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The following note was found in Martin Luther King’s pocket after he was murdered. This note was one of three documents owned by Harry Belefonte who withdrew them from sale on the eve of a planned Sotheby's auction. The following note is one for a speech he gave in support of striking garbage workers in Atlanta. The names appear at the top of the note. The note reads:
Pres. McCain
Dr. Boyer
Mr. Floyd
Mr. George Haley
I. Commend Strikers
(Support of SCLC [Southern Christian Leadership Conference])
II. You are demanding that this city respect the dignity of labor.
III. You are reminding the nation that it is a crime for people in this rich nation to receive starvation wages. (Most poor people work every day.)
IV. We are tired of being at the bottom. We are tired of living in poverty.
V. Nothing worthwhile is gained without sacrifice. Nothing is gained without pressure (Work stoppages)
VI. This is why we are going to Washington.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/books/11king.html?scp=1&sq=Martin%20Luther%20King%20note%20in%20pocket&st=cse
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Excavation and Burial in Gaza
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/01/18/world/20090119GAZA_3.html
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Rally & March Against the Annual "Walk for Life" in San Francisco
This year the Religious Right will again bus thousands of Right Wing Christians from all over the West Coast to march against women's rights in San Francisco. And the Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights (BACORR) will again sponsor a counter rally and march. East Bay Atheists and San Francisco Atheists are both sponsors of this event, and we urge everyone to help us show our determination to stop the religious oppression of women. This Walk is a major event for the Religious Right, and they should not be allowed to push their agenda in San Francisco without a major response from the secular community. We are rather insulated from the theocrats in the Bay Area, and it has made us complacent. But we must not allow them to parade through our City without major opposition. If we can't get together to fight this, we really have a problem.
The event will begin on Saturday, January 24, at 10:30 AM at the Music Concourse at the Embarcadero at the end of Market Street. (Embarcadero BART Station) There will be a rally, followed by us marching beside the walk on the city streets. The walk goes on for several miles at a slow pace. Please avoid any incidents that could lead to physical confrontations. This is a peaceful protest march.
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MARCH 21 "MARCH ON THE PENTAGON" PLANNING MEETING FOR SAN FRANCISCO PROTEST
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2009, 2:00 P.M.
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO (UPSTAIRS)
474 VALENCIA STREET (NEAR 16TH STREET)
SAN FRANCISCO
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WORLD DEMONSTRATION GAZA PALESTINE, 2009 London, New York ,Japan, Russia,France,India,Pakistan
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=2D8A9IL-1qI&feature=related
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Doctors report Israel using DIME (Dense Inert Metal Explosive) weapons in Gaza
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=_IhXSNTG_k0&feature=related
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Gaza, Qaddafi, and Starbucks
http://www.linktv.org/video/3517
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Obama or not, it's business as usual at Guantanamo
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/60045.html
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Israeli TV airs Gaza doctor's pleas after children killed - ENGLISH SUBTITLES
[Please note, our tax dollars pay for this! End ALL U.S. Aid to Israel NOW! Not one more dollar, not one more dime!...BW]
Dr. Izzeldin Abuleish and his family were hit by an Israeli shell killing 3 of his daughters,a niece, his brother and nephew and injuring others. He called Israeli TV to plead for ambulances for the wounded, although his children and family members were already dead from the bombing.
It is sickening to listen to him on Dr. Izzeldin on Youtube lamenting his family and pleading for the shelling to stop. He called the TV station reporter as the hit happend.
If you cannot see the subtitles do the following [although you do not need to understand his words to feel his torturous pain]:
1. Play the video
2. Click the triangle button at the bottom-right corner of the video
3. Click the Turn on captions button that looks like the letters CC.
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=OLUJ4fF2HN4
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New Year, Gaza 2008/2009
Call out the names of the dead
so that we may mourn.
Call out the names
of the dead.
Call out the names of their kllers
so that we may rage
as we mourn.
Call out the names
of their killers.
Call out the names of those
who march in protest
So that we may give thanks
as we rage
and mourn
Call out the names
of those who march in protest.
Call out the names "Peace,"
"Justice," "Freedom," "Palestine"
so that we may hope
as we give thanks,
rage,
and mourn.
Call out the names
"Peace," "Justice,"
"Freedom," "Palestine."
And when the time has come
to call out the names
of all who remain silent
as we are calling out these names
let us pray that yours
will not be among them.
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Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
Sign the Statement | View list of Signers | Donate
http://www.iacenter.org/palestine/jewsinsolidarity/#signon
Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
Stop the U.S.-backed genocidal Israeli war on Gaza
* Nearly a thousand women, men and children killed by U.S.-made Israeli bombs
* Thousands more wounded
* 1.5 million under siege for the past 18 months, without food, water, medicine, fuel
* Collective punishment for resisting occupation; emergency aid blocked
* Massive violations of international law
* Apartheid wall
* Racist oppression
* Homes and land stolen
* Forced into refugee camps
* 60 years of occupation, from the river to the sea
We Say Enough!
We Are
Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
No to Israel! Yes To Self-Determination, Democracy & Freedom!
Stop U.S. Funding of the War on Palestine!
The whole world is horrified by the murderous Israeli assault against the suffering people of Gaza. From Seoul to Caracas, from Johannesburg to Amman to London, millions of people have poured into the streets to demand an end to this genocidal campaign, which is funded by the United States and carried out with U.S.-supplied weaponry.
There have also been protests in U.S. cities. While most of those marching are Arab-Americans, many African Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans and whites have joined in. Many Jewish people, outraged at Israel's war crimes and anguished that they are carried out in their name, are speaking out.
It's good that Jewish people of conscience are disassociating themselves from the Gaza aggression. But it's not enough. This atrocity is only the latest, and it's no aberration. It reflects the program of the Israeli settler state -- which is based on the theft of Palestine, the ouster and suppression of the Palestinian people, and the racist ideology of Zionism -- and of its primary sponsor, the Pentagon and U.S. business establishment.
It's not enough to oppose the bombing. It's not enough to demand an end to the 41-year occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. We stand in complete and unconditional support for the self-determination of the Palestinian people. This includes the right to return to Palestine, from the river to the sea, and the right to democratically determine the form and the future of the Palestinian state.
Nothing less will undo the historic crime of al Nakba -- the 1948 catastrophe of the establishment of the state of Israel based on the ouster of the Palestinian people from their homeland, oppression and inequality.
That crime betrayed the whole history of the Jewish people. From helping topple the czar in Russia and build the unions in New York, to resisting pogroms and fighting to the last breath in the Warsaw Ghetto, opposition to persecution, oppression and racism was central to the Jewish heritage.
We call on Jewish people around the world, including those inside Israel, to join us in reclaiming that heritage. Reject racism and genocide. Reject the Zionist state, the very concept of which is racist to the core. Take the hand of our Palestinian sisters and brothers. Defend their righteous struggle to restore their stolen land and build a democratic Palestine.
This is not an impossible quest. Remember how mighty the settler state in South Africa seemed, only a little over two decades ago? The racist regime there was buttressed by U.S. -- and Israeli -- support. But it was battered by the unstoppable political and military struggle against apartheid, which gained worldwide support. Apartheid fell, replaced by a new state based on legal equality.
A future of equality for all is possible in Palestine too. Until this future is won, the Palestinian struggle will go on. We stand with that struggle.
We Are
Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
No to Israel! Yes To Self-Determination, Democracy & Freedom!
Stop U.S. Funding of the War on Palestine!
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Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
LET GAZA LIVE!
Fourth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference
Sunday February 8, 2009 at The University of California in San Diego (UCSD)
hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine
Save the Date! Mark Your Calendars! Plan to Attend!
The Palestine Right to Return Coalition's Al-Awda chapters in Los Angeles, Orange County, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego thank all who took part in the Mass Rally and March in Los Angeles yesterday January 10 as part of the Let Gaza Live National Emergency Day of Mass Action and Protest that took place around the country. Thousands took to the streets demanding an immediate end to the carnage that is being carried out by the 'Israeli' military against our people in the Gaza Strip, and to demand an end to the political, economic and military support it has received from the US administration.
As announced at the protests, please take note that the Fourth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference, LET GAZA LIVE!, will take place Sunday February 8, 2009 at The University of California in San Diego (UCSD). This conference will be hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine. All members and supporters of the Right to Return movement on the West Coast are urged to participate in this important and timely one day conference.
Save the Date, Mark Your Calendars, and Plan to Attend.
Further details will be posted over the next few days and as soon as they become available.
Until Return,
Al-Awda Chapters in Southern California
The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-918-9441
Fax: 760-918-9442
E-mail: info@al-awda.org
WWW: http://al-awda.org
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC) is the largest network of grassroots activists and students dedicated to Palestinian human rights. We are a not for profit tax-exempt educational and charitable 501(c)(3) organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States of America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations to PRRC are tax-deductible.
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March on the Pentagon! March 21, 2009
The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations is joining with other coalitions, organizations, and networks in a united MARCH 21 NATIONAL COALITION to organize the broadest mobilization of people across the United States to take part in a March on the Pentagon on the sixth year of the military invasion and occupation of the Iraq War: Saturday, March 21.
To endorse the March 21 March on the Pentagon, please click here.
http://natassembly.org/Continuation.html#March21
To send a contribution to support the National Assembly's work, please click here.
http://natassembly.org/donate.html
For more information, please visit the National Assembly's website at www.natassembly.org or write natassembly@aol.com or call 216-736-4704.
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MARCH 21 NATIONAL COALITION FOR A MARCH ON THE PENTAGON
ON THE SIXTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE IRAQ WAR
SATURDAY, MARCH 21, DC, SF, LA AND SEATTLE
To endorse the March 21 March on the Pentagon, click here. To sign up to be a Transportation Organizing Center, click here.
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=4580&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS
To sign up to be a Transportation Organizing Center, click here.
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=4680&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS
P.S. You can make a difference. Please continue to support the ANSWER Coalition's crucial anti-war work by making your end-of-the-year tax-deductible donation online using our secure server by clicking here, where you can also find information on how to donate by check.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
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The DAILY SHOW with Jon Stewart
Strip Maul
Israel gets their bombing in before the January 20th hope and change deadline.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=213380&title=strip-maul
Gallery: Gaza Demonstration Montreal
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Gallery+Gaza+Demonstration+Montreal/1141378/story.html
We will not go down (Song for Gaza)
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=dlfhoU66s4Y
MY LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRONICLE PROTESTING THE TOTALLY
INACCURATE REPORT OF THE JAN. 10 "LET GAZA LIVE" DEMONSTRATION--
FULL ARTICLE BELOW:
Peaceful S.F. protest of Israel's Gaza bombing
Deborah Gage, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, January 11, 2009
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/11/MNK6157880.DTL
Here's a link to some great photos of yesterdays protest:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/01/10/18561295.php
Dear Editor,
Deborah Gage's article reporting on the January 10 "Let Gaza Live" demonstration sighting "More than 1,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators and a few hundred pro-Israel demonstrators" was in the ballpark only on the number of pro-Israeli demonstrators; but was off by at least ten-to-one on the number of those demonstrating against Israel!
Even your own photos on your website can testify to this fact! There were at least seven to ten thousand people marching in protest of this most horrible and criminal assault upon a defenseless and imprisoned people.
As one of many Jewish woman and men at this demonstration-and there were many more pro--Palestinian Jewish people protesting Israel than the tiny group of pro-Israeli Zionists that stood on half-a-sidewalk directly outside of City Hall--clearly, the Israeli Zionists do NOT speak for us!
We will keep to the streets demanding END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL! NOT ONE MORE DOLLAR! NOT ONE MORE DIME! STOP THE HORROR! STOP THE CRIME! LONG LIVE PALESTINE!
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein
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Stop the Bombing and Blockade of Gaza!
End all U.S. Aid to Israel!
Bring the Troops Home Now from Iraq and Afghanistan!
Read the Statement Issued by the National Assembly to
End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations at:
natassembly.org
Join with the National Assembly and other coalitions, networks and organizations on March 21, 2009 for a national mass March on the Pentagon in D.C. (and actions in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities) to demand:
Stop the Wars Against Iraq and Afghanistan! -Bring the Troops Home Now!
End U.S. Support for the Occupation of Palestine!
No to U.S. Wars Against Iran and Pakistan!
Money for Jobs, Health Care, Housing, Pensions, and Education-Not for Wars and Corporate Bailouts!
