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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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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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JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE/Bay Area is joining with Jews in Israel, Toronto, Montreal, New York City, Great Britain, and elsewhere, in calling for an end to the brutal assault on Gaza NOW:
* Immediate unconditional ceasefire
* Stop killing all civilians
* End the siege of Gaza
* End the occupation
Please JOIN US for a JEWISH VIGIL on WEDNESDAY, JAN. 14, 5 pm in front of the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco, 456 Montgomery Street, a few blocks from the Montgomery Street BART.
Wear black, bring candles, and bring signs (like "Jews Say...").
Everyone is welcome. However, our intent is to send a message about strong JEWISH support for our demands, to show Jewish voices that support human rights for all. So if your signs can help us make that point, we would appreciate it.
Jewish Voice for Peace (www.jvp.org) is inspired by Jewish tradition to work together for peace, justice, and human rights; we support the aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians for security and self-determination. For more info:
bayarea@jewishvoice forpeace. org
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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:
12) 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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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) PROTEST POLICE SHOOTING IN OAKLAND!
JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT!
JAIL KILLER COPS!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
LACFreeMumia@aol.com
2) Resolution of the Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace & Justice - January 4, 2009
Condemn Israel's Assault on Gaza
3) Gaza
Socialist Viewpoint Editorial (Publication Pending)
January/February 2009
socialistviewpoint.org
4) The Sand Creek logic of the Gaza Massacre
Friday, January 9, 2009
By Travis Wilkerson
http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=10911
[ALSO CHECK OUT: http://sandcreekmassacre.net/videos/]
5) Gaza: Canadian Union of Postal Workers calls for boycott
by Denis Lemelin, National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
January 7th, 2009
http://uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=18088
http://www.tadamon.ca/post/2597
6) Oakland Education Association Condemns Israeli Assault On Gaza And Role Of US Government
by Oakland Education Association
Wednesday Jan 7th, 2009 5:35 PM
http://www.oaklandea.org
7) Pro-Israel Rally Attended by Big-Time NY Dems Descends into Calls for 'Wiping Out' Palestinians
By Max Blumenthal, AlterNet
Posted on January 13, 2009, Printed on January 13, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/119372/
8) Children of Bil'in protest for Gaza
January 11, 2009
http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=115&Itemid=1
9) A Sense of Who We Are
Editorial
January 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/opinion/13tue1.html
10) Israeli Officials Say Hamas Is Damaged but Not Destroyed
By STEVEN ERLANGER and SABRINA TAVERNISE
[Photo of 10-year-old boy blinded and burned by white phosphorous is also at this site...bw]
January 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/world/middleeast/14mideast.html?hp
11) U.N. Warns of Refugee Crisis in Gaza Strip
By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and SABRINA TAVERNISE
January 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/world/middleeast/14gaza.html?ref=world
12) Israeli Forces Squeeze Gaza, Say Work Still Ahead
By REUTERS
Filed at 11:35 a.m. ET
January 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/01/13/world/international-us-palestinians-israel.html
13) Justices Say Evidence Is Valid Despite Police Error
By DAVID STOUT
January 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/washington/15scotus.html?hp
14) Sectarian Exclusion Mars Mumia Demo in San Francisco
To: Supporters of death-row political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal
From: the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (LAC)
January 11, 2009
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222
Oakland CA 94610
LACFreeMumia@aol.org
15) Israeli Rights Groups Call for War Crimes Inquiry
By ETHAN BRONNER
January 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/world/middleeast/15mideast.html?hp
16) Latvia Shaken by Riots Over Economy
By ELLEN BARRY
January 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/world/europe/15latvia.html?ref=world
17) Israel Says Hamas Is Damaged, Not Destroyed
By STEVEN ERLANGER and MICHAEL SLACKMAN
"From photo label: Thirteen Israelis have died in the war, including 10 soldiers"
January 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/world/middleeast/14mideast.html
18) Detainee Was Tortured, a Bush Official Confirms
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
January 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/us/14gitmo.html?ref=us
19) 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
20) 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
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1) PROTEST POLICE SHOOTING IN OAKLAND!
JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT!
JAIL KILLER COPS!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
LACFreeMumia@aol.com
As of this writing (late on January 7th, 09), young people from the Fruitvale neighborhood and around Oakland are in the streets protesting the outrageous shooting of Oscar Grant III, an unarmed man who was LYING ON HIS STOMACH on a BART (subway) platform in Oakland early on New Years day. He died a short time later at Highland hospital. The shooter was a BART cop who stood over the victim and fired the shot into Oscar at point blank range for no apparent reason. Cell phone video footage, now displayed at www.ktvu.com, a local tv station, shows clearly that Grant was flat on the gound and not resisting at the time of the shooting. Protestors have closed three BART stations, attacked police cars, and marched on city hall. The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (an Oakland-based defense organization), also protests this horrendous, barbarous act of murder. Justice for Oscar Grant! Jail killer cops!
Oscar Grant III was a young black man and father of a young girl, who lived in Hayward and worked as a butcher in an Oakland food market. The cop, who has only been publicly named after a week's delay--Johannes Mehserle--HAS YET TO EVEN BE INTERROGATED ABOUT THE INCIDENT, let alone arrested! But crocodile tears over the "tragedy" continue to rain down from BART officials and the press--no justice there! Famed civil rights attorney John Burris has filed a $25 million damage suit on behalf of the family, to which we say: go for it, but no amount of money can make up for police atrocities such as this.
Forged largely to replace slavery after the Civil War, the criminal "justice" system in this country is so bent with racial and class bias as to make the word "corrupt" sound limp. Torture and murder of black people at the hands of cops has been even more prevalent and longer lasting than the frequent Klan lynchings in the South, which went on for decades. And the infamous beating of Rodney King in LA, also caught on video, resulted in an acquittal of the cops, who were conveniently tried in a white suburb full of police residences. While these crimes go unprosecuted and ignored, now suddenly, in reaction to the Bush administration's criminal "war on terror," we learn that "the US doesn't torture"! What a farce.
The innocent are routinely put to death by a system which values "timeliness" and courtly rules and regulations above evidence. Innocence is no defense in the US! This is what threatens political prisoners like Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose case, now before the Supreme Court, could still result in his execution for a crime he didn't commit. And the same threat hangs over many other victims of this system, such as Troy Davis, whose Georgia frame-up is now before the 11th Circuit Court.
We say: free Mumia, free Troy Davis, and free all class-war prisoners and innocent victims of the death penalty system! And:
NO REPRISALS AGAINST PROTESTORS OF THE OSCAR GRANT MURDER! JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT! JAIL ALL KILLER COPS!
- The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal LACFreeMumia@aol.com
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2) Resolution of the Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace & Justice - January 4, 2009
Condemn Israel's Assault on Gaza
The Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace & Justice unreservedly condemns the murderous Israeli military assault on Gaza , their deliberate targeting of the civilian population of Gaza , and Israel 's ongoing collective punishment of the Palestinian people - in violation of the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - and carried out with the strong support of the U.S. government.
The Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace & Justice calls for an immediate cutoff of all U.S. aid to Israel , in compliance with the U.S. Military Assistance Act of 1968, which forbids military assistance to any nation guilty of "gross violations of internationally recognized human rights."
The Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace & Justice endorses the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel .
Resolution unanimously adopted by the Labor Committee at its regular monthly meeting, held in Oakland , California on January 4, 2009.
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3) Gaza
Socialist Viewpoint Editorial (Publication Pending)
January/February 2009
socialistviewpoint.org
On the seventeenth day of Israel's indefensible war against the Palestinian people of Gaza, the number of fatalities reported by the New York Times has been readjusted upwards approaching a thousand (908) Palestinian men, women and children, and thousands more wounded-in fact it is impossible to keep up with the death toll while Israeli casualties can be counted on one's fingers and toes during the same time-span (13)-and some of them caught by their own "friendly fire."
Meanwhile, the relentless and indiscriminate Israeli bombings and brutal ground war continues on homes, schools, ambulances-any Palestinian targets being "fair game!" Palestinian children throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers are met with tank and aerial bombardment of their entire neighborhoods. News photos abound with the images of the blown-apart body parts of children. All Israel need do is label them "Hamas."
But none of this horror could take place without the massive political, monetary and military aid the U.S. is, and has been, supplying to Israel since before its birth in 1948.
