Israel Talks Itself Into War: An Analysis

June 23, 2010

There was an article in The Christian Science Monitor the other day (June 22, 2010) entitled "Why Iran vs. Israel rhetoric could escalate into war." Almost all of the rhetoric was coming from one source, and that was Israel. Once more, the war talk reflected the peculiar and really pathological nature of the Israeli worldview.

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Echoes From The Warsaw Ghetto In Gaza

An Interview with Cecilie Surasky 
by Christiana Voniati

19 June, 2010
Countercurrents.org

Gazing at letters that her grandmother wrote from the Warsaw Ghetto before she was killed , Deputy Director of the global organization “Jewish Voice for Peace”, Cecilie Surasky, discusses Israel's “anti-Jewish” crimes and the inescapable comparison between the sufferings of Gazans and the gradual crushing of Jewish life in the Nazi ghettos in the period that led to the Final Solution . More significantly, the Jewish activist for peace reveals and explores the relationship between Jewish collective trauma and Israel 's aggression.

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Targeted for protesting Israel

Brian Napoletano reports on an attempt by the University of California Irvine to punish all Muslim students after a protest against a defender of Israel's war crimes.

June 22, 2010 | SocialistWorker.org

A UC Irvine student is escorted from a lecture hall after a protest against Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren

ACTIVISTS ARE outraged after administrators at the University California (UC) Irvine announced plans to suspend the Muslim Student Union (MSU) for a whole year starting in September. What did they do wrong? Students protested Israel's ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren.

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Israeli Blockade 'Eased' Only in English, but U.S. Media Eat It Up

FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting)06/18/2010 by Alex Kane

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement yesterday that promised to "liberalize the system by which civilian goods enter Gaza."  The announcement from Israel's security cabinet came after widespread international pressure on Israel following a deadly Israeli naval raid on a humanitarian flotilla trying to break the three-year old blockade of Gaza.

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Ahava campaign comes to court

Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 17 June 2010

Activists protest outside of a US store selling Ahava products. (Stolen Beauty)

In France, the campaign to boycott Ahava Dead Sea cosmetics has entered a new phase with boycott, divestment and sanctions advocates taking legal action against the Sephora cosmetics retail chain's contract with the company.

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Israel's Palestinian Minority Thrown into a Maelstrom

Jonathan Cook

Middle East Report Online

June 16, 2010

Jonathan Cook is a journalist based in Nazareth. He is author of Blood and Religion (2006), Israel and the Clash of Civilizations (2008) and Disappearing Palestine (2008).

The first reports of Israel’s May 31 commando raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla surfaced among the country’s 1.4 million Palestinian citizens alongside rumors that Sheikh Ra’id Salah, head of the radical northern wing of the Islamic Movement of Israel, had been shot dead on the lead ship, the Mavi Marmara. Salah is alive, but at the time his demise seemed confirmed when it emerged that large numbers of police had been drafted into northern Israel, where most of the Palestinian minority lives, in expectation of widespread violence.

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Masked Attack on At-Tuwani

Palestine Monitor

17 June 2010

On Saturday morning, 30 to 35 masked Israeli settlers stormed the village of At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills. Armed with metal clubs, slingshots, knives, and stones, the attackers targeted the house closest to the edge of the woods. International observers stationed in the village arrived in time to witness and document the final phases of the assault. Michael Carpenter investigated for Palestine Monitor.

Photo: Operation Dove

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Palestinian boycott coordinator: "The movement has a huge impact"

 Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 14 June 2010

Hind Awwad (Adri Nieuwhof)

Hind Awwad, national coordinator of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), recently toured Europe to support the growing worldwide campaign. The movement aims to end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the discrimination against Palestinian citizens in Israel, and calls for respect for the rights of Palestine refugees. The Electronic Intifada contributor Adri Nieuwhof interviewed Hind Awwad in Bern, Switzerland.

