Remember When Republicans LOVED David Cameron?

Somehow I think the honeymoon's over

(CNN) -- British Prime Minister David Cameron called Gaza a "prison camp" on Tuesday, a blunt description from a major Western leader about the besieged Palestinian territory.


Cameron made the remarks in the Turkish capital of Ankara, which he was visiting to forge a new relationship with Turkey and show his support for Turkey's membership in the European Union.


"Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp," Cameron said, according to a 10 Downing Street transcript of a speech he made on Tuesday.

So while conservatives and Republicans on this side of the pond have been trying to make Turkey into some kind of villian and enemy of the state after the flotilla deaths, David Cameron is on the other side of the pond making nice with them and telling the damn truth.

Unfortunately this issue is an equal opportunity corrupter. There won't be many Democrats lining up with Cameron either on the issue of Gaza and Israel's illegal and inhumane blockaed. And that is a shame we will all wear for some time.

So Wait, There WAS Wrong Doing In The Gaza War?!

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Tuesday that it had indicted “a number of” officers and soldiers for their actions during Israel’s three-week offensive in Gaza in the winter of 2008-9, including a staff sergeant accused of deliberately targeting at least one Palestinian civilian who was walking with a group of people waving a white flag.


The announcement came nearly 18 months after the end of the war, and on the day that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was scheduled to meet in Washington with President Obama in an effort to improve strained ties. A spokesman for the Israeli military denied any link between the timing of the announcement the prime minister’s trip.


According to the army statement, the chief military prosecutor has decided to take disciplinary and legal action in four separate cases, including some highlighted by human rights groups and by a scathing United Nations report on the war. The report, by a committee led by Richard Goldstone, a South African judge, was published in September 2009 and pointed to evidence of possible war crimes.


The offensive came as a response to years of rocket fire against southern Israel from Gaza, and after Hamas, the anti-Israel Islamic militant group, took full control of Gaza in mid-2007. Up to 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the war.


Israel refused to cooperate with the Goldstone mission, arguing that the mandate was biased from the outset, and it rejected the report. It also resisted calls by Israeli and international human rights organizations for an independent Israeli investigation outside the military framework.

snip

In a third case, the chief of staff ordered disciplinary action against an officer who ordered an aerial strike on a militant involved in launching rockets. The man was standing outside the Ibrahim al-Maqadma mosque, the army said, and the shrapnel caused what it called unintentional injuries to civilians inside. The Goldstone Report said that an Israeli projectile struck near the doorway of the mosque, in northern Gaza, during evening prayers, killing at least 15 civilians who were mostly inside.


The military said that the officer had “failed to exercise appropriate judgment,” adding that he would not serve in similar positions of command in the future and that he had been rebuked.


In addition, the chief military prosecutor ordered a criminal investigation by the Military Police into an air strike on a house that held about a hundred members of the extended Samouni family in Zeitoun, a district of Gaza city.


That case stirred particular outrage around the world as Palestinian paramedics were prevented by Israeli forces from reaching the house for days after the initial strike. Red Cross officials then publicized their discovery of four emaciated Samouni children who had been trapped in the home with the corpses of their mothers. In all, up to 30 Samounis died.


The white flag episode has been widely publicized. According to Palestinian witness testimony gathered by Human Rights Watch, the Goldstone mission and others, a group of 28 Palestinian civilians from two families set out on Jan 4, 2009 in the Juhr al-Dik area, south of Gaza city, trying to evacuate the area after their homes were shelled.


According to the witnesses, the group was fired on from the direction of some Israeli tanks. They said that Majida Abu Hajjaj, in her 30s, was killed while waving a white flag. Her mother, Rayya, was also fatally shot.

New York Times

Can't wait to hear all those denunciations from lawmakers that will never come and see all the outrage from pundits on my TV that will never be shown.

And remember that if you even so much as suggested that anything like this happened in the aftermath of the Israeli seige on Gaza you were deemed anti Semetic or insufficiently supportive of Israel.

SMDH

Israel Is About To Make Us The Laughingstock Of The International Community

JERUSALEM — Israeli naval commandos raided a flotilla carrying thousands of tons of supplies for Gaza in international waters on Monday morning, killing at least 10 people, according to the Israeli military and activists traveling with the flotilla. Some Israeli news reports put the death toll higher.

