Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

scrimmage · Jan 2, 2009

US Military Aid Underpins Gaza Offensive
From:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21591.htm
Israel receives billions of dollars in military aid from the US each year, much of it spent on American weaponry which US law says must only be used in self-defence.
But experts say there is little chance of cuts in aid to Israel despite its military operation in Gaza.
Jan 01, 2008
Al Jazeera's Nick Spicer reports.
<EMBED src=http://www.youtube.com/v/F91XF6bSDRQ&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1 width=425 height=344 type=application/x-shockwave-flash allowfullscreen="true"></EMBED>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F91X...info/article21591.htm&feature=player_embedded

mr merlin · Jan 2, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

I can hardly think of a better use of our money than to assist in the martydom of muslims.

Doc Mercer · Jan 2, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Love it ...

the Neo Nazis are in heat and most of them have no clue what Wahhabism is and how it ties into the VERY SMALL minority in the Muslim world

Doc Mercer · Jan 2, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Source: Reuters

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - The civilian death toll climbed in Israel's air offensive against the Gaza Strip on Friday and Palestinian Islamists vowed revenge for the killing of a senior Hamas leader and his family.

There was no sign of a ceasefire on the seventh day of the conflict, in which at least 425 Palestinians have been killed and 2,000 wounded, but a Palestinian official told Reuters that Egypt had begun exploratory talks with Hamas to halt the bloodshed.

scrimmage · Jan 2, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=columntexthead>The Real Goal of the Slaughter in Gaza

Hamas cannot be defeated, so it must be brought to heel

</TD></TR><TR><TD class=showauthor>by Jonathan Cook
From:
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=13988

</TD></TR><TR><TD>Ever since Hamas triumphed in the Palestinian elections nearly three years ago, the story in Israel has been that a full-scale ground invasion of the Gaza Strip was imminent. But even when public pressure mounted for a decisive blow against Hamas, the government backed off from a frontal assault.

Now the world waits for Ehud Barak, the defense minister, to send in the tanks and troops as the logic of this operation is pushing inexorably towards a ground war. Nonetheless, officials have been stalling. Significant ground forces are massed on Gaza's border, but still the talk in Israel is of "exit strategies," lulls and renewed ceasefires.

Even if Israeli tanks do lumber into the enclave, will they dare to move into the real battlegrounds of central Gaza? Or will they simply be used, as they have been in the past, to terrorize the civilian population on the peripheries?

Israelis are aware of the official reason for Mr. Barak's reticence to follow the air strikes with a large-scale ground war. They have been endlessly reminded that the worst losses sustained by the army in the second intifada took place in 2002 during the invasion of Jenin refugee camp.
Gaza, as Israelis know only too well, is one mammoth refugee camp. Its narrow alleys, incapable of being negotiated by Merkava tanks, will force Israeli soldiers out into the open. Gaza, in the Israeli imagination, is a death trap.

Similarly, no one has forgotten the heavy toll on Israeli soldiers during the ground war with Hezbollah in 2006. In a country such as Israel, with a citizen army, the public has become positively phobic of a war in which large numbers of its sons will be placed in the firing line.

That fear is only heightened by reports in the Israeli media that Hamas is praying for the chance to engage Israel's army in serious combat. The decision to sacrifice many soldiers in Gaza is not one Mr. Barak, leader of the Labor Party, will take lightly with an election in six weeks.
But there is another concern that has given him equal cause to hesitate.

Despite the popular rhetoric in Israel, no senior official really believes Hamas can be destroyed, either from the air or with brigades of troops. It is simply too entrenched in Gaza.

That conclusion is acknowledged in the tepid rationales offered so far for Israel's operations. "Creating calm in the country's south" and "changing the security environment" have been preferred over previous favorites, such as "rooting out the infrastructure of terror."

An invasion whose real objective was the toppling of Hamas would, as Mr. Barak and his officials understand, require the permanent military reoccupation of Gaza.
But overturning the disengagement from Gaza ? the 2005 brainchild of Ariel Sharon, the prime minister at the time ? would entail a huge military and financial commitment from Israel. It would once again have to assume responsibility for the welfare of the local civilian population, and the army would be forced into treacherous policing of Gaza's teeming camps.

In effect, an invasion of Gaza to overthrow Hamas would be a reversal of the trend in Israeli policy since the Oslo process of the early 1990s.
It was then that Israel allowed the long-exiled Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, to return to the occupied territories in the new role of head of the Palestinian Authority. Naively, Arafat assumed he was leading a government-in-waiting. In truth, he simply became Israel's chief security contractor.

Arafat was tolerated during the 1990s because he did little to stop Israel's effective annexation of large parts of the West Bank through the rapid expansion of settlements and increasingly harsh movement restrictions on Palestinians. Instead, he concentrated on building up the security forces of his Fatah loyalists, containing Hamas and preparing for a statehood that never arrived.

When the second intifada broke out, Arafat proved he had outlived his usefulness to Israel. His Palestinian Authority was gradually emasculated.
Since Arafat's death and the disengagement from Gaza, Israel has sought to consolidate the physical separation of the Strip from the much-coveted West Bank. Even if not originally desired by Israel, Hamas's takeover of Gaza has contributed significantly to that goal.

Israel is now faced by two Palestinian national movements. The Fatah one, based in the West Bank and led by a weak president, Mahmoud Abbas, is largely discredited and compliant. The other, Hamas, based in Gaza, has grown in confidence as it claims to be the true guardian of resistance to the occupation.
Unable to destroy Hamas, Israel is now considering whether to live with the armed group next door.
Hamas has proved it can enforce its rule in Gaza much as Arafat once did in both occupied territories. The question being debated in Israel's cabinet and war rooms is whether, like Arafat, Hamas can be made to collude with the occupation. It has proved it is strong, but can it be made useful to Israel, too?

In practice that would mean taming Hamas rather than crushing it. Whereas Israel is trying to build up Fatah in the West Bank with carrots, it is using the current slaughter in Gaza as a big stick with which to beat Hamas into compliance.
The ultimate objective is another truce stopping the rocket fire out of the Strip, like the six-month ceasefire that just ended, but on terms even more favorable to Israel.

The savage blockade that has deprived Gaza's population of essentials for many months failed to achieve that goal. Instead, Hamas quickly took charge of the smuggling tunnels that became a lifeline for Gazans. The tunnels raised Hamas's finances and popularity in equal measure.

It should come as no surprise that Israel has barely bothered to hit the Hamas leadership or its military wing. Instead it has bombed the tunnels, Hamas's treasure chest, and it has killed substantial numbers of ordinary policemen, the guarantors of law and order in Gaza. Latest reports suggest Israel is now planning to expand its air strikes to Hamas's welfare organizations, the charities that are the base of its popularity.

The air campaign is paring down Hamas's ability to function effectively as the ruler of Gaza. It is undermining Hamas's political power bases. The lesson is not that Hamas can be destroyed militarily but that it that can be weakened domestically.

