Thanks again to BT for this
January 12, 2009
How Many Divisions?
The Blood-Stained Monster Enters Gaza
By URI AVNERY
Nearly seventy ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.
Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.
This is the description that would now appear in the history books – if the Germans had won the war.
Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured.
* * *
IN THIS WAR, as in any modern war, propaganda plays a major role. The disparity between the forces, between the Israeli army - with its airplanes, gunships, drones, warships, artillery and tanks - and the few thousand lightly armed Hamas fighters, is one to a thousand, perhaps one to a million. In the political arena the gap between them is even wider. But in the propaganda war, the gap is almost infinite.
Almost all the Western media initially repeated the official Israeli propaganda line. They almost entirely ignored the Palestinian side of the story, not to mention the daily demonstrations of the Israeli peace camp. The rationale of the Israeli government (“The state must defend its citizens against the Qassam rockets”) has been accepted as the whole truth. The view from the other side, that the Qassams are a retaliation for the siege that starves the one and a half million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, was not mentioned at all.
Only when the horrible scenes from Gaza started to appear on Western TV screens, did world public opinion gradually begin to change.
True, Western and Israeli TV channels showed only a tiny fraction of the dreadful events that appear 24 hours every day on Aljazeera’s Arabic channel, but one picture of a dead baby in the arms of its terrified father is more powerful than a thousand elegantly constructed sentences from the Israeli army spokesman. And that is what is decisive, in the end.
War – every war – is the realm of lies. Whether called propaganda or psychological warfare, everybody accepts that it is right to lie for one’s country. Anyone who speaks the truth runs the risk of being branded a traitor.
The trouble is that propaganda is most convincing for the propagandist himself. And after you convince yourself that a lie is the truth and falsification reality, you can no longer make rational decisions.
An example of this process surrounds the most shocking atrocity of this war so far: the shelling of the UN Fakhura school in Jabaliya refugee camp.
Immediately after the incident became known throughout the world, the army “revealed” that Hamas fighters had been firing mortars from near the school entrance. As proof they released an aerial photo which indeed showed the school and the mortar. But within a short time the official army liar had to admit that the photo was more than a year old. In brief: a falsification.
Later the official liar claimed that “our soldiers were shot at from inside the school”. Barely a day passed before the army had to admit to UN personnel that that was a lie, too. Nobody had shot from inside the school, no Hamas fighters were inside the school, which was full of terrified refugees.
But the admission made hardly any difference anymore. By that time, the Israeli public was completely convinced that “they shot from inside the school”, and TV announcers stated this as a simple fact.
So it went with the other atrocities. Every baby metamorphosed, in the act of dying, into a Hamas terrorist. Every bombed mosque instantly became a Hamas base, every apartment building an arms cache, every school a terror command post, every civilian government building a “symbol of Hamas rule”. Thus the Israeli army retained its purity as the “most moral army in the world”.
* * *
THE TRUTH is that the atrocities are a direct result of the war plan. This reflects the personality of Ehud Barak – a man whose way of thinking and actions are clear evidence of what is called “moral insanity”, a sociopathic disorder.
The real aim (apart from gaining seats in the coming elections) is to terminate the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the imagination of the planners, Hamas is an invader which has gained control of a foreign country. The reality is, of course, entirely different.
The Hamas movement won the majority of the votes in the eminently democratic elections that took place in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. It won because the Palestinians had come to the conclusion that Fatah’s peaceful approach had gained precisely nothing from Israel - neither a freeze of the settlements, nor release of the prisoners, nor any significant steps toward ending the occupation and creating the Palestinian state. Hamas is deeply rooted in the population – not only as a resistance movement fighting the foreign occupier, like the Irgun and the Stern Group in the past – but also as a political and religious body that provides social, educational and medical services.
From the point of view of the population, the Hamas fighters are not a foreign body, but the sons of every family in the Strip and the other Palestinian regions. They do not “hide behind the population”, the population views them as their only defenders.
Therefore, the whole operation is based on erroneous assumptions. Turning life into living hell does not cause the population to rise up against Hamas, but on the contrary, it unites behind Hamas and reinforces its determination not to surrender. The population of Leningrad did not rise up against Stalin, any more than the Londoners rose up against Churchill.
He who gives the order for such a war with such methods in a densely populated area knows that it will cause dreadful slaughter of civilians. Apparently that did not touch him. Or he believed that “they will change their ways” and “it will sear their consciousness”, so that in future they will not dare to resist Israel.
A top priority for the planners was the need to minimize casualties among the soldiers, knowing that the mood of a large part of the pro-war public would change if reports of such casualties came in. That is what happened in Lebanon Wars I and II.
This consideration played an especially important role because the entire war is a part of the election campaign. Ehud Barak, who gained in the polls in the first days of the war, knew that his ratings would collapse if pictures of dead soldiers filled the TV screens.
Therefore, a new doctrine was applied: to avoid losses among our soldiers by the total destruction of everything in their path. The planners were not only ready to kill 80 Palestinians to save one Israeli soldier, as has happened, but also 800. The avoidance of casualties on our side is the overriding commandment, which is causing record numbers of civilian casualties on the other side.
That means the conscious choice of an especially cruel kind of warfare – and that has been its Achilles heel.
A person without imagination, like Barak (his election slogan: “Not a Nice Guy, but a Leader”) cannot imagine how decent people around the world react to actions like the killing of whole extended families, the destruction of houses over the heads of their inhabitants, the rows of boys and girls in white shrouds ready for burial, the reports about people bleeding to death over days because ambulances are not allowed to reach them, the killing of doctors and medics on their way to save lives, the killing of UN drivers bringing in food. The pictures of the hospitals, with the dead, the dying and the injured lying together on the floor for lack of space, have shocked the world. No argument has any force next to an image of a wounded little girl lying on the floor, twisting with pain and crying out: “Mama! Mama!”
The planners thought that they could stop the world from seeing these images by forcibly preventing press coverage. The Israeli journalists, to their shame, agreed to be satisfied with the reports and photos provided by the Army Spokesman, as if they were authentic news, while they themselves remained miles away from the events. Foreign journalists were not allowed in either, until they protested and were taken for quick tours in selected and supervised groups. But in a modern war, such a sterile manufactured view cannot completely exclude all others – the cameras are inside the strip, in the middle of the hell, and cannot be controlled. Aljazeera broadcasts the pictures around the clock and reaches every home.
* * *
THE BATTLE for the TV screen is one of the decisive battles of the war.
Hundreds of millions of Arabs from Mauritania to Iraq, more than a billion Muslims from Nigeria to Indonesia see the pictures and are horrified. This has a strong impact on the war. Many of the viewers see the rulers of Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority as collaborators with Israel in carrying out these atrocities against their Palestinian brothers.
The security services of the Arab regimes are registering a dangerous ferment among the peoples. Hosny Mubarak, the most exposed Arab leader because of his closing of the Rafah crossing in the face of terrified refugees, started to pressure the decision-makers in Washington, who until that time had blocked all calls for a cease-fire. These began to understand the menace to vital American interests in the Arab world and suddenly changed their attitude – causing consternation among the complacent Israeli diplomats.
People with moral insanity cannot really understand the motives of normal people and must guess their reactions. “How many divisions has the Pope?” Stalin sneered. “How many divisions have people of conscience?” Ehud Barak may well be asking.
As it turns out, they do have some. Not numerous. Not very quick to react. Not very strong and organized. But at a certain moment, when the atrocities overflow and masses of protesters come together, that can decide a war.
* * *
THE FAILURE to grasp the nature of Hamas has caused a failure to grasp the predictable results. Not only is Israel unable to win the war, Hamas cannot lose it.
Even if the Israeli army were to succeed in killing every Hamas fighter to the last man, even then Hamas would win. The Hamas fighters would be seen as the paragons of the Arab nation, the heroes of the Palestinian people, models for emulation by every youngster in the Arab world. The West Bank would fall into the hands of Hamas like a ripe fruit, Fatah would drown in a sea of contempt, the Arab regimes would be threatened with collapse.
If the war ends with Hamas still standing, bloodied but unvanquished, in face of the mighty Israeli military machine, it will look like a fantastic victory, a victory of mind over matter.
What will be seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a blood-stained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for our long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet.
In the end, this war is a crime against ourselves too, a crime against the State of Israel.
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
How Hamas Got Power
Dear friends,
I am forwarding to you a fascinating article by a middle east expert and professor at University of San Francisco. I knew a little about this subject, but here is a fascinasting piece of hidden history background to the Gaza crisis. Please spread it around . . .
thanks,
Dickie
Thanks, Dickie for this informative article
Subject: America's Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power
From: John Roberts
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 11:43:00 -0500
Here is documented the role that the US and Israel had in creating and supporting Hamas early on. Just as the US supported Sadam Hussein when he carried water for the US, so Hamas was supported to undermine the secular PLO.
This is as important to read if you want to understand some of the internal politics of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
John
America's Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power
By Stephen Zunes,
AlterNet
January 3, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/audits/116855/?page=3
No one in the mainstream media or government is willing
to acknowledge America's sordid role interfering in
Palestinian politics.
The United States bears much of the blame for the
ongoing bloodshed in the Gaza Strip and nearby parts of
Israel. Indeed, were it not for misguided Israeli and
American policies, Hamas would not be in control of the
territory in the first place.
Israel initially encouraged the rise of the Palestinian
Islamist movement as a counter to the Palestine
Liberation Organization, the secular coalition composed
of Fatah and various leftist and other nationalist
movements. Beginning in the early 1980s, with generous
funding from the U.S.-backed family dictatorship in
Saudi Arabia, the antecedents of Hamas began to emerge
through the establishment of schools, health care
clinics, social service organizations and other
entities that stressed an ultraconservative
interpretation of Islam, which up to that point had not
been very common among the Palestinian population. The
hope was that if people spent more time praying in
mosques, they would be less prone to enlist in left-
wing nationalist movements challenging the Israeli
occupation.
While supporters of the secular PLO were denied their
own media or right to hold political gatherings, the
Israeli occupation authorities allowed radical Islamic
groups to hold rallies, publish uncensored newspapers
and even have their own radio station. For example, in
the occupied Palestinian city of Gaza in 1981, Israeli
soldiers -- who had shown no hesitation in brutally
suppressing peaceful pro-PLO demonstrations -- stood by
when a group of Islamic extremists attacked and burned
a PLO-affiliated health clinic in Gaza for offering
family-planning services for women.
Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya
(Islamic Resistance Movement), was founded in 1987 by
Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who had been freed from prison when
Israel conquered the Gaza Strip 20 years earlier.
Israel's priorities in suppressing Palestinian dissent
during this period were revealing: In 1988, Israel
forcibly exiled Palestinian activist Mubarak Awad, a
Christian pacifist who advocated the use of Gandhian-
style resistance to the Israeli occupation and Israeli-
Palestinian peace, while allowing Yassin to circulate
anti-Jewish hate literature and publicly call for the
destruction of Israel by force of arms.
American policy was not much different: Up until 1993,
U.S. officials in the consular office in Jerusalem met
periodically with Hamas leaders, while they were barred
from meeting with anyone from the PLO, including
leading moderates within the coalition. This policy
continued despite the fact that the PLO had renounced
terrorism and unilaterally recognized Israel as far
back as 1988.