In a News Analysis written by Ethan Bronner that appeared in the Times December 29, 2008 entitled, "Israel Reminds Foes That It Has Teeth," Bronner, reports that while Israel maintains that the reason they are carrying out this military operation in Gaza is to force, "...Hamas to end its rocket barrages and military buildup." He goes on to say, "But it has another goal as well: to expunge the ghost of its flawed 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and re-establish Israeli deterrence." Bronner continues, "...[Israel] worries that its enemies are less afraid of it than they once were, or should be. Israeli leaders are calculating that a display of power in Gaza could fix that."
But in another article (also December 29) that appeared in Counterpunch, by Joshua Frank, entitled "Obama and the 'Special Relationship'," the author writes, "Over the last seven years only 17 Israeli citizens have been killed by Palestinian rocket fire, which makes it extremely difficult for Israeli politicians, which are in the midst of an election, to argue that their response has been proportionate or defensible in any way."
Not only have the people in Gaza been enduring an Israeli blockade of all goods and services, including electricity, water and medical supplies and equipment, for over a year; the death toll among all the people of Palestine is counted in the tens-of-thousands since before the formation of Israel in 1948.
And, as for U.S. intentions in the region from that time on, in an article in the March 1995 issue of The Middle East Forum Promoting American Interests entitled, "Jesse Helms: Setting the Record Straight," Helms, who was the senior senator from North Carolina and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time stated,
"I have long believed that if the United States is going to give money to Israel, it should be paid out of the Department of Defense budget. My question is this: If Israel did not exist, what would U.S. defense costs in the Middle East be? Israel is at least the equivalent of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Middle East. Without Israel promoting its and America's common interests, we would be badly off indeed."1
This quote was from 13 years ago. Just think of the buildup of Israel's arsenal funded by U.S. dollars since that time! How many aircraft carriers is Israel worth today with its U.S.-stocked nuclear arsenal?
This siege on Gaza is not just to throw the proverbial fear of the almighty into the people of Gaza but to all who stand opposed to U.S. wars and occupations throughout the world, including opposition to their funding of Israel's ongoing and relentless war against the Palestinian people.
In fact, Palestine can be viewed as the first front of the U.S. "War on Terror." The U.S. came out on top of the world imperialist heap after WWII. And immediately it facilitated the formation of Israel with the intention of establishing Israel as a beachhead for U.S. imperialist interests in the Middle East. That's why they have funded Israel's war against the people of Palestine all these years since Israel's formation.
The U.S./Israeli war on Palestine cannot be separated from the U.S. War on Terror any more than you can separate the war on Iraq from the war on Afghanistan; the attacks in Pakistan; the threat to Iran, etc. It is just another front along its designated "Axis of Evil" which includes many other targets around the world in Lebanon, Africa, Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, Columbia-anywhere the U.S. meets resistance to their imperialist exploitation of workers and natural resources.
It is incumbent upon the American people including the entire antiwar movement in this country to stand squarely opposed to these murderous assaults against a people pummeled by war for decades, bankrolled by the U.S. to benefit U.S. Big Business and maintain its world military domination!
The working class of the U.S. must join the workers of the rest of the world not only to condemn the ongoing bloodshed and the inhuman blockade of Gaza, and demand it end immediately, but it must condemn all U.S. funding and aid to Israel and demand that it end NOW!
We must educate people who have been brainwashed by years of lies and propaganda justifying the hundreds of billions of dollars this bipartisan government has already spent funding the wars to insure U.S. domination in the Middle East. And we must point out that Israel-the former Palestine-is but one of 725-plus U.S. military bases around the globe.
The antiwar movement can make a huge step forward by demanding that the U.S. end all aid to Israel now. Palestinian speakers should be featured at antiwar rallies.
"End All U.S. Aid to Israel NOW! Not One More Dime for War and Occupation! Bring All the Troops and Contractors Home from Iraq and Afghanistan NOW! Money for Human Needs Not War and Occupation!"
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4) The Sand Creek logic of the Gaza Massacre
Friday, January 9, 2009
By Travis Wilkerson
http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=10911
[ALSO CHECK OUT: http://sandcreekmassacre.net/videos/]
Colonial oppressors stick to tried-and-true practices
What is presently happening in Gaza will enter history as one of the worst atrocities committed by the state of Israel against the people of Palestine. It will rank alongside nightmares such as the massacres in Jenin and in Sabra and Shatila. The devastation has been unleashed with the full material and political support of the US government.
Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the world. It receives more than $15 million every day from the United States. The F-16 fighter jets and apache helicopters that have rained down thousands of tons of bombs and missiles on Gaza are provided to the Israeli government by the Pentagon. It is inconceivable that the Israeli aggression in Gaza could have taken place without the explicit consent and military support of the U.S. government.
Using numbers alone, the offensive against Gaza is an abject massacre. At the time of this writing, 10 Israelis have died, including three civilians. The Palestinian numbers are constantly rising, but at this moment at least 660 Palestinians have been killed, hundreds of them civilians. Many thousands more have been seriously injured and Gaza is on the verge of a humanitarian crisis on a scale unfamiliar even to many Palestinians. (Since Gaza is one of the most densily populated areas of the world,it is impossible to believe the Israeli's, when tthey claim that they are targeting only 'terrorists' -- every bomb dropped upon Gaza always kills civilians.)
It is interesting to put Gaza in the context of an earlier atrocity.
In November 1864, the worst single massacre of American Indians in western settlement took place in the frozen plains of territorial Colorado southeast of Denver. A regiment of Colorado volunteer cavalry led by Colonel John Chivington attacked without warning a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, who were peacefully camped along the Sand Creek.
The Indians were there both with government treaty and explicit territorial permission. They flew not only a white flag of surrender, but also an American flag over the village. In fact, most of the Indian men of fighting age were off hunting, because they rightly assumed their encampment was safe. Instead, Chivington and his men massacred the entire village.
They killed indiscriminately, butchering equally men, women and children. The soldiers raped several women and decapitated babies before their mothers. They also mutilated the bodies of the victims. Several men fashioned mutilated vaginas into necklaces they wore during their victory parade through the muddy streets of Denver.
Chivington has gone down in infamy. But one thing should be clear: He was doing exactly what the white settlers and their territorial government wanted him to do.
Remember, this was Colorado territory before statehood. The whole of the future state had been given by treaty to the Indians of the region: the Cheyenne and Arapaho in the East and the Utes in the West. The land was theirs, even by the white man's law, plain and simple.
And then white surveyors identified things of value in Colorado. First and foremost, gold was discovered, triggering the initial burst of settlement. Failed miners often turned to agriculture on the fertile plains of Colorado. Later, other resources were discovered and coveted, especially coal.
So how do you take land that isn't yours? You settle that land. You simply take the land you want. And then your army defends the settlers. Of course, that breeds anger and discontent from the population that lives there, with absolute right.
Chivington gives the following defense of butchering the village: First, the Indians were hostile to the settlers, especially in the preceding months. Second, among Indians, it is impossible to distinguish enemy from non-combatant, because the combatants hide among the non-combatants. Third, Indians had killed some white settlers and taken their property. Fourth, Indians didn't respect the "chastity" of women.
Here's how the Rocky Mountain News, the official paper of white settlement, justifies the massacre: "The confessed murderers of the Hungate family-a man and wife and their two little babes, whose scalped and mutilated remains were seen by all our citizens-were 'friendly Indians,' we suppose, in the eyes of these 'high officials.' They fell in the Sand Creek battle."
The accusation-which, incidentally, was false-was that the Indians camped along Sand Creek had killed four settlers. And so Chivington and his men had permission to murder somewhere on the order of 200 Native Americans in retaliation. One settler's life is worth 50 Indian lives, goes the racist logic.
Meanwhile, half a world away and in another century, the Israeli military employs far more sophisticated means as it rains horror upon the dense, squalid reservation known as Gaza.
Israel's defense for all this? Rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel. Rocket fire, which, in the years prior to the bombing campaign and invasion, had killed exactly four settlers. Sound familiar?
Israel has undertaken a nearly incomprehensible atrocity against a people already living under inhuman conditions in alleged "self-defense." Using U.S. weapons, Israel has now murdered at least 660 Palestinians. One Israeli life is now worth at least 165 Palestinian lives. How else but through the prism of naked racism can Israeli life be calculated to be hundreds of times more valuable than Palestinian life?
This is the Sand Creek logic of the Gaza Massacre. Except that the numbers have gotten even worse.
