Tag Archives: Israeli ethnic cleansing in Gaza

Out of the mouthes of psycho soldiers

%22You will be fucked...%22 August 13 2014

Out of the mouthes of psycho soldiers! The media caption to this photo thought the noteworthy thing was the military instructions in Hebrew written on the blackboard by Israeli soldiers at the Beit Hanoun, Gaza school for girls used by Israel as a military headquarters during Israel’s Operation Ethnic Cleansing. To those with an ounce of human decency “You will be fucked here if you come again. Don’t forget it’s time for you to die” is an ugly moment of truth far more significant than where you position your tanks.

They’re threatening to kill young girls, those they accuse Hamas & Palestinian parents of using as human shields. And here Israeli propaganda claimed they were trying to take out rocket bunkers & “attack tunnels”. They claimed they went to great lengths to avoid killing “civilians” by text messaging & dropping leaflets from planes minutes before the bombers hit. Now we’d like to know what exactly was in those text messages!? And they’re also threatening to rape the young girls like the Israeli professor suggested for a war strategy. In normal societies people would be institutionalized for promoting such criminal acts, not given tenure.

So is Israeli war propaganda all a pack of lies then!? Is it in fact just as inflammatory & racist as it appears to all those not drinking the Zionist kool-aid or nurtured on Zionist hatred? It also appears Zionist racism will be it’s own undoing–& we have to say, that won’t be a moment too soon.

Stand with Palestinians by demanding “Stop the slaughter in Gaza!” & “End the blockade of Gaza!” & build the hell out of the economic boycott of Israel (barcode beginning 729).

(Photo by Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images)

Is this a pothole or a rocket?

Rocket damage in Sderot (August 11 2014

In the interests of full disclosure we post this photo of alleged Hamas rocket damage in Israel. This photo from March 2014 has made media rounds because it appears to be one of the few extant since Israel began Operation Ethnic Cleansing in December 2008. We say alleged because it damn well might be a pothole or it could be the exit from one of those Hamas “attack tunnels” that tried to burrow it’s way to a kibbutz but took a wrong turn & ended up in a major thoroughfare. What makes the photo so curious is that it is identified as Sderot, Israel, the town where they’re cowering in direct line of Hamas rockets in the hills overlooking Gaza while they cheer on ethnic cleansing. Does this story add up to you?

This photo is from the Christian Science Monitor (CSM) whose coverage of genocide in Gaza distinguishes itself very little from the rest of media. That is regrettable because in the 1970s when Palestinians didn’t stand a snow ball’s chance in hell of having their voices heard, the CSM had a charitable or noblesse oblige attitude toward Palestinians–a sort of documenting a vanishing people approach. It’s not certain when that changed or if patronizing is preferable to outright hostility. But the same pothole appears in coverage by The Times of Israel–a piece of hasbara trash if there ever was one. Scanty documentation gets a lot of mileage from being passed around.

Moving from the trash to the burlesque of hasbara, Thomas Friedman, the NY Times columnist who’s always hiding out in hotel rooms during uprisings & gets the latest news from the hotel manager, claims he’s on a kibbutz near Tel Aviv. He claims he toured a Hamas “attack tunnel” near the kibbutz & was struck by the craftsmanship, “the way all the prefab concrete pieces were perfectly designed & fit together.” This assessment from a man who probably doesn’t know a tenon from a mortise.

Never a man to be outdone by his own idiocy, Friedman goes on: “This tunnel took years & millions of dollars to build & required diverting massive resources from civilian roads, buildings & schools. It had one purpose, & it was not fruit exports. It was to shuttle fighters into the kibbutz.” Did our intrepid investigative reporter think to snap a few pictures? Or does he expect us to rely on his word–which is worth mud? And has been worth mud for a very long time now. Why the NY Times keeps this unfortunate fool on speaks volumes about their judgement & their support for Israeli ethnic cleansing.