Israel apparently hopes to persuade the Hamas leadership, as it did Arafat for a while, that its best interests are served by cooperating with Israel. The message is: forget about your popular mandate to resist the occupation and concentrate instead on remaining in power with our help.

In the fog of war, events may yet escalate in such a way that a serious ground invasion cannot be avoided, especially if Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel. But whatever happens, Israel and Hamas are almost certain in the end to agree to another ceasefire.
The issue will be whether in doing so, Hamas, like Arafat before it, loses sight of its primary task: to force Israel to end its occupation.

This article originally appeared in The National, published in Abu Dhabi.

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Road Dawg · Jan 2, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

The Huffington Post: Israeli-Occupied Territory
Why is the Huffington Post carrying water for the IDF? Follow the money …
by Justin Raimondo

Pat Buchanan was widely vilified by the neocons and the politically correct left when he famously described the Congress of the United States as " Israeli-occupied territory." Oh, what a conniption the liberals and the Commentary crowd had! That was during the countdown to the first Gulf War, when almost no one rose to object – and those who did, like Pat, were smeared for their trouble. Today, such an observation is hardly considered controversial: it is simply a known fact.

There is more discussion in the Knesset over the pros and cons of US intervention in the Middle East on Israel's behalf than there is in on Capitol Hill. There's a sense in which this sort of uniformity must be a little embarrassing for the Lobby, in that it underscores their fear that a real debate will suddenly break out. The regularity with which the American Congress endorses every fresh Israeli atrocity has a certain deadening metronomic quality about it – and, while we're on the subject of monotony, the American media, too, plays an identical role as advocate and staunch defender of the Israeli case, as a matter of course. The "mainstream" televised and dead-tree-media has historically been a reliable "reporter" of the merits of the Israeli case. Now, the wannabe "alternative" online media is following suit, with an alacrity that is none too surprising.

It is especially unsurprising in the case of the Huffington Post, which founder Arianna Huffington touts as a "people's media" in which "truth" is the highest value. As she put it to the San Francisco Bay Guardian:

"Our highest responsibility is to the truth. The truth is not about splitting the difference between one side and the other. Sometimes one side is speaking the truth ... The central mission of journalism is the search for the truth."

Taking Ms. Huffington at her word, one can only conclude that, when it comes to Israel's rape of Gaza, the Huffington Post is siding with the rapist. Their "news" coverage of the ongoing devastation is heavily slanted toward the Israelis, with those journalistically unique paragraph-long lead-story headlines never mentioning Palestinian casualties (a number would suffice). When a genuinely antiwar voice is allowed on the site, it is prefaced by an apologia, as our own Jeremy Sapienza reports:

"Huffington Post was so very kind this week to give space to almost frustratingly moderate Palestinian intellectual Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi. In his well-reasoned article, ‘Palestine's Guernica and the Myths of Israeli Victimhood,' he supplied all the basic facts behind the problems in Palestine. … But what gives with the long disclaimer marring the top of Barghouthi's article?

"HuffPo runs all kinds of commentary from all over the political spectrum (or at least its leftish side), but only those who dare speak against the sainted Israelis seem to require an editorial explanation that resembles an apology.

"Shame on Huffington Post for its disgusting lack of integrity."

Shame? Jeremy is a fine lad, and very smart, but perhaps a bit na?ve in believing these people even accept the concept of shame, applied to themselves: indeed, they oppose it as a matter of high principle. There's a ready explanation of why, as the Israelis pound Gaza, the formerly antiwar Huffington Post has become a cheerleader for the IDF: it is due entirely to this.

When Arianna nabbed $25 million from Oak Investment Partners, of Palo Alto, California, she was acquired by a financial network that also has significant investments in the Israeli arms industry – an industry, I might add, directly subsidized and controlled by the Israeli government. For example, Oak Investment has invested in IET/Intelligent Electronics, now morphed into Clickservice Software, an Israeli-based company that makes sophisticated weapons systems and sells them to clients such as "an unnamed Far Eastern country." Oak Investment partner Fred Harman now sits on the Huffington Post's board.

Case closed. Mystery solved.

Since Arianna is so into "truth," how about a little when it comes to how she's financing a $25 million media gig that still refuses to pay bloggers! Not only that, but they were recently forced to apologize to a Chicago media outlet for brazenly stealing content. Whatever her contributions to the journalistic profession, let alone the pursuit of "truth," Arianna is sure giving tackiness a bad name.

What's so galling is that the Huffington Post poses as an "alternative" media outlet, the virtual embodiment of the new online populism that gave rise to the blogosphere. The nerve it takes to pose as an opponent of "corporate greed," and war, while taking a $25 million "investment" from an exemplar of both is simply breathtaking – but about par for the course for Arianna. In her odyssey from the Newt Gingrich right to the Obama-ite left, the founder of the Huffington Post personifies the utter vacuity of our age, the emptiness that has nothing at its core but an ideological vacuum waiting to be filled by the dictates of fashion and commerce.

From her days as the high priestess of the ";John Roger" cult in California – a New Age outfit grouped around a charismatic and controversial leader "John Roger" – Ms. Huffington has always been an ideological weathervane, taking on the colors of whatever ideological craze is in season. As a kind of Greek sibyl interpreting the divine zeitgeist, her style has lately become even more magisterial, now that she's getting closer to real power. "I only text three people," she boasted at a London dinner, "my two teenage children and Barack Obama."

God help us if that woman has the President's ear, if only because we'll have to endure four long years of relentless name-dropping.

More seriously, though, the Huffington Post's disgraceful performance on the Gaza issue is really just a reflection of the laughable uniformity of Western coverage of Middle Eastern issues, and this is especially true when it comes to Israel and its interests in the region. It's a widely-noted irony that the nature and extent of the "special relationship" is never discussed as openly in the US as it is in the Israeli media. How and why this came about is well-documented by professors John Mearshemier and Stephen Walt, in their book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy[short version here], but a new riff on their theme is the extent to which the online media have been co-opted by the Lobby – in this case, bought outright.

http://www.antiwar. com/justin/ ?articleid= 13990

scrimmage · Jan 2, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

[SIZE=-1][/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]January 2 - 4, 2009[/SIZE]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=+1]An Open Letter to President Bush [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=+2]America Must Stop Shirking Its Responsibility on Gaza [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=+1]By RALPH NADER [/SIZE][/FONT]
From:
http://www.counterpunch.org/nader01022009.html