One of the early major boosts for Hamas came when the
Israeli government expelled more than 400 Palestinian
Muslims in late 1992. While most of the exiles were
associated with Hamas-affiliated social service
agencies, very few had been accused of any violent
crimes. Since such expulsions are a direct
contravention to international law, the U.N. Security
Council unanimously condemned the action and called for
their immediate return. The incoming Clinton
administration, however, blocked the United Nations
from enforcing its resolution and falsely claimed that
an Israeli offer to eventually allow some of exiles
back constituted a fulfillment of the U.N. mandate. The
result of the Israeli and American actions was that the
exiles became heroes and martyrs, and the credibility
of Hamas in the eyes of the Palestinians grew
enormously -- and so did its political strength.
Still, at the time of the Oslo Agreement between Israel
and the PLO in 1993, polls showed that Hamas had the
support of only 15 percent of the Palestinian
community. Support for Hamas grew, however, as promises
of a viable Palestinian state faded as Israel continued
to expand its colonization drive on the West Bank
without apparent U.S. objections, doubling the amount
of settlers over the next dozen years. The rule of
Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority President Yassir
Arafat and his cronies proved to be corrupt and inept,
while Hamas leaders were seen to be more honest and in
keeping with the needs of ordinary Palestinians. In
early 2001, Israel cut off all substantive negotiations
with the Palestinians, and a devastating U.S.-backed
Israeli offensive the following year destroyed much of
the Palestinian Authority's infrastructure, making
prospects for peace and statehood even more remote.
Israeli closures and blockades sank the Palestinian
economy into a serious depression, and Hamas-run social
services became all the more important for ordinary
Palestinians.
Seeing how Fatah's 1993 decision to end the armed
struggle and rely on a U.S.-led peace process had
resulted in increased suffering, Hamas' popularity grew
well beyond its hard-line fundamentalist base and its
use of terrorism against Israel -- despite being
immoral, illegal and counterproductive -- seemed to
express the sense of anger and impotence of wide
segments of the Palestinian population. Meanwhile -- in
a policy defended by the Bush administration and
Democratic leaders in Congress -- Israel's use of death
squads resulted in the deaths of Yassin and scores of
other Hamas leaders, turning them into martyrs in the
eyes of many Palestinians and increasing Hamas' support
still further.
Hamas Comes to Power
With the Bush administration insisting that the
Palestinians stage free and fair elections after the
death of Arafat in 2004, Fatah leaders hoped that
coaxing Hamas into the electoral process would help
weaken its more radical elements. Despite U.S.
objections, the Palestinian parliamentary elections
went ahead in January 2006 with Hamas' participation.
They were monitored closely by international observers
and were universally recognized as free and fair. With
reformist and leftist parties divided into a half-dozen
competing slates, Hamas was seen by many Palestinians
disgusted with the status quo as the only viable
alternative to the corrupt Fatah incumbents, and with
Israel refusing to engage in substantive peace
negotiations with Abbas' Fatah-led government, they
figured there was little to lose in electing Hamas. In
addition, factionalism within the ruling party led a
number of districts to have competing Fatah candidates.
As a result, even though Hamas only received 44 percent
of the vote, it captured a majority of parliament and
the right to select the prime minister and form a new
government.
Ironically, the position of prime minister did not
exist under the original constitution of the
Palestinian Authority, but was added in March 2003 at
the insistence of the United States, which desired a
counterweight to President Arafat. As a result, while
the elections allowed Abbas to remain as president, he
was forced to share power with Ismail Haniya, the Hamas
prime minister.
Despite claiming support for free elections, the United
States tried from the outset to undermine the Hamas
government. It was largely due to U.S. pressure that
Abbas refused Hamas' initial invitation to form a
national unity government that would include Fatah and
from which some of the more hard-line Hamas leaders
would have presumably been marginalized. The Bush
administration pressured the Canadians, Europeans and
others in the international community to impose stiff
sanctions on the Palestine Authority, although a
limited amount of aid continued to flow to government
offices controlled by Abbas.
Once one of the more-prosperous regions in the Arab
world, decades of Israeli occupation had resulted in
the destruction of much of the indigenous Palestinian
economy, making the Palestinian Authority dependent on
foreign aid to provide basic functions for its people.
The impact of these sanctions, therefore, was
devastating. The Iranian regime rushed in to partially
fulfill the void, providing millions of dollars to run
basic services and giving the Islamic republic -- which
until then had not been allied with Hamas and had not
been a major player in Palestinian politics --
unprecedented leverage.
Meanwhile, record unemployment led angry and hungry
young men to become easy recruits for Hamas militants.
One leading Fatah official noted how, "For many people,
this was the only way to make money." Some Palestinian
police, unpaid by their bankrupt government,
clandestinely joined the Hamas militia as a second job,
creating a dual loyalty.
The demands imposed at the insistence of the Bush
administration and Congress on the Palestinian
Authority in order to lift the sanctions appeared to
have been designed to be rejected and were widely
interpreted as a pretext for punishing the Palestinian
population for voting the wrong way. For example, the
United States demanded that the Hamas-led government
unilaterally recognize the right of the state of Israel
to exist, even though Israel has never recognized the
right of the Palestinians to have a viable state on the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, or anywhere else. Other
demands included an end of attacks on civilians in
Israel while not demanding that Israel likewise end its
attacks on civilian areas in the Gaza Strip. They also
demanded that the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority
accept all previously negotiated agreements, even as
Israel continued to violate key components of the Wye
River Agreement and other negotiated deals with the
Palestinians.
While Hamas honored a unilateral cease-fire regarding
suicide bombings in Israel, border clashes and rocket
attacks into Israel continued. Israel, meanwhile, with
the support of the Bush administration, engaged in
devastating air strikes against crowded urban
neighborhoods, resulting in hundreds of civilian
casualties. Congress also went on record defending the
Israeli assaults -- which were widely condemned in the
international community as excessive and in violation
of international humanitarian law -- as legitimate acts
of self-defense.
A Siege, Not a Withdrawal
The myth perpetuated by both the Bush administration
and congressional leaders of both parties was that
Israel's 2005 dismantling of its illegal settlements in
the Gaza Strip and the withdrawal of military units
that supported them constituted effective freedom for
the Palestinians of the territory. American political
leaders from President George W. Bush to House Speaker
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have repeatedly praised
Israel for its belated compliance with a series of U.N.
Security Council resolutions calling for its withdrawal
of these illegal settlements (despite Israel's ongoing
violations of these same resolutions by maintaining and
expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank and
Golan Heights).
In reality, however, the Gaza Strip has remained
effectively under siege. Even prior to the Hamas
victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in
2006, the Israeli government not only severely
restricted -- as is its right -- entry from the Gaza
Strip into Israel, but also controlled passage through
the border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt,
as well. Israel also refused to allow the Palestinians
to open their airport or seaport. This not only led to
periodic shortages of basic necessities imported
through Egypt, but resulted in the widespread wasting
of perishable exports -- such as fruits, vegetables and
cut flowers -- vital to the territory's economy.
Furthermore, Gaza residents were cut off from family
members and compatriots in the West Bank and elsewhere
in what many have referred to as the world's largest
open-air prison.
In retaliation, Hamas and allied militias began
launching rocket attacks into civilian areas of Israel.
Israel responded by bombing, shelling and periodic
incursions in civilian areas in the Gaza Strip, which,
by the time of the 2006 cease-fire, had killed over 200
civilians, including scores of children. Bush
administration officials, echoed by congressional
leaders of both parties, justifiably condemned the
rocket attacks by Hamas-allied units into civilian
areas of Israel (which at that time had resulted in
scores of injuries but only one death), but defended
Israel's far more devastating attacks against civilian
targets in the Gaza Strip. This created a reaction that
strengthened Hamas' support in the territory even more.
The Gaza Strip's population consists primarily of
refugees from Israel's ethnic cleansing of most of
Palestine almost 60 years ago and their descendents,
most of whom have had no gainful employment since
Israel sealed the border from most day laborers in the
late 1980s. Crowded into only 140 square miles and
subjected to extreme violence and poverty, it is not
surprising that many would become susceptible to
extremist politics, such as those of the Islamist Hamas
movement. Nor is it surprising that under such
conditions, people with guns would turn on each other.
Undermining the Unity Government
When factional fighting between armed Fatah and Hamas
groups broke out in early 2007, Saudi officials
negotiated a power-sharing agreement between the two
leading Palestinian political movements. U.S.
officials, however, unsuccessfully encouraged Abbas to
renounce the agreement and dismiss the entire
government. Indeed, ever since the election of a Hamas
parliamentary majority, the Bush administration began
pressuring Fatah to stage a coup and abolish
parliament.
The national unity government put key ministries in the
hands of Fatah members and independent technocrats and
removed some of the more hard-line Hamas leaders and,
while falling well short of Western demands, Hamas did
indicate an unprecedented willingness to engage with
Israel, accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip and negotiate a long-term cease-fire with
Israel. For the first time, this could have allowed
Israel and the United States the opportunity to bring
into peace talks a national unity government
representing virtually all the factions and parties
active in Palestinian politics on the basis of the Arab
League peace initiative for a two-state solution and
U.N. Security Council Resolution 242. However, both the
Israeli and American governments refused.
Instead, the Bush administration decided to escalate
the conflict by ordering Israel to ship large
quantities or weapons to armed Fatah groups to enable
them to fight Hamas and stage a coup. Israeli military
leaders initially resisted the idea, fearing that much
of these arms would end up in the hands of Hamas, but
-- as Israeli journalist Uri Avnery put it -- "our
government obeyed American orders, as usual.' That
Fatah was being supplied with weapons from Israel while
Hamas was fighting the Israelis led many Palestinians
-- even those who don't share Hamas' extremist ideology
-- to see Fatah as collaborators and Hamas as
liberation fighters. This was a major factor leading
Hamas to launch what it saw as a preventive war or a
countercoup by overrunning the offices of the Fatah
militias in June 2007 and, just as the Israelis feared,
many of these newly supplied weapons have indeed ended
up in the hands of Hamas militants. Hamas has ruled the
Gaza Strip ever since.
The United States also threw its support to Mohammed
Dahlan, the notorious Fatah security chief in Gaza, who
-- despite being labeled by American officials as
"moderate" and "pragmatic" -- oversaw the detention,
torture and execution of Hamas activists and others,
leading to widespread popular outrage against Fatah and
its supporters.
Alvaro de Soto, former U.N. special coordinator for the
Middle East peace process, stated in his confidential
final report leaked to the press a few weeks before the
Hamas takeover that "the Americans clearly encouraged a
confrontation between Fatah and Hamas" and "worked to
isolate and damage Hamas and build up Fatah with
recognition and weaponry." De Soto also recalled how in
the midst of Egyptian efforts to arrange a cease-fire
following a flare-up in factional fighting earlier this
year, a U.S. official told him that "I like this
violence . it means that other Palestinians are
resisting Hamas."
Weakening Palestinian Moderates
For moderate forces to overcome extremist forces, the
moderates must be able to provide their population with
what they most need: in this case, the end of Israel's
siege of the Gaza Strip and its occupation and
colonizing of the remaining Palestinian territories.