Chivington was removed from command, but never punished. This should come as no surprise. In fact, his best friend was the governor and he was doing precisely what the settlers wanted. He was terrorizing the indigenous population to make white settlement easier.
History has been a bit harsher to Chivington, who no longer has a single prominent defender. He is regarded as something between a fool and a monster. There is no longer a single monument in his name, save an abandoned town near the site of the massacre.
Meanwhile, the attack on Gaza has eclipsed even Sand Creek with the scope of its barbarity. On Jan. 6, word came that Israel had murdered dozens of Palestinians cowering in a school in a U.N. refugee camp. Think about that one more time: Israel is now openly bombing targets such as schools, ambulances and health workers, and claiming even that amounts to self-defense.
Palestinians have replaced Indians and the Israeli state has replaced white settlements, but the underlying principles remain the same. The perpetrators wish their violence to be horrific and public. They wish it to be terrifying. If we can't subjugate you, we will simply exterminate you. And let this genocide be a warning to others.
What form of justice is adequate in the face of a crime such as this? What form of recompense for the attempted destruction of an entire people?
Like those who once defended Sand Creek, defenders of the Gaza massacre should be exposed to all for what they are: racist apologists of whole-scale barbarism, aiding and abetting an indefensible, criminal explosion of violence. These defenders include the entire political leadership of the U.S. government. History will not judge them merely as fools.
End the Gaza massacre! Long live Palestine!
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5) Gaza: Canadian Union of Postal Workers calls for boycott
by Denis Lemelin, National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
January 7th, 2009
http://uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=18088
http://www.tadamon.ca/post/2597
On behalf of the 56,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, I am writing to demand that the Canadian government condemn the military assault on the people of Gaza that the state of Israel commenced on December 26th, 2008.
Canada must also call for a cessation of the ongoing Israeli siege of Gaza, which has resulted in the collective punishment of the entire Gaza population.
Canada must also address the root cause of the violence: Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
Israel's current actions are totally out of proportion with any notion of self-defense. Israel's actions are resulting in the massacre of people in Gaza.
Israel's action will not bring peace to the region. They will result in Israel being less secure.
Professor Richard Falk, the UN's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied territories, has characterized the Israeli offensive as containing "...severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regards to the obligations of an occupying power and in the requirements of the laws of
war."
CUPW strongly urges the Canadian government to condemn the serious violations of humanitarian and international law by the state of Israel.
The Israeli Government's siege and military incursions into Gaza are not isolated events. It is a direct result of Israel's ongoing occupation of Palestine and the refusal of the Israeli government to abide by numerous United Nations security council resolutions.
Therefore, as a longer term strategy, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers is asking your government to adopt a program of boycott, divestment and sanctions until Israel recognizes the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and complies with international law, including the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes as stipulated in UN resolution 194.
Yours truly,
Denis Lemelin
National President
cc.
Michael Ignatieff, Liberal Leader
Jack Layton, NDP Leader
Gilles Duceppe, Bloc Quebecois Leader
Ken Georgetti, Canadian Labor Congress
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6) Oakland Education Association Condemns Israeli Assault On Gaza And Role Of US Government
by Oakland Education Association
Wednesday Jan 7th, 2009 5:35 PM
http://www.oaklandea.org
The Oakland Education Association which represents the teachers in Oakland, California has passed a strong resolution protesting the Israeli attack on the people of Gaza and the role of the US in supporting these assaults.
Oakland Education Association Condemns Israeli Assault On Gaza And Role Of US Government
The OEA unreservedly condemn the murderous Israeli assault on Gaza, their deliberate targeting of the civilian population, including schools and hospitals, and Israels ongoing collective punishment of the Palestinian people which has been carried out with the strong support of the U.S. government. We support the Right to Return and call for the establishment of a bi-national secular state in Israel-Palestine. In line with this motion, we encourage teachers to open their classrooms to discussion and teaching on the crisis in Gaza.
Oakland Education Association
http://www.oaklandea.org
272 E 12th St
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7) Pro-Israel Rally Attended by Big-Time NY Dems Descends into Calls for 'Wiping Out' Palestinians
By Max Blumenthal, AlterNet
Posted on January 13, 2009, Printed on January 13, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/119372/
Watch Max Blumenthal's exlusive video of the rally on the right-hand side of the screen [AT http://www.alternet.org/story/119372/ ].
On January 11, an estimated 10,000 people rallied in front of the Israeli consulate in midtown New York in support of Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip. The rally, which was organized by UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York in cooperation with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, featured speeches by New York's most senior lawmakers. While the crowd was riled to righteous anger by speeches about Hamas evildoers, the event was a festive affair that began and ended with singing and joyous dancing.
Sen. Chuck Schumer highlighted Israel's supposed humanitarian methods of warfare by pointing to its text messaging of certain Gaza Strip residents urging them to vacate their homes before Israeli forces bombed them. "What other country would do that?" Schumer shouted from the podium. Gov. David Paterson appeared on stage wearing one of the red hats distributed to demonstrators as symbols of the red alerts some residents of Israel endure when Palestinian groups fire rockets their way. Paterson cited the many Qasam rockets that have fallen on Israel as a justification for the country's operations in Gaza, a military assault that has resulted in over 800 casualties and thousands of injuries.
Then Paterson highlighted the anti-Semitism that has followed in the wake of Israel's attack on Gaza, highlighting the beating of a teen-age girl in France. "This kind of anger and hatred spreads like a disease," Paterson said, "and one thing I've always pointed out is there's no place for hate in the Empire State."
But hatred was plentiful at the rally Paterson addressed. Right in front of the stage, a man held a banner reading, "Islam Is A Death Cult." Rally attendees described the people of Gaza to me as a "cancer," called for Israel to "wipe them all out," insisting, "They are forcing us to kill their children in order to defend our own children." A young woman told me, "Those who die are suffering God's wrath." "They are not distinguishing between civilians and military, so why should we?" said a member of the group of messianic Orthodox Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch group that flocked to the rally.
No one I spoke to could seem to find any circumstance in which they would begin to question Israel's war. No number of civilian deaths, no displays of extreme suffering -- nothing could deter their enthusiasm for attacking one of the most vulnerable populations in the world with the world's most advanced weaponry. There are no limits, no matter what Israel does, no matter how it does it.
The rally made me think of a passage in "The Holocaust Is Over, We Must Rise From Its Ashes," a powerful new book by former Israeli Knesset speaker and Jewish National Fund chairman Avraham Burg:
"If you are a bad person, a whining enemy or a strong-arm occupier, you are not my brother, even if you are circumcised, observe the Sabbath, and do mitzvahs. If your scarf covers every hair on your head for modest, you give alms and do charity, but what is under your scarf is dedicated to the sanctity of Jewish land, taking precedence over the sanctity of human life, whosever life that is, then your are not my sister. You might be my enemy. A good Arab or a righteous gentile will be a brother or sister to me. A wicked man, even of Jewish descent, is my adversary, and I would stand on the other side of the barricade and fight him to the end."
Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for The Daily Beast and contributor to outlets including The Nation, Al Jazeera English, Salon.com, Alternet, the Huffington Post, and the Washington Monthly. A winner of the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Award for his investigative print journalism, he has produced numerous widely-recognized video reports that have garnered hundreds of thousands of views on Youtube. His book, "Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party," will be published by Basic Books in 2009.
(c) 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/119372/
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8) Children of Bil'in protest for Gaza
January 11, 2009
http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=115&Itemid=1
ffj-Bilin-Sunday 11\1\2009 Children of Bil'in wore shirts with red paint on them in a protest this morning as a symbolic to what the children of Gaza are facing, death and mascaras due to the Israeli bombardment.
The children raised Palestinian flags and the Venezuelan flag, in appreciation of Venezuela's removal the Israeli ambassador from his post and their support for the Palestinian cause. They also carried signs condemning violence against civilians especially children.