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=+3]D[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]ear George W. Bush---[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Cong. Barney Frank said recently that Barack Obama?s declaration that ?there is only one president at a time? over-estimated the number. He was referring to the economic crisis. But where are you on the Gaza crisis where the civilian population of Gaza, its civil servants and public facilities are being massacred and destroyed respectively by U.S built F-16s and U.S. built helicopter gunships.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]The deliberate suspension of your power to stop this terrorizing of 1.5 million people, mostly refugees, blockaded for months by air, sea and land in their tiny slice of land, is in cowardly contrast to the position taken by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. That year he single handedly stopped the British, French and Israeli aircraft attack against Egypt during the Suez Canal dispute. [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Fatalities in Gaza are already over 400 and injuries close to 2000 so far as is known. Total Palestinian civilian casualties are 400 times greater then the casualties incurred by Israelis. But why should anyone be surprised at your blanket support for Israel?s attack given what you have done to a far greater number of civilians in Iraq and now in Afghanistan?[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Confirmed visual reports show that Israeli warplanes and warships have destroyed or severely damaged police stations, homes, hospitals, pharmacies, mosques, fishing boats, and a range of public facilities providing electricity and other necessities.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Why should this trouble you at all? It violates international law, including the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter. You too have repeatedly violated international law and committed serious constitutional transgressions.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Then there is the matter of the Israeli government blocking imports of critical medicines, equipment such as dialysis machines, fuel, food, water, spare parts and electricity at varying intensities for almost two years. The depleted UN aid mission there has called this illegal blockade a humanitarian crisis especially devastating to children, the aged and the infirm. Chronic malnutrition among children is rising rapidly. UN rations support eighty percent of this impoverished population.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]How do these incontrovertible facts affect you? Do you have any empathy or what you have called Christian charity? [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]What would a vastly shrunken Texas turned in an encircled Gulag do up against the 4th most powerful military in the world? Would these embattled Texans be spending their time chopping wood?[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Gideon Levy, the veteran Israeli columnist for Haaretz, called the Israeli attack a brutal and violent operation, far beyond what was needed for protecting the people in its south. He added: The diplomatic efforts were just in the beginning, and I believe we could have got to a new truce without this bloodshed[/SIZE][/FONT]
[SIZE=-1][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]..to send dozens of jets to bomb a total helpless civilian society with hundreds of bombs,just today, they were burying five sisters. I mean, this is unheard of. This cannot go on like this. And this has nothing to do with self-defense or with retaliation even. It went out of proportion, exactly like two-and-a-half years ago in Lebanon.[/FONT][/SIZE]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Apparently, thousands of Israelis, including some army reservists, who have demonstrated against this destruction of Gaza agree with Mr. Levy. However, their courageous stands have not reached the mass media in the U.S. whose own reporters cannot even get into Gaza due to Israeli prohibitions on the international press.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Your spokespeople are making much ado about the breaking of the six month truce. Who is the occupier? Who is the most powerful military force? Who controls and blocks the necessities of life? Who has sent raiding missions across the border most often? Who has sent artillery shells and missiles at close range into populated areas? Who has refused the repeated comprehensive peace offerings of the Arab countries issued in 2002 if Israel would agree to return to the 1967 borders and agree to the creation of a small independent Palestinian state possessing just twenty two percent of the original Palestine?[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]The wildly inaccurate rockets, as reporters describe them, coming from Hamas and other groups cannot compare with the modern precision armaments and human damage generated from the Israeli side. [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]There are no rockets coming from the West Bank into Israel. Yet the Israeli government is still sending raiders into that essentially occupied territory, still further entrenching its colonial outposts, still taking water and land and increasing the checkpoints This is going on despite a most amenable West Bank leader, Mahmoud Abbas, whom you have met with at the White House and praised repeatedly. Is it all vague words and no real initiatives with you and your emissary Condoleezza Rice?[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Peace was possible, but you provided no leadership, preferring instead to comply with all wishes and demands by the Israeli government?even resupplying it with the still active cluster bombs in south Lebanon during the invasion of that country in 2006.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]The arguments about who started the latest hostilities go on and on with Israel always blaming the Palestinians to justify all kinds of violence and harsh treatment against innocent civilians.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]From the Palestinian standpoint, you would do well to remember the origins of this conflict which was the dispossession of their lands. To afford you some empathy, recall the oft-quoted comment by the founder of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, who told the Zionist leader, Nahum Goldmann:[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]There has been anti-Semitism the Nazis Hitler Auschwitz but was that their [the Palestinians] fault? They only see one thing: We have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Alfred North Whitehead once said: Duty arises out of the power to alter the course of events. By that standard, you have shirked mightily your duty over the past eight years to bring peace to both Palestinians and Israelis and more security to a good part of the world.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]The least you can do in your remaining days at the White House is adopt a modest profile in courage, and vigorously demand and secure a ceasefire and a solidly based truce. Then your successor, President-elect Obama can inherit something more than the usual self-censoring Washington puppet show that eschews a proper focus on the national interests of the United States.[/SIZE][/FONT]

scrimmage · Jan 2, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

[SIZE=-1]Weekend Edition[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]January 2 - 4, 2009[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1]Are All Americans Guilty? [/SIZE]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=+2]Whatever Happened to Western Morality? [/SIZE][/FONT]

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
From:
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01022009.html