The confrontation drew widespread international condemnation of Israel, with Israeli envoys summoned to explain their country’s actions in several European countries.

The criticism offered a propaganda coup to Israel’s foes, particularly Hamas, the militant group that holds sway in Gaza, and damaged Israel’s ties to Turkey, one of its most important Muslim partners and the unofficial sponsor of the Gaza-bound convoy. Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cut short a visit to Latin America to return home.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled his plans for meeting with President Obama in Washington on Tuesday, an Israeli government official confirmed. Mr. Netanyahu, who is visiting Canada, planned to return home Monday to deal with fallout from the raid, the official said.

NY Times

Once again Israel has chosen to use their military in a way that could only be described as disproportionate, only this time they weren't firing on "suspected Hamas militants" which gave them the slightest bit of cover last year. No, this time they were firing on unarmed activist on a humanitarian mission quasi sponsored by one of our mor important allied countries int the Muslim world Turkey. So lets check the resposes that others have given so far.

Within hours, diplomatic repercussions began to spread from the Mediterranean to Europe where Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs, called for a full inquiry into the incident and the immediate lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

snip

A joint statement from Robert Serry and Filippo Grandi, two senior United Nations officials involved in the Middle East peace process and humanitarian aid to Gaza, condemned the raid, which they said was “apparently in international waters.”

“We wish to make clear that such tragedies are entirely avoidable if Israel heeds the repeated calls of the international community to end its counterproductive and unacceptable blockade of Gaza,” the officials said.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France called Israel’s use of force “disproportionate,”

snip

Turkey strongly condemned the Israeli military action.

“Regardless of any reasoning, such actions against civilians engaged in only peaceful activities are unacceptable,” said a statement on the Foreign Ministry’s Web site on Monday. “Israel will be required to face the consequences of this act that involves violation of the international law.”

snip

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, said Israel should provide a full explanation of what happened. News reports said the authorities in Egypt and Jordan, two Arab neighbors which have peace treaties with Israel, had summoned Israeli envoys to protest the action.

That kind of all sounds pretty much the same right? So what has our response been so far?

Bill Burton, a deputy press secretary for the White House, said, “The United States deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries sustained and is currently working to understand the circumstances surrounding this tragedy.”

Working to understand the circumstances? WHAT THE FUCK?

That's pretty much sounds like the same load of bullshit we were fed after Israel assaulted the Gaza strip a little over a year ago now. And you know what? You have a better chance of hitting the lottery....in every state than the chance there is that you will hear anything from the U.S. in any stronger terms than that. Moreso, and definitely more damaging, is that we will probably block any and all investigations into the matter just like we did with the Goldstone report.

How many times will we use a charge of anti Semitism to help excuse this kind of behavior from Israel? How many of our other allies will we have to alienate in the name of covering their asses? And for what? Why exactly are we going to cede all moral high ground yet again to defend the indefensible?

There isn't a politician in Washington who will be willing to denounce Israel over this and that goes all the way up to President Obama. As much as we bemoan bank bailouts and oil spills, that may be a reality that is more perilous to our nation than anything else going on right now. When a country knows that no matter what they do you will never, EVER call them out, what exactly do you expect them to do? How exactly do you expect them to act when any move to hold them accountable for their behavior will be seen as political suicide?

I wish it were not so, but you just wait and see. When its all said and done there will be us and Israel on the one side, and pretty much the rest of the world on the other. It is what it is.

It Is Time To Start Calling Bullshit, Bullshit!!!

From Laura Rozen:

The report said the U.N. fact-finding mission investigating Israel's conduct during the January 2009 war found evidence of Israeli war crimes. Israel has denied the allegations and said the report's mandate was biased -- an opinion echoed by U.S. officials.

The Obama administration is ready to use the U.S. veto at the U.N. Security Council to deal with any other "difficulties" arising out of the report, the White House official said Wednesday. The administration also has made clear to the Palestinian Authority that Washington is not pleased with a P.A. petition to bring the report's allegations against Israel to the International Criminal Court.