However, Israeli policies -- backed by the Bush
administration and Congress -- seem calculated to make
this impossible. The noted Israeli policy analyst
Gershon Baskin observed, in an article in the Jerusalem
Post just prior to Hamas' electoral victory, how
"Israel 's unilateralism and determination not to
negotiate and engage President Mahmoud Abbas and the
Palestinian Authority has strengthened the claims of
Hamas and weakened Abbas and his authority, which was
already severely crippled by . Israeli actions that
demolished the infrastructures of Palestinian Authority
governing bodies and institutions."
Bush and an overwhelming bipartisan majority in
Congress have also thrown their support to the Israeli
government's unilateral disengagement policy that,
while withdrawing Israeli settlements from the Gaza
Strip, has expanded them in the occupied West Bank as
part of an effort to illegally annex large swaths of
Palestinian territory. In addition, neither Congress
nor the Bush administration has pushed the Israelis to
engage in serious peace negotiations with the
Palestinians, which have been suspended for over six
years, despite calls by Abbas and the international
community that they resume. Given that Fatah's emphasis
on negotiations has failed to stop Israel's occupation
and colonization of large parts of the West Bank, it's
not surprising that Hamas' claim that the U.S.-managed
peace process is working against Palestinian interests
has resonance, even among Palestinians who recognize
that terrorism by Hamas' armed wing is both morally
reprehensible and has hurt the nationalist cause.
Following Hamas' armed takeover of Gaza, the highly
respected Israeli journalist Roni Shaked, writing in
the June 15 issue of Yediot Ahronoth, noted that "The
U.S. and Israel had a decisive contribution to this
failure." Despite claims by Israel and the United
States that they wanted to strengthen Abbas, "in
practice, zero was done for this to happen. The
meetings with him turned into an Israeli political
tool, and Olmert's kisses and backslapping turned Abbas
into a collaborator and a source of jokes on the
Palestinian street."
De Soto's report to the U.N. Secretary-General, in
which he referred to Hamas' stance toward Israel as
"abominable," also noted that "Israeli policies seemed
perversely designed to encourage the continued action
by Palestinian militants." Regarding the U.S.-
instigated international sanctions against the
Palestinian Authority, the former Peruvian diplomat
also observed that "the steps taken by the
international community with the presumed purpose of
bringing about a Palestinian entity that will live in
peace with its neighbor Israel have had precisely the
opposite effect."
Some Israeli commentators saw this strategy as
deliberate. Avnery noted, "Our government has worked
for year to destroy Fatah, in order to avoid the need
to negotiate an agreement that would inevitably lead to
the withdrawal form the occupied territories and the
settlements there." Similarly, M.J. Rosenberg of the
Israel Policy Center observed, "the fact is that
Israeli (and American) right-wingers are rooting for
the Palestinian extremists" since "supplanting ...
Fatah with Islamic fundamentalists would prevent a
situation under which Israel would be forced to
negotiate with moderates.' The problem, Avnery wrote at
that time, is that "now, when it seems that this aim
has been achieved, they have no idea what to do about
the Hamas victory."
Since then, the Israeli strategy has been to increase
the blockade on the Gaza Strip, regardless of the
disastrous humanitarian consequences, and more recently
to launch devastating attacks that have killed hundreds
of people, as many as one-quarter of whom have been
civilians. The Bush administration and leaders of both
parties in Congress have defended Israeli policies on
the grounds that the extremist Hamas governs the
territory.
Yet no one seems willing to acknowledge the role the
United States had in making it possible for Hamas to
come to power in Gaza in the first place.
_____________________
Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and chairman
of Middle Eastern studies at the University of San
Francisco and serves as a senior policy analyst for
Foreign Policy in Focus.
I am forwarding to you a fascinating article by a middle east expert and professor at University of San Francisco. I knew a little about this subject, but here is a fascinasting piece of hidden history background to the Gaza crisis. Please spread it around . . .
thanks,
Dickie
Thanks, Dickie for this informative article
Subject: America's Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power
From: John Roberts
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 11:43:00 -0500
Here is documented the role that the US and Israel had in creating and supporting Hamas early on. Just as the US supported Sadam Hussein when he carried water for the US, so Hamas was supported to undermine the secular PLO.
This is as important to read if you want to understand some of the internal politics of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
John
America's Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power
By Stephen Zunes,
AlterNet
January 3, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/audits/116855/?page=3
No one in the mainstream media or government is willing
to acknowledge America's sordid role interfering in
Palestinian politics.
The United States bears much of the blame for the
ongoing bloodshed in the Gaza Strip and nearby parts of
Israel. Indeed, were it not for misguided Israeli and
American policies, Hamas would not be in control of the
territory in the first place.
Israel initially encouraged the rise of the Palestinian
Islamist movement as a counter to the Palestine
Liberation Organization, the secular coalition composed
of Fatah and various leftist and other nationalist
movements. Beginning in the early 1980s, with generous
funding from the U.S.-backed family dictatorship in
Saudi Arabia, the antecedents of Hamas began to emerge
through the establishment of schools, health care
clinics, social service organizations and other
entities that stressed an ultraconservative
interpretation of Islam, which up to that point had not
been very common among the Palestinian population. The
hope was that if people spent more time praying in
mosques, they would be less prone to enlist in left-
wing nationalist movements challenging the Israeli
occupation.
While supporters of the secular PLO were denied their
own media or right to hold political gatherings, the
Israeli occupation authorities allowed radical Islamic
groups to hold rallies, publish uncensored newspapers
and even have their own radio station. For example, in
the occupied Palestinian city of Gaza in 1981, Israeli
soldiers -- who had shown no hesitation in brutally
suppressing peaceful pro-PLO demonstrations -- stood by
when a group of Islamic extremists attacked and burned
a PLO-affiliated health clinic in Gaza for offering
family-planning services for women.
Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya
(Islamic Resistance Movement), was founded in 1987 by
Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who had been freed from prison when
Israel conquered the Gaza Strip 20 years earlier.
Israel's priorities in suppressing Palestinian dissent
during this period were revealing: In 1988, Israel
forcibly exiled Palestinian activist Mubarak Awad, a
Christian pacifist who advocated the use of Gandhian-
style resistance to the Israeli occupation and Israeli-
Palestinian peace, while allowing Yassin to circulate
anti-Jewish hate literature and publicly call for the
destruction of Israel by force of arms.
American policy was not much different: Up until 1993,
U.S. officials in the consular office in Jerusalem met
periodically with Hamas leaders, while they were barred
from meeting with anyone from the PLO, including
leading moderates within the coalition. This policy
continued despite the fact that the PLO had renounced
terrorism and unilaterally recognized Israel as far
back as 1988.
One of the early major boosts for Hamas came when the
Israeli government expelled more than 400 Palestinian
Muslims in late 1992. While most of the exiles were
associated with Hamas-affiliated social service
agencies, very few had been accused of any violent
crimes. Since such expulsions are a direct
contravention to international law, the U.N. Security
Council unanimously condemned the action and called for
their immediate return. The incoming Clinton
administration, however, blocked the United Nations
from enforcing its resolution and falsely claimed that
an Israeli offer to eventually allow some of exiles
back constituted a fulfillment of the U.N. mandate. The
result of the Israeli and American actions was that the
exiles became heroes and martyrs, and the credibility
of Hamas in the eyes of the Palestinians grew
enormously -- and so did its political strength.
Still, at the time of the Oslo Agreement between Israel
and the PLO in 1993, polls showed that Hamas had the
support of only 15 percent of the Palestinian
community. Support for Hamas grew, however, as promises
of a viable Palestinian state faded as Israel continued
to expand its colonization drive on the West Bank
without apparent U.S. objections, doubling the amount
of settlers over the next dozen years. The rule of
Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority President Yassir
Arafat and his cronies proved to be corrupt and inept,
while Hamas leaders were seen to be more honest and in
keeping with the needs of ordinary Palestinians. In
early 2001, Israel cut off all substantive negotiations
with the Palestinians, and a devastating U.S.-backed
Israeli offensive the following year destroyed much of
the Palestinian Authority's infrastructure, making
prospects for peace and statehood even more remote.
Israeli closures and blockades sank the Palestinian
economy into a serious depression, and Hamas-run social
services became all the more important for ordinary
Palestinians.
Seeing how Fatah's 1993 decision to end the armed
struggle and rely on a U.S.-led peace process had
resulted in increased suffering, Hamas' popularity grew
well beyond its hard-line fundamentalist base and its
use of terrorism against Israel -- despite being
immoral, illegal and counterproductive -- seemed to
express the sense of anger and impotence of wide
segments of the Palestinian population. Meanwhile -- in
a policy defended by the Bush administration and
Democratic leaders in Congress -- Israel's use of death
squads resulted in the deaths of Yassin and scores of
other Hamas leaders, turning them into martyrs in the
eyes of many Palestinians and increasing Hamas' support
still further.
Hamas Comes to Power
With the Bush administration insisting that the
Palestinians stage free and fair elections after the
death of Arafat in 2004, Fatah leaders hoped that
coaxing Hamas into the electoral process would help
weaken its more radical elements. Despite U.S.
objections, the Palestinian parliamentary elections
went ahead in January 2006 with Hamas' participation.
They were monitored closely by international observers
and were universally recognized as free and fair. With
reformist and leftist parties divided into a half-dozen
competing slates, Hamas was seen by many Palestinians
disgusted with the status quo as the only viable
alternative to the corrupt Fatah incumbents, and with
Israel refusing to engage in substantive peace
negotiations with Abbas' Fatah-led government, they
figured there was little to lose in electing Hamas. In
addition, factionalism within the ruling party led a
number of districts to have competing Fatah candidates.
As a result, even though Hamas only received 44 percent
of the vote, it captured a majority of parliament and
the right to select the prime minister and form a new
government.
Ironically, the position of prime minister did not
exist under the original constitution of the
Palestinian Authority, but was added in March 2003 at
the insistence of the United States, which desired a
counterweight to President Arafat. As a result, while
the elections allowed Abbas to remain as president, he
was forced to share power with Ismail Haniya, the Hamas
prime minister.
Despite claiming support for free elections, the United
States tried from the outset to undermine the Hamas
government. It was largely due to U.S. pressure that
Abbas refused Hamas' initial invitation to form a
national unity government that would include Fatah and
from which some of the more hard-line Hamas leaders
would have presumably been marginalized. The Bush
administration pressured the Canadians, Europeans and
others in the international community to impose stiff
sanctions on the Palestine Authority, although a
limited amount of aid continued to flow to government
offices controlled by Abbas.
Once one of the more-prosperous regions in the Arab
world, decades of Israeli occupation had resulted in
the destruction of much of the indigenous Palestinian
economy, making the Palestinian Authority dependent on
foreign aid to provide basic functions for its people.
The impact of these sanctions, therefore, was
devastating. The Iranian regime rushed in to partially
fulfill the void, providing millions of dollars to run
basic services and giving the Islamic republic -- which
until then had not been allied with Hamas and had not
been a major player in Palestinian politics --
unprecedented leverage.
Meanwhile, record unemployment led angry and hungry
young men to become easy recruits for Hamas militants.
One leading Fatah official noted how, "For many people,
this was the only way to make money." Some Palestinian
police, unpaid by their bankrupt government,
clandestinely joined the Hamas militia as a second job,
creating a dual loyalty.