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=+3]O[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]n the last day of the old year in CounterPunch, two Israelis, Jeff Halper who heads the Israeli peace movement ICAHD and Neve Gordon who is chairman of the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University, asked, ?Where?s the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza??[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]?Not one of the nearly 450 presidents of American colleges and universities who prominently denounced an effort by British academics to boycott Israeli universities in September 2007 have raised their voice in opposition to Israel?s bombardment of the Islamic University of Gaza earlier this week,? report Halper and Gordon. They note that Columbia University president Lee C. Bollinger, who has in the past ignorantly insulted Islamic representatives, ?has been silent.?[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]It is the goyim moralists who are silent, not the Jews. It is the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, not the goyim media, that provides reports of Israel?s abuse of Palestinians. Gideon Levy?s ?The Neighborhood Bully Strikes Again? was published in Haaretz (29 December), not in the goyim press. Levy?s words--?Once again, Israel?s violent responses, even if there is justification for them, exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law and wisdom?--are not words that can appear in American print or TV media. Such words, printed in Israeli newspapers, never reach the goyim.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]The extent of Americans? ignorance is breathtaking. Israel has the Palestinians jammed into tightly controlled ghettos known as Gaza and the West Bank. With Egypt?s help, Israel controls the inflows of food, medicines, water, and energy into Gaza. Palestinians in Gaza are not permitted to enter Israel or Egypt. Last week a humanitarian ship bringing food and medicine was rammed by Israeli gunboats and turned away.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]In the West Bank Palestinians are walled off from their fields, jobs, medical care, education, water, and from one another by endless checkpoints, roads for ?Jews only,? walls, barbed wire, and machine gun towers. Palestinians are being evicted from their towns house by house, block by block.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Israel?s slow theft of Palestine is illegal under international law but protected by US ?diplomacy.?[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]The Palestinians are no more of a threat to Israel than Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were a threat to the Nazi state. Yet, everywhere in America--Congress, the executive branch, the print and TV media, the universities, evangelical Christian institutions--there is the belief that Israel is on the verge of annihilation by Palestinian terrorists. This ignorance, so carefully cultivated by the Israel Lobby, turns genocidal aggression into self-defense.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]It fools Americans, but it doesn?t fool Israelis. The Israelis have always known that ?self-defense? is a cloak for a Zionist policy of territorial expansion. The policy is controversial within Israel. Many Israelis object, just as many Americans object to President Bush?s illegal wars and violations of US civil liberties. Many Israelis give voice to their moral conscience, but they are overwhelmed by vested interests.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Karl Marx declared morality to be merely a mask for vested interests. The writings of Marx and Engels are scornful of good will and moral ideals as effective forces in history. The Israeli state epitomizes Marx?s doctrine that power alone is the effective force.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Many American conservatives share the Israeli state?s belief in the efficacy of power. Conservatives who turned against Bush?s wars did so because the US was not brutal enough. They turned away from Bush?s long inconclusive wars in the way that fans desert a losing team.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Americans used to say that ?the pen is mightier than the sword,? but this hasn?t been the case for US and Israeli aggression. The success the two regimes have had in instilling fear into their populations is part of the explanation for the impotence of morality. Another part of the explanation is that vested interests are a powerful constraint on morality.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Consider the case of Lee Bollinger. Columbia University is dependent on Jewish money, faculty and students. If Bollinger were to take a stand against Israel?s mistreatment of the Palestinians, he would be denounced as an anti-semite. Presidents of competitor universities would not come to his defense. They would pile on in hopes of recruiting Columbia?s top faculty and students and redirecting the flow of financial resources from Columbia to themselves.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]An American newspaper or TV network that took a stand against Israel?s abuse of Palestinians would be confronted with an advertising boycott organized by AIPAC. American politicians who criticize Israel go down to defeat by Israel Lobby money.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Hegel gave too much emphasis to ideas, Marx too much to material interests. Both forces operate in the world. There are times in history when revolutionary ideas shatter material interests. Other times the two coexist in a balance of power. In other times material interests prevail over morality.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]We are living in the latter time. Financial interests, the military-security complex, and the Israel Lobby are the powers that rule America. They are buttressed by neoconservatives and Christian Zionists and by the patriotic hubris that America is the main force for good operating in the world. The evils America commits are dismissed as necessary to the service of good. The destruction of Iraq, for example, is justified as ?bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people.?[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]A number of commentators, including myself, predict a decline in America?s economic power. As this occurs, Israel will have to abandon its policy of violence. With the accumulated hatred that its policies have fomented, Israel will be vulnerable.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]The world will need to remember that although Israel is a Jewish state, it is a state whose policies many Jews find objectionable, just as a majority of American Jews oppose President Bush?s wars of aggression in the Middle East and his unconstitutional policies at home. We must not confuse Israel?s Zionist government with world Jewry, just as we must not confuse the American people with the war criminals in the Bush Regime.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Consider, who do you trust with your civil liberties, the US Department of Justice or the ACLU?s phalanx of Jewish attorneys?[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]We must avoid the mistake that was made by blaming the German people for Hitler. It was the aristocratic German military that tried to remove Hitler. In contrast, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi blocked the attempt to impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Pelosi is a discredit to California, but shall we blame all of America for Pelosi?s defense of war criminals? How can we do so when US Rep. Dennis Kucinich courageously read out the articles of impeachment on the House floor?[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Are all Americans guilty because Kucinich did not prevail?[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com[/SIZE][/FONT]

mr merlin · Jan 2, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

I see hamas had a funeral for that lead terrorist that israel killed. Why the Idf didnt drop a few tons of bombs into the middle of the throng is beyond me, it would have been the perfect opportunity to build good will.

reanimator · Jan 2, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

No one cares what a few reporters put into print. The real story is the same old stuff: Israel and Hamas in a truce, and Hamas deciding to fire rockets into Israel with the sole purpose of killing and wounding as many women and children as possible. Pure terrorism.

Enter the Israeli Army. Bless them for what they are doing. The only thing Islamic terrorists comprehend is brutal revenge, so they're getting it in spades. Keep on blasting the mutants until they say uncle and stop the aggression, and if they still don't learn then just keep killing them until they finally realize it is they who are facilitating the deaths of their own kind.

Wussy pacifiscts around the world, tough shit!:+whipping

Doc Mercer · Jan 2, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Too funny!!!

Reaminator forgets that Bush and Rice love Hamas ... flashback to 2006
and see how funny your comments truly are ... throw in McPalin on tape
wanting to appease Hamas and easy to see why Bush has accomplished
nothing in this part of the world

Doc Mercer · Jan 3, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Israel took out a Mosque today ....

that should help "settle things down"

ZZ CREAM · Jan 3, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

reanimator said:
No one cares what a few reporters put into print. The real story is the same old stuff: Israel and Hamas in a truce, and Hamas deciding to fire rockets into Israel with the sole purpose of killing and wounding as many women and children as possible. Pure terrorism.

Enter the Israeli Army. Bless them for what they are doing. The only thing Islamic terrorists comprehend is brutal revenge, so they're getting it in spades. Keep on blasting the mutants until they say uncle and stop the aggression, and if they still don't learn then just keep killing them until they finally realize it is they who are facilitating the deaths of their own kind.

Wussy pacifiscts around the world, tough shit!:+whipping

Killing innocents is never right whether Usama does it or we do it.

Doc Mercer · Jan 3, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

ZZ ....

in the Neo Nazi world as long as the innocent folks have Brown Skin then
"it fits the agenda"

2009 should be "entertaining"

ZZ CREAM · Jan 3, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Lib and Proud said:
ZZ ....

in the Neo Nazi world as long as the innocent folks have Brown Skin then
"it fits the agenda"

2009 should be "entertaining"

Did you read Reanimator in the other post? He said to ask the Iraqis if we were justified? Maybe he would like to ask the Iraqis we have tortured or killed if they believe in our 'democracy'? Everyone knows that nothing will have changed the day after we leave. There will be another Saddam that we install 'AGAIN'!

Doc Mercer · Jan 3, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

I am starting to guess Reanimator might be Dana Perino in real life

Perino told Helen Thomas:

We're Not Occupying Iraq, We Were Invited!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKla10sh3hE

ZZ CREAM · Jan 3, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Lib and Proud said:
I am starting to guess Reanimator might be Dana Perino in real life

Perino told Helen Thomas:

We're Not Occupying Iraq, We Were Invited!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKla10sh3hE

Kind of like Poland invited the Germans............................................and the Russians.

reanimator · Jan 3, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Lib and Proud said:
Israel took out a Mosque today ....

that should help "settle things down"

Took out a mosque that they warned they would take out if the arms remained in it. Once again, Israel did what it said and destroyed the hole as it should have.

And who the hell cares if they "settle things down" anyway? That just give Hamas time to re-arm and re-fire. The only way to treat these barbarians is to wipe them out and make sure they do it thoroughly. The more women and children that go the better. That way, morons like you and ZZ can't do your usual whining and crying: "gee, all Israel's doing is creating more terrorists!":+textinb3

Toejamsky · Jan 3, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Israel gets slightly less than three billion a year in aid from us. That's about a week's cost of the Iraq war. Just to things in further perspective, 99 per cent of it is spent here with U.S. companies on military hardware.

