape, around the curve of a yearning breast, around the erecting nipple. The waist moves for your hands to tighten their grip and motion you closer. The line of the hip seduces your tongue to taste its prolonged solitude, in dire need of the warm, damp of the salivary liquid you leave as you go further below. The thighs expand their distance, awaiting a touch, in between a distant cave, that had once existed, now forgotten- Bomb! We all fall down to the ground... a reverie of a longing sensuality broken. Your body does not belong to you any longer. Your sex has suddenly disappeared. You no longer are man, or woman; you are an object subliming in fright, rigidity, terror, trauma, disgust, and anxiety. Love under the bombs? What an alluring, distant broken dream...

Twenty two days, and the coming ones hold more savagery to your body than ever before. The body of Gaza has been barbarically violated, raped. To the images of slaughtering and torn human flesh you awake, you arise, and to the anxiety that you are next, you dwell. Your body, your sex, your self, you lose in the oblivion of an existence you once lived.

I open the tap for warm water, and nothing pours down. I smell of sweat, and a week of non-cleaned flesh, but the yearning for a touch, is left intact despite it all. My hair, too oily to be stroked gently, tangled and shaggy. I am clad in an attire of loose cloths, the only ones I could find, untouched by any other dirt, than that on my body. It removes any form, or curve my figure reveals. I tie the long hair around in several trials to the back. Its length no longer shows. Despite the continuous vibrations of the shelling, shaking the building I am, I struggle to place my kohl. I resist with all my might, "the day shall not rise without the kohl," I jokingly tell myself. "I placed nail polish on," the lady I live with tells me. "I want my spirits uplifted. I cannot take it anymore," she confides in me. She remained home during the twenty two days of death and terror that have not ended yet, now that trauma and shock have replaced them. She is married and has a seven year old boy dependent on her life and wellbeing. I am an activist dedicated to a cause and struggle. I do not stay home. I shall not die home.

The house, without tap water, is a haven of unwashed dishes, smelly bathrooms, and dirty laundry. Nevertheless, it is a roof atop our heads, despite all the broken windows of our house. My host family consists of three individuals, the child and his parents, and now myself. We shared a vacant room, of which we placed a mattress that can support us against the cold of the floor, of which to sleep on during the sleepless nights. There is no privacy to the self, no moment to live to touch yourself, to feel that there is still a body that yearns within you, that sends shocks of vibrations, other than those of the shelling, that cause you to smile, to feel, to climax.

Outside, every man becomes a potential prospect to your loneliness; a companion that can soothe the hunger; the hunger for a loving touch, and the thirst; the thirst for sentimental unity, and the flowing of emotions. ‘Do I still look like a woman?' I ask myself in the empty streets as I walk alone, in a ghost town, with no lights, no electricity to lift the shadow of darkness that has fallen against a million and a half bodies of a land. ‘Can I break a taboo or two? Do I have a right to against these circumstances?' I question the desperate, yearning soul in the human being of me.

Eyes lock with the pedestrians as I move towards my destination. It is still a long walk towards where I am supposed to be. The shelling continues, and the darkness is broken from the White Phosphorous the Israeli Occupation Forces light our skies with. During the day, darkness dwells reflecting the sun rays, as a result of the constant bombings and dark smoke that arises. Our days become nights, and nights turn to day. I fear for my health, as we all do, against the chemicals used. Can we be future cancer victims? How will my body respond to this present in case it has a future to live?

I struggle with myself to resist an occupation and all its influences. I struggle with a body, with no weapon. I struggle to smile, to laugh, to sing, to dance... to live my days as if there is no grander might that can remove my physical self from this being. I struggle to defy death, the killing machine, the loneliness, the fatigue of emotions and sentiments, the extinction of entertainment, the sadness of tales, of unjust facades of an absurd reality. I struggle for a rose, in a black field of death. I struggle for a crimson reality other than that of blood. I struggle for unity against division. I struggle to defy insecurity and its all resulting fragmentations. I struggle to listen to a tune, to touch a man. I struggle and struggle with all that I can, to live the last moments, as if they were the only ones in my life, to allow myself the non-existent pleasures of an already shortened life span.

Gaza the spark of burning coal onto the ears of forgetfulness; Gaza, now the liberating torch against all the evils of occupation, oppression, repression, colonialism and silence; Gaza, the struggle of the politics of identity and the right to self-determination, of a people, of a body, of every child, man and woman.

Link to; Free Gaza

No offence, but don't fence me in......

I know that this is just a small, banal and at times naive blog, where the posts are an expression of my thoughts, when I see injustice done anywhere.