The demands imposed at the insistence of the Bush
administration and Congress on the Palestinian
Authority in order to lift the sanctions appeared to
have been designed to be rejected and were widely
interpreted as a pretext for punishing the Palestinian
population for voting the wrong way. For example, the
United States demanded that the Hamas-led government
unilaterally recognize the right of the state of Israel
to exist, even though Israel has never recognized the
right of the Palestinians to have a viable state on the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, or anywhere else. Other
demands included an end of attacks on civilians in
Israel while not demanding that Israel likewise end its
attacks on civilian areas in the Gaza Strip. They also
demanded that the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority
accept all previously negotiated agreements, even as
Israel continued to violate key components of the Wye
River Agreement and other negotiated deals with the
Palestinians.
While Hamas honored a unilateral cease-fire regarding
suicide bombings in Israel, border clashes and rocket
attacks into Israel continued. Israel, meanwhile, with
the support of the Bush administration, engaged in
devastating air strikes against crowded urban
neighborhoods, resulting in hundreds of civilian
casualties. Congress also went on record defending the
Israeli assaults -- which were widely condemned in the
international community as excessive and in violation
of international humanitarian law -- as legitimate acts
of self-defense.
A Siege, Not a Withdrawal
The myth perpetuated by both the Bush administration
and congressional leaders of both parties was that
Israel's 2005 dismantling of its illegal settlements in
the Gaza Strip and the withdrawal of military units
that supported them constituted effective freedom for
the Palestinians of the territory. American political
leaders from President George W. Bush to House Speaker
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have repeatedly praised
Israel for its belated compliance with a series of U.N.
Security Council resolutions calling for its withdrawal
of these illegal settlements (despite Israel's ongoing
violations of these same resolutions by maintaining and
expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank and
Golan Heights).
In reality, however, the Gaza Strip has remained
effectively under siege. Even prior to the Hamas
victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in
2006, the Israeli government not only severely
restricted -- as is its right -- entry from the Gaza
Strip into Israel, but also controlled passage through
the border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt,
as well. Israel also refused to allow the Palestinians
to open their airport or seaport. This not only led to
periodic shortages of basic necessities imported
through Egypt, but resulted in the widespread wasting
of perishable exports -- such as fruits, vegetables and
cut flowers -- vital to the territory's economy.
Furthermore, Gaza residents were cut off from family
members and compatriots in the West Bank and elsewhere
in what many have referred to as the world's largest
open-air prison.
In retaliation, Hamas and allied militias began
launching rocket attacks into civilian areas of Israel.
Israel responded by bombing, shelling and periodic
incursions in civilian areas in the Gaza Strip, which,
by the time of the 2006 cease-fire, had killed over 200
civilians, including scores of children. Bush
administration officials, echoed by congressional
leaders of both parties, justifiably condemned the
rocket attacks by Hamas-allied units into civilian
areas of Israel (which at that time had resulted in
scores of injuries but only one death), but defended
Israel's far more devastating attacks against civilian
targets in the Gaza Strip. This created a reaction that
strengthened Hamas' support in the territory even more.
The Gaza Strip's population consists primarily of
refugees from Israel's ethnic cleansing of most of
Palestine almost 60 years ago and their descendents,
most of whom have had no gainful employment since
Israel sealed the border from most day laborers in the
late 1980s. Crowded into only 140 square miles and
subjected to extreme violence and poverty, it is not
surprising that many would become susceptible to
extremist politics, such as those of the Islamist Hamas
movement. Nor is it surprising that under such
conditions, people with guns would turn on each other.
Undermining the Unity Government
When factional fighting between armed Fatah and Hamas
groups broke out in early 2007, Saudi officials
negotiated a power-sharing agreement between the two
leading Palestinian political movements. U.S.
officials, however, unsuccessfully encouraged Abbas to
renounce the agreement and dismiss the entire
government. Indeed, ever since the election of a Hamas
parliamentary majority, the Bush administration began
pressuring Fatah to stage a coup and abolish
parliament.
The national unity government put key ministries in the
hands of Fatah members and independent technocrats and
removed some of the more hard-line Hamas leaders and,
while falling well short of Western demands, Hamas did
indicate an unprecedented willingness to engage with
Israel, accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip and negotiate a long-term cease-fire with
Israel. For the first time, this could have allowed
Israel and the United States the opportunity to bring
into peace talks a national unity government
representing virtually all the factions and parties
active in Palestinian politics on the basis of the Arab
League peace initiative for a two-state solution and
U.N. Security Council Resolution 242. However, both the
Israeli and American governments refused.
Instead, the Bush administration decided to escalate
the conflict by ordering Israel to ship large
quantities or weapons to armed Fatah groups to enable
them to fight Hamas and stage a coup. Israeli military
leaders initially resisted the idea, fearing that much
of these arms would end up in the hands of Hamas, but
-- as Israeli journalist Uri Avnery put it -- "our
government obeyed American orders, as usual.' That
Fatah was being supplied with weapons from Israel while
Hamas was fighting the Israelis led many Palestinians
-- even those who don't share Hamas' extremist ideology
-- to see Fatah as collaborators and Hamas as
liberation fighters. This was a major factor leading
Hamas to launch what it saw as a preventive war or a
countercoup by overrunning the offices of the Fatah
militias in June 2007 and, just as the Israelis feared,
many of these newly supplied weapons have indeed ended
up in the hands of Hamas militants. Hamas has ruled the
Gaza Strip ever since.
The United States also threw its support to Mohammed
Dahlan, the notorious Fatah security chief in Gaza, who
-- despite being labeled by American officials as
"moderate" and "pragmatic" -- oversaw the detention,
torture and execution of Hamas activists and others,
leading to widespread popular outrage against Fatah and
its supporters.
Alvaro de Soto, former U.N. special coordinator for the
Middle East peace process, stated in his confidential
final report leaked to the press a few weeks before the
Hamas takeover that "the Americans clearly encouraged a
confrontation between Fatah and Hamas" and "worked to
isolate and damage Hamas and build up Fatah with
recognition and weaponry." De Soto also recalled how in
the midst of Egyptian efforts to arrange a cease-fire
following a flare-up in factional fighting earlier this
year, a U.S. official told him that "I like this
violence . it means that other Palestinians are
resisting Hamas."
Weakening Palestinian Moderates
For moderate forces to overcome extremist forces, the
moderates must be able to provide their population with
what they most need: in this case, the end of Israel's
siege of the Gaza Strip and its occupation and
colonizing of the remaining Palestinian territories.
However, Israeli policies -- backed by the Bush
administration and Congress -- seem calculated to make
this impossible. The noted Israeli policy analyst
Gershon Baskin observed, in an article in the Jerusalem
Post just prior to Hamas' electoral victory, how
"Israel 's unilateralism and determination not to
negotiate and engage President Mahmoud Abbas and the
Palestinian Authority has strengthened the claims of
Hamas and weakened Abbas and his authority, which was
already severely crippled by . Israeli actions that
demolished the infrastructures of Palestinian Authority
governing bodies and institutions."
Bush and an overwhelming bipartisan majority in
Congress have also thrown their support to the Israeli
government's unilateral disengagement policy that,
while withdrawing Israeli settlements from the Gaza
Strip, has expanded them in the occupied West Bank as
part of an effort to illegally annex large swaths of
Palestinian territory. In addition, neither Congress
nor the Bush administration has pushed the Israelis to
engage in serious peace negotiations with the
Palestinians, which have been suspended for over six
years, despite calls by Abbas and the international
community that they resume. Given that Fatah's emphasis
on negotiations has failed to stop Israel's occupation
and colonization of large parts of the West Bank, it's
not surprising that Hamas' claim that the U.S.-managed
peace process is working against Palestinian interests
has resonance, even among Palestinians who recognize
that terrorism by Hamas' armed wing is both morally
reprehensible and has hurt the nationalist cause.
Following Hamas' armed takeover of Gaza, the highly
respected Israeli journalist Roni Shaked, writing in
the June 15 issue of Yediot Ahronoth, noted that "The
U.S. and Israel had a decisive contribution to this
failure." Despite claims by Israel and the United
States that they wanted to strengthen Abbas, "in
practice, zero was done for this to happen. The
meetings with him turned into an Israeli political
tool, and Olmert's kisses and backslapping turned Abbas
into a collaborator and a source of jokes on the
Palestinian street."
De Soto's report to the U.N. Secretary-General, in
which he referred to Hamas' stance toward Israel as
"abominable," also noted that "Israeli policies seemed
perversely designed to encourage the continued action
by Palestinian militants." Regarding the U.S.-
instigated international sanctions against the
Palestinian Authority, the former Peruvian diplomat
also observed that "the steps taken by the
international community with the presumed purpose of
bringing about a Palestinian entity that will live in
peace with its neighbor Israel have had precisely the
opposite effect."
Some Israeli commentators saw this strategy as
deliberate. Avnery noted, "Our government has worked
for year to destroy Fatah, in order to avoid the need
to negotiate an agreement that would inevitably lead to
the withdrawal form the occupied territories and the
settlements there." Similarly, M.J. Rosenberg of the
Israel Policy Center observed, "the fact is that
Israeli (and American) right-wingers are rooting for
the Palestinian extremists" since "supplanting ...
Fatah with Islamic fundamentalists would prevent a
situation under which Israel would be forced to
negotiate with moderates.' The problem, Avnery wrote at
that time, is that "now, when it seems that this aim
has been achieved, they have no idea what to do about
the Hamas victory."
Since then, the Israeli strategy has been to increase
the blockade on the Gaza Strip, regardless of the
disastrous humanitarian consequences, and more recently
to launch devastating attacks that have killed hundreds
of people, as many as one-quarter of whom have been
civilians. The Bush administration and leaders of both
parties in Congress have defended Israeli policies on
the grounds that the extremist Hamas governs the
territory.
Yet no one seems willing to acknowledge the role the
United States had in making it possible for Hamas to
come to power in Gaza in the first place.
_____________________
Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and chairman
of Middle Eastern studies at the University of San
Francisco and serves as a senior policy analyst for
Foreign Policy in Focus.
Friday, January 02, 2009
Good Analysis OF Gaza Situation by Richard Falk
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-falk/understanding-the-gaza-ca_b_154777.html
Monday, December 29, 2008
Articles Against the Israeli Bombing of Gaza
JPN Posting - List of contents
1) Press release from UN Representative
2) ** Emergency appeal from Physicians for Human Rights - Israel
3) ** Action alert from the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and UK petition site
4) Article in Ha'aretz by Tom Segev
5) Emails received from Safa Joudeh, a university student in Gaza city
6) Press releases from Rabbis for Human Rights and Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, USA Inc
The pieces listed above provide more information and analysis about the situation in Gaza, as well as suggestions for actions you can take (items marked with ** above).
The pieces below make the following points:
-- Israel's actions in Gaza rise to the level of war crimes
-- In providing material aid for Israel throughout the siege and attacks, the US is directly complicit with these war crimes
-- In committing these crimes, Israel continues to create a situation that puts its own citizens at risk
-- Rocket attacks on civilians in Israel by Palestinian groups are illegal and morally abhorrent
Physicians for Human Rights (Israel) is trying to raise funds to transfer medical supplies to Gaza. Information on how to contribute is in the second piece below. The third piece has information on how you can take action by contacting the White House, Congress and the media.
Judith Norman
Joel Beinin adds:
Professor Richard Falk, a widely respected authority on international law and the UN's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territiries, was recently detained by Israeli authorities at Ben-Gurion airport and prevented from entering the country. Professor Falk obviously poses no security threat to Israel whatsoever. He was prevented from entering Israel as a punishment for clearly stating his opinion that Israel has repeatedly violated international law, as in the press release below.