For further information contact:
National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations
natassembly.org, natassembly@aol.com, 216-736-4704
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Labor Boycott Of Israel Backed By Bay Area Trade Unionists
To Stop Invasion/Occupation Of Gaza/Palestine
On Junuary 10, 2009 thousands of people in the bay area protested the US supported attack by Israel on the people of Gaza at a rally and march in San Francisco. Trade unionists including leaders of the Oakland Education Association and ILWU Local 10 and a leader of the California Peace and Freedom party condemned the attack and supported a labor boycott of Israel by the world trade union movement. Labor Video Project P.O. Box 720027 San Francisco, CA 94172 (415)282-1908 www.laborvideo.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEB2aY0ByQM&feature=
Labor Video Project
P.O. Box 720027
San Francisco, CA 94172
(415)282-1908
www.laborvideo.org
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Israelis Soldiers refuse to serve in Gaza
January 13, 2009
http://www.zcommunications.org/zvideo/2978
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Open Letter to Israeli Soldiers
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY
Friends,
As you may know, American Jews for a Just Peace has written an Open Letter to Israeli soldiers calling on them to refuse to take part in war crimes and atrocities in Gaza. We are gathering signatures from Jews all over the world, and hope to raise enough money to publish the Open Letter as an ad in Ha'aretz in the coming days. The views of "World Jewry" still carry some weight in Israel, and we owe it to both the people of Gaza and to the Israeli soldiers to try to raise our voices in opposition to the horror we are watching unfold day by day.
If you haven't already done so, I invite you to read and sign the Open Letter. If you can contribute even a small amount, it will help us toward the total advertisement cost. Organizational signers are invited to email info@ajjp.org to authorize organizational participation.
A link to the Open Letter is on the front page of AJJP's website:
www.ajjp.org
In these dark days, it is good to be able to do something -- anything. I hope you will join this effort.
Hannah Schwarzschild
for the Coordinating Committee
AMERICAN JEWS FOR A JUST PEACE
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U.S. resisters' solidarity with Israeli "shministim" refusers
Courage to Resist
Statement signed by over two dozen U.S. military war resisters. Reprinted by AlterNet, Democracy Now, The Progressive, Common Dreams, Indymedia, and Daily Kos.
We are U.S. military servicemembers and veterans who have refused or are currently refusing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We stand in solidarity with the Israeli Shministim (Hebrew for "12th graders") who are also resisting military service. About 100 Israeli high school students have signed an open letter declaring their refusal to serve in the Israeli army and their opposition to "Israeli occupation and oppression policy in the occupied territories and the territories of Israel." In Israel, military service is mandatory for all graduating high school seniors, and resisters face the possibility of years in prison.
Read more at:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) Speech by Christine Gauvreau, representing the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, at the January 10 Let Gaza Live rally at the White House.
natassembly.org
2) U.N. Building in Gaza Strip Is Hit by Strike From Israel
By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and ISABEL KERSHNER
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16mideast.html?hp
3) Family and Lawyer Fear for Reporter Who Threw His Shoes at Bush
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16iraq.html?ref=world
4) Court Affirms Wiretapping Without Warrants
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/washington/16fisa.html?ref=us
5) U.S. Issues Scathing Report on Immigrant Who Died in Detention
By NINA BERNSTEIN
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/us/16detain.html?ref=us
6) IJAN (International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network)
Call to Action on Gaza
http://www.ijsn.net/home/
7) Jewish rights activist threatened
By Josh Spiro
January 16, 2009
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/01/16/1002304/jewish-rights-activist-threatened
8) How to sell 'ethical warfare'
Claim moral superiority, intimidate enemies and crush dissent – Israel 's media management is not just impressive, it's terrifying
By Neve Gordon
Friday 16 January 2009 20.30 GMT
guardian.co. uk
http://www.guardian .co.uk/commentis free/2009/ jan/16/gaza- middleeast1
9) Israelis Confer on Cease-Fire; U.N. School Is Hit, Killing 2
"...a three-week-old war that has killed at least 1,200 Palestinians, with more buried under rubble, and 13 Israelis"
By STEVEN ERLANGER
January 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/world/middleeast/18mideast.html?hp
10) Bailout Is a Windfall to Bankers, if Not to Borrowers
By MIKE MCINTIRE
January 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/business/18bank.html?hp
11) Hamas Agrees to One-Week Cease-Fire in Gaza Conflict
By ISABEL KERSHNER
January 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/world/middleeast/19mideast.html?hp
12) Gazan Doctor and Peace Advocate Loses 3 Daughters to Israeli Fire and Asks Why
By DINA KRAFT
January 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/world/middleeast/18doctor.html?ref=world
13) In Homes and on Streets, a War That Feels Deadlier
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
January 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/world/middleeast/18gaza.html?ref=world
14) California Scholars for Academic Freedom
Joins the International Call
To Halt Israeli Aggression in Gaza
January 18, 2009
Press Release
15) Wall Street Voodoo
By PAUL KRUGMAN
January 19, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/opinion/19krugman.html
16) Shocked and Grieving Gazans Find Bodies Under the Rubble of Homes
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and TAGHREED EL-KHODARY
January 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/world/middleeast/19gaza.html?ref=world
Excavation and Burial in Gaza
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/01/18/world/20090119GAZA_3.html
17) More Americans Joining Military as Jobs Dwindle
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
January 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/us/19recruits.html?ref=us
18) Bush Commutes 2 Border Agents’ Sentences
By DAVID STOUT
January 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/washington/20sentence.html?ref=us
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1) Speech by Christine Gauvreau, representing the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, at the January 10 Let Gaza Live rally at the White House.
natassembly.org
I am here today because if the U.S. antiwar movement does not embrace fully and passionately the cause of ending US backing for the murderous assault on Gaza, we will never succeed in ending ANY of the US military adventures in the Middle East. Solidarity with the victims of US backed aggression in Gaza, and solidarity with YOU, is the most important task facing the antiwar movement today.
To whom can we look to end the barbaric attacks on the refugee camp called Gaza?
Not the president and certainly not the Congress.
Yesterday the U.S. Congress voted to openly celebrate their support for the horrific and criminal massacres carried out in Gaza. Read the resolutions-- they CHEERED the murderous effectiveness of the army of their most valued proxy in the Middle East They CELEBRATED the carnage wrought by their military gifts to Israel--the F-16's, the helicopters, the munitions.
While the whole world mourned the loss of innocent life in GAZA, the US government instead theatrically APPLAUDED the mowing down of nearly 1000 starving, encircled, and utterly trapped civilians. And with Orwellian language, they designated the colonizer's methods as self-defense. They perversely defined a brutally occupied people as the aggressor and instigator of war.
Congress uses this double speak for the same reason they went along with the lie of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. In the end, it is all about the same thing. It is all about the willingness of the US government to use the bloodiest means to create a Middle East and Central Asia where Arab and Afghani self-determination, where national sovereignty, is a thing of the past. Where the United States has control over energy resources at any human cost.
That is why they cannot stand the proud and defiant people of Palestine. Their unwillingness to bend in the face of attack makes the Gazans a giant obstacle to US war aims in the greater Middle East. Their fight is our fight.
We say NO to US backed aggression against the people of Gaza.
The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations is so honored and grateful to be here today with the movement to end the siege of Gaza and to defend the right of Palestinians to self -determination. This movement to defend the people of Gaza from the US backed Israeli invasion is opening a new stage in US politics. YOU are opening a new stage in US politics. A stage where those from the Palestine solidarity movement and those who have been active to end the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan will come together as a powerful force to end the US-Israeli military adventure in the Middle East.
A force independent of the war -making political parties in Congress. A force that can grow exponentially due to our unity. A force that can attract millions because we remain visible in the streets. A force that will first be able to manifest itself on March 21 here in DC and bring us a much closer to ending US support for the occupation of Palestine. To ending the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. To getting money for jobs, pensions, housing, healthcare, not for wars, occupations, and corporate bailouts.
Let us pledge to take the next weeks, to use every day, to use every hour, to use every minute between now and March 21 to fight together to take the truth about Gaza, the truth about Iraq, the truth about Afghanistan to the millions of Americans not yet active in the struggle.
Let Gaza Live
Out Now
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2) U.N. Building in Gaza Strip Is Hit by Strike From Israel
By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and ISABEL KERSHNER
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16mideast.html?hp
GAZA - Israeli forces shelled areas deep inside Gaza City on Thursday, hitting the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and injuring at least three people among the hundreds taking shelter in the compound, according to United Nations officials and witnesses.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel expressed regret for the strike but said that Israeli forces were fired on by Hamas militants from just outside the United Nations compound and the militants then ran inside to take cover, according to Mr. Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev.
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had told him the strike on the United Nations compound was a "grave mistake." Mr. Ban, who was in Israel Thursday to press for a cease-fire, said he expressed "strong protest and outrage" to Israel. Relations between Israel and the United Nations offices in Palestinian territory, long strained, have worsened during the Israeli campaign.
On the 20th day of fighting, Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into Gaza City and intensified shelling in both outlying neighborhoods and central districts, sending thousands of panicked residents fleeing from their homes, witnesses said. Al Shurouq Tower, a high-rise media center, was hit by shells, witnesses said. At least two television cameramen were hospitalized.
In what appeared to be a breakthrough for the Israeli military, Israeli and Palestinian media reported that Israel had killed a senior Hamas official in the bombing of his home. Two days ago, Israeli officials said, despite heavy air and ground assaults, Israel had yet to cripple the military wing of Hamas or halt its rocket fire into Israel.
The slain official, Said Siam, was the interior minister in Hamas-run Gaza, and was in charge of security. Islamic Jihad radio said Mr. Siam's brother and son had also been killed. In addition, the strike killed four members of a family next door, Gaza hospital officials said.
The intensified Israeli campaign came as cease-fire talks in Egypt appeared to be moving forward. A senior Israeli defense official, Amos Gilad, returned from Cairo after a day of talks with Egyptian officials. He was due to report to the Israeli leadership later Thursday.
"We are trying to find a durable solution and hopefully that durable solution seems closer than ever before," Mr. Regev said.
Within two hours on Thursday morning, militants in Gaza launched 15 rockets and mortars against Israel, the Israeli military said, a marked increase in fire compared to Wednesday when there were 16 launches during the entire day. Later Thursday, the military reported that 25 rockets and mortars had been fired. One struck the Israeli city of Beersheba, directly hitting a car and wounding six people, the Israeli military said. Among them was a 7-year-old boy, whose injuries were serious.
The death toll among Palestinians rose to at least 1,076, according to Reuters, which quoted the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. At least 13 Israelis have been killed.
Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is charged with helping Palestinian refugees, said that the Israelis had been provided with the GPS coordinates of all United Nations facilities in Gaza. He said that in the strike on the United Nations compound two buildings had been set ablaze and that there were five fully laden fuel vehicles at the site.
He rejected the Israeli claim that militants had fired from in or near the compound as "entirely baseless."
"With every false allegation, the credibility of those accusing us is incrementally diminished," he said. He said that Israel had used three shells of white phosphorous at the compound, according to people at the site, citing the fact that fires caused by the shells had burned all day as evidence that the chemical was used. White phosphorous creates smoke on a battlefield and can burn like a kind of napalm. There was no immediate response from Israel.
The strike on the compound resembled an earlier incident in Israel's campaign against Hamas, when Israeli mortar shells landed outside a United Nations school compound in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, killing at least 40 Palestinians, according to United Nations and hospital officials.
In that attack, the Israeli military said it was responding to mortars fired by Hamas militants from a yard next to the school compound, and that one of the shells it fired back fell off the mark.
The attacks have worsened the decades-long tensions between Israel and the United Nations. Israel views some branches of the United Nations as hostile and unfair, particularly the Relief and Works Agency, with its focus on helping Palestinians.
Mr. Regev, Mr. Olmert's spokesman, played down the tensions, saying that Israel "fully supports the United Nations' humanitarian mission." But Yigal Palmor, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that a large number of the local workers for the United Nations refugee agency "one way or another are affiliated with Hamas," which presents problems at a time of confrontation.
The Israeli military gave only limited information about its latest ground operations in Gaza City on Thursday, but a spokesman said that "fierce fighting" was under way "relatively deep inside Gaza."
Overnight, the military said, Israeli planes struck around 70 targets, including a mosque in the southern town of Rafah that it said was used to stockpile rockets, and several squads of gunmen.
Palestinians arrived with injured relatives at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Thursday, some barefoot and in nightgowns. They told of intense Israeli shelling in several neighborhoods, including the Sabra and Tufah districts. The two television cameramen arrived for treatment after the tower in central Gaza housing the media offices was hit. They had been filming from a window balcony when they were injured, they said.
Residents of the Tel el-Hawa district in south-western Gaza City said Israeli shelling and shooting had gone on all night and that the local Quds Hospital was under fire.