Doc Mercer · Jan 3, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

anyone know when Reaminator ... aka "RAMBO" ... will be enlisting?

Toejamsky · Jan 3, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

I just finished reading this amazing book "The Sunflower" by Simon Wisenthal. It's an account of a dying SS Kommandant seeking his forgiveness in the midst of the everyday sadistic brutality and slaughter he witnessed as a concentration camp prisoner. We all know the horrors of that time and this SS guy was laden with guilt about his participation in the rounding up of 300 Jews who were locked into an abandoned house which was set afire. Fathers and mothers, covering their children's eyes as they jumped from windows stained the German's memory and consience. What was remarkable about the book for me was Wisenthal's description of how being treated like a sub-human and seeing death and brutality around every corner affect a person. The only rule for the Jews, the only given, was death awaited. His experience provides a unique insight into that horrific time. Several writers and commentators following his story provide their view on the ethics of "foregivness" and I am most comfortable with the view that as he was not a victim of this SS soldier's actions he was not in a position to forgive him, though others argued since all his victims were dead who but a third party could grant absolution to the truly contrite. An interesting and as I have said powerful book. Of course the Jew hating beat goes on as we can see from every day events in the mideast

Toejamsky · Jan 3, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Of course, none of us want to see the death and injuries to civilians the Israeli response to Palestinian missle attacks which "actually" target innocent people assures, but Jews ain't marching off into railway cars again and will defend themselves. There's probably no other country on earth which would be facing the kind of criticism Israel gets for taking out missles launched from a distance, like say from L.A. to Pasadena. It's an underlying anti-semitism which persists since the diaspora as the Romans forced exile made Jews strangers in many strange lands throughout its empire.

reanimator · Jan 3, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Toejamsky said:
Of course, none of us want to see the death and injuries to civilians the Israeli response to Palestinian missle attacks which "actually" target innocent people assures, but Jews ain't marching off into railway cars again and will defend themselves. There's probably no other country on earth which would be facing the kind of criticism Israel gets for taking out missles launched from a distance, like say from L.A. to Pasadena. It's an underlying anti-semitism which persists since the diaspora as the Romans forced exile made Jews strangers in many strange lands throughout its empire.

Nice posts, however, the resident kook L&P wouldn't agree with you one bit. He believes the Iraninan leader (Mahmood "I'm A Nutjob") when he claims there wasn't a holocaust, and, in fact, that Israel should be wiped out today.

Toejamsky · Jan 4, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Toejamsky said:
I just finished reading this amazing book "The Sunflower" by Simon Wisenthal. It's an account of a dying SS Kommandant seeking his forgiveness in the midst of the everyday sadistic brutality and slaughter he witnessed as a concentration camp prisoner. We all know the horrors of that time and this SS guy was laden with guilt about his participation in the rounding up of 300 Jews who were locked into an abandoned house which was set afire. Fathers and mothers, covering their children's eyes as they jumped from windows stained the German's memory and consience. What was remarkable about the book for me was Wisenthal's description of how being treated like a sub-human and seeing death and brutality around every corner affect a person. The only rule for the Jews, the only given, was death awaited. His experience provides a unique insight into that horrific time. Several writers and commentators following his story provide their view on the ethics of "foregivness" and I am most comfortable with the view that as he was not a victim of this SS soldier's actions he was not in a position to forgive him, though others argued since all his victims were dead who but a third party could grant absolution to the truly contrite. An interesting and as I have said powerful book. Of course the Jew hating beat goes on as we can see from every day events in the mideast

The guys that post this inflamatory anti-semitic propoganda should be ashamed of themselves. If it rings of anti-American, anti-Israel their on it, serving a shameful legacy which nazis brought to the Arabs when they occupied the place during the second world war. Guys like Road Dawg and Lib and Proud lack the intellectual honesty to distinguish between a phony ass war in Iraq and survival of the remnants of European Jews in their homeland. These Jihadist assholes and their lemmings here believe everything the nazis told the Arabs about Jews 70 years back and the bloodshed and genocide as between 500 million Muslims and five million Israelis continues unabated. With self-image issues coming out of every Jihadist pore, it's a tribute to Josef Goebbels at his best that posters here take their cue from these lying bastards who call themselves freedom fighters.

Toejamsky · Jan 4, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=3 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset" class=alt2>Originally Posted by Toejamsky

I just finished reading this amazing book "The Sunflower" by Simon Wisenthal. It's an account of a dying SS Kommandant seeking his forgiveness in the midst of the everyday sadistic brutality and slaughter he witnessed as a concentration camp prisoner. We all know the horrors of that time and this SS guy was laden with guilt about his participation in the rounding up of 300 Jews who were locked into an abandoned house which was set afire. Fathers and mothers, covering their children's eyes as they jumped from windows stained the German's memory and consience. What was remarkable about the book for me was Wisenthal's description of how being treated like a sub-human and seeing death and brutality around every corner affect a person. The only rule for the Jews, the only given, was death awaited. His experience provides a unique insight into that horrific time. Several writers and commentators following his story provide their view on the ethics of "foregivness" and I am most comfortable with the view that as he was not a victim of this SS soldier's actions he was not in a position to forgive him, though others argued since all his victims were dead who but a third party could grant absolution to the truly contrite. An interesting and as I have said powerful book. Of course the Jew hating beat goes on as we can see from every day events in the mideast

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

The guys that post the inflamatory anti-semitic propoganda we see on this thread should be ashamed of themselves. If it rings of anti-American, anti-Israel they are on it, serving a shameful legacy which nazis brought to the Arabs when they occupied the place during the second world war. Guys like Road Dawg and Lib and Proud lack the intellectual honesty to distinguish between a phony ass war in Iraq and survival of the remnants of European Jews in their homeland. These Jihadist assholes and their lemmings here believe everything the nazis told the Arabs about Jews 70 years back and the bloodshed and genocide as between 500 million Muslims and five million Israelis continues unabated. With self-image issues coming out of every Jihadist pore, it's a tribute to Josef Goebbels at his best that posters here take their cue from these lying bastards who call themselves freedom fighters.

C'mon bigmouth L & P, how about some more genocidal propoganda. What a man you are. What a proud legacy you worship.

Toejamsky · Jan 5, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

ZZ CREAM said:
Killing innocents is never right whether Usama does it or we do it.

That's a hell of a characterization of Israel's position, "killing innocents." Like the Jews are out to kill civilians. Unlike the Jihadists who actually target them. A wonderful half the picture distortion. He nonetheless asks in another post, "Where did I get the idea he doesn't support Israel." Let's hear it for the terrorists ZZ! I haven't found mention of your criticism of those fiends. Man if there was an award for insulting intelligence Proud and Puppets would be in the running all the way.

Doc Mercer · Jan 5, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Guys like Road Dawg and Lib and Proud lack the intellectual honesty to distinguish between a phony ass war in Iraq and survival of the remnants of European Jews in their homeland

Really?