 I appreciate all the readers I have and I would love it, if they sometimes made a comment or gave me feedback on my "layman" views of the world! In that way I would be able to widen my horizon and better myself - Cause I do think, that communication is the the word and the only solution to most problems.... 

How can we even begin to see the end of war, violent conflicts and such on a large scale? When we can't keep peace even with our own neighbours? When people feud over a fence or the shadow of a tree and spend their family fortunes in desperate court cases and the conflict only ends with one of the parties either dying (of old age) or moving away - 

 In New Zealand they have a whole TV-show on warring neighbours!

And in the states they have a whole institution of intermediaries... In Denmark, the problem is growing and the amount of court cases is staggering....

And then we shake our heads in disbelief over warring tribes in Rwanda, DR Congo, Darfur, Afghanistan, Iraq  and not least Israel/Palestine - And we make grumbling noises of why can't they make and hold peace? - They are all fighting because of land and fences... (I haven't seen the outcome of the elections in Israel yet - But I'll write on that later)

Today I'll by some flowers for my next door neighbour, to brighten up their cold winter day...

Israeli settlements - Secret database now published!

In 2005  a group of young female Zionists, finds a riggity, but livable old barn under the shadows of ancient olive trees... The fact that the gnarly old olives is owned by a Farmer; a Palestinian woman, didn't faze the youngsters in the least.... And the squatters settled down for good, saying that they didn't need the Israeli government or any laws to tell them, wherever they could stay or not. They had the only "document" needed; The Bible! The good book telling them that they had the divine right to live there... They are still on the old woman's land and every year, they take a bit more of her lands.... This is what the Israeli Government calls; "A illegal outpost" of which they have no control or knowledge!

(If you ask yourself why the old farmer didn't complain, then you should know that only a mere 8% of all Palestinian complaints result in indictment!)

I Had an in depth Post, halfway written. The post being about the uncovering of the "Spiegel Database of Illegal Israeli settlements" by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz   - These settlements being the main issue and threat to lasting peace in the area... But alas, time somehow escaped me and you'll only get this short version;

The Israeli Government has always distinguished between "legal and illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land" - Saying they have no knowledge of the amounts and whereabouts of the illegal outposts. But neither the "legal" nor the "illegal" is legal in any way, according to The Geneva convention.

 And this database/report now shows, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Israelis are and have all this time been fully aware of how and when...!!

 I just wish that George Mitchell, the US envoy to the Middle East, would have this report in his suitcase, and be the first foreign diplomat openly criticising the Israelis for their policies of cont. land stealing.

Link to the Human Rights Org;

  "Yesh Din" promising legal aide for all Palestieans, who wishes to sue!

Link to the original programme in Danish. DR radio P1;

 "Orientering" 

Waltzing with Bashir - A Lebanon War Story!

                                           

                                               Waltz with Bashir - Ari Folman

                                                by troiscouleurs

I found this on TomDispatch's great anti war site... They've graciously let me quote the site and Ari Folman.. The Blog post with full interview is right HERE - Thanx!! - I can't wait to see the film and buy the book 17.Feb.2009 - This is part II, but you can enjoy part I on the TomDispatch 

"As a 19-year-old Israeli soldier, Ari Folman took part in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and was on duty in Beirut during the notorious massacres in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Just a week ago, Waltz with Bashir, the animated documentary film Folman directed, in which he explores his own nightmarish, half-suppressed memories of that period, was given its first underground screening in Lebanon -- not far, in fact, from Hezbollah headquarters in southern Beirut -- though the film is officially banned in that country. It has also been screened in Palestinian Ramallah and is reportedly soon to be shown in the Arab Gulf states. It has already won six Israeli Academy Awards, best foreign film at the Golden Globes, and is now nominated for an Oscar as best foreign film."

Link to review of the film by Electronic Intifada

Email from Vittorio; The aftermath of war!

Home is where your heart is

I crossed the threshold of my house in Almina, facing Gaza City port, after several days of absence. Everything was exactly as I had left it – the gas cylinder still anorexic (feeding it is too expensive) and the electric current cut off by foreign shears. The once pleasant panorama outside my window has changed and no longer gladdens my spirits from the misery of living under siege. On the contrary, it now rubs salt in the wound, a trauma that won't heal with its reminder of a massacre. Twenty metres from my front door, where the fire station once stood, a huge crater now gapes wide enough for children to mess around in, as if to expel their parents' demon. 