Last week, the State Department said the U.S. had "serious concerns" about the report by the Gaza fact finding commission, which had been headed by South African jurist Richard Goldstone.

Now here is the deal, if our government is going to cover for Israel at the U.N. then we should never vote for not a single prosecution of war crimes EVER again with the ICC. If the inference here is that the UN is biased against Israel then we should also pull out of the UN. You simply can not have it both ways anymore.

A blind man can see that Israel's behavior was reprehensible in the Gaza strip earlier this year. By taking the posture that we will veto any action against Israel based on actual evidence collected by UN investigators we have cemented our legacy as enablers of Israel and as being biased against Arabs and Muslims. Can you imagine the US vetoing an action that the UN proposed taking against Palestinians or Lebanese or Syrians?

Hell no you can't.

We can keep saying that no man is above the law but it is now very apparent that at least one nation is. Thanks to us that is.

Kids Shot While Waving White Flags

If this isn't a war crime then the term should never be used again.

Israeli tanks and bulldozers soon took up hilltop positions around Abu Freeh's home, and Khaled Abed Rabbo's five-story house in the valley below was one of those in the line of fire.

More than 70 members of his family crowded into one apartment for days. On Jan. 7 , Abed Rabbo said, the shelling intensified, and they heard an Israeli solider calling for people to come out of their homes.

Abed Rabbo said he gathered his wife, their three daughters and his mother, Souad. Souad Abed Rabbo said that she tied a white robe around a mop handle and two of her granddaughters waved white headscarves as they walked outside.

When they opened the door, they saw an Israeli tank parked in their garden about 10 yards away.

"We were waiting for them to give us an order," Khaled said last week as he stood in the ruins of his home. "Then one came out of the tank and started to shoot."
Souad Abed Rabbo said she was shot as she pushed her son back inside and her granddaughters fell on the stairs. When the shooting was over, she said, 2-year-old Amal and 7-year-old Souad were dead.

The allegation is one of at least five such white flag incidents that human rights investigators are looking into across the Gaza Strip . It's part of a growing pattern of alleged abuses that have raised concerns that some Israeli soldiers may have committed war crimes during their 22-day military campaign in Gaza .

"The evidence we've gathered in two of the cases so far is exceedingly strong," said Fred Abrahams , a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch working in the Gaza Strip . "All the research so far suggests they shot civilians that were leaving their homes with white flags."

Now when reading this article I kept thinking about how a lot of people are fine with just dismissing the loss of life in the Gaza Strip as "collateral damage". In trying to come up with why that is I started thinking about a scene at the end of the movie "A Time To Kill". It's hard sometimes to empathize with the "others". So for those who aren't moved by a story like this one I ask that you push play on the video and go to about 2:31 and think about what Matthew Macanoughey is telling the jury. Then look back up and read this account again, and imagine that these kids were relatives of yours. I would bet that it will change your opinion.

Where In The Hell Are The Pro Lifers?

I am more pissed right now about this Israeli/Palestinian conflict than I have been throughout the whole military offensive by Israel. Why in the fuck are the Israelis killing innocent children over and over again? About 10 minutes ago I went to MSNBC's website to watch their videos from today. Of course they had a video report on the bullshit unilateral "cease fire" from Israel that is really just a trap for Hamas. So I watchced it anyway because the MSNBC correspondent actually made it into Gaza to conduct some interviews and shoot some footage. But in watching the video right at the end there was a report that Israel had hit another UN school, ANOTHER UN SCHOOL FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. This is the third fucking time this has happened. And THIS time they killed two little boys. That coincides with the announcement that over 300 kids have been killed during the last 22 days and over 1,000 injured.

With all of the Obama train coverage I guess it was just too much to ask that anybody in our bullshit ass mainstream media to report the incident. So instead I had to go to bbc.com just to see if I had seen it right. Three times. Three times the Israelis have fired into a UN facility now killing Palestinian who are trying to avoid the bombings. And don't give me that bullshit about human shield because Israel uses the Palestinians as human shields in the past and are doing it RIGHT NOW with every building that they take over in Gaza. This just so fucking unacceptable on so man levels and I just wish there was somebody I could actually complain to in this country ie an elected official who might actually give a damn and do something about it.