Israel is already launching it’s propaganda offensive to counter the truth exposed by a million tweets. To the hundreds of photos of Palestinian children they are countering with Israeli politicians on a dissembling mission. Yair Lapid, a news reader turned Israeli finance minister & secular liberal (which only means he abandoned Judaism for Zionism), has an article in the Huntington Post titled “The Betrayal of the Intellectual”. Lapid’s writing would be an illustration of those “mediocre intellectuals” Herzl proposed to do the spade work of colonialism in Palestine.

In chastising US & European intellectuals for failing Israel during it’s genocidal attack on Gaza, Lapid-less-than-lucid says: “For them, the Palestinians are suffering more & so they must be right. Why? Because they have turned suffering into the only measure of justice.” Not content to leave bad enough alone, he continues down this unfortunate path: “When Hamas forces civilians to stand on the roof of a building which is used as a terrorist command center despite knowing that the building will be attacked (and they know because we warn them), who are we to hold responsible? When Hamas places rockets & explosives inside UN schools & fires from within hospitals, who are we to hold responsible? When Hamas fires thousands of rockets & mortars at the cities of Israel and fails to kill hundreds of our children only because of our technological edge & the Iron Dome missile defense system should we blame ourselves for suffering less?” One can only stand in awe of the sheer cynicism, treachery, & racism of that defense for ethnic cleansing–which is the official line of Israel.

It’s highly unlikely the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian supporters in the streets demanding “Stop the slaughter in Gaza!” all identify themselves as intellectuals. Israel wasn’t betrayed by intellectuals but by men & women of good will who can distinguish between truth in journalism & racist rubbish.

Answer this rubbish with a thunderous international chorus of “Stop the slaughter in Gaza!” & “End the blockade of Gaza!” And boycott all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729).

(Photo by Ilan Assayag/Reuters)

Zionism and Israeli mass psychosis

Amman Jordan (Aug 9 2014) August 10 2014

Israel’s been riding so high on that Exodus baloney they got reckless. They apparently thought they could make up any damn thing & it would be believed so they put the crackpots in charge of the hasbara factory. War propaganda went from nutty to kooky to outright insane–& that was just in the Knesset.

Zionism has produced massive psychosis in Israel, a cultural dry rot where politicians & bloggers call for genocide in Gaza without batting an eyelash; where women discuss if stuffing their faces with chocolate during this war will make them fat; where people move their parlor furniture to the hills of Sderot so they can cheer on ethnic cleansing & wave the Israeli flag.

For those who believe in social transformation, the corruption of Israeli society is not a promising sight but is deeply disturbing. What is heartening are the soldiers refusing to serve genocide in Gaza, the antiwar activists who stand with placards while they are denounced as traitors & attacked by goon squads as police stand by. To them our deepest respect for they are the only hope Israelis have. Many are discouraged at the odds against the dissidents. But those dissidents allied with Palestinians & African refugees are a formidable force–& that alliance is something the state of Israel will go to great lengths to prevent.

A historic shift has taken place internationally: hundreds of thousands of men & women of good will around the world have entered this conflict on the side of Palestinian justice. Those dissidents are no longer isolated; Palestinians no longer stand alone. These battalions are marching, speaking out, educating, agitating, & most of all evangelizing for the economic boycott (BDS) of all Israeli products. The contrast between the psychos in the hills of Sderot & the hundreds of thousands in the streets demanding “Stop the slaughter in Gaza!” could not be more regrettable from the point of view of Israeli war propaganda. Somebody from the hasbara factory should have been smart enough to go up to those hills, remove the furniture, & drag their bony asses home because it just doesn’t look good when people who claim they’re cowering from Hamas rockets are partying over ethnic cleansing.

The Zionist entity called Israel has to go. It isn’t salvageable nor is it reformable. That’s a daunting task but those who deem it impossible should have heard the jeremiads once so popular about the Soviet Union. Or the Roman Empire for that matter. What is needed is not another version of the two state scam where Israel stays put & Palestinians squat in refugee camps in bantustates. What is needed is justice & that means a democratic secular state where Jews & Palestinians can live in peace. Difficult? Indeed! Impossible? Absolutely not!