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Independent journalists dismantling Israel's hold on media narrative

Abraham Greenhouse, Nora Barrows-Friedman, The Electronic Intifada, 15 June 2010

Israeli naval ships trailing the Mavi Marmara. (Cultures of Resistance)

"The systematic attempt and very deliberate first priority for the Israeli soldiers as they came on the ships was to shut down the story, to confiscate all cameras, to shut down satellites, to smash the CCTV cameras that were on the Mavi Marmara, to make sure that nothing was going out. They were hellbent on controlling the story," commented Australian journalist Paul McGeough, one of the hundreds of activists and reporters who witnessed the deadly morning attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on 31 May ("Framing the Narrative: Israeli Commandos Seize Videotape and Equipment from Journalists After Deadly Raid," Democracy Now, 9 June 2010). McGeough was one of at least 60 journalists aboard the flotilla who were detained and their footage confiscated.

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UC-Irvine Suspends Muslim Student Group for Disrupting Speech

June 14, 2010 | By Josh Keller | Chronicle of Higher Education

San Francisco

The University of California at Irvine has suspended the campus's Muslim Student Union for one year and placed the group on disciplinary probation after members of the group repeatedlyinterrupted a campus speech in February by Israel's ambassador to the United States, according to a letter released on Monday.

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B'Tselem's Annual Report 2009-2010

14 June '10: B'Tselem's Annual Report 2009-2010: Easing of movement along with continuation of the Gaza siege and the settlement enterprise

• 83 Palestinians and 7 Israelis killed in conflict since operation Cast Lead
• Israel demolished 92 homes in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 2009. Home demolition was frozen in East Jerusalem in 2010

B'Tselem is today (Monday, 14 June) publishing its annual report on human rights in the Occupied Territories, covering the 16-month period from January 2009 to April 2010. The report surveys the events since the beginning of Operation Cast Lead. One and a half years after the operation, the allegations regarding breaches of international humanitarian law by Israel and Hamas have yet to be properly investigated.

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Why self-interest explains the gentle US approach to Israel

By Eamonn McCann | Thursday, 10 June 2010 | belfasttelegraph.co.uk

What is the nature of the relationship between the United States and Israel?

One account has it that a Jewish lobby is in effective control of US Middle East policy, buying votes in Congress through campaign donations, making or breaking political careers by spin and smear and deployment of the Jewish vote, the meantime manipulating media coverage.

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The Gaza Freedom Flotilla: Framing the Narrative

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_gaza_freedom_flotilla_framing_the_narrative_20100608/

Posted on Jun 8, 2010

By Amy Goodman
They called it “Operation Sea Breeze.” Despite the pleasant-sounding name, Israel’s violent commando raid on a flotilla of humanitarian aid ships, which left nine civilians dead, has sparked international outrage. The raid occurred in the early-morning hours of May 31, as the six vessels laden with humanitarian aid were still in international waters, bound for Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinian residents are in their third year of an Israeli-imposed blockade. Israel has, from the outset, sought to limit the debate over the attack, and to control the images.

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Crimes by Israel, Sanctions for Iran

by Kourosh Ziabari / June 15th, 2010 | Dissident Voice

The Iranian nation is not unfamiliar with the double standards of the superpowers anymore. The history of Iran’s relations with the western and eastern superpowers is filled with deceitfulness, dishonesty and fraudulence. The recent U.S.-proposed, Russia-backed United Nations Security Council resolution against Iran over its nuclear program is simply one example, out of hundreds of instances, which demonstrates that the big powers have not ever been honest and sincere with Iran.

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Headshot: Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack on the Gaza Peace Flotilla — Part 2

by MediaLens / June 12th, 2010 — Dissident Voice

As discussed in Part 1, media coverage of the non-violent Iranian capture of 15 British sailors (in Iranian waters) focused on the humiliating failure of the sailors to open fire in self-defence. Journalists took a very different view of the May 31 Israeli attack on the ship Mavi Marmara carrying human rights activists and supplies to the besieged population of Gaza.

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Headshot: Propaganda, State Religion, and the Attack on the Gaza Peace Flotilla

by MediaLens / June 9th, 2010 — Dissident Voice

[T]he hidden ideological source empowering much propaganda is the presumed legitimacy of the state and its actions. We are trained, not just to respect, but to revere the state, the shining “city upon a hill”. We lower our heads before ‘the flag’ and the national anthem much as we would before religious idols.