----------------------
PRESS RELEASE
STATEMENT BY PROF. RICHARD FALK,
UNITED NATIONS SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war.
Those violations include:
Collective punishment - the entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants.
Targeting civilians - the airstrikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world, certainly the most densely populated area of the Middle East.
Disproportionate military response - the airstrikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza's elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians; at least one strike reportedly hit groups of students attempting to find transportation home from the university.
Earlier Israeli actions, specifically the complete sealing off of entry and exit to and from the Gaza Strip, have led to severe shortages of medicine and fuel (as well as food), resulting in the inability of ambulances to respond to the injured, the inability of hospitals to adequately provide medicine or necessary equipment for the injured, and the inability of Gaza's besieged doctors and other medical workers to sufficiently treat the victims.
Certainly the rocket attacks against civilian targets in Israel are unlawful. But that illegality does not give rise to any Israeli right, neither as the Occupying Power nor as a sovereign state, to violate international humanitarian law and commit war crimes or crimes against humanity in its response. I note that Israel's escalating military assaults have not made Israeli civilians safer; to the contrary, the one Israeli killed today after the upsurge of Israeli violence is the first in over a year.
Israel has also ignored recent Hamas' diplomatic initiatives to reestablish the truce or ceasefire since its expiration on 26 December.
The Israeli airstrikes today, and the catastrophic human toll that they caused, challenge those countries that have been and remain complicit, either directly or indirectly, in Israel's violations of international law. That complicity includes those countries knowingly providing the military equipment including warplanes and missiles used in these illegal attacks, as well as those countries who have supported and participated in the siege of Gaza that itself has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.
I remind all member states of the United Nations that the UN continues to be bound to an independent obligation to protect any civilian population facing massive violations of international humanitarian law - regardless of what country may be responsible for those violations. I call on all Member States, as well as officials and every relevant organ of the United Nations system, to move on an emergency basis not only to condemn Israel's serious violations, but to develop new approaches to providing real protection for the Palestinian people.
-----------------------
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel
Gaza Emergency Appeal
December 29, 2008
GazaHospitals Already Filled to Capacity; Medical Supplies on the Verge of Depletion
Since the beginning of attacks in Gaza three days ago, over 300 people have been reported dead, more than 1000 wounded, and many hundreds more are in need of immediate medical attention. With a medical system already on the verge of collapse as a result of the ongoing closure, 1.4 million civilians are in desperate need of urgent medical help from outside the Gaza Strip.
PHR-Israel has the means to transfer this help within days and is seeking to raise 700,000 USD during the next week for purchase and direct transfer of supplies to Gaza hospitals.
Palestinian hospitals in the Gaza Strip have asked us for help in securing the following items:
Basic Sterilization equipment
Needles
Dressings
Anesthetics
Catheters
Medical gases
Endo-tracheal tubes
Laryngoscope
Oxygen
Portable monitors, ventilators, ultrasounds and x- ray machines
Clothing for medical teams
105 Essential Medications
225 Additional Medical Supplies
93 Laboratory items
Electric Shaving Machine
Trolleys
Hospital beds
As the situation stands, Palestinian doctors are performing surgeries without surgical gloves, local or general anesthetics, gauze, sterilized equipment or sufficient oxygen for patients. All together, there are only 1,500 hospital beds available in Gaza's 13 publicly run hospitals. A fleet of 60 ambulances is now reduced by half. The endless flow of new wounded and the need for beds has led to a suspension of care for dozens of other patients, including cancer, cardiac, and other chronically ill patients, who have all been sent to their homes for the duration of the crisis. Patients are not being permitted entry to Egypt and all referrals out of Gaza via Erez crossing have been suspended.
We are turning to organizations and individuals like you who have demonstrated your respect for the right to health by generously supporting PHR-Israel in recent years.
PHR-Israel accepts donations via check or bank transfer. To send a check by post, make check payable to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and send to:
PHR-Israel
Attn: Gila Norich, Director of Development
9 Dror St.
Jaffa Tel Aviv 68135 ISRAEL.
To make a bank transfer, our details are as follows. Please also send a note with your e-mail address informing us of your transfer:
Account Holder: Physicians for Human Rights-Israel
Bank: Hapoalim #12
Branch: Hashalom #662
Address: 106 Levinski Street, Tel Aviv, Israel
Account Number: 25938
SWIFT: POALILIT
IBAN: IL-70-0126-6200-0000-0025-938
US residents may make a tax-exempt donation via the New Israel Fund (NIF). Checks should be made payable to "New Israel Fund". A note with the check should be marked "donor-advised to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, ID# 5762."
NIF Address in Washington:
New Israel Fund
P.O.Box 91588
WashingtonDC
20090-1588
U.S.A
NIF Bank details:
Citibank
1000 Vermont Ave NW
Washington, DC20005
ABA #254070116
Acc# 66796296
UK residents may make a tax-exempt donation online via the British Shalom/Salaam Trust. (http://www.bsst.org.uk/what_you_can_do.html) Checks should be sent, together with your name and address and a completed gift aid form to:
British Shalom Salaam Trust
PO Box 39378
London SE13 5WH
For additional information on the current health crisis gathered by Physicians for Human Rights, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights (Gaza) and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) on the current crisis please go to: http://www.phr.org.il/phr .
For more information on donations or to inform us of a transfer, please contact Gila Norich, Director of Development: gila@phr.org.il or by phone, +972.3.5133.102
To contact Ran Yaron, Director of PHR-Israel's OccupiedPalestinianTerritory (oPt) Department send mail to: ranyaron@phr.org.il, or call +972.547.577696.
----------------------------
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1773
As of this writing, Israeli Air Force attacks today on the occupied Gaza Strip killed an estimated 200 or more people and injured hundreds more. These Israeli attacks come on top of a brutal siege of the Gaza Strip, which has created a humanitarian catastrophe of dire proportions for Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinian residents by restricting the provision of food, fuel, medicine, electricity, and other necessities of life.
While the scope of civilian casualties in today's attacks is not yet clear, it is unmistakable that Israel carried out these attacks with F16 fighter jets and missiles provided by the taxpayers of this country. From 2001-2006, the United States transferred to Israel more than $200 million worth of spare parts to fly its fleet of F16's. In July 2008, the United States gave Israel 186 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel. Last year, the United States signed a $1.3 billion contract with Raytheon to transfer to Israel thousands of TOW, Hellfire, and "bunker buster" missiles.
In short, Israel's lethal attack today on the Gaza Strip could not have happened without the active military and political support of the United States. Therefore, we need to take action to protest this attack and demand an immediate cease-fire.
TAKE ACTION
1. Contact the White House to protest the attack and demand an immediate cease-fire. Call 202-456-1111 or send an email to comments@whitehouse.gov.
2. Contact the State Department at 202-647-6575 or send an email at: http://contact-us.state.gov
3. Contact your Representative and Senators in Congress at 202-224-3121 or find contact info for your Members of Congress at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home
4. Contact your local media by phoning into a talk show or writing a letter to the editor. Find contact info for your local media at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media
5. Organize a local protest or vigil and tell us about it at congress@endtheoccupation.org
6. Sign our open letter to President-Elect Obama calling for a new U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine and find out other steps you can take to influence the incoming Administration at http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1771
--------------
For UK citizens there are some existing petitions about Gaza that you may like to sign. They can be found at
http://search.petitions.number10.gov.uk/kbroker/number10/petitions/search.lsim?ha=1157&sc=number10&qt=Gaza
For UK residents the site www.writetothem.com is a helpful resource for identifying your representatives at all levels of government and you may like to contact them about the Gaza war.
-------------------------
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050706.html
Trying to 'teach Hamas a lesson' is fundamentally wrong
By Tom Segev
Channel 1 television broadcast an interesting mix on Saturday morning: Its correspondents reported from Sderot and Ashkelon, but the pictures on the screen were from the Gaza Strip. Thus the broadcast, albeit unintentionally, sent the right message: A child in Sderot is the same as a child in Gaza, and anyone who harms either is evil.
But the assault on Gaza does not first and foremost demand moral condemnation - it demands a few historical reminders. Both the justification given for it and the chosen targets are a replay of the same basic assumptions that have proven wrong time after time. Yet Israel still pulls them out of its hat again and again, in one war after another.
Israel is striking at the Palestinians to "teach them a lesson." That is a basic assumption that has accompanied the Zionist enterprise since its inception: We are the representatives of progress and enlightenment, sophisticated rationality and morality, while the Arabs are a primitive, violent rabble, ignorant children who must be educated and taught wisdom - via, of course, the carrot-and-stick method, just as the drover does with his donkey.
The bombing of Gaza is also supposed to "liquidate the Hamas regime," in line with another assumption that has accompanied the Zionist movement since its inception: that it is possible to impose a "moderate" leadership on the Palestinians, one that will abandon their national aspirations.
As a corollary, Israel has also always believed that causing suffering to Palestinian civilians would make them rebel against their national leaders. This assumption has proven wrong over and over.
All of Israel's wars have been based on yet another assumption that has been with us from the start: that we are only defending ourselves. "Half a million Israelis are under fire," screamed the banner headline of Sunday's Yedioth Ahronoth - just as if the Gaza Strip had not been subjected to a lengthy siege that destroyed an entire generation's chances of living lives worth living.
It is admittedly impossible to live with daily missile fire, even if virtually no place in the world today enjoys a situation of zero terror. But Hamas is not a terrorist organization holding Gaza residents hostage: It is a religious nationalist movement, and a majority of Gaza residents believe in its path. One can certainly attack it, and with Knesset elections in the offing, this attack might even produce some kind of cease-fire. But there is another historical truth worth recalling in this context: Since the dawn of the Zionist presence in the Land of Israel, no military operation has ever advanced dialogue with the Palestinians.
Most dangerous of all is the cliche that there is no one to talk to. That has never been true. There are even ways to talk with Hamas, and Israel has something to offer the organization. Ending the siege of Gaza and allowing freedom of movement between Gaza and the West Bank could rehabilitate life in the Strip.
At the same time, it is worth dusting off the old plans prepared after the Six-Day War, under which thousands of families were to be relocated from Gaza to the West Bank. Those plans were never implemented because the West Bank was slated to be used for Jewish settlement. And that was the most damaging working assumption of all
-----------------
From a university student in Gaza
------ Forwarded Message
From: "Safa Joudeh"
Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:34:42 -0600
Subject: Fwd: Today in Gaza
Dear all. Here's an update on whats happening here from where I am, second night of Israeli air (and sea) raids on Gaza. (below is the first email I sent)
It's 1.30 am but it feels like the sun should be up already. For the past few hours there's been heavy aerial bombardment of Gaza city and the northern Gaza Strip simultaneously. It feels like the longest night of my life. In my area it started with the bombing of workshops (usually located in the ground floor of private/family residential buildings), garages and warehouses in one of the most highly condensed areas in Gaza city "Askoola". About an hour ago they bombed the Islamic university, destroying the laboratory building. As I mentioned in an earlier account, my home is close to the university. We heard the first explosion, the windows shook, the walls shook and my heart felt like it would literally jump out of my mouth. My parents, siblings and cousins who have been staying with us since their home was damaged the first day of the air raids, had been trying to get some sleep. We all rushed to the side of the house that was farthest. Hala, my 11 year old sister
stood motionless and had to be dragged to the other room. I still have marks on my shoulder from when Aya, my 13 year old cousin held on to me during the next 4 explosions, each one as violent and heart stopping as the next. Looking out of the window moments later the night sky had turned to a dirty navy-gray from the smoke .