Palestinian justice is playing a transformative role in world history because it challenges centuries of racism, colonialism, & neoliberalism–the barbaric phase of capitalism. For those who ask, “What are the other Arab countries doing for Gaza?” the answer is two-fold: the other Arab regimes are mortgaged to the US Pentagon & have their heads stuck up Israel’s ass. But the people in those countries stand steadfast in their majority with Gaza. This is a photo of the Gaza solidarity rally in Amman, Jordan yesterday as part of Gaza Day of Rage.

Keep marching & evangelize for the economic boycott (BDS) of all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729).

(Image from http://twitter.com/nosh15)

Switch and bait war photography

Israeli soldier August 10 2014

The caption to this photo read “An Israeli soldier eats a piece of watermelon near the Israeli-Gaza border on July 25, 2014.” Now the least interesting thing about this picture is the watermelon or what day the soldier ate it.

The only thing of interest in the photo is the size of those artillery casings used in the tank & troop assault on Gaza. That’s what they tore people in half with; that’s what indicts Israel for war crimes.

Some can say, “Aw come off your high horse, this is just a nice shot.” Maybe, but it’s reminiscent of the half-baked Zionist settler in Israel who worried if the war would make her fat: another instance of the evil of banality.

(Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images)

Israeli war propaganda moves from cheering genocide to phony angst

Gaza- shrapnel car August 9 2014

When you think you’ve heard it all in Zionist propaganda, think again. This Palestinian boy is playing inside the carcass of a car shrapneled to death in the residential neighborhood of al-Shejaea of Gaza City. Israeli hasbara claims it warned residents (through automated phone calls, text messages, & leaflets dropped from planes) to evacuate their homes before it bombed them into smithereens. So when Palestinians ran to pick up a leaflet or evacuated their homes were they then shrapneled to death by the same kind of artillery barrage that destroyed this car?

Zionist media & apologists are having a hell of a time trying to clean up the propaganda disaster of hundreds of Palestinian “civilians” & children slaughtered like fish in a barrel. They’re trying first to minimize the numbers killed & claim the death toll is under dispute, as if Palestinians jack up the numbers for sympathy. Well of course, the death toll is under debate; many people are still buried dead & alive in cement rubble & no one yet knows how many have died.

Some media, like the NY Times & BBC, are analyzing death data & the NY Times concludes the most overrepresented in the death toll are men aged 20 to 29, “the population most likely to be militants.” Well that’s okay then!? Apparently being a young man in Gaza makes you an acceptable target for Israeli bombs & shrapnel. The NY Times continues its idiocies: “Human rights groups acknowledge that people killed by Hamas as collaborators & people who died naturally, or perhaps through domestic violence, are most likely counted as well.” Well quite frankly we can understand (even if we completely disbelieve the allegation) that Hamas would shoot someone collaborating with Israeli ethnic cleansing in Gaza. That’s where that “war is hell” thing really fits. We would certainly like the human rights group cited by the NY Times to identify themselves & document such allegations. But are we really expected to believe Palestinian men took time out from dodging Israeli bombs & artillery to beat their wives for not having dinner on the table? Or that a Palestinian who had a heart attack during the bombing just had a ticker than ran out?

Israeli war propaganda made the death of Palestinian children a central theme by targeting children with their bombs & then claiming parents used their beloved kids as human shields–or as Eely-Oily Weasel put it, “child sacrifice.” But there’s fallout to face & Zionist apologists are struggling to cope with the condemnation. So what we’re getting now is the hand-wringing, the angst, what the NY Times calls grappling with the “moral implications” of slaughtering so many Palestinian children. But this kind of moral grappling is only worthy of contempt. Listen to how cleverly this angst is framed: “many Israelis & their supporters abroad, forced to grapple with the moral implications of backing a military campaign against guerrilla fighters embedded in a densely populated area, have embraced the rationale offered by Israel’s government that Islamist militants are guilty of provoking the carnage by launching missiles from residential neighborhoods.” So you see just how deep that grappling goes!? Hamas provoked the slaughter of small children & unarmed men & women. Does that differ from Netan-psycho-yahu who said “Every civilian casualty is a tragedy, a tragedy of Hamas’s own making”?