Amid rising concern about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, the aid group CARE said that Israeli bombs were falling around its warehouses and distribution sites in Gaza, forcing it to cancel the dissemination of food and medical supplies.
The group said in a statement that it had been planning to give emergency medical supplies to hospitals and clinics, and get baby food and blankets to newborns in shelters.
Martha Myers, CARE's director for the West Bank and Gaza, said that on Wednesday bombs fell near a care warehouse and "our staff had to drop and run."
"This is not humanitarian access," she said in the CARE statement.
Taghreed el-Khodary reported from Gaza, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Reporting was contributed by Ethan Bronner and Sabrina Tavernise from Jerusalem, Souad Mekhennet from Frankfurt, Michael Slackman from Cairo, Alan Cowell from London, and Graham Bowley from New York.
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3) Family and Lawyer Fear for Reporter Who Threw His Shoes at Bush
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16iraq.html?ref=world
BAGHDAD - More than a month has passed since an Iraqi television reporter threw his shoes at President Bush during a Baghdad news conference held to highlight what Mr. Bush called a successful American military effort to pacify Iraq.
The journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, 29, who was immediately arrested, has been allowed only two visitors - and none since Dec. 21, according to those close to him. His family and his lawyer say that they do not know where he is being held and that they are gravely concerned about his well-being because they have not been allowed to speak with him by telephone.
On Thursday, Dhiyaa al-Saadi, Mr. Zaidi's lawyer, said he had recently seen medical records that were part of Mr. Zaidi's court file, which he said added credence to the journalist's claim that he had been beaten and tortured after his arrest by the security detail of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, on Dec. 14.
Mr. Saadi said two medical reports conducted by government physicians within a week of Mr. Zaidi's arrest described bruising that covered the reporter's face and body, but was especially severe on his legs and arms; a missing tooth; a gash on the bridge of his nose; and what appeared to be a burn mark on his ear.
Mr. Saadi said he had not been permitted to remove the records from the office of the judge investigating the case, so the existence of the documents could not be verified independently. But the account of Mr. Zaidi's wounds matches injuries described by one of Mr. Zaidi's brothers after his prison visit last month.
Uday al-Zaidi, 33, the brother, said Thursday that he feared that Mr. Zaidi, who faces up to seven years in prison for the criminal charge of aggression against a visiting head of state, might never emerge from government custody.
"I don't know his fate," said Mr. Zaidi. "I am sure they will kill him in prison."
But Dr. Fadhil Mohammed Jawad, the legal adviser for Mr. Maliki, said Thursday that Mr. Zaidi had not been tortured and would receive a fair trial.
"Judicially, Iraq is just and the law will handle this case with justice," Dr. Jawad said.
A trial date for Mr. Zaidi had been scheduled for Dec. 31, but was delayed at the request of his lawyer, who is seeking a reduced charge with a shorter prison term. A new date has not been set.
The shoe-hurling episode took place during a news conference with Mr. Bush and Mr. Maliki in Baghdad's heavily secured Green Zone. Mr. Zaidi rose from his seat, threw a shoe at Mr. Bush and shouted, "This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!"
Mr. Zaidi threw his second shoe at the president before security guards restrained him. Both shoes missed. As he was pulled from the room by the guards, Mr. Zaidi was seen being beaten.
In Iraq, throwing a shoe at someone is considered a grave insult. But Mr. Bush's unpopularity here made Mr. Zaidi an instant celebrity and folk hero, not only in Iraq but also elsewhere in the Arab world.
Mr. Maliki was acutely embarrassed, however, and several days later, he said Mr. Zaidi had been put up to the act by a man the prime minister described as a "head cutter" - apparently a reference to a member of the Sunni extremist group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, known for beheading people.
Mr. Zaidi's family, however, has insisted that the reporter has no ties to any political group and that he acted solely out of his opposition to the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Since his arrest, the reporter has been seen by only a few people, including one visit each by his lawyer and brother, both on Dec. 21.
Subsequent visit requests have been rejected or ignored by the government and the judiciary, the men said.
It remains unclear who is responsible for clearing visits to Mr. Zaidi. While Dr. Jawad, the prime minister's legal adviser, said such matters were handled by the investigating judge and the suspect's lawyer, a spokesman for the judge said the issue was one reserved "for the executive branch."
During a telephone interview, Abdul Sattar al-Biriqdar, the spokesman for the High Judicial Council, which administers Iraq's court system, said Dhiyaa al-Kinani, the investigating judge, had not been aware that Mr. Zaidi's lawyer and family members had repeatedly sought to visit Mr. Zaidi in prison.
At first, Mr. Biriqdar denied knowing Mr. Zaidi's whereabouts, but later he said Mr. Zaidi was at an Iraqi detention center in the Green Zone operated by the Baghdad Brigade, a military unit that answers to the prime minister's office.
Mr. Biriqdar said anyone who sought to see Mr. Zaidi would be permitted to do so.
But during a recent visit to the complex, an Iraqi Army guard told a reporter who requested a visit to leave immediately. The guard also said it was "dangerous" to seek to meet Mr. Zaidi.
The soldier, who did not identify himself, said he did not know whether Mr. Zaidi was being held there.
On Thursday, an e-mail message sent to Mr. Maliki requesting a visit with Mr. Zaidi received no reply.
Mr. Biriqdar, the judicial spokesman, said that Mr. Zaidi had not told the investigating judge about being tortured or beaten while in custody and that during a meeting with Mr. Zaidi last month the judge had seen no signs of physical abuse.
"The investigating judge said he had not noticed if he had been tortured or beaten," Mr. Biriqdar said. "Muntader did not say he was beaten and did not ask to be referred to a medical committee."
But a few days after that meeting, both Mr. Zaidi's lawyer and brother Uday said during their respective visits that it had been clear that Mr. Zaidi had been beaten.
Reporting was contributed by Riyadh Mohammed, Alissa J. Rubin, Atheer Kakan and Suadad al-Salhy.
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4) Court Affirms Wiretapping Without Warrants
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/washington/16fisa.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - In a rare public ruling, a secret federal appeals court has said telecommunications companies must cooperate with the government to intercept international phone calls and e-mail of American citizens suspected of being spies or terrorists.
The ruling came in a case involving an unidentified company's challenge to 2007 legislation that expanded the president's legal power to conduct wiretapping without warrants for intelligence purposes.
But the ruling, handed down in August 2008 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review and made public Thursday, did not directly address whether President Bush was within his constitutional powers in ordering domestic wiretapping without warrants, without first getting Congressional approval, after the terrorist attacks of 2001.
Several legal experts cautioned that the ruling had limited application, since it dealt narrowly with the carrying out of a law that had been superseded by new legislation. But the ruling is still the first by an appeals court that says the Fourth Amendment's requirement for warrants does not apply to the foreign collection of intelligence involving Americans. That finding could have broad implications for United States national security law.
The court ruled that eavesdropping on Americans believed to be agents of a foreign power "possesses characteristics that qualify it for such an exception."
Bruce M. Selya, the chief judge of the review court, wrote in the opinion that "our decision recognizes that where the government has instituted several layers of serviceable safeguards to protect individuals against unwarranted harms and to minimize incidental intrusions, its efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts."
The three-judge court, which hears rare appeals from the full Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, addressed provisions of the Protect America Act, passed by Congress in 2007 amid the controversy over Mr. Bush's program of wiretapping without warrants. It found that the administration had put in place sufficient privacy safeguards to meet the constitutional standards of the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches. Because of that, the company had to cooperate, the court said.
That finding bolstered the Bush administration's broader arguments on wiretapping without warrants, both critics and supporters said.
William C. Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University who has criticized the administration's legal position on eavesdropping, said that while the ruling did not address Mr. Bush's surveillance without warrants directly, "it does bolster his case" by recognizing that eavesdropping for national security purposes did not always require warrants.
Coming in the final days of the Bush administration, the ruling was hailed by the administration and conservatives as a victory for an aggressive approach to counterterrorism. The Justice Department said in a statement that it was "pleased with this important ruling."
"It provides a very good result; it reaffirms the president's right to conduct warrantless searches," said David Rivkin, a Washington lawyer who has served in Republican administrations.
Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said the ruling "reinforces the significant, bipartisan political consensus" in favor of the president's broad assertions of wiretapping powers.
But others were cautious about the significance of the ruling.
"I think this kind of maintains the status quo," said Scott Silliman, an expert on national security law at Duke University. "I don't think it is a surprise that the FISA court found that the legislation was constitutional. They are going to defer to Congress, especially since there was a lot of discussion when the law was passed about the ability of the government to compel providers."
The ruling is the latest legal chapter in a dispute dating back to the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, when Mr. Bush secretly ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the international communications of American citizens without the approval of Congress or the courts. After the agency's program was publicly disclosed in December 2005, critics said it violated a 1978 law. The White House initially opposed any new legislation to regulate surveillance, arguing that it would be an infringement of the president's powers.
But after the Democrats took control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections, the administration agreed to bring the N.S.A. program under the jurisdiction of the FISA court. In 2007, Congress passed the Protect America Act, which was replaced in 2008 by another surveillance law.
The case arose in 2007, when a telecommunications company refused to comply with the government's demands that it cooperate without warrants under the terms of the Protect America Act. The company was forced to comply, under threat of contempt, while it challenged the law in the FISA court, the opinion noted.
The company argued that the law violated the constitutional rights of its customers and that the act placed too much power and discretion in the hands of the executive branch. It also raised specific privacy problems, which the court ruling did not identify, that could occur under the surveillance directives it had received from the government.
In rejecting the company's complaint, the FISA appeals court found that the administration had so carefully carried out the Protect America Act that it was not in violation of the Fourth Amendment. It concluded that the procedures put in place under the law properly balanced the constitutional rights of American citizens and the national security interests of the government.
The company argued that "by placing discretion entirely in the hands of the executive branch without prior judicial involvement, the procedures cede to that branch overly broad power that invites abuse," the court wrote.
But, the court ruled, "this is little more than a lament about the risk that government officials will not operate in good faith.'
"That sort of risk exists even when a warrant is required," it said.
Scott Shane contributed reporting.
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5) U.S. Issues Scathing Report on Immigrant Who Died in Detention
By NINA BERNSTEIN
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/us/16detain.html?ref=us
Federal immigration officials investigating the death of a New York computer engineer from China who died in their custody last summer said Thursday that supervisors at a Rhode Island detention center had denied the ailing man appropriate medical treatment on multiple occasions and that employees had dragged him from his cell to a van as he screamed in pain.
As they disclosed their findings, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ordered an end to their contract with the center, the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., a locally owned jail where the engineer, Hiu Lui Ng, spent his final month after a year in immigration detention. They said they had asked that the United States attorney in Boston review the case for possible criminal prosecution.
The federal investigation began last summer, soon after The New York Times reported on the death of Mr. Ng, 34. His extensive cancer and fractured spine had gone undiagnosed, despite his pleas for help, until shortly before he died in custody on Aug. 6.
Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for the federal agency, said the investigation showed that supervisors at the Wyatt detention center had in effect prevented Mr. Ng from meeting with his lawyer by refusing him the use of a wheelchair when he was too ill and in too much pain to walk.
The 33-page investigation report also found that the guards and medical staff, acting on orders of the warden, violated the jail's policy on the use of force when Mr. Ng was dragged to a van for a trip to Hartford, where his lawyers say he was pressured to withdraw all his appeals and accept deportation.
The jail's overhead surveillance video cameras captured everything. But another, hand-held camcorder turned on and off 13 times at a signal from the captain in charge, according to the report, created another version of the episode, apparently in an effort to document that Mr. Ng was faking his illness and refusing to go to the hospital for a CT scan.
Investigators interviewed 158 people in the course of their inquiry, but the surveillance videotapes clearly told them most of what they needed to know. At one point, they wrote, the captain cursed Mr. Ng, calling him an idiot, and ordered him to "stop whining."
Mr. Ng kept saying that he could not walk, begged for a wheelchair, and "continued to scream," the report said, as he was pulled under his armpits from his bed, and to another part of the jail to be shackled.
John J. McConnell Jr., the lawyer representing Mr. Ng's family in a planned lawsuit against the jail and the federal immigration agency, called the report "damning" but added that the investigating agency shared the blame because Mr. Ng "should not have been detained in the first place."
"The people involved in that torturous treatment," he said, "should be ashamed of themselves."
Dante Bellini, a spokesman for Wyatt, called the results of the investigation "disappointing." Last month, citing its investigation, the immigration agency removed all of its detainees from Wyatt.
"We will continue to look at ways to reverse this," Mr. Bellini said. "We will continue to look at all our options and filling our beds. But we will steadfastly maintain that we had nothing to do with the detainee's death."