But you know what, most of all I want to know where in the fuck are the loony wing nut pro life protesters? These muthafuckas can protest Krispy Kreme for giving away free donuts. They can call our President Elect a baby killer. They can put up little crosses all over a yard. But when hundreds of kids are being slaughtered every day in the Gaza strip where are these hypocritical ass douche bags? Standing with Israel I am only so sure. Fucking bunch of posers who really don't give a shit about anybody but themselves and their right to look down there noses at everybody else. Well fuck the lot of you. If you can't find it in your heart to speak out against those innocent kids in Gaza being killed indiscriminately then I don't want to hear shit from you about the unborn here. Is that harsh? Yeah probably. But if not then let me say it twice because it didn't work the first time.

FUCK YOU!

Collateral Damage

Try telling this man thats all his daughters were.

"Ooops" Just Doesn't Cut It

I am worn out at this point from the lack of moral outrage expressed by our elected officials with the humanitarian crisis being played out in Gaza nor Israel's blatantly thuggish behavior. At this point the dead count more than 1,000 on the Palestinian side, many of them women and children and yet I can count on one hand with fingers to spare how many Congressmen or women have spoken up against what is going on.

One of the unintended consequences of this disconnect in this country with what is quickly becoming a world wide consensus that Israel is wrong in their actions is the fact that the U.N., the world's preeminent international body, has been exposed that it can be rendered irrelevant if the U.S. does not support them. When the U.N. school was hit a week or so ago by Israeli forces killing more than 40 Palestinians, many of them children who were there to seek refuge, there was a lot of outrage from the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon but no action. Now according to the AP another U.N. site has been hit. But because our elected officials back Israel no matter what we have blocked any action aimed at denouncing their actions. And there is no doubt that if in fact the U.N. wanted to do more than issue a strongly worded resolution we would block them at every turn. In the first instance Israel flaunted this reality and made no effort to apologize and instead tried to blame Hamas for the death and destruction and our elected officials were more than happy to cosign that message. In this most recent situation the Israelis claim it was a "grave mistake".

Well actions are supposed to have consequences even mistakes. Especially when believing it actually was a "mistake" simply defies logic. How much longer are we going to put up with this shit? How many more days or months or years are we going to allow ourselves to be lied to by our media and our elected official before we say enough is enough? How much longer are we going to allow them to risk the security of our country by failing to acknowledge the reality of any situation that involves Israel? Especially when the munitions they are using to perpetrate this violence has "Made In The USA" on the side. I just don't see how we are better off continuing to take this position.

From the AP:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli forces shelled the United Nations headquarters in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, setting fire to the compound filled with hundreds of refugees as U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon was in the region on a mission to end Israel's devastating offensive against the territory's Hamas rulers.

Ban expressed "outrage" over the bombing. He said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told him there had been a "grave mistake" and promised to pay extra attention to protecting U.N. installations. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the bombing, which a U.N. official said injured at least three people.

snip

Shells also struck a hospital, five high-rise apartment buildings and a building housing media outlets in Gaza City, injuring several journalists.

Bullets entered another building housing The Associated Press offices, entering a room where two staffers were working but wounding no one. The Foreign Press Association, representing journalists covering Israel and the Palestinian territories, demanded a halt to attacks on press buildings.

snip

Israel launched its war on Dec. 27 in an effort to stop militant rocket fire from Gaza that has terrorized hundreds of thousands of Israelis. Some 1,100 Palestinians have been killed, roughly half of them civilians, according to U.N. and Palestinian medical officials. Thirteen Israelis also have died.

snip

Ban, who arrived in Tel Aviv on Thursday morning from Egypt, said he was "outraged" by the attack on the U.N. headquarters.

"I conveyed my strong protest and outrage to the defense minister and foreign minister and demanded a full explanation," Ban said. He said Barak told him there had been a "grave mistake" and promised to pay extra attention to protecting U.N. installations.

The U.N. compound in Gaza had only that morning become a makeshift shelter for hundreds of Gaza City residents seeking sanctuary from relentless Israeli shelling, said a U.N. official in Gaza. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.