The children walked through the village chanting for Gaza and for solidarity with the children there. Also the children of Bil'in called on all the children in the world to go out and protest for Gaza and also called on the world to stop the Israeli violence against the residents.The protest moved towards the wall which is located in the western side of the village to demonstrate against the occupation and the Israeli soldiers' practices towards the Palestinian civilians. The Israeli army fired tear gas towards the children and caused dozens to suffer gas inhalation
http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=115&Itemid=1
Thank you for you continued support,
Iyad Burnat- Head of Popular Commitee in Bilin
Head of Friends of Freedom and Justice in Bilin
Email- ffj.bilin@yahoo.com
Mobile- (00972) (0) 547847942
Office- (00972) (2) 2489129
Fax- (00972) (2) 2489129
www.bilin-ffj.org
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9) A Sense of Who We Are
Editorial
January 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/opinion/13tue1.html
A scene from the last days of the Bush administration: On a snowy afternoon last weekend, a church in New York City is filled to bursting with more than 1,000 people. Parents holding babies, teenagers, old men and women with heavy coats and canes. They murmur and shout in prayer, a keyboard and guitar carrying their voices to the height of the vaulted ceiling.
The music has a deafening buoyancy, but as congregants step forward to speak, their testimony is heavy with foreboding and sorrow. They tell of families terrorized and split apart.
A young woman from Pakistan describes humiliating conditions at a detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., where she was sent with her mother and ailing father. A mother tells of her son, an Army sergeant and citizen, losing his wife to deportation. A Mexican man, with theatrical defiance, waves a shoe at the unnamed forces that have thwarted his desire to legalize.
It is hard to appear sinister in a church, and the congregation at Iglesia La Sinagoga, a center of Pentecostalism on 125th Street in East Harlem, seemed utterly ordinary. But as undocumented immigrants and their loved ones, they are the main targets of the Bush administration's immigration war.
Families like theirs have endured a relentless campaign of intimidation and expulsion, organized at the top levels of the federal government and haphazardly delegated to state and local governments.
The campaign has been disproportionate and cruel. The evidence is everywhere.
On Monday, The Times reported that federal immigration prosecutions had soared in the last five years, overloading federal courts with misdemeanor cases of illegal border crossers, who are tried and sentenced in groups of 40 to 60 for efficiency. At the same time, prosecutions for weapons, organized crime, public corruption and drugs have plummeted. The Arizona attorney general called the situation "a national abdication by the Justice Department."
And last week, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, in an appalling last-minute ruling, declared that immigrants do not have the constitutional right to a lawyer in a deportation hearing and thus have no right to appeal on the grounds of bad legal representation. Mr. Mukasey overturned a decades-old practice designed to ensure robust constitutional protection for immigrants - one needed now more than ever in the days of the Bush administration's assembly-line prosecutions.
The event at the Pentecostal church was organized by local ministers and Democratic politicians to spur the cause of immigration reform this year.
It could be a difficult case to make. We heard far too little about the need for immigration reform from President-elect Barack Obama during the general election - and virtually nothing from the nation's leaders since then. But the United States cannot afford to put immigration on a back burner and merely continue with the existing enforcement regime. The costs are too high for the country's values. And they are too high for the economy.
Defending immigrants' rights defends standards in all workplaces. Workers who are terrorized into submission, in families that are destroyed by deportation and raids, are more likely to undercut other workers by tolerating low pay and miserable job conditions.
Restoring proportionality and good sense to the criminal justice system also would free up resources for fighting serious crimes. Most important, repairing a system warped by political priorities into hunting down and punishing the wrong people - like those bringing their suffering to a Pentecostal church - would help restore a sense of what the country stands for, and remind us of who we are.
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10) Israeli Officials Say Hamas Is Damaged but Not Destroyed
By STEVEN ERLANGER and SABRINA TAVERNISE
[Photo of 10-year-old boy blinded and burned by white phosphorous is also at this site...bw]
January 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/world/middleeast/14mideast.html?hp
TEL AVIV - As Israeli forces tightened their circle around Gaza on Tuesday, senior Israeli intelligence officials said Hamas military forces had been damaged but remained substantially intact. The intelligence officials were briefing reporters.
The assessment, which comes in stark contrast to officials' comments on Sunday suggesting that the leadership had been damaged and that Hamas was ready to accept a truce, came as the war on Hamas entered its 18th day. The Israeli military saying its warplanes launched 60 air strikes overnight in a continued drive to destroy Hamas's ability to fire rockets into Israel.
One target was a hotel where Hamas gunmen were said by Israel to be gathering, the military said.
Speaking in return for customary anonymity, the intelligence officials said the military wing of Hamas has been hit "to a certain extent" with "a few hundred," Hamas fighters killed during the ground offensive that began midway through the war.
But greater damage has been done to Hamas's capacity to run the Gaza strip, with a large number of governmental buildings destroyed over the course of the operation.
One Israeli soldier has been killed by a suicide bomber during the operations, intelligence officials said.
Hamas militants are using rockets that are Chinese-made and supplied by Iran, the intelligence officials said.
The rockets are now hitting targets that are up to 25 miles away, a longer distance than before, with some of them being smuggled into Gaza in parts and assembled inside to be shot. The officials said ranges longer than 25 miles were unlikely.
The launches have diminished, with between 70 and 80 a day before the war to between 20 and 30 now, including as many as 10 more serious grad missiles.
Under growing military pressure, Hamas fired at least two rockets into southern Israel on Tuesday, far fewer than in some recent days. The missiles struck the city of Beersheba but there were no reports of casualties.
The assessment of Hamas's resilience came just two days after Israel's cabinet secretary, Oved Yehezkel, told reporters that in the regular weekly cabinet meeting the heads of army intelligence and of the Shin Bet security service had said that Hamas was inclined to agree to a cease-fire, "given the harsh blow it received and given the absence of accomplishment on the ground."
That day, another senior Israeli security official said that Hamas units were making mistakes and fighting without clear direction.
Despite international demands for a cease-fire and mounting humanitarian worries, there seemed little prospect of a respite.
Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi said on Israel Army Radio on Tuesday that Israeli forces were making progress "in hitting Hamas, its infrastructure, its regime," but said that forces yet to complete their mission. "We still have work ahead of us," he said.
Palestinians in central Gaza City reported hearing numerous explosions on Monday night, as well as the sound of tanks moving closer to the center of the city.
The Israeli military said one Israeli officer was critically wounded and two Israeli soldiers suffered light wounds in overnight fighting. The three were hurt, the military said, after a bomb exploded in a booby trapped house that they were searching.
The fighting came amid continued diplomacy in Egypt, whose officials were talking with Hamas representatives about a possible truce.
In a televised speech on Monday night, a senior Hamas official, Ismail Haniya, expressed an openness to a diplomatic solution but reiterated previous demands that any deal include the opening of Gaza's border crossings, which Israel and Egypt have kept mostly closed since Hamas violently pushed out its rival Fatah in 2007.
"We are not closed to this path," he said of diplomacy, speaking from hiding in Gaza.
On Tuesday, however, Hamas said it had "substantial reservations" about an Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza.
"There are reservations on this initiative, substantial reservations, related to the position of the resistance on the ground," a senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouq told Al Jazeera television, Reuters reported from Cairo.
An Israeli official postponed a trip to Cairo on Monday. It was not clear whether he would depart on Tuesday.
Humanitarian shipments continued to flow on Tuesday. The Regional Director for the Middle East of the World Food Program, Daly Belgasmi, presided over a shipment at the Kerem Shalom crossing point. The president for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Jakob Kellenberger, visited Gaza City on Tuesday as the Israeli Army continued to press its military campaign.
Israel also said it would order a temporary lull Tuesday to permit around 100 trucks with relief supplies into the beleaguered coastal strip, one of the world's most overcrowded places.
Steven Erlanger reported from Tel Aviv and Sabrina Tavernise from Jerusalem
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11) U.N. Warns of Refugee Crisis in Gaza Strip
By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and SABRINA TAVERNISE
January 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/world/middleeast/14gaza.html?ref=world
GAZA CITY - Growing numbers of Palestinians are fleeing their homes for makeshift shelters in schools, office buildings and a park as the Israeli Army continues to press its military campaign deeper into Gaza City.
According to the United Nations, about 30,000 people are living in schools it sponsors and an estimated 60,000 have fled to the houses of relatives. The figures still represent a small part of Gaza's 1.5 million population but have doubled in the past four days, United Nations officials said, raising concerns about the humanitarian impact of a broader war.
"What began as very small, isolated numbers is now turning into a torrent," said Aidan O'Leary, deputy director for the United Nations agency that deals with Palestinian refugees.
Maj. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli military spokesman, said units used leaflets to warn families to leave areas where they planned to operate. Aid officials say that with Gaza's borders closed, choices for shelters in the 140-square-mile strip are slim and the shelters are not completely safe. Last week, as many as 43 people were killed near a United Nations school by an Israeli mortar strike that the military said was in response to a Hamas attack. The Israeli military disputes the death toll.