Last week, Wyatt announced that it was punishing seven employees in connection with the case, with penalties ranging from termination to reprimand. "We took stern and appropriate action," Mr. Bellini said.
Mr. Ng, who had no criminal record, overstayed a visa years ago and had been applying for a green card through his wife, a United States citizen, when he was taken into detention in July 2007 and shuttled through jails and detention centers in three New England states.
One of the most harrowing parts of the federal report is its detailed description of the videos made as Mr. Ng was forcibly taken from his cell to a van.
The tape from the hand-held camcorder begins with the captain's instructing Mr. Ng that "he needed to move on his own," telling him he would not be given a wheelchair and repeatedly ordering him to stand up.
"Mr. Ng was visibly crying and appeared to have difficulty standing," the report said, adding that the captain then appeared to signal the officer holding the camcorder to stop recording.
"Mr. Ng asked captain to believe him that he could not move his legs," the report went on. As he struggled to put on his shoes, apparently in pain, the captain urged him to hurry up. When Mr. Ng told a nurse that he wanted to go to the hospital to take the medical test to determine the cause of his pain and disability, but needed a wheelchair, she was dismissive: "She stated that he could go; he was just refusing to go."
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6) IJAN (International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network)
Call to Action on Gaza
http://www.ijsn.net/home/
We stand with the majority.
We will not be silent on Gaza.
We write with grief and rage as we watch the horrifying Israeli air and ground attacks on Gaza. As Jews committed to ending Zionism, the founding ideology of Israel, and all forms of colonialism, we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, who continue to struggle in the face of these attacks, much as they have against more than 60 years of ethnic cleansing and racism. As Joseph Massad recently wrote, Gaza is in uprising against genocide, and is receiving today the same indifference from the capitals of the West that the rebels in the Warsaw Ghetto received in 1943.
We stand with the hundreds of thousands who have taken the streets in solidarity with Gaza’s resistance. We stand with all those who struggle against racism, dispossession and genocide.
We stand with the majority. We will not be silent on Gaza.
We reject Israel’s pretense to act in response to rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas. Israel broke the ceasefire on November 4, 2008, while world attention was focused on U.S. elections.
What the Israeli government calls “security” is fundamentally opposed to the real safety of all people living in the region. Residents of Sderot and other towns bordering Gaza have begged the government of Israel to maintain the cease-fire and accused it of “wasting that period of calm, instead of using it to advance understanding and begin negotiations.” With United States, European Union, and Egyptian collusion, Israel imposed on Gaza a siege and blockade for over two years, intentionally preventing its economic recovery, degrading its civilian infrastructure, attempting to dismantle self-governance, and preventing travel and obstructing humanitarian aid. That siege, which was and continues to be a gross violation of human rights and a crime against humanity, led directly to the present escalation. As of today, Israeli forces have killed over 700 people and injured thousands. Israel has bombed mosques, universities, police headquarters, roads, office buildings, and residential neighborhoods, and schools, causing indescribable and horrible destruction. This isn’t defense. This isn’t a war between two sides. This is terrorism. This is genocide.
We stand with the majority. We will not be silent on Gaza.
As Jews, we have an additional responsibility to speak and to act against these despicable acts, because we are heirs to the victims of a genocide, because Israel is claiming to “defend” us through the ethnic cleansing of Palestine with the ultimate goal of erasing the Palestinian people, and also because of the role played by the Jewish organizations in the United States and the West in justifying, perpetrating, and escalating Israeli state terrorism against Palestinians.
We recall that the violence in Gaza today is the inevitable outcome—the latest link in a chain of terror—that results from an ideology based on the dispossession of the indigenous people of Palestine in favor of European Jews. Just as the ideology of White racism was the backbone of Apartheid in South Africa, so the ideology of Zionism explains the history of violence in Palestine, the ethnic cleansing of 1948, the occupation of the West bank and Gaza in 1967, and the many massacres that Israel perpetrated periodically since 1948 to the present one in Gaza. The maintenance of the Israeli state as a state founded on and perpetuating Jewish privilege requires the denial and attempted annihilation of the Palestinian people.
We recall that unless this ideology is delegitimized and defeated, the violence in the Middle East will continue to escalate until either Palestinian or Jewish existence in the area ends, and possibly both. Racism and colonial domination will never be the basis for peace.
We stand with the majority. We will not be silent on Gaza.
We insist on an immediate end to Israel’s assault, a complete withdrawal of all Israeli forces, a complete and unconditional end to the siege, and the restoration and extension of the ceasefire. We insist on the establishment of a special international tribunal for investigating the crimes of the Israeli leadership of this siege.
We affirm the urgent need for Jewish resistance to Zionism and stand committed to the extrication of Jewish history, politics, community, and culture from the grip of Zionism.
We situate our work in a long legacy of Jewish people throughout history who have stood in solidarity with others in common struggles against all forms of racism, empire building, and repression. As a growing sector of the Palestine solidarity movement, we call upon all Jews of conscience to take a strong stand against the current escalation of violence, as well as the murderous ground upon which Zionist ideology and the Israeli state has been constructed. We call on Jews to put an end to complicity, to break the silence, and to confront the fallacy of a Zionist consensus. We call on anti-Zionist Jews around the world to organize in escalation against the massacres on Gaza, and to continue to support Palestinian resistance through campaigns of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, and through actions that target their own governments’ financial and political support for Israel.
We stand with the majority. We will not be silent on Gaza.
WE call on you to JOIN US in continued ACTION!
READ MORE AT:
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN)
http://www.ijsn.net/home/
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7) Jewish rights activist threatened
By Josh Spiro
January 16, 2009
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/01/16/1002304/jewish-rights-activist-threatened
NEW YORK (JTA) -- The Jewish Defense Organization distributed threatening fliers targeting a pro-Palestinian Jewish activist.
The fliers focused on Adam Shapiro, an activist and documentary filmmaker, who spoke Tuesday at the New York Society for Ethical Culture about the conflict in Gaza. They were distributed in the vicinity of the talk and posted in the window of Revolution Books, one of the sponsoring organizations.
Shapiro claimed that the fliers "named me as a traitor, an enemy, as a self-hating Jew, all that kind of stuff, a Nazi, said I needed to be eliminated, and gave out my home address."
As the co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, Shapiro has long drawn fire from critics who accuse him of being an apologist for Palestinian terrorism. He has written that Palestinian "resistance" should be both violent and non-violent, and that "Nonviolent resistance is no less noble than carrying out a suicide operation."
In a 2002 interview with CNN, Shapiro said the quote was taken out of context.
Mordechai Levy, the national director of the JDO, alleged that the fliers did not call for Shapiro's "elimination" but confirmed that they included his home address. A copy of the flier, which Levy provided to JTA, contained the line, "These enemies of the Jews will pay very soon for their act of treachery!!!"
Levy openly acknowledged the JDO's intentions for Shapiro and other public figures they have blacklisted such as Norman Finkelstein. We're "getting them evicted from their houses, fired from their jobs and run out of the Jewish community," he said.
Shapiro also claimed that his family received threats from the JDO while he was in the West Bank in 2002. Yet despite the additional police presence at Tuesday's talk, Shapiro said he's been exposed to more perilous situations. "I can't say I ignore [the threats] totally but to put it in perspective, I've been in very dangerous situations both as an activist and a filmmaker," including in Iraq and Darfur.
Levy said that the fliers were distributed by high school and college volunteers from Brooklyn and Queens, some of the JDO's purported 5,000 members across the United States.
Shapiro thought that the JDO and other groups felt the liberty to threaten him because of the vocal support New York politicians like Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. David Paterson had given to Israel.
"Public officials are specifically on one side of this issue that has divided public opinion," he said. "I think that lends an air of sort of sanctioning one side versus the other and so anyone who acts on that side feels like they ... have official endorsement of what they want to do."
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8) How to sell 'ethical warfare'
Claim moral superiority, intimidate enemies and crush dissent – Israel 's media management is not just impressive, it's terrifying
By Neve Gordon
Friday 16 January 2009 20.30 GMT
guardian.co. uk
http://www.guardian .co.uk/commentis free/2009/ jan/16/gaza- middleeast1
One of my students was arrested yesterday and spent the night in a prison cell. R's offence was protesting the Israeli assault on Gaza . He joins over 700 other Israelis who have been detained since the beginning of Israel 's ruthless war on Gaza : an estimated 230 of whom are still behind bars. Within the Israeli context, this strategy of quelling protest and stifling resistance is unprecedented, and it is quite disturbing that the international media has failed to comment on it.
Simultaneously, the Israeli media has been towing the government line to such a degree that no criticism of the war has been voiced on any of the three local television stations. Indeed, the situation has become so absurd that reporters and anchors are currently less critical of the war than the military spokespeople. In the absence of any critical analysis, it is not so surprising that 78% of Israelis, or about 98% of all Jewish Israelis, support the war.
But eliding critical voices is not the only way that public support has been secured. Support has also been manufactured through ostensibly logical argumentation. One of the ways the media, military and government have been convincing Israelis to rally behind the assault is by claiming that Israel is carrying out a moral military campaign against Hamas. The logic, as Eyal Weizman has cogently observed in his groundbreaking book Hollow Land , is one of restraint.
The Israeli media continuously emphasises Israel 's restraint by underscoring the gap between what the military forces could do to the Palestinians and what they actually do. Here are a few examples of the refrains Israelis hear daily while listening to the news:
• Israel could bomb houses from the air without warning, but it has military personnel contact – by phone no less – the residents 10 minutes in advance of an attack to alert them that their house is about to be destroyed. The military, so the subtext goes, could demolish houses without such forewarnings, but it does not do so because it values human life.
• Israel deploys teaser bombs – ones that do not actually ruin houses – a few minutes before it fires lethal missiles; again, to show that it could kill more Palestinians but chooses not to do so.
• Israel knows that Hamas leaders are hiding in al-Shifa hospital. The intimation is that it does not raze the medical centre to the ground even though it has the capacity to do so.
• Due to the humanitarian crisis the Israeli military stops its attacks for a few hours each day and allows humanitarian convoys to enter the Gaza Strip. Again, the unspoken claim is that it could have barred these convoys from entering.
The message Israel conveys through these refrains has two different meanings depending on the target audience.
To the Palestinians, the message is one that carries a clear threat: Israel 's restraint could end and there is always the possibility of further escalation. Regardless of how lethal Israel 's military attacks are now, the idea is to intimidate the Palestinian population by underscoring that the violence can always become more deadly and brutal. This guarantees that violence, both when it is and when it is not deployed, remains an ever-looming threat.
The message to the Israelis is a moral one. The subtext is that the Israeli military could indiscriminately unleash its vast arsenal of violence, but chooses not to, because its forces, unlike Hamas, respect human life.
This latter claim appears to have considerable resonance among Israelis, and, yet, it is based on a moral fallacy. The fact that one could be more brutal but chooses to use restraint does not in any way entail that one is moral. The fact that the Israeli military could have razed the entire Gaza Strip, but instead destroyed only 15% of the buildings does not make its actions moral. The fact that the Israeli military could have killed thousands of Palestinian children during this campaign, and, due to restraint, killed "only" 300, does not make Operation Cast Lead ethical.
Ultimately, the moral claims the Israeli government uses to support its actions during this war are empty. They actually reveal Israel 's unwillingness to confront the original source of the current violence, which is not Hamas, but rather the occupation of the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem . My student, R, and the other Israeli protesters seem to have understood this truism; in order to stop them from voicing it, Israel has stomped on their civil liberties by arresting them.
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9) Israelis Confer on Cease-Fire; U.N. School Is Hit, Killing 2
"...a three-week-old war that has killed at least 1,200 Palestinians, with more buried under rubble, and 13 Israelis"
By STEVEN ERLANGER
January 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/world/middleeast/18mideast.html?hp
JERUSALEM — Israeli tank fire killed two young brothers taking shelter at a United Nations school in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya on Saturday, Palestinian and United Nations officials said, even as the Israeli cabinet prepared to declare a unilateral cease-fire in Gaza.
The deaths brought a new round of sharp condemnation of Israel from officials of the United Nations, including aid officials who raised questions about whether the attack, and others like it, should be investigated as war crimes. The Israeli Army said that it was investigating the reports at the highest level but that initial inquiries indicated that troops were returning fire from near or within the school.
On Saturday evening, the Israeli cabinet met for what was expected to be a vote approving a cease-fire. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel was responding positively to a call by President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt earlier in the day for an immediate cease-fire, in a clearly orchestrated move by two countries that see the Hamas movement in Gaza as a threat.