But shortly after, a shell hit the school, wounding three people, the official said. Two other shells hit a warehouse housing humanitarian supplies and a U.N. parking lot, he said.

The U.N. compound houses the U.N. Works and Relief Agency, which distributes food aid to hundreds of thousands of destitute Gazans in the tiny seaside territory of 1.4 million people.
U.N. spokesmen confirmed that at least three people were wounded but said the fire and smoke engulfing the compound made it impossible to know if it had been completely evacuated.

U.N. spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna said the U.N. had given Israel the coordinates of the building and the compound was also clearly marked with U.N. flags and logos. Large stocks of food and fuel used to supply hospital and water pumps were at risk of destruction, as were valuable U.N. archives dating back to 1948, Abu Hasna said.

Hours earlier, thousands of residents had fled their homes with the advance of Israeli ground troops into Gaza City's Tel Hawwa neighborhood. Many were clad only in their pajamas, and some were wheeling elderly parents in wheelchairs, one of them with an oxygen tank. Others stopped journalists' armored cars and ambulances pleading for someone to take them to a U.N. compound or to relatives' homes.

Rasha Hassam, a 25-year-old engineer, ran out of her apartment building carrying her screaming, crying, 6-year-old daughter, Dunia.

"God help us, God help us, where can we flee?" she cried. "All I want is to get my poor child away from here. We want to survive."

Is this the kind of nation we really want to be where we feel nothing for the suffering of the Palestinian people and mindlessly cheerlead their death and destruction all in the name of supporting Israel?

Now Thats Gangsta!

I am damn near speechless right now. I just caught the AP report that basically Ehud Olmert is bragging that he bitch slapped President Bush and made him call Condeleezza Rice and tell her not to vote for the ceasefire resolution at the UN Security Council. He even went so far as to basically mock Dr. Rice for having egg on her face after she worked on the resolution then wasn't even to vote for it. Is THAT what our leaders on both side of the aisle mean by standing with Israel because I swear I must have missed that damn memo. I wonder how proud this makes the Orwellian dissent-stifling xenophobes* on the right who are puffing out their chests over Israel's war crimes in Gaza. I know you think I am just bullshitting so let me quote from the story.

The UN Security Council passed a resolution last Thursday calling for an immediate ceasefire in the three-week-old conflict in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza where hundreds have been killed.

Fourteen of the council's 15 members voted in favour of the resolution, which was later rejected by both Israel and Hamas.

The United States, Israel's main ally, had initially been expected to voted in line with the other 14 but Rice later became the sole abstention.

"In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favour," Olmert said.
"I said 'get me President Bush on the phone'. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. 'I need to talk to him now'. He got off the podium and spoke to me.

"I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour."

snip

"She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour," Olmert said in a speech in the southern town of Ashkelon.

You know I remember during the campaign the WingNuts were saying Obama was going to turn the country over to foreigners, who knew President Bush had already given it up to Israel?


BURNNNNNNNNNNNN

*insult generated by this link

Jimmy Carter Hates Teh Jews

You can expect that meme to be pushed on right wing radio and FoxNews I am sure in reaction to an op ed entitled "An Unnecessary War" Former President Jimmy Carter has written in today's Washington Post. Once again I wonder how long it will be before any of our current elected officials break from the herd and actually have the courage to speak out and tell the truth. I am really hoping at the latest it will be January 20th.

Some excerpts.

After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had moved to other communities, and the streets, playgrounds and shopping centers were almost empty. Mayor Eli Moyal assembled a group of citizens in his office to meet us and complained that the government of Israel was not stopping the rockets, either through diplomacy or military action.

snip

We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day.

Palestinian leaders from Gaza were noncommittal on all issues, claiming that rockets were the only way to respond to their imprisonment and to dramatize their humanitarian plight. The top Hamas leaders in Damascus, however, agreed to consider a cease-fire in Gaza only, provided Israel would not attack Gaza and would permit normal humanitarian supplies to be delivered to Palestinian citizens.

snip

Since we were only observers, and not negotiators, we relayed this information to the Egyptians, and they pursued the cease-fire proposal. After about a month, the Egyptians and Hamas informed us that all military action by both sides and all rocket firing would stop on June 19, for a period of six months, and that humanitarian supplies would be restored to the normal level that had existed before Israel's withdrawal in 2005 (about 700 trucks daily).