Aid groups, meantime, spotlighted what they said was a growing number of refugees. When Israeli soldiers moved deeper into the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza on Sunday night, Olfat Jaawanah decided she had had enough. Shrapnel flew through a window, injuring her son, Ali, she said, and on Monday morning, she gathered a few blankets and moved her nine children out of their large house.
The nearby United Nations school was full - its bare classrooms packed with families and its toilets smelling foul - so she took her family instead to her husband's office, in a building belonging to an international organization in the center of Gaza City.
According to Mr. O'Leary, about a third of the agency's 91 schools are now full.
Movement is complicated by the confusion over when it is safe to leave. When the Abu Hajaj family received a leaflet last weekend, they took it as a sign of safe passage. But Majad Abdel Karim Abu Hajaj, a teacher at a United Nations school, said his mother and sister were killed as they walked holding a white flag. Their bodies remain where they fell, he said, because ambulances cannot get to the area.
Sarit Michaeli of B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, said she had had six reports of families stuck in areas now occupied by Israeli troops.
At times, the city took on a cinematic quality. A woman came with a pan and dough to Al Nasir hospital, asking for the use of its electricity so she could bake. A corpse was wheeled in a donkey cart where an ambulance was afraid to go.
Humanitarian shipments were moving on Monday, and Egypt, under pressure to do more for Palestinian victims of the conflict, agreed to allow in 38 Arab doctors and a group of European legislators.
Palestinians interviewed in Gaza on Monday cited another reason for their flight: Israel soldiers, they said, are firing rounds of a noxious substance that burns skin and makes it hard to breathe.
A resident of southwest Gaza City on Monday showed a reporter a piece of metal casing with the identifying number M825A1, which Marc Garlasco, a military analyst with Human Rights Watch, identified as white phosphorus, typically used for signaling, smoke screens and destroying enemy equipment.
In recent years, experts and rights advocates have argued over whether its use to intentionally harm people violates international conventions.
Major Dallal would not say whether Israel was using white phosphorus, but said, "The munitions we use are consistent with international law."
Still, white phosphorus can cause injury, and a growing number of Gazans report being hurt by it, including in Beit Lahiya, Khan Yunis, and in eastern and southwestern Gaza City. When exposed to air, it ignites, experts say, and if packed into an artillery shell, it can rain down flaming chemicals that cling to anything they touch.
Luay Suboh, 10, from Beit Lahiya, lost his eyesight and some skin on his face Saturday when, his mother said, a fiery substance clung to him as he darted home from a shelter where his family was staying to pick up clothes.
The substance smelled like burned trash, said Ms. Jaawanah, the mother who fled her home in Zeitoun, who had experienced it too. She had no affection for Hamas, but her sufferings were changing that. "Do you think I'm against them firing rockets now?" she asked, referring to Hamas. "No. I was against it before. Not anymore."
Taghreed El-Khodary reported from Gaza City, and Sabrina Tavernise from Jerusalem. Steven Erlanger contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and William J. Broad from New York.
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12) Israeli Forces Squeeze Gaza, Say Work Still Ahead
By REUTERS
Filed at 11:35 a.m. ET
January 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/01/13/world/international-us-palestinians-israel.html
GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces pushed closer to the heart of the city of Gaza on Tuesday and Israel's top general said "there is still work ahead" against Hamas in a devastating 18-day-old offensive.
The Palestinian death toll rose to 952, Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry said, counting some 400 women and children among those killed in the Israeli campaign. Israel says 10 Israeli soldiers and three civilians hit by Hamas rockets have died.
Explosions and heavy machinegun fire echoed through the city of 500,000 after Israeli tanks moved nearer to its densely populated downtown area but did not enter, residents said.
Talat Jad, a 30-year-old resident of the Gaza suburb of Tel al-Hawa where tanks thrust overnight, said he and 15 members of his family gathered in one room of their house, too frightened to look out the window.
"We even silenced our mobile phones because we were afraid the soldiers in the tanks could hear them," Jad said. "Some of us recited from the Koran and others prayed the sounds of explosions would die down."
Medical workers said 18 Palestinian gunmen, most of them members of the Islamist Hamas group that rules the Gaza Strip, and seven civilians were killed in the latest fighting.
In Cairo, a Hamas delegation resumed talks with Egypt on a ceasefire plan proposed by the Arab country, which borders the Gaza Strip and Israel and has made peace with the Jewish state.
Israeli aircraft attacked 60 targets, including tunnels used by Gaza militants to smuggle arms across the border from Egypt, weapon-making sites and Hamas command posts, the army said. Two rockets hit Beersheba in southern Israel, causing no casualties.
"We have achieved a lot in hitting Hamas and its infrastructure, its rule and its armed wing, but there is still work ahead," Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, chief of staff of Israel's armed forces, told a parliamentary committee.
Ashkenazi said Israeli aircraft had carried out more than 2,300 strikes since the offensive -- Israel's deadliest against Palestinians in decades -- was launched on December 27.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was heading to the region for a week of talks with leaders in Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Syria aimed at ending the bloodshed.
"My message is simple, direct, and to the point: the fighting must stop. To both sides, I say: Just stop now," Ban told reporters before his departure.
Human rights groups have reported shortages of vital supplies, including water, in the Gaza Strip. A fuel shortage has brought frequent power blackouts.
Israel has permitted almost daily truck shipments of food and medicine. But in a new report, Human Rights Watch said Israel's daily 3-hour break in attacks to facilitate the supply of humanitarian aid to Gazans was "woefully insufficient."
Iranian state radio said an Iranian ship carrying aid to the Gaza Strip was stopped by Israel's navy off the coast of the Palestinian territory. An Israeli military spokesman said he had no report of any such encounter.
URBAN WARFARE
Political sources said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni decided late on Monday against ordering troops in the next two or three days to engage in all-out urban warfare.
Opening a "Phase 3" of the offensive would likely complicate truce efforts, lead to intense street fighting and could cause heavy casualties on both sides, a politically risky move less than a month before Israel's parliamentary election.
Barak said in broadcast remarks that Israel had "respectfully" heard Ban's appeal and was monitoring Egypt's ceasefire mediation, but it would continue to hit Hamas while diplomatic efforts were under way.
Hamas says Israel must pull back all its troops under a ceasefire and end the blockade of the Gaza Strip that it tightened after the group seized the coastal enclave from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.
Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouq told Al Jazeera television it had "substantial observations" about the ceasefire plan.
Israel has rebuffed as "unworkable" a U.N. Security Council ceasefire resolution last week and said a truce must ensure Hamas cannot rearm through tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.
Ashkenazi said Israeli warplanes had bombed "all of the known tunnels" during the offensive, "very seriously hurting Hamas's ability to smuggle in weapons."
Earlier an Israeli general, speaking to reporters touring Israeli positions, said his forces were "tightening the encirclement" of the city of Gaza. Israeli armor also pushed into villages near the southern town of Khan Younis.
The bloodshed has opened faultlines in the map of Middle East diplomacy, with the Bush administration in its final week standing behind Israel, Europe pressing Israel to call off its attacks and Arab leaders speaking out against the Jewish state.
(Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem; writing by Jeffrey Heller; editing by Andrew Roche)
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13) Justices Say Evidence Is Valid Despite Police Error
By DAVID STOUT
January 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/washington/15scotus.html?hp
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the conviction of an Alabama man on drug and weapons charges, emphasizing that the exclusionary rule, which generally bars prosecutors from using evidence obtained by the police through improper searches, is far from absolute.
In a 5-to-4 opinion, the court upheld the federal conviction of Bennie Dean Herring, who from the court records appears to have been very unlucky as well as felonious in his conduct. In upholding the conviction, the court's majority came to a conclusion that will most likely please those who complain about criminals going free on "technicalities" and alarm those who fear that the high court is looking for ways to narrow the reach of the exclusionary rule.
Mr. Herring had gone to the Coffee County, Ala., sheriff's department on July 7, 2004, to retrieve something from his truck, which had been impounded. "Herring was no stranger to law enforcement," as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. observed dryly in his opinion for the court.
And he was no stranger to Mark Anderson, an investigator for the sheriff's department, who asked a Coffee County clerk if there were any outstanding warrants for Mr. Herring.