A unilateral cease-fire could mean an effective end to a three-week-old war that has killed at least 1,200 Palestinians, with more buried under rubble, and 13 Israelis. But even then, the shape of any lasting peace was far from clear.
Israel has signaled that its troops would stay in Gaza until a formal truce was signed that met Israeli goals of stopping rocket fire from Gaza and sharply hindering the smuggling of arms, weapons, cash and fighters into Gaza through tunnels from Egypt. But the government says it will not sign any deal with Hamas, which is committed to Israel’s destruction and whose rule over Gaza the Israelis do not want to recognize.
Also, Israeli officials said that they reserved the right to attack again if Hamas kept firing rockets into Israel. Hamas, battered but hardly broken, is expected to reassert its political control over Gaza.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak indicated Israel’s readiness for a cease-fire, saying the country “was very close to achieving its goals and securing them through diplomatic agreements.”
The cabinet deliberations on the unilateral cease-fire came on the 22nd day of the war, after repeated calls by the United Nations Security Council and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for an immediate halt to the fighting and the deaths of civilians.
The Israeli military said that it struck hundreds of targets overnight, including rocket-launching sites, weapons caches and several dozen smuggling tunnels, and that its troops tightened the encirclement of Gaza City.
Hamas officials outside Gaza vowed to fight on, regardless of any Israeli cease-fire declaration. The group’s representatives were scheduled to meet Egyptian officials in Cairo who are trying to pull together a sustainable truce of at least a year that will end rocket fire into Israel, hinder Hamas resupply, and reopen all the crossings into encircled Gaza from both Israel and Egypt.
Particularly concerned about limiting smuggling, the United States and Israel signed a “memorandum of understanding” on Friday in Washington that calls for expanded cooperation to prevent Hamas from rearming through Egypt. The agreement, which is vague, promises increased American technical assistance and international monitors, presumably to be based in Egypt, to crack down on the smuggling. As important, the United States agreed to work with NATO partners to interdict arms smuggling into Gaza by land and sea from Syria and Iran, and in a letter, Britain, France and Germany also offered to help interdict the smuggling of arms to Hamas.
On Saturday, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France announced a summit meeting about Gaza for Sunday, of which Mr. Mubarak would be co-chairman. Mr. Sarkozy announced that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain would attend; Mr. Brown said later he was “considering” attending. Egypt has invited Italy, Spain, Turkey, Mr. Ban and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, whose Fatah party governs the West Bank. The meeting, to take place in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheik, is about bringing a halt to the fighting in a sustainable way and reconstruction aid for Gaza.
While Mr. Sarkozy initiated the process with Mr. Mubarak in the waning days of the Bush administration, it has been in the end a deal shaped by Egypt and Israel.
Mr. Mubarak’s foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said that his country would not be bound by the memorandum of understanding agreed to by the United States and Israel and would not accept foreign troops on its soil. But officials of both Israel and the United States say Egypt has been showing a new seriousness about stopping the smuggling.
The Arab and Muslim world again appeared to be split into two camps. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been openly critical of Hamas, pressing it to agree to a cease-fire. Qatar, meanwhile, which is close to Iran, held a meeting with Syria, Iran, Mauritania and Hamas’s exiled political leader, Khaled Meshal, as the Palestinian representative. Mr. Abbas, who is supported by the United States and Egypt, had refused to go to Qatar.
In Beit Lahiya, some 1,600 displaced Gazans have taken shelter at a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or Unrwa, which cares for Palestinian refugees from the 1948-49 war and their descendants.
John Ging, the Gaza director of the agency, said that two brothers, ages 5 and 7, were killed about 7 a.m. by Israeli fire at the school. Their mother, who was among 14 others wounded, had her legs blown off.
“These two little boys are as innocent, indisputably, as they are dead,” Mr. Ging said. “The question now being asked is: is this and the killing of all other innocent civilians in Gaza a war crime?”
Christopher Gunness, the refugee agency’s spokesman, said: “Where you have a direct hit on an Unrwa school where about 1,600 people had taken refuge, where the Israeli army knows the coordinates and knows who’s there, where this comes as the latest in a catalogue of direct and indirect attacks on Unrwa facilities, there have to be investigations to establish whether war crimes have been committed,” as well, he added “as violations of international humanitarian law.”
The strike was the fourth time Israel has hit an Unrwa school during the war on Hamas. On Jan. 6, Mr. Ging said, 43 people died when an Israeli shell hit the compound of a school in Jabaliya. Israel has disputed the death toll and said it was returning mortar fire from within the school compound.
The United Nations secretary general, Mr. Ban, again called for an immediate cease-fire. “Both sides must stop the fighting now,” he said in an address to the Lebanese Parliament on Saturday. “We cannot wait for all the details, the mechanisms, to be conclusively negotiated and agreed while civilians continue to be traumatized, injured or killed.”
Four Israeli soldiers, two of them officers, were seriously hurt by mortar fire in fighting on Saturday morning, the army said, suggesting that they were victims of friendly fire. And it said that Hamas had fired 12 rockets at Israel on Saturday, a sharp reduction from daily totals since the start of the war.
While the details are debated and the dead are counted, a critical long-term issue is whether the Gaza operation restores Israel’s deterrent. Israel wants Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and the Arab world to view it as a nation too strong and powerful to seriously threaten or attack. That motivation is one reason, Israeli officials say privately, for going into Gaza so hard, using such firepower, and fighting Hamas as an enemy army.
The answer won’t be known for many months, but the key to the Muslim world’s reaction is actually that of the Israeli public, said Yossi Klein Halevi, of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies in Jerusalem. “The Arabs take their cue from Israeli responses,” he said. “Deterrence is about how Israelis feel, whether they feel they’ve won or lost.”
Mr. Halevi cited both the 1973 war — which Egyptians celebrate and Israelis mourn, though it ended with a spectacular Israel counterattack — and the 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, apologized for the 2006 war on television, “but he quickly reversed himself to declare a wonderful victory when he saw the Israeli public declaring defeat,” Mr. Halevi said.
Even more important, perhaps, this Gazan war is a test case for any potential Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank. If Israelis feel that the West Bank will turn into another kind of chaotic, Hamas-run Gaza, they will be unwilling to withdraw — especially if they believe that once they withdrew, and if they were attacked from the West Bank, they would not be allowed to respond with force.
“Gaza is an important test of whether we can defend ourselves within the 1967 boundaries,” Mr. Halevi said, noting that Hamas had been attacking Israel proper, not settlements. “Will we be able to defend ourselves if we need to from the West Bank? Will the international community let us?”
The Israeli public has stayed united behind the war as a necessary battle, despite serious misgivings about the death toll of Palestinian civilians and international condemnation. Even Meretz, a party on the left of Israeli politics, supported the air war.
Hamas has modeled itself on Hezbollah, calling on Iranian support. Mr. Nasrallah once spoke of Israeli power as a spider web — impressive from afar, but easily brushed aside. This war against Hamas, Mr. Halevi said, “is the revenge of the spider.”
Yossi Klein Halevi
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10) Bailout Is a Windfall to Bankers, if Not to Borrowers
By MIKE MCINTIRE
January 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/business/18bank.html?hp
At the Palm Beach Ritz-Carlton last November, John C. Hope III, the chairman of Whitney National Bank in New Orleans, stood before a ballroom full of Wall Street analysts and explained how his bank intended to use its $300 million in federal bailout money.
“Make more loans?” Mr. Hope said. “We’re not going to change our business model or our credit policies to accommodate the needs of the public sector as they see it to have us make more loans.”
As the incoming Obama administration decides how to fix the economy, the troubles of the banking system have become particularly vexing.
Congress approved the $700 billion rescue plan with the idea that banks would help struggling borrowers and increase lending to stimulate the economy, and many lawmakers want to know how the first half of that money has been spent before approving the second half. But many banks that have received bailout money so far are reluctant to lend, worrying that if new loans go bad, they will be in worse shape if the economy deteriorates.
Indeed, as mounting losses at major banks like Citigroup and Bank of America in the last week have underscored, regulators are still searching for ways to stabilize the banking system. The Obama administration could be forced early on to come up with a systemic solution, getting bad loans off balance sheets as a way to encourage banks to begin lending, which most economists say is essential to get businesses and consumers spending again.
Individually, banks that received some of the first $350 billion from the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, have offered few public details about how they plan to spend the money, and they are not required to disclose what they do with it. But in conversations behind closed doors with investment analysts, some bankers have been candid about their intentions.
Most of the banks that received the money are far smaller than behemoths like Citigroup or Bank of America. A review of investor presentations and conference calls by executives of some two dozen banks around the country found that few cited lending as a priority. An overwhelming majority saw the bailout program as a no-strings-attached windfall that could be used to pay down debt, acquire other businesses or invest for the future.
Speaking at the FBR Capital Markets conference in New York in December, Walter M. Pressey, president of Boston Private Wealth Management, a healthy bank with a mostly affluent clientele, said there were no immediate plans to do much with the $154 million it received from the Treasury.
“With that capital in hand, not only do we feel comfortable that we can ride out the recession,” he said, “but we also feel that we’ll be in a position to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves once this recession is sorted out.”
The bankers’ comments, while representing only a random sampling of the more than 200 financial institutions that have received TARP money so far, underscore a growing gulf between public expectations for how the $700 billion should be used and the decisions being made by many of the institutions that have taken part. The program does not dictate what banks should do with the money.
The loose requirements in the original plan have contributed to confusion over what the Treasury intended when it abruptly shelved its first proposal — to buy up bad mortgages — in favor of making direct investments in individual banks in return for preferred shares of stock.
The Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., said in October that banks should “deploy, not hoard” the money to build confidence and increase lending. He added: “We expect all participating banks to continue to strengthen their efforts to help struggling homeowners who can afford their homes avoid foreclosure.”
But a Congressional oversight panel reported on Jan. 9 that it found no evidence the bailout program had been used to prevent foreclosures, raising questions about whether the Treasury has complied with the law’s requirement that it develop a “plan that seeks to maximize assistance for homeowners.”
The report concluded that the Treasury’s top priority seemed to be to “stabilize financial markets” by simply giving healthy banks more money and letting them decide how best to use it. The report also said it was not clear how giving billions to banks “advances both the goal of financial stability and the well-being of taxpayers, including homeowners threatened by foreclosure, people losing their jobs, and families unable to pay their credit cards.”
For the banks, fearful that the economic downturn could deepen and wary of risking additional losses, the question of what to do with the bailout money comes down to self-preservation.
Mark Fitzgibbon, research director at Sandler O’Neill & Partners, which sponsored the Palm Beach conference, said banks seemed to be allocating the bailout money for four general purposes: increased lending, absorbing losses, bolstering capital and “opportunistic acquisitions.” He said those approaches made sense from a business perspective, even though they might not conform to popular expectations that the money would be immediately lent to consumers.
“For the banking industry, this isn’t a sprint, this is a marathon,” Mr. Fitzgibbon said. “I think over time there will be pressure to lend that capital out and get a return for their shareholders. But they’re not going to rush out and lend all that money tomorrow. If they did, they could lose it.”
For City National Bank in Los Angeles, the Treasury money “really doesn’t change our perspective about doing things,” said Christopher J. Carey, the bank’s chief financial officer, addressing the BancAnalysts Association of Boston Conference in November. He said that his bank would like to use it for lending and acquisitions but that the decision would depend on the economy.
“Adding $400 million in capital gives us a chance to really have a totally fortressed balance sheet in case things get a lot worse than we think,” Mr. Carey said. “And if they don’t, we may end up just paying it back a little bit earlier.”
In addition to wanting more lending, members of Congress have said TARP should not be used to fuel mergers and acquisitions, although Treasury officials say the financial system would be strengthened if healthy banks absorbed weaker ones. To that extent, bailout money has been useful for improving capital ratios — the amount of money available to absorb losses — for banks that merge.
On Friday, Bank of America said it would receive $20 billion more from the Treasury to help it digest losses it took on by acquiring Merrill Lynch, a process begun in September.
At least seven banks that received TARP money have since bought other companies, including one that had been encouraged to do so by federal regulators. That one, PNC Financial Services, took $7.7 billion from the Treasury and promptly acquired the struggling National City Bank for $5.2 billion in stock and $384 million in cash.
Among the others, PlainsCapital Bank of Dallas announced in November, not long after the bailout program began, that it planned to merge with a healthy investment bank, First Southwest. PlainsCapital received $88 million from the Treasury on Dec. 19, and the all-stock merger was completed two weeks later. PlainsCapital’s chairman, Alan B. White, insisted in an interview that the two events were not connected.