We were unable to confirm this in Jerusalem because of Israel's unwillingness to admit to any negotiations with Hamas, but rocket firing was soon stopped and there was an increase in supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel. Yet the increase was to an average of about 20 percent of normal levels. And this fragile truce was partially broken on Nov. 4, when Israel launched an attack in Gaza to destroy a defensive tunnel being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza.

snip

After 12 days of "combat," the Israeli Defense Forces reported that more than 1,000 targets were shelled or bombed. During that time, Israel rejected international efforts to obtain a cease-fire, with full support from Washington. Seventeen mosques, the American International School, many private homes and much of the basic infrastructure of the small but heavily populated area have been destroyed. This includes the systems that provide water, electricity and sanitation. Heavy civilian casualties are being reported by courageous medical volunteers from many nations, as the fortunate ones operate on the wounded by light from diesel-powered generators.

Why oh why President Carter do you want to give aid and comfort to the terrorists?

I give President Carter major props for speaking truth to power about this conflict when it is definitely not the popular thing to do in this country.

Not Out Of The Goodness Of Their Hearts.

There is breaking news from the AP that Israel now seems open to conditionally accepting a truce proposed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Egypt.

JERUSALEM – A government spokesman says Israel "welcomes" a proposal from France and Egypt to end fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Mark Regev says Israel could accept the proposal if it halts "hostile fire" from Gaza and includes measures to prevent Hamas from rearming.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday that Israel and the Palestinian Authority accepted the proposal. Israeli officials will not confirm that.

The precise details of the proposal remain unclear.

Earlier today, Israel ordered a pause in its Gaza offensive for three hours to allow food and fuel to reach besieged Palestinians, and the country's leaders debated whether to accept an international cease-fire plan or expand the assault against Hamas.

Now don't get me wrong, this is a very good development. Whatever needs to happen for Israel to stop their military action and compels Hamas to stop the rocket launches, I am all for it. But I just want to make sure that you understand where this is coming from. Israel didn't all of a sudden have an epiphany that they were handling this wrong and they for damn sure have not been looking for any kind of truce up until now. Way down in the bottom of the AP story the real motivation for their newfound willingness to exercise diplomacy over miltary aggression is exposed.

The Franco-Egyptian plan was given increasing urgency by the Israeli mortar strike near a U.N. school that stained the streets with blood.

The United Nations said the school was sheltering hundreds of people displaced by the onslaught on Hamas militants. Israel said its troops returned fire on a Hamas squad that fired mortars at them from nearby.

Israel's military said its shelling — the deadliest single episode since Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza on Saturday following a weeklong air bombardment — was an attack on a military target and accused Hamas militants of using civilians as cover.

Christopher Gunness of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, responsible for the school, said the agency is "99.9 percent certain there were no militants or military activity in its school."
That would not necessarily contradict Israel's claim that the militants were just outside.
Gunness demanded an investigation, and punishment for anyone found to have violated international law.

Two residents of the area who spoke with The Associated Press by telephone said they saw a small group of militants firing mortar rounds from a street near the school. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. Gunness said 1,300 people were taking shelter from the shelling at the school.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said there were no militants there at the time.
The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said the presence of militants did not justify Israel's response. "The presence of armed resistance does not justify in any way the use of excessive force that is disproportionate," the center said in a statement.

See you can kill women and kids in the Gaza strip and call them collateral damage or say Hamas is using them as human shields up and until you try to pull that shit at a UN facility. Then its a lot harder to sell the same story that you have sold in defense of bombing other regular Palestinian schools as well as mosques some of which were bombed during prayer time. Mind you its still the same story and in both instances people are dead but while a lot of people WANT to believe the human shield theory when it comes to Hamas because of course they are "dirty arab terrorists". But NOBODY is going to believe that they were hiding out or stockpiling weapons at a UN school. Now for serious people this might also call into question previous claims about why Israel targeted the regular schools and mosques. I don't imagine our MSM folks will pursue that angle but I think probably the rest of us should.