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The 43 Year Nakba Of The Rayan Family

Palestine Monitor

12 June 2010

Last week the Latrun villages held their first demonstration since the construction of the wall here in 2005, protesting against the land expropriation which began during the 1967 war and continues to this day. The Rayan family of Beit Nuba told us about their expulsion in 1967 and their struggles thereafter.

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Activists disrupt Caterpillar shareholder meeting

Kristin Szremski, The Electronic Intifada, 11 June 2010

Solidarity activists protest outside Caterpillar's annual shareholder meeting in Chicago, 9 June. (Kristin Szremski)

While pro-Palestinian activists and supporters of Israel lined opposite sides of South LaSalle Street outside the Northern Trust Building in Chicago on 9 June, James Owens, the outgoing CEO and Chairman of Caterpillar Inc., told a room full of shareholders the company was not responsible for the way Israel uses the bulldozers the company manufactures in the United States.

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Israel about to criminalize BDS

June 9th, 2010 | by Sydney Levy | The Only Democracy?

What is Israel’s reaction to the growing nonviolent movement of boycott, divestment, and sanctions? Well criminalize it, of course!

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Israeli document: Gaza blockade isn't about security

last updated: June 09, 2010 06:24:03 PM

Sheera Frenkel | McClatchy Newspapers

JERUSALEM — As Israel ordered a slight easing of its blockade of the Gaza Strip Wednesday, McClatchy obtained an Israeli government document that describes the blockade not as a security measure but as "economic warfare" against the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory.

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The moral failure of American liberals: A defence of Helen Thomas

by JONATHAN COOK | Mondoweiss

The ostracism of Helen Thomas, the doyenne of the White House press corps, over her comment that Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to Poland, Germany, America and elsewhere is revealing in several ways. In spite of an apology, the 89-year-old has been summarily retired by the Hearst newspaper group, dropped by her agent, spurned by the White House, and denounced by long-time friends and colleagues.

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Zionism's colonial project

Lance Selfa, editor of the The Struggle for Palestine [1], describes the roots of the Zionist movement and the drive to create a Jewish state. This is an excerpt from the book.

June 10, 2010

IN MAY 1948, Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed the founding of the state of Israel. Immediately, Jewish commandos in Palestine launched what Israel called its "war of independence." When Israel concluded an armistice with the armies of Egypt, Transjordan and Syria in 1949, more than 750,000 Palestinians had been forced to flee from their homes. They became refugees from their own country, which the Jewish Zionist armies now controlled.

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The Gaza Freedom Flotilla: Framing the Narrative

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_gaza_freedom_flotilla_framing_the_narrative_20100608/

Posted on Jun 8, 2010

By Amy Goodman
They called it “Operation Sea Breeze.” Despite the pleasant-sounding name, Israel’s violent commando raid on a flotilla of humanitarian aid ships, which left nine civilians dead, has sparked international outrage. The raid occurred in the early-morning hours of May 31, as the six vessels laden with humanitarian aid were still in international waters, bound for Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinian residents are in their third year of an Israeli-imposed blockade. Israel has, from the outset, sought to limit the debate over the attack, and to control the images.

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Lying About The Gaza Flotilla Disaster

June 02, 2010 1:31 pm ET — MJ Rosenberg — from Political Correction/Media Matters

It's been one lie after another in the US media about the Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound relief flotilla.  No matter that the Israeli media views the whole incident as a debacle for Israel, in this country the Israel-can-do-no-wrong crowd is on overdrive defending the operation.  As usual, facts don't matter to them.

Except they do.

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Ten years of BDS in the USA

BDS in the USA, 2001-2010

Noura Erakat

Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney and adjunct professor of international human rights law at Georgetown University.

Jews for Justice for Palestinians

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Introduction by Joel Beinen of Jewish Voice for Peace

The latest issue of Middle East Report includes this perceptive article by Noura Erakat surveying the history of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in the United States over the past decade, with a focus on the University of California at Berkeley, where she was an undergraduate student and political activist.