The afternoon call to prayer no longer has the same comforting quality of the muezzin's chant that I had grown accustomed to. I wonder where he's gone, if he managed to survive at the top of one of the few minarets that were left intact. The last time I listened to him, this anonymous muezzin had to interrupt his solemnly chanted liturgy because of a chesty cough. It's an affliction I'm familiar with myself, as the gases of the bombs in Gaza have spared no one. I found a note at the foot of the French window looking onto a small balcony, as if it had been put there by a friendly hand. The street and garden were littered with these same leaflets. They had been dropped from Israeli airplanes warning the Palestinians to stay alert, and be aware that the walls had ears and eyes. 

"At the slightest threatening action against Israel we'll be back to invade the Gaza Strip. What you've seen these days is nothing compared to what awaits you." Some kids in the streets had picked up the leaflets and folded them into paper airplanes, seemingly sending the message back to its destination. 

Ahmed told me on the phone about a new kids' game – until a few days ago, they amused themselves by relighting the fires, simply by kicking the fragments of white phosphorous bombs found scattered all over the Strip. The debris left by these devices with high chemical potential has very long-lasting inflammable properties. Even when picked up several days after their detonation, it still catches fire if shaken about. The Al Quds hospital paramedics speak of how they gave up trying to put out the fires provoked by these illegal bombs – their flames seemed to feed off the water being thrown at them.

 "The consequences of all the shit that's been thrown at us in these last three weeks will surface in the near future, with new cancer cases and deformed babies", Munir, a doctor at Al Shifa hospital told me. Even Gaza's neighbours seem to be worried by this massive use of weapons forbidden by all international conventions. In Sderot, and likewise in Ashkelon, Israeli citizens have formally asked their government for clarifications regarding the weapons that have been used to torment us. It's obvious that impoverished uranium and white phosphorous scattered in such a criminal manner all over the tiny patch of land that is Gaza won't discriminate between Jews and Muslims when it comes to provoking generic illnesses.

The truce ought to have started by now, but today I was woken in my bed by the deafening rumble of cannon shots from the war ships, exactly like a few days ago. Some brave Palestinian fishermen had ventured from the port on their tiny boats equipped with fishing nets. The Israeli Navy pushed them back. Nowadays, the only edible fish found in Gaza are the Egyptian cans of tuna that came through the tunnels months ago. Yesterday, yet two more casualties of "collateral damage" were caused by Israeli bombs. East of Gaza City two children were blown up when playing with an unexploded device. The witnesses we heard spoke of active mines in front of the Tal el Hawa houses' ruins. Some bomb disposal experts sent over by Hamas defused them and, judging by the care with which they loaded them onto an off-road vehicle, I think the al qassam brigades will soon return that message of death directly to its lawful owner.

Looking from Naema's roof, the Israeli-Palestinian border has never seemed so easy to pick out. On one side lie the green hills which are constantly watered by the Israeli kibbutzim, on the other you see the parching thirst of a land robbed of its water springs and herds. Naema wished to tell me all about her last few days – a tactile, aural and olfactory account of the massacre, considering that Naema is blind. The soldiers threateningly ordered her fellow villagers to evacuate their homes only a few minutes before storming the place. The men loaded smaller children onto their shoulders and ran away, along with their women. Naema chose to stay so as not to slow down their escape. She took refuge in her own house, believing herself to be safe, and welcomed her neighbours, who had nowhere to go: three women, an elderly lady and a paralyzed old man. The tanks and bulldozers then trespassed and started spreading death and destruction, devouring acre by acre, until they stopped in front of Naema's house. Standing on a small hill, the building she inhabits is the tallest in the village, and the soldiers of Tsahal, who found it was strategically positioned, let themselves in and occupied it for two weeks. 

"They came in and pointed their weapons at us, pushing us into a small room, where they locked us up for eleven days." Naema continues her story: "During that entire time they brought us water to drink only twice, and food came in the form of the soldiers' rations' left-overs. They never let us go to the bathroom, so we had to go to the toilet in one corner of the room. 

They wouldn't let us talk amongst ourselves, and they would come in and beat us when at night, huddled in a circle, we tried to gather some strength in prayer. Sometimes they'd come over and, intimidating us by touching our bodies with the cold metal of their weapons, they threatened us with death to confess our support for Hamas. I gave them my cell phone, so they could check my phone book and the calls I'd made. Even this gesture didn't mellow their spite." 