I also want to take the opportunity to applaud Congressman Dennis Kucinich who has called for an investigation into the bombing of the UN schools. He wrote a letter to Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice requesting a report on the incident ASAP. The letter reads in part:

I believe that with the current escalation of violence in Gaza, a legal threshold has been reached, warranting a Presidential examination and report to Congress. I hereby request an examination of Israel’s compliance with the provisions of the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (AECA).

While neither the AECA nor the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (FAA) define “internal security” and “legitimate self-defense,” I believe that Israel’s most recent attacks neither further internal security nor do they constitute “legitimate” acts of self-defense. They do, however, “increase the possibility of an outbreak or escalation of conflict,” because they are a vastly disproportionate response to the provocation, and because the Palestinian population is suffering from those military attacks in numbers far exceeding Israeli losses in life and property

snip

The extensive destruction of such civilian institutions violates Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the wanton destruction of property and collective punishment of a civilian population. There have also been reports of bombings of United Nations (UN) schools, despite the fact that Israeli Defense Forces were allegedly given coordinates of the facilities prior to the current escalation in violence.

snip

I believe that Israel’s use of defense articles provided by the U.S in the current Gaza military attacks may constitute a violation of the AECA. At a minimum, the conflict is sufficient to warrant an immediate report to Congress as required by 22 U.S.C. §2753. Please contact my office by close of business on January 7, 2009 with the date the report will be submitted.

Kucinich is definitely one of the good guys and a believers in the rules of law. I will be very interested to see what comes of his letter though. Most of is fellow Congressman as well as our current President want nothing to do with finding any guilt on Israels part so I imagine this request just might be denied and the media won't cover it much if it all. But that would be par for the course right now.

So just remember as CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews are trying to spin this as another example of Israel's "remarkable restraint" what the real impetus was for them to back down this time.

I Want To See Bush, Pelosi, And Reid Defend This

Since Israel started their military offensive in the Gaza Strip there has been a concerted effort by elected leaders on both sides of the aisle to promote Israel's point of view and dehumanize the Palestinians living there. If you heard President George Bush, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or Majority Leader Harry Reid talking about this conflict you woudl think that every single resident of Gaza is a member of Hamas and they all deserve to die for daring to fire rockets into Israel.

Now the pervasive excuse for all of the civilian casualties from these same leaders has been that Hamas is hiding amongst them and using them as shields and that many sites that have been targeted by Israel such as mosques and homes were actually store houses for Hamas weapons. They use the "Human Shield" argument that the civilian casualties are actually Hamas' fault because they are hiding in the civilian population and putting everyone at risk. It is worth noting that many of the Hamas leaders who have been killed were targeted at their homes that they live in, not some hide out that they requisitioned from innocent Palestinians. And many of those attacks have killed not just the Hamas leaders but also a lot of their innocent family members including their wives and children. Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks had a very good take yesterday about this and other tactics Israel is using and I would recommend everyone checking it out.

But today there are confirmed reports that Israel has launched airstrikes with in a few feet of two different U.N. schools killing 30 people or more and wounding countless others. So I want to know if our cowardly fearless leaders are going to claim that Hamas was hiding out/storing weapons there or if they will finally call Israel out for their dispproportionate response. And if they will not call them out for this what exactly would Israel possibly have to do in order to EVER earn their condemnation?

From the AP

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Palestinian medical officials say the death toll from an Israeli airstrike outside a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip has risen to 30.

The attack occurred about 10 yards (meters) outside the school in northern Gaza. It was the second deadly Israeli attack to strike a UN school in the past few hours.

Hospital director Bassam Abu Warda confirmed the 30 deaths from the second airstrike.

In both cases, the schools had been used as shelters for people displaced by Israel's offensive against Hamas militants. More than 500 people have been killed in the 11-day operation, including many civilians.

A top U.N. humanitarian official has condemned the violence and demanded an investigation.