I have never bashed Israel one time and know the history of this conflict as there is no such thing as a Palestinian but nothing more than displaced Arabs ... Israel will be in a constant state of war until the crickets are the only survivors after the Nukes take out Damascus once Hezbollah starts
launching VX from the Beka Valley

Let Israel defend as they see needed ....the country is the size of Jersey and surrounded by countries with a sole intention of eliminating the Jewish state

I have never slammed Israel .... I have stated that this country has our plates full as is internally and elsewhere and we need to shirt our priorities

Toejamsky · Jan 5, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

<TABLE id=post1852877 class=tborder border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=3 width="100%" align=center><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #2b295e 0px solid; BORDER-LEFT: #2b295e 1px solid; BORDER-TOP: #2b295e 0px solid; BORDER-RIGHT: #2b295e 1px solid" class=alt2 width=175>Lib and Proud<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> vbmenu_register("postmenu_1852877", true); </SCRIPT>
EOG Addicted

Join Date: Dec 27, 2008
Posts: 711

</TD><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #2b295e 1px solid" id=td_post_1852877 class=alt1>

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.
<HR style="COLOR: #2b295e" SIZE=1>Guys like Road Dawg and Lib and Proud lack the intellectual honesty to distinguish between a phony ass war in Iraq and survival of the remnants of European Jews in their homeland

Really?

I have never bashed Israel one time and know the history of this conflict as there is no such thing as a Palestinian but nothing more than displaced Arabs ... Israel will be in a constant state of war until the crickets are the only survivors after the Nukes take out Damascus once Hezbollah starts
launching VX from the Beka Valley

Let Israel defend as they see needed ....the country is the size of Jersey and surrounded by countries with a sole intention of eliminating the Jewish state

I have never slammed Israel .... I have stated that this country has our plates full as is internally and elsewhere and we need to shirt our priorities

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Lib and Proud
EOG Addicted

Join Date: Dec 27, 2008
Posts: 711 Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Guys like Road Dawg and Lib and Proud lack the intellectual honesty to distinguish between a phony ass war in Iraq and survival of the remnants of European Jews in their homeland

Really?

I have never bashed Israel one time and know the history of this conflict as there is no such thing as a Palestinian but nothing more than displaced Arabs ... Israel will be in a constant state of war until the crickets are the only survivors after the Nukes take out Damascus once Hezbollah starts
launching VX from the Beka Valley

Let Israel defend as they see needed ....the country is the size of Jersey and surrounded by countries with a sole intention of eliminating the Jewish state

I have never slammed Israel .... I have stated that this country has our plates full as is internally and elsewhere and we need to shirt our priorities

Now where could I have gotten the idea this devious, intelligence insulting putz, doesn't support Israel as he gives us half a story leaving out the Mosque was a storage points for missles, arms, and was occupied by his heroic freedom baby killing freedom fighters.

Originally Posted by Lib and Proud
Israel took out a Mosque today ....

that should help "settle things down"

ZZ CREAM · Jan 5, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Toejamsky said:
That's a hell of a characterization of Israel's position, "killing innocents." Like the Jews are out to kill civilians. Unlike the Jihadists who actually target them. A wonderful half the picture distortion. He nonetheless asks in another post, "Where did I get the idea he doesn't support Israel." Let's hear it for the terrorists ZZ! I haven't found mention of your criticism of those fiends. Man if there was an award for insulting intelligence Proud and Puppets would be in the running all the way.

Anyone who kills is wrong. Anyone who kills innocents is wrong. Where in my statement did I lose you? I did not blame Israel, the US or anyone else? I said, and I quote, "Killing innocents is never right, whether Usama does it or we do it." I would like to follow Christ's teachings and he says to 'love thy neighbor', not kill them. If you want to label Jesus a terrorist, so be it. I would be in good company then. And where did I label Israel with 'any' position? I simply stated honest truths that always hold true, even if you do not like them. Now go back to your groundless accusations Toejamsky.

Toejamsky · Jan 5, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

ZZ CREAM said:
Anyone who kills is wrong. Anyone who kills innocents is wrong. Where in my statement did I lose you? I did not blame Israel, the US or anyone else? I said, and I quote, "Killing innocents is never right, whether Usama does it or we do it." I would like to follow Christ's teachings and he says to 'love thy neighbor', not kill them. If you want to label Jesus a terrorist, so be it. I would be in good company then. And where did I label Israel with 'any' position? I simply stated honest truths that always hold true, even if you do not like them. Now go back to your groundless accusations Toejamsky.

It's the context which makes your "killing innocents" a smear against Israel. Now if you tell me you're a pacifist that's a different kettle of fish and I retract everything I've said of you on this point.

G. K. TEMUJIN · Jan 5, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

WELCOME BACK FRANNIE JOHNS0N AKA FATNANNATANK ALIAS CRAPPERJED AS T0EJAMSKY......

[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Israel's 'Fait Accompli' in Gaza[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]by Eric Margolis
by Eric Margolis[/FONT][/FONT]
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</NOBR>