Israeli warships rocketed the Gazas only port only moments ago, 15 missiles exploded, destroying boats and parts of the ports. These are just initial reports over the radio. We don't know what the extent of the damage is. We do know that the fishing industry that thousands of families depend on either directly or indirectly didn't pose a threat on Israeli security The radio reporter started counting the explosions, I think he lost count after 6. At his moment we heard 3 more blasts. "I'm mostly scared of the whoosh", I told my sister, referring to the sound a missile makes before it hits. Those moments of wondering where its going to fall are agonizing. Once the whooshes and hits were over the radio reporter announced that the fish market (vacant of course) had been bombed.
We just heard that 4 sisters from the family of "Ba'lousha" have been killed in an attack that targeted the mosque my their home in the northern Gaza Strip.
You know what bothers me more than the bangs and the blasts, the smoke, the ambulance sirens and the whooshs? The constant, ominous, maddening droning sound of the Apaches overhead that's been buzzing in my head day and night. It's like I'm hearing things, which I'm not, but I am.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Safa Joudeh
Date: Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 3:36 PM
Subject: Today in Gaza
To:
To all of you who received my email earlier this is a longer version of my account. To people who live in Gaza please send your own accounts to your friends and contacts.
It was just before noon when I heard the first explosion. I rushed to my window, barely did I get there and look out when I was pushed back by the force and air pressure of another explosion. For a few moments I didn't understand, then I realized that Israeli promises of a wide-scale offensive against the Gaza Strip had materialized. Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzpi Livni's statements following a meeting with Egyptian President Hussni Mubarak the day before yesterday had not been empty threats after all.
What followed seems pretty much surreal at this point. Never had we imagined anything like this. It all happened so fast but the amount of death and destruction is inconceivable, even to me and I'm in the middle of it and a few hours have passed already passed.
6 locations were hit during the air raid on Gaza city. The images are probably not broadcasted in US news channels. There were piles and piles of bodies in the locations that were hit. As you looked at them you could see that a few of the young men are still alive, someone lifts a hand here, and another raise his head there. They probably died within moments because their bodies are burned, most have lost limbs, some have their guts hanging out and they're all lying in pools of blood. Outside my home, (which is close to the 2 largest universities in Gaza) a missile fell on a large group of young men, university students, they'd been warned not to stand in groups, it makes them an easy target, but they were waiting for buses to take them home. 7 were killed, 4 students and 3 of our neighbors kids, young men who were from the same family (Rayes) and were best friends. As I'm writing this I can hear a funeral procession go by outside, I looked out the window a moment ago
and it was the 3 Rayes boys, They spent all their time together when they were alive, they died together and now their sharing the same funeral together. Nothing could stop my 14 year old brother from rushing out to see the bodies of his friends laying in the street after they were killed. He hasn't spoken a word since.
What did Olmert mean when he stated that WE the people of Gaza weren't the enemy, that it was Hamas and the Islamic Jihad who were being targeted? Was that statement made to infuriate us out of out state of shock, to pacify any feelings of rage and revenge? To mock us?? Were the scores of children on their way home from school and who are now among the dead and the injured Hamas militants? A little further down my street about half an hour after the first strike 3 schoolgirls happened to be passing by one of the locations when a missile struck the Preventative Security Headquarters building. The girls bodies were torn into pieces and covered the street from one side to the other.
In all the locations people are going through the dead terrified of recognizing a family member among them. The streets are strewn with their bodies, their arms, legs, feet, some with shoes and some without. The city is in a state of alarm, panic and confusion, cell phones aren't working, hospitals and morgues are backed up and some of the dead are still lying in the streets with their families gathered around them, kissing their faces, holding on to them. Outside the destroyed buildings old men are kneeling on the floor weeping. Their slim hopes of finding their sons still alive vanished after taking one look at what had become of their office buildings.
And even after the dead are identified, doctors are having a hard time gathering the right body parts in order to hand them over to their families. The hospital hallways look like a slaughterhouse. It's truly worse than any horror movie you could ever imagine. The floor is filled with blood, the injured are propped up against the walls or laid down on the floor side by side with the dead. Doctors are working frantically and people with injuries that aren't life threatening are sent home. A relative of mine was injured by a flying piece of glass from her living room window, she had deep cut right down the middle of her face. She was sent home, too many people needed medical attention more urgently. Her husband, a dentist, took her to his clinic and sewed up her face using local anesthesia
200 people dead in today's air raid. That means 200 funeral processions, a few today, most of them tomorrow probably. To think that yesterday these families were worried about food and heat and electricity. At this point I think they -actually all of us- would gladly have Hamas sign off every last basic right we've been calling for the last few months forever if it could have stopped this from ever having happened.
The bombing was very close to my home. Most of my extended family live in the area. My family is ok, but 2 of my uncles' homes were damaged,
We can rest easy, Gazans can mourn tonight. Israel is said to have promised not to wage any more air raids for now. People suspect that the next step will be targeted killings, which will inevitably means scores more of innocent bystanders whose fate has already been sealed.
This doesn't even begin to tell the story on any level. Just flashes of thing that happened today that are going through my head
peace
S
------------------
STOP HARMING CIVILIANS NOW
RHR Rabbis-"Can we say the full Hallel on the 8th day of Hanukah in Light of the Events in Gaza?"
The firing on Israeli communities adjacent to Gaza gives the State of Israel the right to defend her citizens, but both the Jewish tradition and international law do not allow the harming of innocent civilians.
Many Israelis will quote from the Talmudic Tractate Sanhedrin, "When somebody is coming to kill you, get up earlier and kill him first." However, few are aware of how the Talmud continues, teaching us only to use the minimum necessary force and drawing a sharp contrast between defending ourselves against those attacking us, and harming an innocent third party. These are also principles in International Humanitarian Law (IHL)
"Not by might and not by power, but by my spirit says the Lord of Hosts." Our Talmudic sages determined that these words from the prophet Zechariah would be read as part of the Haftarah (Scriptural reading from the prophets after the reading of the Torah) for the Sabbath of Hanukah, and edited the story of the war of the Macabees out of the Talmud. They understood that, in the long run, sustainable peace and security are not achieved through acts of war.
RHR calls on the leadership of Israel and Hamas to act according to these standards. RHR calls upon Israel not to harm civilians either through firing on them or through the collective punishment of the ongoing closure severely limiting the amount of food, fuel and other basic goods entering Gaza. RHR calls upon Hamas to cease the intentional harming of civilians through firing on the residents of the Western Negev.
Israel has actualized its right of retaliation and the defense of her citizens in the last 36 hours. Both the State of Israel and Hamas must now take a "time out" to determine whether the cease-fire can be reinstated. Otherwise, they will soon be plunged even deeper into a cycle of bloodletting, with neither side knowing how they will get out of it. We hope that, as we reach the end of Hanukah, the "Festival of Lights," that we will see the fulfillment of the prayer, "May a new light shine upon Zion, and may we all speedily merit its light." (Prayerbook)
There are those who say that the Talmudic sages ruled that we do not recite the full Hallel (Festive psalms recited on holidays.) on the 7th day of Passover because that is the day that the Egyptians drowned in the Reed Sea. RHR asks whether this year it is appropriate to recite the complete Hallel on the 8th day of Hanukah (Monday) when the work of God's hands are dying on both sides.
-----------------------------------
Subject: Statement on Gaza:Dr. Eyad El-Sarrj President of FFIPP-I
Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, USA Inc
Building a stronger peace and social justice movement here at home
and in Palestine/Israel
*****************************************************************
Gaza, December 28, 2008
Best way to secure Israel is Justice to Palestine
Israel's air force launched a major bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip today, killing over two hundred people and injuring many more. Typically, Israel justifies this horrific scale of killing as retaliation against the rocket launching from Gaza. The spate of Israeli bombing continued throughout the day and into the night. I was interrupted several times while trying to finish this note, by the devastating sound of bombing.
In the core of the vicious cycle of violence that has engulfed the region for decades and lead to the many wars of the Middle East and beyond, lies the tragedy of the Palestinian uprooting in 1948, the justice denied to their plight and the living under the oppressive Israeli occupation for over forty years.
Instead of acknowledging the real issues of justice, mutual security and peace, the region was drowned into mutual hatred, revenge killing and insecurity.
Israeli policies and strategies rested always on the supremacy of its brutal force. Palestinians, in defiance of the Israeli scheme, were drawn into the resistance and some used homemade missiles and suicide missions.
Brute force and carnage in Gaza on the scale of today is a dangerous omen. Israel must restrain its military might and face up to the consequences of dragging the region into such a serious and intensified path of violence.
Palestinians must stop all forms of violence and unite in the pursuit of peace and justice. We, in the Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace-International, FFIPP-I, call for an immediate halt of the Israeli military attack on Gaza and ending the siege on the deprived strip. The United States of America is the only power that could play a positive role in ending the unending tragedy in the Holy Land. We hope that the new administration of President Obama will make the necessary change; a fresh approach as an honest broker of peace.
Eyad El-Sarraj
Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj is the founder and director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) and the president of FFIPP-International
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Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Shlensky
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Alistair Welchman
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Jewish Peace News archive and blog: http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com
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Jewish Peace News sends its news clippings only to subscribers. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or manage your subscription, go to http://www.jewishpeacenews.net
1) Press release from UN Representative
2) ** Emergency appeal from Physicians for Human Rights - Israel
3) ** Action alert from the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and UK petition site
4) Article in Ha'aretz by Tom Segev
5) Emails received from Safa Joudeh, a university student in Gaza city
6) Press releases from Rabbis for Human Rights and Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, USA Inc
The pieces listed above provide more information and analysis about the situation in Gaza, as well as suggestions for actions you can take (items marked with ** above).
The pieces below make the following points:
-- Israel's actions in Gaza rise to the level of war crimes
-- In providing material aid for Israel throughout the siege and attacks, the US is directly complicit with these war crimes
-- In committing these crimes, Israel continues to create a situation that puts its own citizens at risk
-- Rocket attacks on civilians in Israel by Palestinian groups are illegal and morally abhorrent
Physicians for Human Rights (Israel) is trying to raise funds to transfer medical supplies to Gaza. Information on how to contribute is in the second piece below. The third piece has information on how you can take action by contacting the White House, Congress and the media.
Judith Norman
Joel Beinin adds:
Professor Richard Falk, a widely respected authority on international law and the UN's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territiries, was recently detained by Israeli authorities at Ben-Gurion airport and prevented from entering the country. Professor Falk obviously poses no security threat to Israel whatsoever. He was prevented from entering Israel as a punishment for clearly stating his opinion that Israel has repeatedly violated international law, as in the press release below.
----------------------
PRESS RELEASE
STATEMENT BY PROF. RICHARD FALK,
UNITED NATIONS SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war.
Those violations include:
Collective punishment - the entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants.
Targeting civilians - the airstrikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world, certainly the most densely populated area of the Middle East.
Disproportionate military response - the airstrikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza's elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians; at least one strike reportedly hit groups of students attempting to find transportation home from the university.