No, Mr. Anderson was told. So he asked the clerk to check with her counterpart in neighboring Dale County, who turned up a warrant against Mr. Herring for failing to appear in court on a felony charge.
Mr. Anderson and a deputy following Mr. Herring as he left the impound lot pulled him over and arrested him. A search turned up methamphetamine in his pocket and a pistol, which Mr. Herring could not legally possess because of an earlier felony conviction, in his truck.
Within minutes, however, the Dale County clerk discovered that the warrant against Mr. Herring had been withdrawn five months earlier and had been left in the computer system by mistake. The clerk immediately called Mr. Anderson, but Mr. Herring had already been taken into custody.
Was Mr. Herring entitled to go free because the officers lacked probable cause and there was no dispute that both the arrest and subsequent search were unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment? No, the Supreme Court ruled.
"When police mistakes leading to an unlawful search are the result of isolated negligence attenuated from the search, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements, the exclusionary rule does not apply," Chief Justice Roberts wrote in an opinion joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
"We do not suggest that all recordkeeping errors by the police are immune from the exclusionary rule," the majority noted. But the justices said the official errors in the Herring case do not compare with the kind of egregious and deliberate police misconduct that gave rise to the exclusionary rule in the first place.
Deciding when to throw out evidence under the exclusionary rule is a balancing act, the majority said. Is the official misconduct serious enough that the evidence should be disallowed to deter future misconduct, even if criminals sometimes go free?
Not in Mr. Herring's case, the majority ruled, upholding findings by a federal district court and the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer dissented. "In my view, the court's opinion underestimates the need for a forceful exclusionary rule and the gravity of recordkeeping errors in the law enforcement," Justice Ginsburg wrote.
But in the majority opinion, the chief justice wrote that the exclusionary rule "is not an individual right and applies only where its deterrent effect outweighs the substantial cost of letting guilty and possibly dangerous defendants go free."
At another point, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that "the very phrase 'probable cause' confirms that the Fourth Amendment does not demand all possible precision."
The dissenters were unpersuaded, however. "Negligent recordkeeping errors by law enforcement threaten individual liberty, are susceptible to deterrence by the exclusionary rule, and cannot be remedied effectively through other means," Justice Ginsburg wrote.
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14) Sectarian Exclusion Mars Mumia Demo in San Francisco
To: Supporters of death-row political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal
From: the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (LAC)
January 11, 2009
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222
Oakland CA 94610
LACFreeMumia@aol.org
Dear Mumia Supporters,
While Mumia continues into his 27th year locked up for a crime he didn't commit, and his death-penalty case faces an uncertain future before the US Supreme Court (which has ruled in earlier cases that innocence is no defense), a demonstration was held in San Francisco that failed to deliver the defense that Mumia deserves. Instead, this action was marred by both poor attendance and a crass sectarianism that turned the whole endeavor into a tempest in a teapot.
The demonstration was held on the 9th of December 2008, 27 years to the day after the shooting in Philadelphia in which a cop was killed, and Mumia's frame-up began. It was held in front of the federal courthouse in SF, at the busy intersection of Mission & 7th. Called by the Mobilization To Free Mumia, it was part of world-wide demonstrations around the 27th year of Mumia's unjust incarceration, but there was little sense of the urgency, or unity, or class struggle that is needed to free Mumia from the death grip of the racist, capitalist state.
One speaker, Jack Heyman, of ILWU Local 10 (longshore workers in SF/Oakland) tried to open up the discussion. As the initiator of the longshore workers' West Coast port shutdown to free Mumia that headlined the big march in SF on April 24 1999, he spoke of that action, and of the need for more such class struggle. He mentioned Troy Davis, the innocent Georgia defendant also threatened with death, whose case went before a 3-judge panel of the 11th Circuit that same day (Dec 9th). He then said he thought "all groups here had a right to speak," and tried to pass the microphone to a spokesperson for the Partisan Defense Committee (PDC), the oldest Mumia-defending organization still active (created/supported by the Spartacist League). This attempt was immediately interrupted by Mobilization organizers of the rally, who said that the PDC had no right to speak, because they criticize the Mobilization's policies. "Criticising the Mobilization is not a democratic right [at a Mobe demonstration]"--that's a direct quote!
The demonstration was supported by representatives of the Freedom Socialist Party, Socialist Action, Socialist Viewpoint, International Bolshevik Tendency, Peace And Freedom Party, and the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (LAC); but PDC supporters comprised at least a third of this demonstration. The LAC concluded, from reports and conversations at the time, that most of those present at the demonstration supported the PDC's right to speak; but this was not to be.
Mobe spokespersons Jeff Mackler and Laura Herrera took the mic immediately after Jack Heyman, and gave long, belabored explanations about why the PDC couldn't be allowed to speak (including the quote above). But members of the Labor Action Committee didn't hear all of it; we were packing up to leave. We headed over a few blocks to a demonstration in front of the Bank of America at Market and Powell, in support of the workers who sat in and occupied their work place in Chicago in defiance of both their employer and the BofA.
At the Mobilization-initiated rally at the same site in San Francisco on May 17th 2007, the SL/PDC was allowed to speak--despite an apparent initial intention to bar them--after LAC spokespeople argued for their right to do so. When the Mobe later voted against allowing the SL/PDC to speak at future events, we protested that decision.
And LAC supporters made a similar intervention against the PDC/SL when that group tried to commit a similar act of sectarian exclusion. Following the outrageous denial by the 3rd Circuit Federal Court of any relief for Mumia last year, the PDC organized a series of actions internationally on April 19th. LAC supporters at the Oakland demonstration, a united-front at which one of our people spoke, were told that Fred Hampton Jr, son of murdered Black Panther Fred Hampton, and chairman of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee (POCC), was not going to be allowed to speak. We immediately protested to the PDC/SL leadership, and the POCC subsequently was allowed to speak.
The Mumia defense movement is a united-front effort. There are many groups with different views involved, but the movement depends on being able to pull together. This is what we did in 1995, when mass mobilizations stopped the state's attempt to execute Mumia; and this is what we did in 1999, when longshore workers shut down the West-Coast ports, Oakland teachers held unauthorized teach-ins, and masses came together on April 24th 1999. Nobody gave up their right to criticise others then, and nobody should be made to do so now.
The PDC has views about why demonstrations for Mumia have been too small in recent years, which only their spokespersons can do justice to. But cowardly sectarianism is the only reason we can think of to try to shut them up at a demonstration of under a hundred that ought to have been thousands. The Mobe leaders' actions on December 9th were much more divisive of the Mumia defense movement than the criticisms the PDC probably would have leveled, had they been allowed to speak.
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal works with any legitimate Mumia supporters, including both the Mobilization and the PDC, but we cannot tolerate the gagging of defenders of Mumia. Let's work together, and mobilize to free Mumia.
Mumia is innocent! For labor action to free Mumia!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, organized in 1999, is a united-front organization which stands for a class struggle defense, and for no reliance on the proven-many-times-over racist, anti-worker, capitalist courts, to somehow free defendants like Mumia. One has only to look at the mountain of evidence of Mumia's innocence, some old and some newly revealed, that the courts have refused to hear. Or, take a look at the 11th Circuit hearing held on Dec 9th for Troy Davis in Georgia: while the defense was arguing innocence based on witness recantations and the fact that the prosecution has no case left, the judges and the state were arguing about timeliness and technicalities. This is the same legal cover-up used against Mumia, that could now send another innocent man to the death chamber.
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15) Israeli Rights Groups Call for War Crimes Inquiry
By ETHAN BRONNER
January 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/world/middleeast/15mideast.html?hp
JERUSALEM - Nine Israeli human rights groups called on Wednesday for an investigation into whether Israeli officials had committed war crimes in Gaza since tens of thousands of civilians there have nowhere to flee, the health system has collapsed, many are without electricity and running water, and some are beyond the reach of rescue teams.
"This kind of fighting constitutes a blatant violation of the laws of warfare and raises the suspicion, which we ask be investigated, of the commission of war crimes," the groups said in their first news conference on the 19-day-old war.
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Jakob Kellenberger, who spent Tuesday in Gaza City, agreed that the situation with civilians was dire but said the principal hospital was making do with medical supplies, and doctors, working around the clock, were mostly coping with the flow of injured.
"In general they did not complain about the lack of equipment or material," he said at separate a news conference in Jerusalem.