At the end of the eleventh day of imprisonment, the international Red Cross finally arrived and released the six prisoners from their jailers. "They didn't allow us to pick up anything, not even my sunglasses", Naema brings her story to a close, adding that when they came back to her house, they found out about the thefts that had been carried out by the soldiers. They had taken all their gold trinkets and hidden savings, after having destroyed their few possessions, two TV sets, a radio, a fridge, and the solar panels on the roof. I saw tears in this woman's eyes, hidden behind her new dark glasses. They seemed the most vivid I had ever seen. In fact, what Naema "saw" is a lot more that any young woman her age will ever get a chance to see, if she had the bad luck of being born in this tormented land. 

Stay human

Vittorio Arrigoni

(Translated from italian by Daniela Filippin)

"We Will Not Go Down" Michael Heart Music Video- And then some !

You might find this video a bit..... eh, well .... eh ahem.... I find it hard, not to say something rather unkind about I think of the song it self and the way it's performed, it is a bit over the top, and sounds like thousands of other ballads of exactly same sort... The images are heartbreaking though and drives the message home.... It just might do the trick, where such tricks are necessary, where mere facts aren't enough... 

And by this; I mean the big wast majority of the worlds population! Who didn't pay too much attention, when it all this mess went down in Gaza and who most certainly will not do so now that it's supposedly "all over"! Our, for ever shortening, 'attention span' will quickly turn to something else. We'll forget that the aftermath of war is almost as horrendous as war itself  - The suffering is longer, so much longer! People are still dying from the wounds! People are grieving over entire families gone, People (by this term I mean children, women and men old and young) are suffering from "Post traumatic stress syndrome" with all that entails!!! People are now living in "tents"!  There's no water, no food, no sewage, no electricity  etc etc ... 3 out of 4 in Gaza is unemployed (!!) due to the 19 month long Israeli Blockade makes it absolutely impossible to maintain a steady job and the whole Palestinian population is totally dependent on foreign Aid... (Here's some links to random articles on the Blockade from Nov.2008; Counterpunch

and LA times) 

The Israeli border blockade is still in full vigor; This meaning no building materials, no fuel, no medicine, nothing whatsoever!!!

 The EuropeanUnion and some Humanitarian Aid Org.'s (like the UN) are for the very first time (!!) refusing to pay for all the damages done by IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) arguing, that Israel should pay for some of their destruction as well! The EU, UN, Red Cross/Half Crest and different NGO's has paid billions of $ for the rebuilding of Gaza and the West Bank, every time Israel has bombed and pulverized the infrastructure, houses, schools, hospitals, food storage etc in Gaza... But Israel refuses to pay a penny, they say, not surprisingly; It's all Hamas' fault (!!!)

A new Email from Vittorio in Gaza!

ps. Olmert is Pinocchio,

h 2.10am in Gaza city,  apaches are bombing with phospore....

 

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Dante Alighieri could never have imagined circles as hellish as the wards of the damned in Jabalia's hospitals. The laws of divine justice are turned on their head around here: the more innocent the victim, the less likely that they'll be spared martyrdom through bombing. At Kamal Odwan and Al Auda hospitals, the ceramic tiles in the first aid units are always shiny. The cleaners are permanently busy wiping away the blood dripping copiously from the stretchers constantly carrying in the massacred bodies. Iyad Mutawwaq was walking in the street when a bomb tore open a building not far from him. He and other passers-by rushed over to try and bring some aid when a second bomb was dropped on the same building. It killed a father of 9, two brothers and another passer-by who had rushed over to help. The same story could be told over ten, or one hundred times. The perfect terrorist technique is being immaculately carried out by the Israeli army. You drop a bomb, wait for the first-aiders, then drop another bomb on the wounded and the first-aiders.

In Iyad's eyes, those were American bombs, but they also carry the stamp of Mubarrack, the Egyptian dictator who rivals Olmert here in Gaza when it comes to provoking hatred. Behind Iyad's bed, an elderly man with both his arms in plasters is lying staring at the ceiling, and I'm told he's lost everything: his family and his home. He stares at the cracks in the falling plaster, as if seeking an answer to the sheer destruction of his existence.

Khaled worked in Israel for 25 years, prior to the first Intifada. In recognition, Tel Aviv hasn't even granted him a pension, only a series of missiles from land and air onto his house. He suffers from shrapnel wounds all over his body. I ask him where he plans to go after he's been discharged from hospital. He says he'll join his family, out in the streets. Not unlike Khaled's, many families don't know where to find shelter. The most fortunate were offered hospitality by relatives and acquaintances, but can you really say that one hundred people crammed into two apartments counting three rooms each is really a life? Two bombs were dropped onto Ahmed Jaber's home and though his family fled, for some of them it was too late. A third explosion buried 7 of his relatives under the rubble, including two children aged 8 and 9 – his neighbour's children. He says: "They made us leap back in time, back to 1948. This is their punishment for our attachment to our country. They can tear my arms and legs off from my body, but they won't make me leave my land." A doctor takes me aside and tells me that Ahmed's 7-year-old daughter, or what was left of her, was just brought in inside a tiny cardboard box. They don't have the heart to tell him and make his already precarious health condition any worse. In the evening they took the phone away from Iyad as well, to prevent him from receiving any more bad news. A tank had hit his sister's house full in the middle, beheading her in the process.