The NY Times wants us to see the scope of Zionist “radical empathy” (as the liberal Zionist rabbi terms it) by citing Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic who said, “A provocation does not relieve one of accountability for how one responds to it. For this reason, the war has filled me with disquiet, which my sympathetic understanding of Israel’s position has failed to stifle.” Disquiet at ethnic cleansing? Not revulsion? Oh such delicate & refined sensibilities! Disquiet is what you feel when someone farts in public, not what normal people feel when hundreds of people are bombed to death.

Mr Wieseltier goes on: “I have been surprised by the magnitude of the indifference in the Jewish world to the human costs of Israel’s defense against the missiles & the tunnels. Some of the emails I have received have been lunatic in their lack of compassion. According to a poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, 95 percent of Jewish Israelis believe the war in Gaza is just. It is easy to see why: Self-defense is also a moral duty. But only 4 percent believe that the Israeli military has used excessive force. This makes me queasy.” Well good on him for feeling slightly indigested because most of the world have been deeply disturbed–not to mention, horrified–by the sight of Israelis sitting in the hills of Sderot cheering on ethnic cleansing like it was the World Cup.

Israel & it’s media chorus have a quandary on their hands & there is no reason on earth why those who oppose ethnic cleansing should buy this phony hand-wringing & “radical empathy”. Israeli apartheid & ethnic cleansing have been going on for over 66 years & the first time angst appears is when over a million people around the world rose up in opposition.

Flip this stuff the bird & keep marching in solidarity with Palestinian justice & opposition to ethnic cleansing.

(Photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images)

“We’re OK in Gaza”

 

“We’re OK in Gaza. We’re just scrabbling for life amid the death that spreads wider & wider each day. The death which stalks every corner, snatches up souls from every alley, attacks every building, every street, every home. It doesn’t distinguish between old & young, between man or woman, between a child in its mother’s womb & an old man soon headed for the grave. It has become a common language among us, this death. We do not fear death per se, just the way it arrives—its cruel closing in, its ineffable descent, the painful impact when it tears us to shreds. Did this hand belong to that man, or to the man or the women who died next to him? That’s the cruelty we fear, that’s what we don’t want. As for death itself, each of us feels we’ve eluded death already, when every previous war failed to finish us off. We fear death coming painfully like an act of fate—we want it to come softly, like a gentle spell. Death itself is welcome, for every life has its pathways and endings that we have no control over. We just want to live out the life nature has in store for us, like other humans. Just like our children want to be like other ordinary children—like the ones who appear on their television screens. It’s as if there is a life for other people, and a separate life for us.”

(From “We’re OK in Gaza” by Atef Abu Saif in Guernica magazine, August 8th 2014)

(Photo is children in Rafah, Gaza by Flickr user Giles)

A tribute to Palestinian survivors of Israeli ethnic cleansing

Rahaf Al Attar (Gaza) August 8 2014

We should also take a moment to honor the children of Gaza who survived the savagery of Operation Ethnic Cleansing, but who witnessed unspeakable horrors & endured unbearable fear & loss.

There are studies describing how traumatized the children of Gaza are by Israeli ethnic cleansing which never stops. How could they not be? Thousands of US soldiers returning from war zones commit suicide, or bury themselves in addiction, or get forever lost in psychosis to erase the trauma of war & their part in it. We know from combat veterans of US wars that when they return to civilian life & regain psychic balance, they are unable to forgive themselves for what they did or forget what they saw.