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The Palestinian Nakba: Zionism, ‘Transfer’ and the 1948 Exodus

GLOBAL DIALOGUE Volume 4 ● Number 3 ● Summer 2002—The Al-Aqsa Intifada  NUR MASALHA Nur Masalha is senior lecturer and director of the Holy Land Research Project at St Mary’s College, University of Surrey, England. T he first United States ambassador to Israel, James McDonald, told of a conversation he had with the president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, during which Weizmann spoke in “messianic” terms about the 1948 Palestinian exodus as a “miraculous simplification of Israel’s tasks”. McDonald said that not one of Israel’s “big three”—Weizmann, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett—and no responsible Zionist leader had anticipated such a “miraculous clearing of the land”.

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Israeli law to criminalize advocates of boycotts, inside or outside of Israel

Posted on MuzzleWatch on June 9 2010 by Cecilie Surasky

My JVP colleague Sydney Levy just posted on our sister blog, TheOnlyDemocracy? This effort seems largely triggered by the Palestinian boycott of settlement goods which has already had a significant economic impact. Ynet reports:

The bill was initiated by the Land of Israel lobby in the Knesset and was endorsed by members of various factions, including Kadima party whip Dalia Itzik and Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tsachi Hanegbi.

by Sydney Levy

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War of the virtual Wiki-worlds

Alex Beam, The Boston Globe, 6 May 2008

What if they decided to pursue the Arab-Israeli conflict by other means? Inevitably, it would take place on the Internet. And inevitably Wikipedia would be involved.

In what was probably not a very smart idea, Gilead Ini, a senior research analyst for CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, put out an e-mail call for 10 volunteers "to help us keep Israel-related entries on Wikipedia from becoming tainted by anti-Israel editors."

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Roger Waters – “We Shall Overcome”

“Over the new year 2009-2010, an international group of 1500 men and women from 42 nations went to Egypt to join a Freedom March to Gaza. They did this to protest the current blockade of Gaza. To protest the fact that the people of Gaza live in a virtual prison.

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While Israel Kills and Maims ... The Outrage at Helen Thomas

June 9, 2010

While Israel Kills and Maims ...

The Outrage at Helen Thomas

By ALISON WEIR

Whenever Israel commits yet another atrocity, its defenders are quick to redirect public attention away from the grisly crime scene.

Currently, there are headlines about allegedly anti-Semitic comments made by senior White House correspondent Helen Thomas. Pundits across the land evince outrage at her off-the-cuff 25-second statement made to a man who appears to be holding a camera right in her face.

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Victimhood is not an excuse for Israeli injustice

 

Jonathan Cook - The National - June 09. 2010 Why are Israelis so indignant at the international outrage that has greeted their country’s lethal attack last week on a flotilla of civilian ships taking aid to Gaza? Israelis have not responded in any of the ways we might have expected. There has been little soul-searching about the morality, let alone legality, of soldiers invading ships in international waters and killing civilians.

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Soldiers Uproot Agricultural Lands Near Bethlehem

Wednesday June 09, 2010 00:39by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Israeli soldiers uprooted and bulldozed on Tuesday morning agricultural lands in the Al Walaja village, near the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

Israeli soldiers invaded that village after closing all of its entrances while a military bulldozer uprooted the agricultural lands under tight security measures and a vast deployment of the military. 

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Evergreen State students overwhelmingly pass divestment votes

Press release, TESC Divest, 8 June 2010 [Electronic Intifada]

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The following release was issued on 2 June 2010 by TESC Divest:

On 2 June 2010, students at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, made history by passing two resolutions supporting human rights, upholding international law, and promoting a just peace in the Palestine/Israel conflict.

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Is the Renowned Reporter Helen Thomas a Bigot?

Posted by: "lawrence davidson" ldavidson1945@msn.com

Mon Jun 7, 2010 6:54 pm (PDT)

Helen Thomas is the dean of the White House press corp. She made a mistake the other day by declaring that, in her opinion at that moment, the Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and return to Europe. Palestine is "not German, its not Polish" she added. Unfortunately, the whole thing ended up on a YouTube video.