He said the bank had not yet decided what to do with its bailout money, which he called “opportunity capital.” Increased lending would be a priority, said Mr. White, who did not rule out using it for other acquisitions, adding that when regulators invited PlainsCapital to apply for federal dollars, there were no conditions attached.
“They didn’t tell me I had to do anything particular with it,” he said.
None of the bankers who appeared before recent investor conferences offered specific details about their intentions, but recurring themes emerged in their presentations. Two of the most often cited priorities were hanging on to the money as insurance against a prolonged recession and using it for mergers.
At the Sandler O’Neill East Coast Financial Services Conference in Florida, bankers mingled with investment analysts at an ocean-front luxury hotel, where the agenda featured evening cocktails by the pool and a golf outing at a nearby country club.
During his presentation, John R. Buran, the chief executive of Flushing Financial in New York, said the government money was a way to up the “ante for acquisitions” of other companies.
“We can get $70 million in capital,” he said. “So, I would say the price of poker, so to speak, has gone up.”
For Mr. Hope, the Whitney National Bank chairman, “the main motivation for TARP” was not more loans, but rather to safeguard against the “possibility things could get a lot worse.” He said Whitney would continue making loans “that we would have made with or without TARP.”
“We see TARP as an insurance policy,” he said. “That when all this stuff is finally over, no matter how bad it gets, we’re going to be one of the remaining banks.”
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11) Hamas Agrees to One-Week Cease-Fire in Gaza Conflict
By ISABEL KERSHNER
January 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/world/middleeast/19mideast.html?hp
JERUSALEM — European leaders gathered in Jerusalem on Sunday evening as Israel sought help in converting a fragile pause in the fighting in Gaza into a blueprint for a more durable calm.
Earlier Sunday, Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, and other militant groups announced an immediate, week-long cease-fire in the confrontation with Israel. The announcement came about 12 hours after a unilateral Israeli cease-fire went into effect, raising hopes that the 22-day war that killed more than 1,200 Palestinians and 13 Israelis had come to an end.
Hamas and its associates gave Israeli troops a week to leave Gaza. Hamas leaders had previously said the group would continue fighting so long as Israeli forces remained in the territory.
Referring to the one-week deadline, Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said that Israel does not “take dictates from Hamas.” But he insisted that Israel, which launched an air offensive against Hamas on Dec. 27 and sent ground forces in a week later, has no desire to stay in Gaza for long.
“If it is quiet, it will be easier for us to leave expeditiously,” he said.
Gaza was mainly quiet on Sunday, although several small skirmishes and rocket fire, which had been expected, were reported.
Palestinian militants in Gaza fired at least 15 rockets at southern Israel, including a couple after the militant groups’ cease-fire was announced. Most landed without causing casualties, but one struck a house in the Israeli port city of Ashdod, lightly wounding one person.
The Israeli military said it carried out two airstrikes against rocket-launching squads. Israel has said its main military objective in the campaign was to drastically reduce Hamas’s ability and will to fire rockets out of Gaza and to fundamentally change the security situation in Israel’s south. And while Israel has called off its offensive, political leaders and the military have emphasized that Israel would respond to any attacks.
Israeli officials had warned that Hamas might fire some rockets in a bid to have the final word. With that in mind, schools in Israeli cities within rocket range of Gaza were ordered closed for the day.
There were also conflicting news reports of casualties in Gaza, with either one man or one girl said to have been killed.
Hamas gunmen clashed with Israeli troops in northern Gaza early in the day. It was unclear if this was related to the rocket attack or whether casualties were incurred.
B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, cited a Gaza resident who said that his brother, a farmer, was killed by Israeli fire.
But on Sunday the guns largely gave way to diplomacy, with European and Arab leaders weighing in to try to give the broader cease-fire efforts content and form.
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, which is trying to broker a longer-term deal between Israel and Hamas, and President Nicholas Sarkozy of France, hosted a summit meeting on Sunday afternoon in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheik.
There, the leaders of eight European and Arab nations pledged their support for rebuilding Gaza, and called for an end to arms smuggling and the opening of the Gaza borders as a way to build a longer-term peace.
While Hamas demands the opening of the Gaza border crossings as a condition for a truce, Israel’s main concern is to obtain an internationally guaranteed mechanism to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza and to make it harder for Hamas to re-arm.
“We are ready to use all methods — diplomatic, ground and coastal — to stop the smuggling” of weapons into Gaza, Mr. Sarkozy said. “We support the idea of a major summit to put in place a structure for a continuous peace.”
French, British, German, Spanish, Italian and Czech leaders then made their way to Jerusalem for dinner with Prime Minister Olmert.
Mr. Regev, the Olmert spokesman, said that the international support for preventing Hamas’s rearmament was a “crucial element” in Israel’s decision late Saturday to stop its military campaign. A memorandum of understanding signed on Friday in Washington by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and the outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, officials here said, was also a major factor.
If the cease-fire holds, the immediate focus will turn to humanitarian aid for Gaza in the aftermath of the devastating campaign. France sent four planes to Egypt on Sunday carrying seven tons of medical supplies, water treatment equipment and 80 aid workers, including surgeons, doctors and bomb-disposal experts, the French Foreign Ministry said. The aid was on standby to get into Gaza as soon as possible.
Another issue likely to be on the agenda is the reconstruction of Gaza. Israel and Hamas’s rival, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, would prefer international assistance for rebuilding to be funneled in such a way that it will not boost or give legitimacy to Hamas.
Hamas, which is classified by Israel, the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organization, has been severely battered by the Israeli military operation in Gaza but remains in control.
Since Israel set only limited goals for its offensive, there was no great euphoria here nor any sense of failure as it fizzled to a somewhat inconclusive end.
In Gaza, residents were shocked on Sunday when they emerged from their homes and surveyed the scale of destruction. In the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, 22 bodies were removed from the rubble of a building hit by Israel.
Depending on their affiliations, people there differed over whether Hamas had won or lost. In the Tufah neighborhood, Abu Muhammad Shabit, 59, an imam and a Hamas supporter, was cleaning up in front of a mosque.
“We can compensate everybody,” he said. “The popularity of Hamas will increase. Remember, we have no state and no weapons like Israel, but we have the power of steadfastness and the resistance, and we won.”
Alaa Hamdan, 34, was lining up to take cash from an ATM. “We cannot deceive ourselves,” he said. “We did not win this battle. So many killed, so many injured.”
He blamed Israel, but also the political division among the Palestinians themselves. Without that, he said, “Israel would never have dared.”
Taghreed El-Khodary contributed reporting from Gaza, and Robert F. Worth from Beirut, Lebanon.
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12) Gazan Doctor and Peace Advocate Loses 3 Daughters to Israeli Fire and Asks Why
By DINA KRAFT
January 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/world/middleeast/18doctor.html?ref=world
TEL HASHOMER, Israel — Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish is a Gazan and a doctor who has devoted his life to medicine and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.
But on Saturday, the day after three of his daughters and a niece were killed by Israeli fire in Gaza, Dr. Abuelaish, 53, struggled to hold on to the humane philosophy that has guided his life and work.
As he sat in a waiting room of the Israeli hospital where he works part time, he asked over and over, “Why did they do this?”
Elsewhere in the hospital another daughter and a niece were being treated for their wounds.
“I dedicated my life really for peace, for medicine,” said Dr. Abuelaish, who does joint research projects with Israeli physicians and for years has worked as something of a one-man force to bring injured and ailing Gazans for treatment in Israel.
“This is the path I believed in and what I raised and educated my children to believe,” he said.
Dr. Abuelaish said he wanted the Israeli Army to tell him why his home, which he said harbored no militants, had been fired upon. He said if a mistake had been made and an errant tank shell had hit his home, he expected an apology, not excuses.
The doctor, a recent widower, had not left Gaza since the Israeli assault began last month and was at home in the Jabaliya refugee camp with his eight children and other family members during the attack on Friday.
An army spokesman said that a preliminary investigation had shown that soldiers were returning fire toward the direction of areas from which they had been fired upon.
“The Israeli Defense Forces does not target innocents or civilians, and during the operation the army has been fighting an enemy that does not hesitate to fire from within civilian targets,” said the spokesman, speaking anonymously on behalf of the army.
The Israeli public became witness to the Abuelaish family’s tragedy on Friday night when a conversation that a television journalist was having with Dr. Abuelaish was broadcast live.
In a video now available on YouTube, the doctor implored the journalist, whom he had called, to help send assistance, wailing, “My daughters have been killed.”
Journalists had come to know the doctor, who was already well known in the country’s medical establishment, because he has been providing witness accounts of the Israeli operation for television stations. After the broadcast, an ambulance was sent to a border crossing to pick up the doctor and the two wounded girls. His four other children remain in Gaza and are expected to join him in Israel soon.
At the Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer on Saturday, Dr. Abuelaish was surrounded by Israeli colleagues. Several were crying. Tammie Ronen, a professor of social work at Tel Aviv University, knelt beside the doctor. “You cannot let yourself collapse, you have your living children to take care of,” said Dr. Ronen. Dr. Ronen had worked with him in researching the effects of conflict-related stress on Palestinian children in Gaza and Israeli children in Sderot, a border town that has been the main target of Gazan rocket fire in recent years.
“Tell them who my children were,” said Dr. Abuelaish, spotting Anael Harpaz, an Israeli woman who runs a peace camp in New Mexico for Israeli and Palestinian girls that three of his daughters attended, including his eldest, Bisan, 20, who was killed Friday. The other two daughters who were killed were Mayar, 15, and Aya, 13. The doctor’s niece who died, Nur Abuelaish, was 17.
Dr. Abuelaish recalled that it was Bisan who, after her mother died of leukemia, urged him to continue his work in Israel, saying she would look after the younger children.
In a hospital room, Ms. Harpaz held 17-year-old Shada Abuelaish’s hand as a nurse placed drops of medicine on her tongue. The girl’s forehead was covered in bandages as was her right eye, which had been operated on in hopes of saving it. The niece who was wounded is in critical condition, with shrapnel wounds.
Outside the room, Ms. Harpaz crumpled into a chair, sobbing.
“I hope this is a wake-up call,” she said. “This is such a peace-loving family.”
Dr. Abuelaish is a rarity: a Gazan at home among Israelis. He describes himself as a bridge between the two worlds, one of the few Gazans with a permit to enter Israel because of his work.
“I wanted every Palestinian treated in Israel to go back and say how well the Israelis treated them,” he said. “That is the message I wanted to spread all the time. And this is what I get in return?”
Later, sitting on a plastic chair near his daughter’s hospital room, Dr. Abuelaish spoke with the prayer of so many parents who have buried their children as part of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “I hope that my children will be the last price.”
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13) In Homes and on Streets, a War That Feels Deadlier
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
January 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/world/middleeast/18gaza.html?ref=world
RAFAH, Gaza — The war here comes from the sky: fast, sharp and coldly lethal. And even when it is not crushing a building or collapsing a tunnel, its sound is always near in the nasal whine of drones and the earsplitting roar of fighter jets.
Here in Gaza’s south on Saturday, the 22nd day of the war, conversations were punctuated by the whistles and occasional cracks of Israeli ordnance hitting its targets — a maze of underground tunnels that served as smuggling routes for Hamas.
To many people in this bustling town on the Egyptian border, this short war has been the worst in living memory, one that they say is likely to further deepen age-old resentments. As their walls shook and windows rattled, they said it seemed that Israel was seizing the opportunity to destroy as much as possible before a unilateral cease-fire was to take effect early Sunday.
In past conflicts, the attacks came in spurts, people here said, with missiles shot from helicopters that could take out a living room, but not an entire building. Now, said Muhammad Hamed, 24, things feel different. He lost some of his hearing for a short while, after a house on his street was destroyed.
“You see a plane, but you don’t know where it will hit,” he said, standing near an empty playground where several houses, and the tunnels that probably lay underneath them, had been crushed. The weapons, he said, were so big that people just disappeared.
“Even if you are a giant, all that could remain is your finger.”
It left a feeling, he said, of weakness and insignificance. Of being outside his body as if he were watching events from somewhere else.
It also presented more tangible obstacles: engaged to be married, he now has to wait until after the war to tie the knot.
“There are far too many martyrs right now to get married,” he said, in a black T-shirt with the number 78 on the front.
A number of government institutions were hit, including the police and fire station. Israel argues that Hamas is a terrorist organization and therefore many of its agencies are legitimate targets. To be sure, some members of the police department are part of the group’s security apparatus, but many officers, whose duties include writing traffic tickets or registering cars, have no ideological loyalty to Hamas.
So when the main police station was hit, Jabbar Shalah, 40, thought it was all-out war. He had been sunning himself outside his house in a plastic chair and felt an explosion thump in his chest.