Imagine then what it does to small, innocent children to be hunted down like animals by bombers & tanks? Once again, the sole purpose of Israel targeting children is to demoralize & destroy Palestinian resistance to Israeli apartheid & ethnic cleansing.

Palestinian parents in Gaza won’t be given time to heal or help their children, many of whom are now homeless. This makes the commitment of Palestinian solidarity all the more compelling & all the more urgent.

Stand with the children of Gaza: Demand “Stop the slaughter in Gaza”, “End the blockade of Gaza!” & evangelize for the economic boycott of Israel (barcode beginning 729).

Photo is 3-year-old Rahaf Al Attar at a UN refugee center in Gaza City in a play session organized by a local NGO to lessen the stress on chilldren.

(Photo by Lefteris Pitarakis/AP)

A tribute to the children slaughtered in Gaza

Ibrahim al-Dawawsa (Gaza) August 8 2014

We should take a moment to pay respects to the children of Gaza slaughtered so barbarically by Israeli bombs & tanks: children playing, sleeping, cowering in terror. Israel murdered children hoping to demoralize & destroy Palestinian intifada. What Israel did is enrage men & women of good will around the world, even those who do not understand the conflict between Israel & Palestinians. Palestinian intifada–which is political resistance to Israeli apartheid & ethnic cleansing–has not been weakened by the murder of children but broadened & strengthened in commitment & resolve. How dare Israel murder them & try to blame their parents by accusing them of using their beloved as human shields!?

For every child destroyed so mercilessly, thousands take their place to honor them by carrying solidarity with intifada to the four corners of the earth. Long live Palestinian intifada! Palestine will be free!

This is 12-year-old Abrahim al-Dawawsa, killed in an Israeli air strike, being prepared for burial at Shifa hospital in Gaza City. May these young martyrs RIP.

(Photo by Hatem Moussa/AP)

Under there really entrances to “attack tunnels” under all this rubble?

Gaza--returning home to rubble August 7 2014

Do you think we’ll find the entrance to those cement “attack tunnels” from Gaza to Israel when this rubble gets removed? Or do you think it more likely Israel will prevent back hoes & bulldozers from removing the cement so their war propaganda won’t be exposed as lies? So we won’t know that ethnic cleansing was the purpose for bombing homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, refugee centers?

What’s that saying from Abraham Lincoln? “You can fool all the people some of the time, & some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Israeli hasbara is down to ‘fooling some of the people some of the time.’ Anybody else paying attention who buys it has to have their head examined.

Many have noted a major shift in media coverage of Israel & Palestine, including The London Times refusing to publish the scurrilous ad by Eely-Oily Weasel (known better by his stage name Elie Wiesel) accusing Palestinians of using their children as human shields. This shift is not because Israel went too far this time; their genocide & dispossession of Palestinians has gone on relentlessly for over 66 years. These media outlets are not the least bit squeamish about genocide & have been covering Israel’s ass for all of that time. What’s changed is that the BDS boycott movement politically educated hundreds of thousands of people around the world to the historic crimes committed against the people of Palestine. When Israel entered this phase of Operation Ethnic Cleansing people knew exactly what it was all about. BDS combined with Twitter & social media stripped the veil of obscurantism, mysticism, & Exodus mythology to the bare bones & exposed it as colonial fraud.

Israel is a lynch pin of neocolonial policy & plunder in the Middle East & it won’t be let go without a fight–including on the propaganda front. Those smarmy think tanks are working overtime these days to devise a new approach to selling Israeli mythology destroyed by ethnic cleansing witnessed by the entire world.

Palestinian solidarity can’t buy any of it. We stand steadfast against genocide & on the side of justice. We don’t want to hear equivocations; we don’t want phony UN investigations that let Israel walk away scot-free from war crimes. We demand in every possible venue that Israel lift the blockade of Gaza.