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<NOSCRIPT></NOSCRIPT>

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]There are two completely different versions of what is currently happening in Gaza.[/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]In the Israeli and North American press version, Hamas – "Islamic terrorists" backed by Iran – have in an unprovoked attack fired deadly rockets on innocent Israel with the intent of destroying the Jewish state.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]North American politicians and the media say Israel "has the right to defend itself." [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]True enough. No Israeli government can tolerate rockets hitting its towns, even though the casualty totals have been less than the car crash fatalities registered during a single holiday weekend on Israel's roads. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The firing of the feeble, homemade al-Qassam rockets by Palestinians is both useless and counterproductive.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]It damages their image as an oppressed people and gives right-wing Israeli extremists a perfect reason to launch more attacks on the Arabs and refuse to discuss peace. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Israel's supporters insist it has the absolute right to drop hundreds of tons of bombs on "Hamas targets" inside the 360 sq km Gaza Strip to "take out the terrorists."[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Civilians suffer, says Israel, because the cowardly Hamas hide among them. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Actually, it is more like shooting fish in a barrel.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Omitting facts[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]As usual, this cartoon-like version of events omits a great deal of nuance and background. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]While firing rockets at civilians is a crime so, too, is the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which is an egregious violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]According to the UN, most of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinian refugees subsist near the edge of hunger. Seventy per cent of Palestinian children in Gaza suffer from severe malnutrition and psychological trauma. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Medical facilities are critically short of doctors, personnel, equipment, and drugs. Gaza has quite literally become a human garbage dump for all the Arabs that Israel does not want.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Gaza is one of the world's most-densely populated places, a vast outdoor prison camp filled with desperate people. In the past, they threw stones at their Israeli occupiers; now they launch homemade rockets.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Call it a prison riot, writ large.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Eyeing the elections[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]When the so-called truce between Tel Aviv and Hamas expired on December 19, Israeli politicians were in the throes of preparing for the February 10 national elections.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Israeli politics are playing a key role in this crisis.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Ehud Barak, the defense minister and leader of the Labour party, and Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and leader of the Kadima party, are trying to prove themselves tougher than Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line Likud party – and one another.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Israel's elections are only six weeks away, and Likud was leading until the air raids on Gaza began. Kadima and Labour are now up in the polls. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The heavy attacks on Gaza are also designed to intimidate Israel's Arab neighbors, and make up for Israel's humiliating 2006 defeat in Lebanon, which still haunts the country's politicians and generals. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]A fait accompli[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]When the air raids on Gaza began, Barak said: "We have totally changed the rules of the game."[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]He was right. By blitzing Hamas-run Gaza, Barak presented the incoming US administration with a fait accompli, and neatly checkmated the newest player in the Middle East Great Game – Barack Obama, the US president-elect – before he could even take a seat at the table.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The Israeli offensive into Gaza now looks likely to short-circuit any plans Obama might have had to press Israel into withdrawing to its pre-1967 borders and sharing Jerusalem.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]This has pleased Israel's supporters in North America who have been cheering the war in Gaza and have been backing away from their earlier tentative support for a land-for-peace deal. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Israel's successes in having Western media portray the Gaza offensive as an "anti-terrorist operation" will also diminish hopes of peace talks any time soon.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Obama inherits this mess in a few weeks. During the elections, Obama bowed to the Israel lobby, offering a new US carte blanche to Israel and even accepting Israel's permanent monopoly of all of Jerusalem. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]As he concludes forming his cabinet, his Middle East team looks like it may be top-heavy with friends of Israel's Labour party. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Obama keeps saying he must remain silent on policy issues until George Bush, the outgoing US president, leaves office, but his staff appear happy to avoid having to make statements about Gaza that would antagonize Israel's American supporters. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Obama will take office facing a Middle East up in arms over Gaza and the entire Muslim world blaming the US for the carnage in Gaza. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Unless he moves swiftly to distance himself from the policies of the Bush administration, he will soon find himself facing the same problems and anger as the Bush White House. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Arab deal killed[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Israel's Gaza offensive is also likely to torpedo the current Saudi-sponsored peace plan, which had been backed by all members of the Arab League.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The plan, now likely defunct, had called for Israel to withdraw to its 1967 borders and share Jerusalem in exchange for full recognition and normalized relations with the Muslim world. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Arab governments will now be unable to sell the deal as they face a storm of criticism from their own people over their powerlessness to help the Palestinians of Gaza. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Egypt, in particular, is being widely accused of collaborating with Israel in further sealing off and isolating Gaza. It seems highly unlikely they will be able to advance a peace plan with Israel for now.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]This is a bonus for right-wing Israelis, who have always been dead set against any withdrawal and strongly supported the attack on Gaza.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Other Israeli factions who were always lukewarm about the Saudi peace plan are now unlikely to reconsider it.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Israel's security establishment is committed to preventing the creation of a viable Palestinian state, and refuses to negotiate with Hamas. Unable to kill all of Hamas' men, Israel is slowly destroying Gaza's infrastructure around them, as it did to Yasser Arafat's PLO.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Israel's hardliners point to Gaza and claim that any Palestinian state on the West Bank would threaten their nation's security by firing rockets into Israel's heartland. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Mighty information machine[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Israel is confident that its mighty information machine will allow it to weather the storm of worldwide outrage over its Biblical punishment of Gaza. Who remembers Israel's flattening of parts of the Palestinian city of Jenin, or the US destruction in Falluja, Iraq, or the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in Beirut? [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The US media has focused on the rockets being fired on Israel from Gaza.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Though the torment of Gaza is seen across the horrified Muslim world as a modern version of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising by Jews against the Nazis during World War Two, Western governments still appear bent on taking no action.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Though Israel's use of American weapons against Gaza violates the US Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts, the docile US Congress will remain mute. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Israel's assault on Gaza was clearly timed for America's interregnum between administrations and the year-end holidays, a well-used Israeli tactic. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Hamas refuses to recognize Israel as long as Israel refuses to recognize Hamas and the rights of millions of homeless Palestinian refugees. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]It calls for a non-religious state to be created in Palestine, meaning an end to Zionism. Ironically, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and late leader of Hamas, had spoken of a compromise with Tel Aviv shortly before he was assassinated by Israel in 2004.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]An inherited mess[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Israel's hopes that it can bomb Gazans into rejecting Hamas are as ill-conceived as its failed attempt in 2006 to blast Lebanon into rejecting Hezbollah. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The Fatah regime on the West Bank installed by the US and Israel after Yasser Arafat's suspicious death will be further discredited, leaving the militants of Hamas as the sole authentic voice of Palestinian nationalism. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Hamas, the militant but still democratically elected government of Gaza, is even less likely to compromise. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The Muslim world is in a rage. But so what? Stalin liked to say "the dogs bark, and the caravan moves on," and as long as the US gives Israel carte blanche, it can do just about anything it wants. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The tragedy of Palestine will thus continue to poison US relations with the Muslim world.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Those Americans who still do not understand why their nation was attacked on 9/11 need only look to Gaza, for which the US is now being blamed as much as Israel. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Unless Israel can make 5 to 7 million Palestinians disappear, it must find some way to coexist with them. Israeli leaders on the center and right continue to avoid facing this fact.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The brutal collective punishment inflicted on Gaza will likely strengthen Hamas and reverse any hopes of a Middle East peace in the coming years. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]January 5, 2009[/FONT]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis131.html

ZZ CREAM · Jan 5, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Toejamsky said:
It's the context which makes your "killing innocents" a smear against Israel. Now if you tell me you're a pacifist that's a different kettle of fish and I retract everything I've said of you on this point.

I was only referring to Israel in the same context as I would have anyone in the world. Not because it is in the news or because I am singling them out. I have learned alot as I have gotten older and I truly believe that all killing is bad. Yes, I am a pacifist even though I am not fond of the term because it connotates weakness in so many people.

G. K. TEMUJIN · Jan 5, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

WELCOME BACK FRANNIE JOHNS0N AKA FATNANNATANK ALIAS CRAPPERJED AS T0EJAMSKY......

May We No Longer Be Silent

The title of my article comes from the sermon of the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., John Bryson Chane, delivered on Oct. 5, 2008, at St. Columba Church.
The bishop's eyes were opened to Israel's persecution of Palestinians by his recent trip to Palestine. In his sermon, he called on "politicians seeking the highest office in (our) land" to find the courage to "speak out and condemn violations of human rights and religious freedom denied to Palestinian Christians and Muslims" by the state of Israel.

Chane's courage was to no avail. As Justin Raimondo reported on Antiwar.com on Dec. 27, when America's new leader of "change" was informed of Israel's massive air attack on the Gaza Ghetto, an area of 139 square miles where Israel confines 1.4 million Arabs and tightly controls the inflow of all resources — food, medicine, water and energy — America's president-elect Obama had "no comment."