“I thought — it’s over,” he said, sitting on a mat at home with his family around a hot plate that has served as the only cooking device since their gas supply was cut off. “They’re going after all of us.”
The building was demolished, and the police chief, Tawfiq Jabbar, had been obliterated, he said. Chief Jabbar’s family buried only his legs.
Samira Shalah, who was making coffee on the hot plate, chimed in: “They say it’s Hamas’s fault. They don’t want to take responsibility for anyone else they kill.”
Muhammad Muhaisin, 35, a member of the rival Fatah party who was not particularly enthusiastic about Hamas, said people were getting the sense that the real target was Palestinian civil society itself.
“We see this war as a war on the Palestinian state, not against a party,” he said. “They are targeting the institutions of the Palestinian state.”
The municipal building and another public building that handled marriages and electricity payments were also hit. Those buildings, he said, were built by Fatah.
“They say they want to replace Hamas with Fatah, but really they just don’t want anybody in charge,” he said in his living room, where the windows had no glass and a clock hung sideways, stopped at 12:27, the time a bomb hit the mosque across the street.
The war, he said, will not diminish Palestinians’ national aspirations.
“The idea of Palestine is in people’s minds, not in buildings,” he said. “Every time they press us it gets stronger.”
Rafah, in many ways, has been spared. Tanks do not roll in its streets, and because its power comes from Egypt, it has had electricity for most of the war. In all, according to Muhammad al-Hams, director of the main hospital, Al Najar, 46 people have been killed in the fighting here, a fraction of the toll in Gaza City.
And though the war has caused serious destruction, leveling buildings and certain neighborhoods along the border, there are surprising pockets of normality. In the center of town, donkey carts were stuck in a traffic jam. On the outskirts, a field of cultivated flowers was untouched.
People had even grown accustomed to the sounds of the planes and bombs, and went about their lives resigned to it. Abdullah Shamali, a 60-year-old in a sheik’s headdress and suit coat, did not look up from his hummus, when a crack sounded at lunchtime.
“We’re used to it,” he said, shrugging.
War has been here for what seems like forever. Mr. Hamed, the groom-to-be, lives in a house pockmarked by shrapnel from a previous war. He was standing outside with a group of friends, watching planes shoot flares into the blue sky, and thinking about his wedding.
His fiancée’s name is Palestine.
Nadim Audi contributed reporting.
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14) California Scholars for Academic Freedom
Joins the International Call
To Halt Israeli Aggression in Gaza
Press Release
January 18, 2009
Contacts:
Sherna Berger Gluck, 310-455-1028 (CSULB) [sbgluck@csulb. edu]
Rabab Abdulhadi, 914-882-3180 (AMED-SFSU) [amed@sfsu.edu]
Jess Ghannam, 415-726-3951 (UCSF) [jess.ghannam@ ucsf.edu]
Sondra Hale, 310-836-5121 (UCLA) [sonhale@ucla. edu]
CALIFORNIA SCHOLARS FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM (CS4AF),* a group of 100 scholars at 20 California institutions of higher learning, joins our colleagues from around the world in condemning the Israeli assault and ongoing threat of assault on Gaza.
Militarily attacking a civilian occupied population is a clear violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and represents the latest phase of a war that Israel has been waging against the people of Palestine for more than 60 years, a war that has turned Gaza and the West Bank into a pair of gigantic political prisons. It has long been difficult to get an education in these prisons, and now in Gaza it is not possible at all.
According to the Right to Education campaign of Birzeit University, the Gazan educational system has been unable to function for the last three weeks as a consequence of Israeli attacks: 27 of UNRWA's installations - almost all of which are schools - have been used to shelter 45,000 desperate Gazans who have fled their homes in response to threatened and actual bombardments by the Israeli army. Then, on the 6th of January, 3 UNRWA schools were bombed, killing all who were inside, in one case 42 people, and injuring 55. A number of other schools have been hit - on the 17th of January, Israeli forces shelled a UN-run school in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, killing a mother and son. As well as taking lives, the attacks on Palestinian schools deprive thousands of children - those who have survived - of their educational facilities in the near future. A total of 67 schools have been destroyed as of the 17th of January.
Israel's declaration of a unilateral ceasefire, its stated intent to keep its troops in Gaza, and its claim that it has the right to renew its assault at its discretion are unacceptable resolutions to this situation. Israel must accept that its security depends on justice and peaceful coexistence with its neighbors, and not upon the criminal use of force.
We call for an international investigation into Israel's violations of international and humanitarian law during this assault on Gaza. As scholars, we demand that Israel allow reporters, doctors, and scholars into Gaza to investigate the serious charges that have been lodged against it. We also demand that Israel revoke orders banning its own Arab citizens the right to form political parties and to participate in the democratic voting process.
Furthermore, in light of calls from Palestinian educational institutions that are bearing the brunt of this brutal attack on the right to education and life itself, we call for a national forum to discuss an academic/cultural boycott of Israel.
*CALIFORNIA SCHOLARS FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM is a one-year-old group of 100 academics who teach in 20 California institutions. The group formed as a response to various violations of academic freedom that were arising from both the post-9/11/2001 climate of civil rights violations and the increasing attacks on progressive educators by neo-conservatives. Many attacks were aimed at scholars of Arab, Muslim or Middle Eastern descent or at scholars researching and teaching about the Middle East, Arab and Muslim communities. Our goal of protecting California Scholars based mainly in institutions of higher education has grown broader in scope. We recognize that violations of academic freedom anywhere are threats to academic freedom everywhere.
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15) Wall Street Voodoo
By PAUL KRUGMAN
January 19, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/opinion/19krugman.html
Old-fashioned voodoo economics — the belief in tax-cut magic — has been banished from civilized discourse. The supply-side cult has shrunk to the point that it contains only cranks, charlatans, and Republicans.
But recent news reports suggest that many influential people, including Federal Reserve officials, bank regulators, and, possibly, members of the incoming Obama administration, have become devotees of a new kind of voodoo: the belief that by performing elaborate financial rituals we can keep dead banks walking.
To explain the issue, let me describe the position of a hypothetical bank that I’ll call Gothamgroup, or Gotham for short.
On paper, Gotham has $2 trillion in assets and $1.9 trillion in liabilities, so that it has a net worth of $100 billion. But a substantial fraction of its assets — say, $400 billion worth — are mortgage-backed securities and other toxic waste. If the bank tried to sell these assets, it would get no more than $200 billion.
So Gotham is a zombie bank: it’s still operating, but the reality is that it has already gone bust. Its stock isn’t totally worthless — it still has a market capitalization of $20 billion — but that value is entirely based on the hope that shareholders will be rescued by a government bailout.
Why would the government bail Gotham out? Because it plays a central role in the financial system. When Lehman was allowed to fail, financial markets froze, and for a few weeks the world economy teetered on the edge of collapse. Since we don’t want a repeat performance, Gotham has to be kept functioning. But how can that be done?
Well, the government could simply give Gotham a couple of hundred billion dollars, enough to make it solvent again. But this would, of course, be a huge gift to Gotham’s current shareholders — and it would also encourage excessive risk-taking in the future. Still, the possibility of such a gift is what’s now supporting Gotham’s stock price.
A better approach would be to do what the government did with zombie savings and loans at the end of the 1980s: it seized the defunct banks, cleaning out the shareholders. Then it transferred their bad assets to a special institution, the Resolution Trust Corporation; paid off enough of the banks’ debts to make them solvent; and sold the fixed-up banks to new owners.
The current buzz suggests, however, that policy makers aren’t willing to take either of these approaches. Instead, they’re reportedly gravitating toward a compromise approach: moving toxic waste from private banks’ balance sheets to a publicly owned “bad bank” or “aggregator bank” that would resemble the Resolution Trust Corporation, but without seizing the banks first.
Sheila Bair, the chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, recently tried to describe how this would work: “The aggregator bank would buy the assets at fair value.” But what does “fair value” mean?
In my example, Gothamgroup is insolvent because the alleged $400 billion of toxic waste on its books is actually worth only $200 billion. The only way a government purchase of that toxic waste can make Gotham solvent again is if the government pays much more than private buyers are willing to offer.
Now, maybe private buyers aren’t willing to pay what toxic waste is really worth: “We don’t have really any rational pricing right now for some of these asset categories,” Ms. Bair says. But should the government be in the business of declaring that it knows better than the market what assets are worth? And is it really likely that paying “fair value,” whatever that means, would be enough to make Gotham solvent again?
What I suspect is that policy makers — possibly without realizing it — are gearing up to attempt a bait-and-switch: a policy that looks like the cleanup of the savings and loans, but in practice amounts to making huge gifts to bank shareholders at taxpayer expense, disguised as “fair value” purchases of toxic assets.
Why go through these contortions? The answer seems to be that Washington remains deathly afraid of the N-word — nationalization. The truth is that Gothamgroup and its sister institutions are already wards of the state, utterly dependent on taxpayer support; but nobody wants to recognize that fact and implement the obvious solution: an explicit, though temporary, government takeover. Hence the popularity of the new voodoo, which claims, as I said, that elaborate financial rituals can reanimate dead banks.
Unfortunately, the price of this retreat into superstition may be high. I hope I’m wrong, but I suspect that taxpayers are about to get another raw deal — and that we’re about to get another financial rescue plan that fails to do the job.
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16) Shocked and Grieving Gazans Find Bodies Under the Rubble of Homes
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and TAGHREED EL-KHODARY
January 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/world/middleeast/19gaza.html?ref=world
Excavation and Burial in Gaza
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/01/18/world/20090119GAZA_3.html
GAZA — It was a day of digging and bitter discovery. Houses had lost walls, and the dead, after three weeks of war, had lost their faces. Families identified them by their clothes.
As the people of Gaza emerged from hiding on Sunday, they confronted, for the first time, the full, sometimes breathtaking extent of the destruction around them wrought by the Israeli military. Bombs had pulverized the Parliament and cabinet buildings, the Ministry of Justice, the main university and the police station, paralyzing Gaza’s central nervous system and leaving residents in a state of shock.
Some places in Gaza City were bustling and matter-of-fact. Work crews in bright orange vests repaired power and water lines. Shops reopened. People lined up at bank machines.
But other areas ached with loss. In Twam to the north, thousands dragged belongings away from ruined houses; they were dazed refugees in their own city. In Zeitoun, families clawed at rubble and concrete, trying to dislodge the bodies of relatives who had died weeks before. The death toll kept climbing: 95 bodies were taken from the rubble.
More than 20 of them were from the Samouni family, whose younger members were digging with shovels and hands for relatives stuck in rooms inside. Faris Samouni, 59, sat alone, watching them. He had lost his wife, daughter-in-law, grandson and nephew, and he was heartbroken.
“Twenty-one are down there,” he said, starting to cry. “One is my wife. Her name is Rizka.”
The dead were badly decomposed, and families searched for familiar personal details that would identify them. One woman’s corpse was identified by her gold bracelets. Another by her earrings. And a third by the nightgown she wore. The smell of rotting flesh was suffocating, and as they got closer, the diggers donned masks.
At 10:55 a.m., the body of Rizka Samouni emerged as an Israeli fighter jet roared in the sky. Other corpses followed. Houda, 18. Faris, 14. Hamdi, 21. The smallest corpse that emerged, from a different family, was that of a 4-year-old.
“They killed the elders, the children, the women, the animals, the chickens,” said Subhi, 55, Rizka’s brother. “It’s a nightmare. I never thought I would lose all of them.”
Around noon, a worker from the Red Crescent ran up to the diggers. The Israelis had called, telling people to leave, he said. The families began to run, again.
“We have to go!” a woman shouted. “But where can we go? Where do we go?”
An Israeli military spokesman said the order had been issued because the Red Crescent had not coordinated its movement in advance. Later, permission was granted and the diggers returned to exhume the remaining bodies.
One of the areas worst hit was Twam, a neighborhood north of Gaza City, which by Friday afternoon had turned into a disorganized mass move. Donkey carts lurched over torn-up roads, spilling pillows and bedding into the dirt. People dragged bed frames and mattresses out of bombed-out houses. Small boys carried bookshelves. Curtains tied in giant sacks held clothes. Decorative cloth flowers fluttered from a half-closed trunk.
“It’s madness,” said Riad Abbas Khalawa, who was carrying a computer in one hand with his brother, who was carrying the other side. “Now our home is gone. There’s no place for us to sit together as a family.”
The question of what they thought Israel’s goal was elicited a response from the entire throng listening to Mr. Khalawa.
“It’s a war against us as people,” a man shouted. “What happened to Hamas? Nothing!”