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Where Is the American Freedom Flotilla?

by Sama Adnan / June 8th, 2010 / Dissident Voice

The absence of the pro-peace movement from the halls of Congress has done great damage to the cause of peace in the Middle East, to America’s national interests, and to America’s security. Not only has it deprived the American peace movement of Congressional support, the lack of engagement in the American political system as it exists has also relegated the pro-peace movement to the fringes of almost all the policy-making American institutions.

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Israel's media blackout, doctored Flotilla recording condemned

HUMAN RIGHTS
Mel Frykberg, The Electronic Intifada, 8 June 2010

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RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - Although Israel successfully controlled news of its deadly commando raid on the Freedom Flotilla during the first crucial 48 hours of media coverage, emerging evidence from witnesses and survivors is challenging the Israeli government's version of events.

These include claims of medical treatment being withheld; beatings and abuse of passengers who never resisted; the Israeli military doctoring audio and selectively editing videos.

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Pundits in Denial on Gaza Plight

http://www.fair.org
Media Advisory

Pundits in Denial on Gaza Plight
'No humanitarian crisis,' some media figures claim

6/7/10

The May 31 Israeli attack on the Free Gaza humanitarian flotilla has returned some media attention to the humanitarian crisis faced by 1.5 million Palestinians living under Israeli blockade in the Gaza Strip. But some media figures have sought to deny the existence of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza at all.

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Israeli Troops Issue 10-day Eviction Orders To Palestinians In Jordan Valley

Tuesday June 08, 2010 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

Five Palestinian families in the Jordan Valley, in the eastern part of the West Bank, received eviction orders from the Israeli military on Sunday, just days after Israeli settlers set up an illegal outpost on the families' land and took over a water well in the area. The eviction orders told the families to vacate their homes and land within ten days so that Israeli troops could occupy it.

Ruins of Palestinian town in Jordan Valley (photo from atlastours)

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Israel's Freedom Flotilla Massacre underlines the urgency of intensifying BDS

Occupied Palestine, 08 June 2010 -- In light of Israel’s massacre of humanitarian relief workers and activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla on 31 May 2010 and its insistence to continue its illegal siege on Gaza, pressuring Israel to comply with its obligations under international law has become of undeniable urgency. Drunk with power and impunity, Israel has ignored recent appeals by the UN Secretary General as well as a near consensus among world governments to end its deadly siege, putting the onus on international civil society to shoulder the moral responsibility of holding Israel accountable to international law and ending its criminal impunity. The Palestinian-led global campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel has shown the most effective way of achieving this.

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Hell’s Gate At Aroub Camp

Palestine Monitor

8 June 2010

A slew of settler-related violence struck the Hebron area last week. Two Palestinians died in separate incidents with settler vehicles on Sunday and Wednesday. Thursday morning an Israeli settler seriously injuring two 16-year-old boys after opening fire on a group of teenagers walking home from school. The unidentified shooter turned himself into Israeli authorities on Thursday night. Palestine Monitor interviewed one of the victims, Ibrahim Muhammad Biss at Al-Ahli hospital (Hebron), where he is recovering from a bullet wound to the abdomen. His close friend, Moataz Musa Omran Benat, remains in critical condition.

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Edward Said on Rachel Corrie, Dignity, and Solidarity, 2003

The Meaning of Rachel Corrie: Of Dignity and Solidarity

by Edward Said — June 23, 2003 

"Only if we respect ourselves as Arabs and Americans, and understand the true dignity and justice of our struggle, only then can we appreciate why, almost despite ourselves, so many people all over the world, including Rachel Corrie and the two young people wounded with her from ISM, Tom Hurndall and Brian Avery, have felt it possible to express their solidarity with us."

Democracy Now Audio:

LISTEN WATCH

Real Audio Stream MP3 Download

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Finkelstein on Flotilla Bloodbath

Finkelstein on Flotilla Bloodbath
from Norman G. Finkelstein website

What if Hamas Had Attacked Humanitarian Ships in International Waters?