In the end, our Free Gaza Movement boat never got to the port in Gaza. About 100 miles from their designated destination, in international waters, they were intercepted by 4 Israeli war ships poised to open fire and kill its cargo of doctors, nurses and human rights activists. No one must dare to obstruct the massacre of civilians now in full swing for the last 3 weeks. 

East of Jabalia, in front of the border, eyewitnesses speak of numerous decaying bodies in the streets. Their rotting meat is being eaten by the dogs. There are also hundreds of people unable to go anywhere, many of whom are injured. The ambulances simply cannot get anywhere near, with the trigger-happy snipers all over the place. Palestinians are sick of languishing in the midst of this general indifference, and many even accuse the international Red Cross and the UN of not doing enough, including not fulfilling their duties, nor risking their lives to save hundreds. We ISMers will thus equip ourselves with some stretchers and proceed on foot to the areas where humanity has surpassed all boundaries, eclipsing itself in the process. 

The heavy-bottomed settlers sitting in the pristine lounges of armchair politics harp on about military strategies against Hamas, while we're being literally massacred out here. They bomb hospitals, and yet there are some who still champion Israel's right to self-defense. In any self-styled civilised country, self-defense is proportionate to the attack. 

In these 20 days we've counted 1,075 dead Palestinians, 85% of whom were civilians, and over 5,000 injured, of whom half were under 18 years old. 303 children were atrociously massacred. It's equivalent to saying that for Israel, butchering at least 250 Palestinians is a justified blood-bath in avenging each dead civilian on its own side. How can this lop-sided reaction not take one back to some of modern European history's darkest pages? 

Let's get straight to the point: are we seriously talking about self-defense? For journalists like Marco Travaglio, Piero Ostellino, Pierluigi Battista and Angelo Panebianco, who harp on with the refrain of Hamas having full responsibility for this genocide as well as for breaking the truce between Israel and Palestine, I would like to remind them of the United Nation's position on the matter. Professor Richard Falk, special rapporteur for human rights with the United Nations, has clearly expressed his views: it was in fact Israel that broken the truce in November, by blatantly exterminating 17 Palestinians. In the same month zero Israeli victims had been recorded, zero in October and likewise in the previous month, as well as the one prior to it. We were also recently reminded of this by Nobel prize winner and ex US President Jimmy Carter. It really is a crying shame that a journalist like Travaglio, who's earned our admiration as a proud upholder of freedom of the press, is now sporting an IDF helmet and entertaining the masses on TV while amusing himself with the pastime most in vogue at the moment – infant-shooting in Gaza.

As I tap on my keyboard in the Ramattan press agency office, all the Palestinian reporters around me are wearing bullet-proof vests and helmets. They haven't come straight from riding in a tank – they're simply sitting in front of their computers. Two floors above, the Reuters offices were recently struck by a rocket, which seriously injured two. Almost all the floors in the building are empty at the moment, and only the most heroic of journalists are still around. The story of this hell must somehow continue to be told. And yet earlier this week, the Israeli army had assured Reuters it wouldn't need to evacuate, as staying in their offices would be safe. This morning many casualties were also caused by the bombing of the United Nations building, built among others with money from the Italian government. Berlusconi, where are you?

John Ging, chief of the UNRWA, UN agency for Palestinian refugees and eye witness, clearly spoke of white phosphorous bombs. In the Tal el Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza city, a whole wing of Al Quds hospital is presently in flames, and Leila, an ISM colleague is also trapped inside it along with forty doctors and nurses, and one hundred patients. She describes these last dramatic hours to us via phone. A tank stands in front of the hospital. There are snipers everywhere, ready to shoot at anything that moves. All around is destruction. At night, from their windows, they could observe a building going on fire after having been struck by a bomb. They heard the cries of whole families with children, imploring help. They were impotent to help as they watched the bodies devoured by the flames, running into the street and then be reduced to ashes. Hell has switched places and come to the centre of Gaza, and we are the damned designated by an inhuman hatred.

Stay human

Vittorio Arrigoni

 

(Translated from italian by Daniela Filippin)