Beker Rahim, a 26-year-old who works for a water distributor, was walking with a cradle on his head, and a blue plastic jug of homegrown olives in his right hand. He had to move a corpse on Sunday morning from near his house, placing it respectfully at the gates of the mosque. As he walked up to his house, he saw it had been mostly destroyed and was unlivable.
The loss was staggering, and acutely felt in the Saker family, which looked like a theater troupe on a stage as they salvaged what remained from the third floor of their house, its walls shorn off, its insides exposed to the neighborhood.
The house had a special meaning. The family had lived for generations in a refugee camp, and six years ago had saved enough money to build it. This morning they came to find it in shambles, a crushing discovery.
“It was my dream and now it is erased,” said Hadija Saker, 55, who ticked off the evidence, as she saw it, of Israel’s unjust actions. She said Hamas lacked influence in the area. A teacher at a United Nations school lived on one side. A journalist on the other. Most painful, she said, were her lemon trees, which she had nurtured for years and now lay crushed under the sandy soil crisscrossed with the marks of tank treads.
Anger was compounded when people concluded that Israeli soldiers appeared to have been using their houses. The Sakers found wrappers for chocolate cranberry power bars and corn puffs with Hebrew writing. In another, a child found a tiny Torah.
In the upper middle-class neighborhood of Tal al-Hawa, Ziad Dardasawi, 40, a wood importer, was trying to process what had happened. As a supporter of Fatah, a political rival of Hamas, Mr. Dardasawi said that he despised Hamas, but that its rocket fire was no justification for Israel’s military response.
“Let’s say someone from Hamas fired a rocket — is it necessary to punish the whole neighborhood for that?” he said, standing in a stairway of his uncle’s house, where furniture had been smashed, and all the windows broken.
He drew on an analogy he thought would strike a chord: “In the U.S., when someone shoots someone, is his entire family punished?”
The Israeli actions made the situation more intractable, he said. “How can I convince my neighbors now for the option of peace? I can’t.”
He added: “Israel is breeding extremists. The feeling you get is that they just want you to leave Gaza.”
It was almost dark and the Samounis were finally burying their dead. It took time to find a car big enough to carry them all. A man had to stand in the back to keep them from falling out.
At the cemetery, a battery-powered neon light cast an eerie glow over men digging the graves. There was a moment of panic when Hamas militants launched a rocket not far away, but then nothing happened.
A final obstacle: There was not enough room to bury all the bodies. The family opened up an old grave to accommodate them.
A cousin, Khamis el-Sayess, observed bitterly, “Even our dead have no land.”
But for Yasser Smama, a teenager who was also part of the crowd, there was almost a resigned hope. “Today is not the end,” he said. “Today we bury our dead, and we pick ourselves up.” Then he pointed at the sky, and said, "We have to be strong because they might hit us again tomorrow.”
Nadim Audi contributed reporting.
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17) More Americans Joining Military as Jobs Dwindle
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
January 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/us/19recruits.html?ref=us
As the number of jobs across the nation dwindles, more Americans are joining the military, lured by a steady paycheck, benefits and training.
The last fiscal year was a banner one for the military, with all active-duty and reserve forces meeting or exceeding their recruitment goals for the first time since 2004, the year that violence in Iraq intensified drastically, Pentagon officials said.
And the trend seems to be accelerating. The Army exceeded its targets each month for October, November and December — the first quarter of the new fiscal year — bringing in 21,443 new soldiers on active duty and in the reserves. December figures were released last week.
Recruiters also report that more people are inquiring about joining the military, a trend that could further bolster the ranks. Of the four armed services, the Army has faced the toughest recruiting challenge in recent years because of high casualty rates in Iraq and long deployments overseas. Recruitment is also strong for the Army National Guard, according to Pentagon figures. The Guard tends to draw older people.
“When the economy slackens and unemployment rises and jobs become more scarce in civilian society, recruiting is less challenging,” said Curtis Gilroy, the director of accession policy for the Department of Defense.
Still, the economy alone does not account for the military’s success in attracting more recruits. The recent decline in violence in Iraq has “also had a positive effect,” Dr. Gilroy said.
Another lure is the new G. I. Bill, which will significantly expand education benefits. Beginning this August, service members who spend at least three years on active duty can attend any public college at government expense or apply the payment toward tuition at a private university. No data exist yet, but there has traditionally been a strong link between increased education benefits and new enlistments.
The Army and Marine Corps have also added more recruiters to offices around the country in the past few years, increased bonuses and capitalized on an expensive marketing campaign.
The Army has managed to meet its goals each year since 2006, but not without difficulty.
As casualties in Iraq mounted, the Army began luring new soldiers by increasing signing bonuses for recruits and accepting a greater number of people who had medical and criminal histories, who scored low on entrance exams and who failed to graduate from high school.
The recession has provided a jolt for the Army, which hopes to decrease its roster of less qualified applicants in the coming year. It also has helped ease the job of recruiters who face one of the most stressful assignments in the military. Recruiters must typically talk to 150 people before finding one person who meets military qualifications and is interested in enlisting. Dr. Gilroy said the term “all-volunteer force” should really be “an all-recruited force.”
Now, at least, the pool has widened. Recruiting offices are reporting a jump in the number of young men and women inquiring about joining the service in the past three months.
As a rule, when unemployment rates climb so do military enlistments. In November, the Army recruited 5,605 active-duty soldiers, 6 percent more than its target, and the Army Reserve signed up 3,270 soldiers, 16 percent more than its goal. December, when the jobless rate reached 7.2 percent, saw similar increases in recruitments.
“They are saying, ‘There are no jobs, no one is hiring,’ or if someone is hiring they are not getting enough hours to support their families or themselves,” said Sgt. First Class Phillip Lee, 41, the senior recruiter in the Army office in Bridgeport, Conn.
The Bridgeport recruitment center is not exactly a hotbed for enlistments. But Sergeant Lee said it had signed up more than a dozen people since October, which is above average.
He said he had been struck by the number of unemployed construction workers and older potential recruits — people in their 30s and beyond — who had contacted him to explore the possibility. The Army age limit is 42, which was raised from 35 in 2006 to draw more applicants.
“Some are past the age limit, and they come in and say, ‘Will the military take me now?’ ” Sergeant Lee said. “They are having trouble finding well-paying jobs.”
Of the high school graduates, a few told him recently that they had to scratch college plans because they could not get students loans or financial aid. The new G. I. bill is an especially attractive incentive for that group.
The Army Reserve and the National Guard have also received a boost from people eager to supplement their falling incomes.
Sean D. O’Neil, a 22-year-old who stood shivering outside an Army recruitment office in St. Louis, said he was forgoing plans to become a guitar maker for now, realizing that instruments are seen as a luxury during a recession. Mr. O’Neil, a Texas native, ventured to St. Louis for an apprenticeship but found himself $30,000 in debt. Joining the Army, his Plan B, was a purely financial decision. With President-elect Barack Obama in office, he expects the troop levels in Iraq to be lowered.
Going to war, although likely, feels safer to him. “I’m doing this for eight years,” he said. “Hopefully, when I get out, I’ll have all my fingers and toes and arms, and the economy will have turned around, and I’ll have a little egg to start up my own guitar line.”
Ryen Trexler, 21, saw the recession barreling toward him as he was fixing truck tires for Allegheny Trucks in Altoona, Pa. By last summer, his workload had dropped from fixing 10 to 15 tires a day to mending two to four, or sometimes none. As the new guy on the job, he knew he would be the first to go.
He quit and signed up for the Jobs Corps Center in Pittsburgh, a federal labor program that would pay for two years of training, figuring he would learn to be a heavy equipment operator. When a local Army recruiter walked into the center, his pitch hit a nerve. Mr. Trexler figured he could earn more money and learn leadership skills in the Army. Just as important, he could ride out the recession for four years and walk out ready to work in civilian construction.
Although the other branches of the military have not struggled as much as the Army to recruit, they, too, are attracting people who would not ordinarily consider enlisting.
Just a few months ago, Guy Derenoncourt was working as an equity trader at a boutique investment firm in New York. Then the equity market fell apart and he quit.
Last week, he enlisted for a four-year stint in the Navy, a military branch he chose because it would keep him out of Afghanistan and offer him a variety of aviation-related jobs.
“I really had no intention to join if it weren’t for the financial turmoil, because I was doing quite well,” Mr. Derenoncourt, 25, said, adding that a sense of patriotism made it an easier choice.
The Army has struggled to attract the same caliber of enlistee that it did before the war. In 2003, 94 percent of new active-duty recruits had high school degrees. Last year, the number increased slightly from 2007, but it was still 82 percent. The percentage of new recruits who score poorly on the military entrance exam also remains comparatively high. The same is true for enlistees who need permission to enter the military for medical or “moral” reasons, typically misdemeanor juvenile convictions. Last year, 21.5 percent of the 80,000 new recruits in the Army required a so-called medical or moral waiver, 2 percent higher than in 2006. Fewer recruits needed waivers for felony convictions, though, compared with 2007.
Malcolm Gay and Sean Hamill contributed reporting.
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18) Bush Commutes 2 Border Agents’ Sentences
By DAVID STOUT
January 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/washington/20sentence.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday commuted the sentences of two former border patrol agents who had been sentenced to more than a decade in prison for shooting and seriously wounding a Mexican drug dealer in Texas in 2005.
With a day left in his presidency, Mr. Bush exercised his constitutional power to grant clemency — for the last time, according to a senior White House official — in a case that has touched off fierce debate in the Southwest. The two former agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, had attracted considerable support among advocates of tougher border security, who argued that the agents were just doing their jobs.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” the lead prosecutor in the case said in 2007, scoffing at the idea that the defendants were defending themselves. The agents said at trial that they had scuffled with the dealer, Osvaldo Aldrete Davila.
“These agents shot someone whom they knew to be unarmed and running away,” said the prosecutor, United States Attorney Johnny Sutton. “They destroyed evidence, covered up a crime scene and then filed false reports about what happened. It is shocking that there are people who believe it is O.K. for agents to shoot an unarmed suspect who is running away.”
The incident touched off heated debate about law enforcement and illegal immigration. A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 2007 brought out the fact that Mr. Aldrete-Davila had crossed the United States-Mexican border illegally and driving a van containing 743 pounds of marijuana worth almost $1 million.
Nor did the furor over the case break along neat liberal-conservative lines, as demonstrated by statements made in 2007 by Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat of California who is considered moderate to liberal. “It is true that the bullet left Aldrete-Davila permanently injured and that what the agents did was wrong,” the senator said. “But it is also true that Aldrete-Davila was not likely a low-level wrongdoer who got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Those who rallied behind the defendants were furious that Mr. Aldrete-Davila was granted immunity from some drug crimes in return for his testimony against the defendants.
The defendants were convicted of shooting Mr. Aldrete-Davila in the buttocks as he fled across the Rio Grande, away from the van. Not only did the defendants not report the shooting, but they tried to conceal what they had done by picking up spent cartridge casings, Mr. Sutton said.
Both agents were convicted of assault with a dangerous weapon and several other crimes. Mr. Compean was sentenced to 12 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised released, with a $2,000 fine. Mr. Ramos was sentenced to 11 years, with the same supervised release and fine.
Several members of Congress in both parties, including Senator Feinstein, have said they thought the sentences excessive.
The commutation granted by President Bush means the prison sentences of the men, both from El Paso, will expire on March 20, the Justice Department said. The supervised release and fines will still apply.
The leniency was granted to the former agents even though the Justice Department had not completed its review of the case, according to officials at the agency. A president’s constitutional power to grant pardons or commutations is unfettered, but Justice Department officials sometimes feel resentful if leniency without their full review.
A commutation is not as generous as a presidential pardon, which essentially erases a crime from a defendant’s record. There had been speculation that President Bush would grant clemency to some high-profile defendants, but the White House official said the two ex-agents would be the last to benefit.
I. Lewis Libby Jr., former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, could have been granted a pardon for his role in the leaking of a C.I.A. agent’s name and an attempted cover-up. In July 2007, Mr. Libby’s prison sentence was commuted. Nor was there any clemency for former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who in late October was convicted of ethics violations for not reporting gifts and services given by friends. Mr. Stevens would lose his bid for a seventh term.
In an interview with an El Paso television station two years ago, President Bush signaled that he would at least look at the case of the former border agents. “There are standards that need to be met in law enforcement, and according to a jury of their peers, these officers violated some standards,” Mr. Bush said.
But he went on to say that “people need to take a hard look at the facts” of the case and added, “I will do the same thing.”
Jim Rutenberg and Eric Lichtblau contributed reporting.
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