As the Gaza death toll passed 1,000, Hamas militants fired off more than a dozen rockets into Israel, including four longer-range ones near the cities of Beersheva and Ashdod, sending a message of menace but causing no injuries. Three rockets were also fired from Lebanon into northern Israel and Israel returned fire to the source.
Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, spoke up from hiding and in a taped audio message called on Muslims everywhere to fight Israel in holy war.
Efforts to reach a cease-fire made progress with some officials predicting a deal could be five to six days away. Hamas leaders met with Egyptian officials in Cairo and agreed in principle to a monitoring force composed of Europeans on Gazan soil to prevent smuggling of weapons, according to a senior Egyptian official. A senior Israeli was due in Cairo on Thursday to discuss the plan.
Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his generals favor a temporary cease-fire of several days to a week - partly so that when Barack Obama is inaugurated as president next week it would be in the middle of a lull rather than battle and his administration could offer views on the next step, Israeli officials said. Mr. Barak has been in close touch with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates who will hold the same position after the inauguration that he holds now.
The short-term cease-fire would, if successful, be followed by a negotiated year-long truce, something which Egypt says Hamas also favors if it includes an opening of commercial traffic into Gaza. There remain, however, splits in Hamas between those who are Syria-based and those in Gaza. The Gazans are more open to a week-long break while the Damascus officials want something from Israel in return for holding fire then.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Cairo early in the day as part of a regional tour to help press for implementation of a Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire. He met with President Hosni Mubarak and then issued a plea for peace.
"I repeat my call for an immediate and durable ceasefire," he said at a press conference with the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit. "Hamas rocket attacks must stop and at the same time I have been condemning the excessive military operation by the Israelis."
The president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, also called for a cease-fire, saying in an interview with the BBC, "The effect of war is more dangerous than war sowing seeds of extremism and terror around the region."
The Israeli human rights groups that called for an investigation said that while they believed it was legitimate for Israel to bomb military installations, it was a violation of international law for it to hit civilian sites like government buildings that contained no weapons or missiles.
The group included the Israel section of Amnesty International, B'Tselem, Gisha and Physicians for Human Rights - Israel.
Mr. Kellenberger of the Red Cross said Israel had facilitated his trip to Gaza and added that he had seen no evidence of the use of white phosphorous, an obscurant used in military conflicts that can be dangerous for civilians under certain circumstances and that Palestinians say Israel is firing.
Last week, the Red Cross issued an unusually harsh condemnation of Israel for failing to allow its personnel into Gaza to rescue people trapped in battle. On Wednesday, Mr. Kellenberger said that although the situation remains critical, rescue missions had not been entirely shut down. The organization rescued 100 people trapped in Jabalya, north of Gaza City, on Tuesday.
The Red Cross representative in Israel, Pierre Wettach, added that he now believed Israel was trying hard to facilitate his group's access to the wounded.
"At this stage, they want as far as possible that these things work," he said, referring to rescue missions.
The military operations continued apace in southern Gaza with the Israeli military reporting that its warplanes carried out three dozen bombing raids, striking rocket launchers and smuggler tunnels. Still, with the cease-fire talks gaining ground and Israeli leaders concerned about sending their troops into the heart of Gaza City, Israel held off on expanding its war to the next phase.
Meanwhile, Egypt found itself dragged into a conflict with Arab states. Egypt had been resisting calls by the small oil-rich Gulf state of Qatar for an emergency meeting of the Arab League.
The call for a meeting in Qatar seemed to be an effort to upstage a meeting already planned for Monday in Kuwait and to give critics of Egyptian and Saudi Arabian mediation efforts a public forum to embarrass and berate them, officials in Cairo said.
The league is supposed to represent the interests of its 22 member states, but many of those states have been openly feuding with each other over the war in Gaza.
"It is a hideous state for the Arabs," said Mahmoud Shokry, Egypt's former ambassador to Syria. "The Arabs are split. If we talk about Arabs, we're talking about 22 countries but do these 22 countries represent one will?
Egypt and Saudi Arabia have taken heat from other Arab countries for pressing Hamas to stop its rocket attacks on Israel and for not doing more to help Hamas. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah are both planning to attend the Kuwait conference which has been organized to discuss economic issues but has been reoriented to deal with the war. The meeting in Qatar, if it is held, would involve only foreign ministers.
Reporting was contributed by Sabrina Tavernise from Jerusalem; Souad Mekhennet from Frankfurt, Germany; and Michael Slackman from Cairo.
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16) Latvia Shaken by Riots Over Economy
By ELLEN BARRY
January 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/world/europe/15latvia.html?ref=world
MOSCOW - Violent protests over political grievances and mounting economic woes shook the Latvian capital, Riga, late Tuesday, leaving around 25 people injured and leading to 106 arrests.
In the wake of the demonstrations, President Valdis Zatlers threatened Wednesday to call for a referendum which would allow voters to dissolve Parliament, saying trust in the government, including in its ability to deal with growing economic problems, had "collapsed catastrophically."
For years, Latvia boasted of double-digit economic growth rates, but it has been shaken by the global economic downturn. Its central bank has spent a fifth of its reserves to guard against a steep devaluation of its currency, the lat, and experts expect a 5 percent contraction of the country's gross domestic product in 2009. Salaries are expected to fall substantially, and unemployment to rise.
The violence followed days of clashes in Greece last month, over a number of issues including economic stagnation and rising poverty as well as widespread corruption and a troubled education system. In Bulgaria on Wednesday, separate riots broke out in the capital, Sofia, after more than 2,000 people - including students, farmers and green activists - demonstrated in front of Parliament over economic conditions, Reuters reported. Mr. Zatlers has long been aligned with the governing coalition, so his threat to dissolve Parliament came as a surprise - and was testament to nervousness about how economic troubles in the region could intersect with simmering political grievances.
The rioting broke out Tuesday after around 10,000 people protested in historic Dome Square over the economic troubles and grievances involving corruption and competence of the government.
Several hundred protesters lingered after most of the crowd had left and started throwing snowballs and cobblestones at government buildings.
Several demonstrators also threw Molotov cocktails, according to Mareks Mattisons, a spokesman for Latvia's Interior Ministry. In a public statement on Wednesday, President Zatlers denounced the violence, but said it was more important to ask "why people gathered in Dome Square."
"We must not face further confrontation, we must do the things that are demanded by the public," he said. "I refer to constitutional amendments, a plan to stimulate the economy, and reform of the national system of governance."
Krisjanis Karins, a member of Parliament and former leader of the opposition New Era party, said the violence showed that financial woes had injected a new vehemence into old political complaints.
Protests in Latvia, he said, tended to follow a pattern of "standing, singing and just going home," but the young protesters who showed up on Tuesday evening "seem to think the Greek or French way of expressing anger is better," he said.
"In our neck of the woods, this just doesn't happen," he said. "But it did this time. Everyone is trying to figure out how much of this was provoked. Who are these people? Where did they come from?"
Whatever the answer, he said, Tuesday's protests seem likely to force political change.
"In six months, we're going to look back and yesterday will be a watershed," he said. "I would be deeply surprised if it were not."
President . Zatlers made a series of strict demands of the Parliament, including a Constitutional amendment that would allow voters to dismiss Parliament, and a new supervisory council to oversee economic development and the state's use of loans.
He called for "new faces in the government," chosen for competence rather than "their influence in the relevant party." He said the changes must be made by March 31, or else he would propose a referendum that could dissolve the Parliament.
"Only with such specific work can we calm the public down and offer at least a bit of hope that the process in this country will develop in a favorable direction," he said.
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17) Israel Says Hamas Is Damaged, Not Destroyed
By STEVEN ERLANGER and MICHAEL SLACKMAN
"From photo label: Thirteen Israelis have died in the war, including 10 soldiers"
January 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/world/middleeast/14mideast.html
TEL AVIV - Despite heavy air and ground assaults, Israel has yet to cripple the military wing of Hamas or destroy the group's ability to launch rockets, Israeli intelligence officials said on Tuesday, suggesting that Israel's main goals in the conflict remain unfulfilled even after 18 days of war.
The comments reflected a view among some Israeli officials that any lasting solution to the conflict would require either a breakthrough diplomatic accord that heavily restricts Hamas's military abilities or a deeper ground assault into urban areas of Gaza, known here as a possible "Phase Three" of the war.