Right And Wrong

As I have said before I am nobody's foreign policy wonk. I can't tell you the ulterior motives of X versus the political motives of Y when it comes to how many countries interact. And the truth is when it comes to the Israel/Palestinian conflict I will acknowledge that I am under informed. However I know what I feel when I see the carnage that has been unleashed by the Israeli airstrikes this morning, and that feeling is that it was wrong. I get that there have been rocket attacks into southern Israel. I get that the ceasefire wasn't extended. But in Israel you have a country with technologically advanced armaments. They have all manner of tanks and helicopters and warships. They also have an organized military with and a highly regarded civilian security apparatus. Palestine has none of those things. So my questions are these: Why is the response to unsophisticated rocket attacks, a show of overwhelming indiscriminate force? You have 155 dead and more than 200 wounded and those numbers are rising every hour and for what? How does this strike make Israel any more secure or safe? Why did they launch attacks at a time when its widely known that kids are getting out of school? How is that justified?

First of all it seems apparent that these air strikes will do nothing to curtail the rocket strikes from Gaza. Not only that it would seem that these strikes will have the effect of garnering support for the Palestinian cause from other Arab and Muslim states and countries. Secondly am I really to believe that these strikes were meant to hit the actual terrorists who were launching the rocket strikes when there was so much collateral damage?

Lets look at the definition of terrorism.

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.[1] At present, there is no internationally agreed definition of terrorism.[2][3] Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to a lone attack), and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants.

Now I defy anyone to explain to me how the Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza strip do not fit quite neatly into that definition.



From the AP:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli warplanes retaliating for rocket fire from the Gaza Strip pounded dozens of security compounds across the Hamas-ruled territory in unprecedented waves of airstrikes Saturday, killing at least 155 and wounding more than 310 in the single bloodiest day of fighting in recent memory.

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Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said "the operation will last as long as necessary," but it was not clear if it would be coupled with a ground offensive. Asked if Hamas political leaders might be targeted next, military spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovich said, "Any Hamas target is a target."

The strikes caused widespread panic and confusion in Gaza, as black clouds of smoke rose above the territory, ruled by Hamas for the past 18 months. Some of the Israeli missiles struck in densely populated areas as children were leaving school, and women rushed into the streets frantically looking for their children.

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"My son is gone, my son is gone," wailed Masri, 57. The shopkeeper said he sent his 9-year-old son out to purchase cigarettes minutes before the airstrikes began and now could not find him. "May I burn like the cigarettes, may Israel burn," Masri moaned.

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Protests erupted in the Abbas-ruled West Bank and across the Arab world.

Several hundred angry Jordanians poured protested outside a U.N. complex in the capital Amman. "Hamas, go ahead. You are the cannon, we are the bullets," they cried, some waving the signature green Hamas banners.

In Beirut, dozens of youths hit the streets and set fire to tires. In Syria's al-Yarmouk camp, outside Damascus, dozens of Palestinians protested the attack as well, vowing to continue fighting Israel.

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Hospitals crowded with people, civilians rushing in wounded people in cars, vans and ambulances. "We are treating people on the floor, in the corridors. We have no more space. We don't know who is here and what the priority is to treat," said a doctor at Shifa Hospital, Gaza's main treatment center. He hung up the phone before identifying himself.

Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, a Gaza Health Ministry official, said at least 145 people were killed and more than 300 wounded.

Frantic civilians drove wounded people to hospitals in their cars.

In the West Bank, Hamas' rival, Abbas, said in a statement that he "condemns this aggression" and called for restraint, according to an aide, Nabil Abu Rdeneh. Abbas, who has ruled only the West Bank since the Islamic Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007, was in contact with Arab leaders, and his West Bank Cabinet convened an emergency session.

Israel has targeted Gaza in the past, but the number of simultaneous attacks was unprecedented.

There is also a report from Russian Tee Vee






Now at what point do we as the citizens of the United States of America feel it appropriate to call a spade a spade and say that wrong is wrong? At what point do we admonish Israel for these kinds of attacks which do nothing to promote peace nor security? At what point do we have the courage to say that Israel is wrong in this instance and we will not stand with them if they continue such actions? I don't think that takes a PHD in foreign policy to make that kind of declaration, honestly. In my opinion it only takes a conscious and common sense and I would think that most of us in this country still have both.