Dissident Voice

by Ed Kinane / June 7th, 2010

This is a thought experiment. Just imagine that it was Israel in desperate need of humanitarian aid – perhaps in the wake of an earthquake or whatever.  Imagine further that a broad, well publicized effort involving citizens of dozens of countries had assembled a flotilla to carry humanitarian aid to the beleaguered nation.

Now try to imagine that Hamas – the elected government of Gaza – had long been blocking humanitarian aid to Israel and was determined to keep the flotilla from reaching Israel. Suppose that Hamas had the military wherewithal – which of course it doesn’t – to hijack that flotilla miles out to sea in international water.

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Palestinian Trade Union Movement Calls on International Dockworkers Unions to Block Loading/Offloading Israeli Ships

Posted by BNC Palestine on Mon, 06/07/2010 - 13:13 on Global BDS Movement

Palestinian Trade Union Movement Calls on International Dockworkers Unions to Block Loading/Offloading Israeli Ships Until Israel Complies Fully with International Law and Ends its Illegal Siege of Gaza

June 7, 2010- The Palestinian trade union movement, as a key constituent member of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) calls on dockworkers' unions worldwide to block Israeli maritime trade in response to Israel’s massacre of humanitarian relief workers and activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla, until Israel complies with international law and ends its illegal blockade of Gaza. Drunk with power and impunity, Israel has ignored recent appeals by the UN Secretary General as well as a near consensus among world governments to end its siege, putting the onus on international civil society to shoulder the moral responsibility of holding Israel accountable to international law and ending its criminal impunity. Dockworkers around the world have historically contributed to the struggle against injustice, most notably against the apartheid regime in South Africa, when port workers unions refused to load/offload cargo on/from South African ships as a most effective way of protesting the apartheid regime.

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An act of state terrorism

INTERVIEW: KEVIN OVENDEN

June 7, 2010

Outraged protests have spread around the world following the Israeli commando raid on a flotilla carrying desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gaza. At least nine people were killed, and many more injured when Israeli forces attacked the unarmed peace activists in the middle of the night on May 31. But the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to spin lies about the assault, with the connivance of the Israeli and American media.
Kevin Ovenden is an organizer of the Viva Palestina solidarity group and veteran of two convoys to Gaza. He spoke to Lee Sustar about the murderous Israeli assault on the peace flotilla--and he makes the case that the Palestinian solidarity movement must seize the moment to build wider support for ending the siege.

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What happened to us is happening in Gaza

OPINION/EDITORIAL

Iara Lee, The Electronic Intifada, 6 June 2010

At least nine of my fellow passengers were killed by the Israeli military for attempting to defy the ban on delivering aid. Far more Palestinian civilians have died as a result of the siege itself. What happened to our Flotilla is happening to the people of Gaza on a daily basis. It will not stop until international law is applied to all countries, Israel included.

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US funds Israel’s 'apartheid' road network

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800,000 kids bearing brunt of Gaza blockade

Sunday 6th June, 2010

Big News Network

While the world bickers over the rights and wrongs of the Israeli blockade on Gaza, hundreds of thousands of children continue to bear the brunt of it.




Save the Children says 800,000 children are included among the population of 1.5 million in Gaza, a number supported by UNICEF. The CIA in fact records the median age of the entire population at just 17.5 years. 44% of the population it says is under 14.

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The other side of the Gaza blockade

Taysir Al Burai is severely disabled. He requires round-the-clock medical care. If he were allowed to leave Gaza, he could make a full recovery. But Israel won't let him.

By Catrina Stewart in Gaza City - The Independent

Saturday, 5 June 2010

CATRINA STEWART

Taysir Al Burai with his uncle, Yahia

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Gaza flotilla activist faces death threats

While other activists from the Gaza aid flotilla have returned home, one is left facing death threats and abuse in Israel. Haneen Zuabi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset who was aboard the Mavi Marmara, is now under armed protection after nearly 500 people signed up to a Facebook page calling for her execution.
During a heated parliamentary session yesterday Zuabi was sworn at and then shoved out of the chamber amid shouts of "Go to Gaza, traitor".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/03/gaza-flotilla-survivor-haneen-zuabi

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'Kill a Turk and Rest': But Israel Keeps on Going