Earlier Israeli actions, specifically the complete sealing off of entry and exit to and from the Gaza Strip, have led to severe shortages of medicine and fuel (as well as food), resulting in the inability of ambulances to respond to the injured, the inability of hospitals to adequately provide medicine or necessary equipment for the injured, and the inability of Gaza's besieged doctors and other medical workers to sufficiently treat the victims.
Certainly the rocket attacks against civilian targets in Israel are unlawful. But that illegality does not give rise to any Israeli right, neither as the Occupying Power nor as a sovereign state, to violate international humanitarian law and commit war crimes or crimes against humanity in its response. I note that Israel's escalating military assaults have not made Israeli civilians safer; to the contrary, the one Israeli killed today after the upsurge of Israeli violence is the first in over a year.
Israel has also ignored recent Hamas' diplomatic initiatives to reestablish the truce or ceasefire since its expiration on 26 December.
The Israeli airstrikes today, and the catastrophic human toll that they caused, challenge those countries that have been and remain complicit, either directly or indirectly, in Israel's violations of international law. That complicity includes those countries knowingly providing the military equipment including warplanes and missiles used in these illegal attacks, as well as those countries who have supported and participated in the siege of Gaza that itself has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.
I remind all member states of the United Nations that the UN continues to be bound to an independent obligation to protect any civilian population facing massive violations of international humanitarian law - regardless of what country may be responsible for those violations. I call on all Member States, as well as officials and every relevant organ of the United Nations system, to move on an emergency basis not only to condemn Israel's serious violations, but to develop new approaches to providing real protection for the Palestinian people.
-----------------------
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel
Gaza Emergency Appeal
December 29, 2008
GazaHospitals Already Filled to Capacity; Medical Supplies on the Verge of Depletion
Since the beginning of attacks in Gaza three days ago, over 300 people have been reported dead, more than 1000 wounded, and many hundreds more are in need of immediate medical attention. With a medical system already on the verge of collapse as a result of the ongoing closure, 1.4 million civilians are in desperate need of urgent medical help from outside the Gaza Strip.
PHR-Israel has the means to transfer this help within days and is seeking to raise 700,000 USD during the next week for purchase and direct transfer of supplies to Gaza hospitals.
Palestinian hospitals in the Gaza Strip have asked us for help in securing the following items:
Basic Sterilization equipment
Needles
Dressings
Anesthetics
Catheters
Medical gases
Endo-tracheal tubes
Laryngoscope
Oxygen
Portable monitors, ventilators, ultrasounds and x- ray machines
Clothing for medical teams
105 Essential Medications
225 Additional Medical Supplies
93 Laboratory items
Electric Shaving Machine
Trolleys
Hospital beds
As the situation stands, Palestinian doctors are performing surgeries without surgical gloves, local or general anesthetics, gauze, sterilized equipment or sufficient oxygen for patients. All together, there are only 1,500 hospital beds available in Gaza's 13 publicly run hospitals. A fleet of 60 ambulances is now reduced by half. The endless flow of new wounded and the need for beds has led to a suspension of care for dozens of other patients, including cancer, cardiac, and other chronically ill patients, who have all been sent to their homes for the duration of the crisis. Patients are not being permitted entry to Egypt and all referrals out of Gaza via Erez crossing have been suspended.
We are turning to organizations and individuals like you who have demonstrated your respect for the right to health by generously supporting PHR-Israel in recent years.
PHR-Israel accepts donations via check or bank transfer. To send a check by post, make check payable to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and send to:
PHR-Israel
Attn: Gila Norich, Director of Development
9 Dror St.
Jaffa Tel Aviv 68135 ISRAEL.
To make a bank transfer, our details are as follows. Please also send a note with your e-mail address informing us of your transfer:
Account Holder: Physicians for Human Rights-Israel
Bank: Hapoalim #12
Branch: Hashalom #662
Address: 106 Levinski Street, Tel Aviv, Israel
Account Number: 25938
SWIFT: POALILIT
IBAN: IL-70-0126-6200-0000-0025-938
US residents may make a tax-exempt donation via the New Israel Fund (NIF). Checks should be made payable to "New Israel Fund". A note with the check should be marked "donor-advised to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, ID# 5762."
NIF Address in Washington:
New Israel Fund
P.O.Box 91588
WashingtonDC
20090-1588
U.S.A
NIF Bank details:
Citibank
1000 Vermont Ave NW
Washington, DC20005
ABA #254070116
Acc# 66796296
UK residents may make a tax-exempt donation online via the British Shalom/Salaam Trust. (http://www.bsst.org.uk/what_you_can_do.html) Checks should be sent, together with your name and address and a completed gift aid form to:
British Shalom Salaam Trust
PO Box 39378
London SE13 5WH
For additional information on the current health crisis gathered by Physicians for Human Rights, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights (Gaza) and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) on the current crisis please go to: http://www.phr.org.il/phr .
For more information on donations or to inform us of a transfer, please contact Gila Norich, Director of Development: gila@phr.org.il or by phone, +972.3.5133.102
To contact Ran Yaron, Director of PHR-Israel's OccupiedPalestinianTerritory (oPt) Department send mail to: ranyaron@phr.org.il, or call +972.547.577696.
----------------------------
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1773
As of this writing, Israeli Air Force attacks today on the occupied Gaza Strip killed an estimated 200 or more people and injured hundreds more. These Israeli attacks come on top of a brutal siege of the Gaza Strip, which has created a humanitarian catastrophe of dire proportions for Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinian residents by restricting the provision of food, fuel, medicine, electricity, and other necessities of life.
While the scope of civilian casualties in today's attacks is not yet clear, it is unmistakable that Israel carried out these attacks with F16 fighter jets and missiles provided by the taxpayers of this country. From 2001-2006, the United States transferred to Israel more than $200 million worth of spare parts to fly its fleet of F16's. In July 2008, the United States gave Israel 186 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel. Last year, the United States signed a $1.3 billion contract with Raytheon to transfer to Israel thousands of TOW, Hellfire, and "bunker buster" missiles.
In short, Israel's lethal attack today on the Gaza Strip could not have happened without the active military and political support of the United States. Therefore, we need to take action to protest this attack and demand an immediate cease-fire.
TAKE ACTION
1. Contact the White House to protest the attack and demand an immediate cease-fire. Call 202-456-1111 or send an email to comments@whitehouse.gov.
2. Contact the State Department at 202-647-6575 or send an email at: http://contact-us.state.gov
3. Contact your Representative and Senators in Congress at 202-224-3121 or find contact info for your Members of Congress at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home
4. Contact your local media by phoning into a talk show or writing a letter to the editor. Find contact info for your local media at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media
5. Organize a local protest or vigil and tell us about it at congress@endtheoccupation.org
6. Sign our open letter to President-Elect Obama calling for a new U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine and find out other steps you can take to influence the incoming Administration at http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1771
--------------
For UK citizens there are some existing petitions about Gaza that you may like to sign. They can be found at
http://search.petitions.number10.gov.uk/kbroker/number10/petitions/search.lsim?ha=1157&sc=number10&qt=Gaza
For UK residents the site www.writetothem.com is a helpful resource for identifying your representatives at all levels of government and you may like to contact them about the Gaza war.
-------------------------
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050706.html
Trying to 'teach Hamas a lesson' is fundamentally wrong
By Tom Segev
Channel 1 television broadcast an interesting mix on Saturday morning: Its correspondents reported from Sderot and Ashkelon, but the pictures on the screen were from the Gaza Strip. Thus the broadcast, albeit unintentionally, sent the right message: A child in Sderot is the same as a child in Gaza, and anyone who harms either is evil.
But the assault on Gaza does not first and foremost demand moral condemnation - it demands a few historical reminders. Both the justification given for it and the chosen targets are a replay of the same basic assumptions that have proven wrong time after time. Yet Israel still pulls them out of its hat again and again, in one war after another.
Israel is striking at the Palestinians to "teach them a lesson." That is a basic assumption that has accompanied the Zionist enterprise since its inception: We are the representatives of progress and enlightenment, sophisticated rationality and morality, while the Arabs are a primitive, violent rabble, ignorant children who must be educated and taught wisdom - via, of course, the carrot-and-stick method, just as the drover does with his donkey.
The bombing of Gaza is also supposed to "liquidate the Hamas regime," in line with another assumption that has accompanied the Zionist movement since its inception: that it is possible to impose a "moderate" leadership on the Palestinians, one that will abandon their national aspirations.
As a corollary, Israel has also always believed that causing suffering to Palestinian civilians would make them rebel against their national leaders. This assumption has proven wrong over and over.
All of Israel's wars have been based on yet another assumption that has been with us from the start: that we are only defending ourselves. "Half a million Israelis are under fire," screamed the banner headline of Sunday's Yedioth Ahronoth - just as if the Gaza Strip had not been subjected to a lengthy siege that destroyed an entire generation's chances of living lives worth living.
It is admittedly impossible to live with daily missile fire, even if virtually no place in the world today enjoys a situation of zero terror. But Hamas is not a terrorist organization holding Gaza residents hostage: It is a religious nationalist movement, and a majority of Gaza residents believe in its path. One can certainly attack it, and with Knesset elections in the offing, this attack might even produce some kind of cease-fire. But there is another historical truth worth recalling in this context: Since the dawn of the Zionist presence in the Land of Israel, no military operation has ever advanced dialogue with the Palestinians.
Most dangerous of all is the cliche that there is no one to talk to. That has never been true. There are even ways to talk with Hamas, and Israel has something to offer the organization. Ending the siege of Gaza and allowing freedom of movement between Gaza and the West Bank could rehabilitate life in the Strip.
At the same time, it is worth dusting off the old plans prepared after the Six-Day War, under which thousands of families were to be relocated from Gaza to the West Bank. Those plans were never implemented because the West Bank was slated to be used for Jewish settlement. And that was the most damaging working assumption of all
-----------------
From a university student in Gaza
------ Forwarded Message
From: "Safa Joudeh"
Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:34:42 -0600
Subject: Fwd: Today in Gaza
Dear all. Here's an update on whats happening here from where I am, second night of Israeli air (and sea) raids on Gaza. (below is the first email I sent)
It's 1.30 am but it feels like the sun should be up already. For the past few hours there's been heavy aerial bombardment of Gaza city and the northern Gaza Strip simultaneously. It feels like the longest night of my life. In my area it started with the bombing of workshops (usually located in the ground floor of private/family residential buildings), garages and warehouses in one of the most highly condensed areas in Gaza city "Askoola". About an hour ago they bombed the Islamic university, destroying the laboratory building. As I mentioned in an earlier account, my home is close to the university. We heard the first explosion, the windows shook, the walls shook and my heart felt like it would literally jump out of my mouth. My parents, siblings and cousins who have been staying with us since their home was damaged the first day of the air raids, had been trying to get some sleep. We all rushed to the side of the house that was farthest. Hala, my 11 year old sister
stood motionless and had to be dragged to the other room. I still have marks on my shoulder from when Aya, my 13 year old cousin held on to me during the next 4 explosions, each one as violent and heart stopping as the next. Looking out of the window moments later the night sky had turned to a dirty navy-gray from the smoke .