That’s our job. And don’t think for one moment that over a million people in the street over the last month demanding “Stop the slaughter in Gaza” was all for naught. It changed everything. Palestinian justice stands a chance now. They no longer stand alone against the mightiest & most barbaric military forces in the world: Israel & the US Pentagon.

Continue protests demanding “End the blockade of Gaza” & evangelize for the economic boycott of Israel (barcode beginning 729).

This litle guy is in the Gaza town of Khan Yunis, which was pummeled by Israeli bombers.

(Photo by Said Khatib/AFP)

Returning home to rubble

Gaza ceasefire (returning home) August 7 2014

Where do Palestinians in Gaza go from here? They’re returning home to bombed out rubble with only the clothes on their back. They’ve no place to toilet or bathe or sleep. Some may have beloved still buried in the rubble. Before they bring in back hoes & bulldozers to remove rubble, they need rescue teams to recover bodies & make sure no one is buried alive. They need port-a-potties & temporary housing. They need toiletries, clean clothing, diapers, medicines.

Israel’s blown out the ony power plant & destroyed the sanitation systems so on an emergency basis those need to be repaired lest diseases run rampant over an already malnourished population.

But let’s get real. Israel’s embargo of Gaza has the area hermetically sealed tighter than a drum; nothing goes in or out without Israel’s approval. The smuggling tunnels used by Palestinians to bring in vital products embargoed by Israel are destroyed. If Israel bombed out the hospitals & refugee centers in Gaza does anyone seriously believe they’ll open the gates now for back hoes & bulldozers? For rebuilding materials like steel & cement? Or let Gazans rebuild the power plant to restore electricity?

The bombing hasn’t stopped yet; it never really has, but continuous sorties are punctuated periodically with massive assaults like Operation Protective Edge as part of Operation Ethnic Cleansing. Israel forcibly removed Zionist settlers from Gaza in 2005 claiming it was a peace initiative but we now know it was to facilitate ethnic cleansing & make the operation a case of shooting fish in a barrel.

The most important task of Palestinian solidarity is to demand in every venue & every forum that Israel end the blockade of Gaza. That mission has to be the centerpiece of all our work from now on out. It isn’t just a matter of donating humanitarian aid to Gaza since Israel will obstruct the delivery–& obstruct it violently as they did in 2010. In that year, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, six civilian ships with solidarity activists from around the world, attempted to defy Israel’s blockade of Gaza & deliver humanitarian aid by ship. Israeli commandos from speedboats & helicopters boarded the ships, assaulted activists, & shot to death ten unarmed activists. A UN investigation under the gutless Ban Ki-moon faulted the solidarity activists & let Israel walk away scot-free from ten murders. The UN investigation also concluded Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza was legal.

International agencies will be coming out of the woodwork asking for dough to help Gaza. The Red Cross is already out with a “Gaza & Israel Appeal”, as if Israel & the bantustate of Gaza suffered equal damage. One can argue this is diplomacy but it’s more honest to call it opportunism. The Red Cross raked in millions for Haiti relief after the 2010 earthquake but still hasn’t made an accounting of dispersal & shows no evidence for having done so. An elementary need in Gaza would be port-a-potties & while the Red Cross took in millions, most Haitians were not provided toilets for many months; some never got them. The rubble remained in the streets & is probably still sitting there; displaced Haitians are still living in makeshift squalor.

Be extremely selective in who you give funds to for humanitarian aid to Gaza especially because it will require a massive international political campaign to make sure it can be delivered. Obsequious appeals from beneficent looking blokes like Paul Farmer in Haiti don’t cut it. Beware the halos on those making appeals.

The most important humanitarian aid we can deliver to Gaza is to continue massive public protests, pickets, forums, speak-outs, teach-ins, demanding “stop the massacre in Gaza” & “end the blockade of Gaza!”

This is Salwa Shabat & four of her children returning to their bombed out home in Beit Hanoun, in north Gaza–once again, a few miles from the hills of Sderot where their suffering was so much fun to watch.

(Photo by Lefteris Pitarakis/AP)