The intelligence officials said there were some signs that the military assault had undermined Hamas's political cohesion, and that Hamas's leaders in hiding inside Gaza were more eager for a cease-fire than group leaders in exile. They described this assessment as based on hard intelligence, presumably telephone intercepts.
A senior Egyptian official in Cairo said separately on Tuesday that representatives of Hamas had disagreed openly when participating in continuing Egyptian efforts to broker a cease-fire.
Inside Gaza, the military wing of Hamas has been hit "to a certain extent" with "a few hundred" Hamas fighters killed during the ground offensive that began midway through the war, the intelligence officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity in return for discussing internal assessments of the conflict. Hamas is still able to launch 20 to 30 rockets a day, including 5 to 10 missiles of ranges longer than 20 kilometers, or about 12 miles, down by a third from the start of the war, the officials said.
Greater damage has been done to Hamas's capacity to run Gaza, with a large number of government buildings destroyed over the course of the operation, they said.
The Israeli Army's chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, speaking to Parliament on Tuesday, said that "we have achieved a lot in hitting Hamas and its infrastructure, its rule and its armed wing, but there is still work ahead."
In Egypt, efforts to broker a cease-fire were complicated by bickering inside Hamas, the Egyptian official said. The official said that Hamas representatives in Gaza were eager for a cease-fire, but were being blocked because political decisions were being made by the group's leadership in Damascus, Syria.
"Hamas is in a very difficult position," the Egyptian official said. "On the ground, their militants are not doing as good a job, not matching their rhetoric. But politically, they have been totally taken over by their sponsors.
"The guys inside are holding their ground, but they don't want to continue the confrontation," the official said. Egypt talks to Hamas but is not eager to see the radical Islamic group succeed in running a small statelet next door.
Israeli officials said they were delaying any expansion of the war until the negotiations succeeded or failed. But journalists and photographers along the Israeli border with Gaza said they saw large numbers of Israeli reservists moving into the territory, suggesting preparation for an intensified phase of the conflict.
On the eve of a visit to the region, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, demanded an immediate halt to the fighting in accordance with a Security Council resolution.
"Too many people have died," Mr. Ban said, while Gazans are facing a humanitarian disaster. United Nations officials have said that three-hour daily humanitarian lulls are insufficient to provide enough food, medicine and other essentials to civilians. Israel said that 102 trucks carrying aid entered Gaza on Tuesday, with a total of 1,028 since the war began.
John Ging, director of operations in Gaza for the United Nations Refugee and Works Agency, who has been highly critical of the Israeli military action, said by video link that the fighting was extracting an unacceptably high toll on civilians.
"Tragically, the horror continues overnight," he said. "Nineteen children killed and 52 injured last night. I would hope that would motivate those who can help."
Israeli officials say their primary aim in the operation is to stop Hamas from firing rockets from Gaza into Israeli cities.
Hamas is capable of building rockets with an advanced propellant that can go up to 18 miles, the intelligence officials said, using chemicals and parts smuggled in from Egypt. Hamas also is using 122-millimeter rockets that are Chinese-made and supplied by Iran that can go almost 25 miles, they said.
But they assessed the probability that Hamas now has rockets capable of going farther than 25 miles as "very low."
On Tuesday, Hamas fired 11 rockets and six mortar shells into Israel, the Israeli Army said.
General Ashkenazi said that Israeli aircraft had carried out more than 2,300 strikes since the offensive began on Dec. 27.
In Tuesday's fighting, 18 Palestinian fighters and seven civilians were killed, part of the 971 Palestinians who have died, according to Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry. Those figures are not thought to include many of the fighters killed since the ground war began.
Thirteen Israelis have died, including 10 soldiers. The Israeli military said one Israeli officer was critically wounded and two Israeli soldiers suffered light wounds in fighting overnight. They were hurt, the military said, after a bomb exploded in a booby-trapped house that they were searching.
General Ashkenazi said that Hamas fighters were using suicide bombers, sometimes women and sometimes dressed as Israeli soldiers, to try to get close to Israeli troops and kill them. One Israeli soldier was killed last week by a Hamas suicide bomber, the Israeli intelligence officials said. The method of the attack that caused the death had not been disclosed before.
Moussa Abu Marzouk, the exiled deputy to the Hamas political chief Khaled Meshal, told Al Jazeera television on Tuesday that while the organization had "serious reservations" about the Egyptian cease-fire plan, he believed that it might be accepted if changes were made.
"If the initiative is accepted, it will be in accordance with the position set out by Hamas at the start, namely an Israeli withdrawal, a cease-fire and the opening of the crossing points" between Gaza, Israel and Egypt, he said.
The leader of Israel's opposition Likud Party, Benjamin Nentanyahu, said Tuesday that ultimately Hamas would have to be removed from Gaza and if the government chose to do so in this war, he would support it.
"At the end of the day there will be no escape from toppling Hamas rule," he said at a meeting with the Foreign Press Association, adding that "Israel can not tolerate an Iranian base right next to its cities."
Steven Erlanger reported from Tel Aviv, and Michael Slackman from Cairo. Reporting was contributed by Taghreed El-Khodary from Gaza City, Ethan Bronner and Sabrina Tavernise from Jerusalem, and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations.
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18) Detainee Was Tortured, a Bush Official Confirms
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
January 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/us/14gitmo.html?ref=us
The senior Pentagon official in the Bush administration's system for prosecuting detainees said in a published interview that she had concluded that interrogators had tortured a Guantánamo detainee who has sometimes been described as "the 20th hijacker" in the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The public record of the Guantánamo interrogation of the detainee, Mohammed al-Qahtani, has long included what officials labeled abusive techniques, including exposure to extreme temperatures and isolation, but the Pentagon has resisted acknowledging that his treatment rose to the level of torture.
But the official, Susan J. Crawford, told Bob Woodward of The Washington Post that she had concluded that his treatment amounted to torture when she reviewed military charges against him last year. In May she decided that the case could not be referred for trial but provided no explanation at the time.
"His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution, Ms. Crawford was quoted as saying in an article published in The Post on Wednesday.
Ms. Crawford, the convening authority of military commissions, had never given an interview on Guantánamo. She is an appointee of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and a retired military judge who was Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense.
Ms. Crawford said she drew her conclusions from a combination of techniques that she said had a "medical impact."
Mr. Qahtani was originally accused of a role in the 2001 attacks along with five other Guantánamo detainees, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. The military prosecutors sought the death penalty.
Mr. Qahtani, a Saudi, was denied entry into the United States at the Orlando, Fla., airport in August 2001.
"There's no doubt in my mind he would've been on one of those planes had he gained access to the country in August 2001," Ms. Crawford said in the interview. "He's a muscle hijacker."
She added: "He's a very dangerous man. What do you do with him now if you don't charge him and try him? I would be hesitant to say, 'Let him go.' "
Military documents show that Mr. Qahtani's repeated interrogations at Guantánamo in 2002 and 2003 included prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, exposure to cold and involuntary grooming. He was also forced to dance with a male interrogator and to obey dog commands, including "stay," "come" and "bark."
A Pentagon inquiry in 2005 found that the methods were "degrading and abusive."
In a statement Tuesday night, the Pentagon said that more than a dozen prior investigations had concluded that the interrogations were lawful.
"However, subsequent to those reviews," the statement said, "the department adopted new and more restrictive policies and improved oversight procedures for interrogation and detention operations."
"Some of the aggressive questioning techniques used on al-Qahtani," the statement continued, "although permissible at the time, are no longer allowed in the updated Army field manual."
Military prosecutors said this fall that they planned to file new charges with Ms. Crawford, who is permitted wide discretion under the Pentagon's rules for its Military Commission system of prosecuting detainees at Guantánamo.
The prosecutors said at the time that they had evidence independent of any statements that Mr. Qahtani made in his interrogations but they had yet to file those new charges.
Mr. Qahtani's lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York have said they believe he can never be prosecuted because of his treatment, which they said left him a broken man who has attempted suicide.
His case has drawn wide international notice. It is one of the best documented examples of extreme interrogation methods that critics of the Bush administration have said were later used as a model for other interrogations elsewhere in the world.
If new charges were filed in the current military commission system by the military prosecutors, Ms. Crawford would review them.
People who have been briefed by aides to President-elect Barack Obama have said, however, that he plans to suspend all activity in the system and may direct that all prosecutions be in federal courts.
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19) 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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20) 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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