Uri Avnery - RamallahOnline

On the high seas, outside territorial waters, the ship was stopped by the navy. The commandos stormed it. Hundreds of people on the deck resisted, the soldiers used force. Some of the passengers were killed, scores injured. The ship was brought into harbor, the passengers were taken off by force. The world saw them walking on the quay, men and women, young and old, all of them worn out, one after another, each being marched between two soldiers…

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Separation Anxiety: Zionism, Colonialism, Messianism

Jon Stratton

Curtin University of Technology

© borderlands ejournal 2007

It is sometimes called the Separation Wall. Its intention is to mark the divide between Israel and the Palestinians. I drafted this article about it sometime in 2004. Today, the Wall remains, though one of its most insistent instigators, Ariel Sharon, is no longer a political force. Ron Nachman, the mayor of Ariel, an illegal West Bank settlement, claims that Sharon had shown him a map with the line for the Wall as long ago as 1978. Somehow keeping Israelis and Palestinians apart has been a constant fantasy of the Israeli state, a fantasy born of the Zionist idea of a Jewish homeland and inflected with colonialist myths about the Palestinians and messianic myths of a Jewish return to the land bequeathed to Abraham. Here, I address some of these myths that have contributed to the building of the Wall. I have structured the article to show how these myths work, layer on layer each reinforcing the others. The Wall gives substance and permanence to these myths. The longer it stands the more it is understood as legitimating the myths that gave birth to it.

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The Gaza Blockade Is Illegal and the Flotilla Attack Was an Illegal Act of War

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet

Posted on June 5, 2010, Printed on June 5, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/147115/

Israeli officials claimed that the IDF commandos who killed and wounded dozens of activists on a humanitarian aid convoy bound for Gaza this week faced a potentially lethal attack, and opened fire in self-defense. Eyewitnesses on board tell a different story, saying the special forces troops fired on the ships before boarding, weren't in fact attacked and were unrestrained in their hostility. The question of who attacked whom is irrelevant, however, according to experts in international law. The blockade itself is illegal, and therefore Israel had no right to board those ships in the first place. It renders the argument over culpability moot. Israel committed an illegal act of war attacking the convoy, regardless of who tried to draw "first blood."

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The Right to Exist: Who Has It? Where Is It? Why?

Does Israel Have a “Right to Exist”? Do We?

by Gary Corseri / June 5th, 2010 / Dissident Voice

It’s a shibboleth of the Zionist entity: “Israel has the right to exist!”

But what is this “Israel”?  What is this “right to exist”?

Where is it written?  Is it in Holy Scripture?  “The Song of Songs”?  “The Book of Job”?  “Proverbs”?  “Ecclesiastes”? 

Is it written in stone on two tablets by the finger of God?

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Israeli military forcibly seized the Irish-owned humanitarian relief ship, the MV Rachel Corrie

Israeli military forcibly seized the Irish-owned humanitarian relief ship, the MV Rachel Corrie

Ramallah Online

Greta Berlin  |  05 June 2010
(Off the Gaza coast, 5 JUNE) - Just before 9am GMT this morning, the Israeli military forcibly siezed the Irish-owned humanitarian relief ship, the MV Rachel Corrie, from delivering over 1000 tons of medical and construction supplies to besieged Gaza. For the second time in less then a week, Israeli naval commandos stormed an unarmed aid ship, brutally taking its passengers hostage and towing the ship toward Ashdod port in Southern Israel.  It is not yet known whether any of the Rachel Corrie's passengers were killed or injured during the attack, but they are believed to be unharmed.

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Naomi Klein speaks at Gaza Freedom Flotilla protest in Toronto, Canada

You will have no protection

Alice Walker, The Electronic Intifada, 4 June 2010 


What would that look like, be like, today, in this situation between Palestine and Israel? This "impasse" that has dragged on for decades. This "conflict" that would have ended in a week if humanity as a whole had acted in defense of justice everywhere on the globe. Which maybe we are learning! It would look like the granddaughter of Rosa Parks, the grandson of Martin Luther King. It would look like spending our money only where we can spend our lives in peace and happiness; freely sharing whatever we have with our friends.

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