Israeli warships rocketed the Gazas only port only moments ago, 15 missiles exploded, destroying boats and parts of the ports. These are just initial reports over the radio. We don't know what the extent of the damage is. We do know that the fishing industry that thousands of families depend on either directly or indirectly didn't pose a threat on Israeli security The radio reporter started counting the explosions, I think he lost count after 6. At his moment we heard 3 more blasts. "I'm mostly scared of the whoosh", I told my sister, referring to the sound a missile makes before it hits. Those moments of wondering where its going to fall are agonizing. Once the whooshes and hits were over the radio reporter announced that the fish market (vacant of course) had been bombed.
We just heard that 4 sisters from the family of "Ba'lousha" have been killed in an attack that targeted the mosque my their home in the northern Gaza Strip.
You know what bothers me more than the bangs and the blasts, the smoke, the ambulance sirens and the whooshs? The constant, ominous, maddening droning sound of the Apaches overhead that's been buzzing in my head day and night. It's like I'm hearing things, which I'm not, but I am.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Safa Joudeh
Date: Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 3:36 PM
Subject: Today in Gaza
To:
To all of you who received my email earlier this is a longer version of my account. To people who live in Gaza please send your own accounts to your friends and contacts.
It was just before noon when I heard the first explosion. I rushed to my window, barely did I get there and look out when I was pushed back by the force and air pressure of another explosion. For a few moments I didn't understand, then I realized that Israeli promises of a wide-scale offensive against the Gaza Strip had materialized. Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzpi Livni's statements following a meeting with Egyptian President Hussni Mubarak the day before yesterday had not been empty threats after all.
What followed seems pretty much surreal at this point. Never had we imagined anything like this. It all happened so fast but the amount of death and destruction is inconceivable, even to me and I'm in the middle of it and a few hours have passed already passed.
6 locations were hit during the air raid on Gaza city. The images are probably not broadcasted in US news channels. There were piles and piles of bodies in the locations that were hit. As you looked at them you could see that a few of the young men are still alive, someone lifts a hand here, and another raise his head there. They probably died within moments because their bodies are burned, most have lost limbs, some have their guts hanging out and they're all lying in pools of blood. Outside my home, (which is close to the 2 largest universities in Gaza) a missile fell on a large group of young men, university students, they'd been warned not to stand in groups, it makes them an easy target, but they were waiting for buses to take them home. 7 were killed, 4 students and 3 of our neighbors kids, young men who were from the same family (Rayes) and were best friends. As I'm writing this I can hear a funeral procession go by outside, I looked out the window a moment ago
and it was the 3 Rayes boys, They spent all their time together when they were alive, they died together and now their sharing the same funeral together. Nothing could stop my 14 year old brother from rushing out to see the bodies of his friends laying in the street after they were killed. He hasn't spoken a word since.
What did Olmert mean when he stated that WE the people of Gaza weren't the enemy, that it was Hamas and the Islamic Jihad who were being targeted? Was that statement made to infuriate us out of out state of shock, to pacify any feelings of rage and revenge? To mock us?? Were the scores of children on their way home from school and who are now among the dead and the injured Hamas militants? A little further down my street about half an hour after the first strike 3 schoolgirls happened to be passing by one of the locations when a missile struck the Preventative Security Headquarters building. The girls bodies were torn into pieces and covered the street from one side to the other.
In all the locations people are going through the dead terrified of recognizing a family member among them. The streets are strewn with their bodies, their arms, legs, feet, some with shoes and some without. The city is in a state of alarm, panic and confusion, cell phones aren't working, hospitals and morgues are backed up and some of the dead are still lying in the streets with their families gathered around them, kissing their faces, holding on to them. Outside the destroyed buildings old men are kneeling on the floor weeping. Their slim hopes of finding their sons still alive vanished after taking one look at what had become of their office buildings.
And even after the dead are identified, doctors are having a hard time gathering the right body parts in order to hand them over to their families. The hospital hallways look like a slaughterhouse. It's truly worse than any horror movie you could ever imagine. The floor is filled with blood, the injured are propped up against the walls or laid down on the floor side by side with the dead. Doctors are working frantically and people with injuries that aren't life threatening are sent home. A relative of mine was injured by a flying piece of glass from her living room window, she had deep cut right down the middle of her face. She was sent home, too many people needed medical attention more urgently. Her husband, a dentist, took her to his clinic and sewed up her face using local anesthesia
200 people dead in today's air raid. That means 200 funeral processions, a few today, most of them tomorrow probably. To think that yesterday these families were worried about food and heat and electricity. At this point I think they -actually all of us- would gladly have Hamas sign off every last basic right we've been calling for the last few months forever if it could have stopped this from ever having happened.
The bombing was very close to my home. Most of my extended family live in the area. My family is ok, but 2 of my uncles' homes were damaged,
We can rest easy, Gazans can mourn tonight. Israel is said to have promised not to wage any more air raids for now. People suspect that the next step will be targeted killings, which will inevitably means scores more of innocent bystanders whose fate has already been sealed.
This doesn't even begin to tell the story on any level. Just flashes of thing that happened today that are going through my head
peace
S
------------------
STOP HARMING CIVILIANS NOW
RHR Rabbis-"Can we say the full Hallel on the 8th day of Hanukah in Light of the Events in Gaza?"
The firing on Israeli communities adjacent to Gaza gives the State of Israel the right to defend her citizens, but both the Jewish tradition and international law do not allow the harming of innocent civilians.
Many Israelis will quote from the Talmudic Tractate Sanhedrin, "When somebody is coming to kill you, get up earlier and kill him first." However, few are aware of how the Talmud continues, teaching us only to use the minimum necessary force and drawing a sharp contrast between defending ourselves against those attacking us, and harming an innocent third party. These are also principles in International Humanitarian Law (IHL)
"Not by might and not by power, but by my spirit says the Lord of Hosts." Our Talmudic sages determined that these words from the prophet Zechariah would be read as part of the Haftarah (Scriptural reading from the prophets after the reading of the Torah) for the Sabbath of Hanukah, and edited the story of the war of the Macabees out of the Talmud. They understood that, in the long run, sustainable peace and security are not achieved through acts of war.
RHR calls on the leadership of Israel and Hamas to act according to these standards. RHR calls upon Israel not to harm civilians either through firing on them or through the collective punishment of the ongoing closure severely limiting the amount of food, fuel and other basic goods entering Gaza. RHR calls upon Hamas to cease the intentional harming of civilians through firing on the residents of the Western Negev.
Israel has actualized its right of retaliation and the defense of her citizens in the last 36 hours. Both the State of Israel and Hamas must now take a "time out" to determine whether the cease-fire can be reinstated. Otherwise, they will soon be plunged even deeper into a cycle of bloodletting, with neither side knowing how they will get out of it. We hope that, as we reach the end of Hanukah, the "Festival of Lights," that we will see the fulfillment of the prayer, "May a new light shine upon Zion, and may we all speedily merit its light." (Prayerbook)
There are those who say that the Talmudic sages ruled that we do not recite the full Hallel (Festive psalms recited on holidays.) on the 7th day of Passover because that is the day that the Egyptians drowned in the Reed Sea. RHR asks whether this year it is appropriate to recite the complete Hallel on the 8th day of Hanukah (Monday) when the work of God's hands are dying on both sides.
-----------------------------------
Subject: Statement on Gaza:Dr. Eyad El-Sarrj President of FFIPP-I
Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, USA Inc
Building a stronger peace and social justice movement here at home
and in Palestine/Israel
*****************************************************************
Gaza, December 28, 2008
Best way to secure Israel is Justice to Palestine
Israel's air force launched a major bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip today, killing over two hundred people and injuring many more. Typically, Israel justifies this horrific scale of killing as retaliation against the rocket launching from Gaza. The spate of Israeli bombing continued throughout the day and into the night. I was interrupted several times while trying to finish this note, by the devastating sound of bombing.
In the core of the vicious cycle of violence that has engulfed the region for decades and lead to the many wars of the Middle East and beyond, lies the tragedy of the Palestinian uprooting in 1948, the justice denied to their plight and the living under the oppressive Israeli occupation for over forty years.
Instead of acknowledging the real issues of justice, mutual security and peace, the region was drowned into mutual hatred, revenge killing and insecurity.
Israeli policies and strategies rested always on the supremacy of its brutal force. Palestinians, in defiance of the Israeli scheme, were drawn into the resistance and some used homemade missiles and suicide missions.
Brute force and carnage in Gaza on the scale of today is a dangerous omen. Israel must restrain its military might and face up to the consequences of dragging the region into such a serious and intensified path of violence.
Palestinians must stop all forms of violence and unite in the pursuit of peace and justice. We, in the Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace-International, FFIPP-I, call for an immediate halt of the Israeli military attack on Gaza and ending the siege on the deprived strip. The United States of America is the only power that could play a positive role in ending the unending tragedy in the Holy Land. We hope that the new administration of President Obama will make the necessary change; a fresh approach as an honest broker of peace.
Eyad El-Sarraj
Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj is the founder and director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) and the president of FFIPP-International
................................................................
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Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Shlensky
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Alistair Welchman
------------
Jewish Peace News archive and blog: http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com
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Saturday, October 18, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Palin For President
Thanks to my high school classmate Shelia G, for this one.
http://www.michaelpalinforpresident.com/
http://www.michaelpalinforpresident.com/
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Ralph Stanley Supports Barack Obama
This is great news. As a bluegrass player and fan this brings me great joy and hope that Obama is able to reach folks who I imagined, might have been reluctant to vote for an African American.
http://brendancalling.com/2008/09/09/holy-sht-ralph-stanley-endorses-barack-obama/
http://brendancalling.com/2008/09/09/holy-sht-ralph-stanley-endorses-barack-obama/
Monday, September 08, 2008
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Good Insight Into Sarah Palin
This is by a women from her home town.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/kilkenny.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/kilkenny.asp
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Freedom Of The Press?
What you might not see on mainstream news.
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/dont_arrest_journalists/?r=1376&id=796-513873-cD1aaXx
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/dont_arrest_journalists/?r=1376&id=796-513873-cD1aaXx
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Colonoscopy Fun!
Similar to my own recent experience. Thanks to Jim R.
DO NOT LET THIS STOP YOU FROM GETTNG ONE. IT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE!
Dave Barry's colonoscopy journal: I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis . Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!' I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I willdiscuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America 's enemies. I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor. Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because > MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon. The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose watery bowel movement may result.' This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground. MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you> have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet. After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if > I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough. At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked. Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house. When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the> room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs> that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' has to be the least appropriate. 'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from> somewhere behind me. 'Ha ha,' I said. And then it> was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like. I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, Feel the beat of the tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood. Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that 'It' was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ. ABOUT THE WRITER: Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald.
DO NOT LET THIS STOP YOU FROM GETTNG ONE. IT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE!
Dave Barry's colonoscopy journal: I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis . Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!' I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I willdiscuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America 's enemies. I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor. Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because > MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon. The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose watery bowel movement may result.' This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground. MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you> have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet. After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if > I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough. At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked. Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house. When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the> room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs> that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' has to be the least appropriate. 'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from> somewhere behind me. 'Ha ha,' I said. And then it> was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like. I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, Feel the beat of the tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood. Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that 'It' was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ. ABOUT THE WRITER: Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Sit Down Bass
Here's my latest favorite shot from a couple of weeks ago at music camp. Photo is as taken, no fixing. I was my self surprised by the fiddles, and because one of the fiddles was left handed , it framed the bass fiddle wonderfully
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