According to the Dec. 26 Jerusalem Post, "At 11:30 a.m., more than 50 fighter jets and attack helicopters swept into Gazan airspace and dropped more than 100 bombs on 50 targets. ... Thirty minutes later, a second wave of 60 jets and helicopters struck at 60 targets. ... More than 170 targets were hit by IAF aircraft throughout the day. At least 230 Gazans were killed and over 780 were wounded ... ."

As I write, news reports are that Israel is sending tanks and infantry reinforcements in preparation for a ground invasion of Gaza.

Israel's excuse for its violence is that from time to time the Palestinian resistance organization Hamas fires off rockets into Israel to protest the ghetto life that Israel imposes on Gazans. The rockets are ineffectual for the most part and seldom claim Israeli casualties. However, the real purpose for the Israeli attack is to destroy Hamas.

In 2006, the United States insisted that the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank hold free elections. When free elections were held, Hamas won. This was unacceptable to the Americans and Israelis. In the West Bank, the Americans and Israelis imposed a puppet government, but Hamas held on in Gaza. After unheeded warnings to the Gazans to rid themselves of Hamas and accept a puppet government, Israel has decided to destroy the freely elected government with violence.

Ehud Barak, who is overseeing the latest act of Israeli aggression, said in interviews addressed to the British and American public that asking Israel to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas would be like asking the United States to agree to a ceasefire with al-Qaida. The terrorism that Israel inflicts on Palestinians goes unremarked.

According to the Dec. 28 London Times: "Britain and the United States were on a collision course with their European allies last night after refusing to call for an end to Israeli airstrikes on Hamas targets in Gaza. The wave of attacks marked a violent end to President George W. Bush's sporadic Middle East peace efforts. The White House put the blame squarely on Hamas." The British government also blamed Hamas.

For the U.S. and British governments, Israel can do no wrong. Israel doesn't have to stop withholding food, medicine, water and energy, but Hamas must stop protesting by firing off rockets. In violation of international law, Israel can drive West Bank Palestinians off their lands and out of their villages and give the stolen properties to "settlers." Israel can delay Palestinians in need of emergency medical care at checkpoints until their lives ebb away.

Israeli snipers can get their jollies murdering Palestinian children.

The Great Moral Anglo-Americans couldn't care less.

In his 2005 Nobel Lecture, British playwright Harold Pinter held the United States and its British puppet state accountable for "the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought." Everyone knows that such crimes occurred in the Soviet Union and in its East European empire, but "U.S. <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=15 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SCRIPT src="http://harvest189.adgardener.com/flowerPot.aspx?c=0db11dde-25b4-43de-9f0d-0b56f427e74b" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT><IFRAME id=AG_SLJKP style="WIDTH: 300px; HEIGHT: 250px" name=AG_SLJKP marginWidth=0 marginHeight=0 src="javascript:AG_nullSrc();" frameBorder=0 scrolling=no allowTransparency>

</IFRAME><NOSCRIPT></NOSCRIPT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognized as crimes at all" — this despite the fact that "the United States' actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked."

Soviet crimes, like Nazi ones, are documented in gruesome detail, but America's crimes "never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest.

The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them.

You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis."

America's is "a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think."

Pinter presents a long list of American crimes and comes to Iraq: "The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was ... an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading — as a last resort, all other justifications having failed to justify themselves — as liberation."

Americans and their British puppets "have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East.'
"How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal?" Pinter's question can also be asked of Israel. Israel has been in violation of international law since 1967, protected by the United States' veto of U.N. resolutions condemning Israel for its violent, inhumane, barbaric and illegal acts.

American evangelical Christians, who are degenerating into Zionists, are Israel's greatest allies. Jesus is forsaken, as Christians swallow whole the Israeli lies. A couple of years ago the U.S. Presbyterian Church was so distressed by Israel's immorality toward Palestinians that the church attempted to disinvest its investment portfolio from assets tainted with Israel. But the Israel lobby was stronger. The Presbyterian Church was unable to stand up for Christian principles and knuckled under to the Israel lobby's pressure.

This is hardly surprising considering that the U.S. government doesn't stand for Christian principles either.

America's doctrine of "full spectrum dominance" means that, like Vladimir Lenin's dictatorship, America is not bound by law or morality, but by power alone.
Pinter sums it up in a speech he had dreams of writing for President George W. Bush:
"God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden's God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam's God was bad, except he didn't have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don't chop people's heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don't you forget it."

If only our ears could hear, this is the speech we have been hearing from Israel for 60 years.

http://www.creators.com/opinion/paul-craig-roberts.html

Toejamsky · Jan 5, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Toejamsky said:
I just finished reading this amazing book "The Sunflower" by Simon Wisenthal. It's an account of a dying SS Kommandant seeking his forgiveness in the midst of the everyday sadistic brutality and slaughter he witnessed as a concentration camp prisoner. We all know the horrors of that time and this SS guy was laden with guilt about his participation in the rounding up of 300 Jews who were locked into an abandoned house which was set afire. Fathers and mothers, covering their children's eyes as they jumped from windows stained the German's memory and consience. What was remarkable about the book for me was Wisenthal's description of how being treated like a sub-human and seeing death and brutality around every corner affect a person. The only rule for the Jews, the only given, was death awaited. His experience provides a unique insight into that horrific time. Several writers and commentators following his story provide their view on the ethics of "foregivness" and I am most comfortable with the view that as he was not a victim of this SS soldier's actions he was not in a position to forgive him, though others argued since all his victims were dead who but a third party could grant absolution to the truly contrite. An interesting and as I have said powerful book. Of course the Jew hating beat goes on as we can see from every day events in the mideast

Shame on you Mr. Temujin!

G. K. TEMUJIN · Jan 5, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Toejamsky said:
Shame on you Mr. Temujin!

Yes Fran you are totally correct SHAME ON ME for being asleep in my tent while you start a New Year spreading your hog dung threads !!! Telling your usual vile untruths & diabolical half truths !!! Yes SHAME ON ME for not standing up the evil shadow power you represent !!! SHAME ON ME for not doing the right thing sooner , being the a voice of a sound truth , honest facts , sane reason , and just peace !!! Things you cannot & will never understand.

Hey FRANNIE JOHNS0N AKA FATNANNATANK ALIAS CRAPPERJED AS T0EJAMSKY Duel citizen when are you leaving the safety of America to go butcher some Arab Kids ???

I hear they have reactivated the Gay brigade , of which I Know you are the chief intelligence officer , to go an spread your malevolent filth in Gaza.

YES SHAME ON YOU FRAN !!!

Doc Mercer · Jan 5, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

I hear they have reactivated the Gay brigade , of which I Know you are the chief intelligence officer

:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO

G. K. TEMUJIN · Jan 5, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Lib and Proud said:
I hear they have reactivated the Gay brigade , of which I Know you are the chief intelligence officer

:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO:LMAO

Toejamskists - self serving liars Blame Palestinians For Johnsonist Attacks !!!

I would not believe Toejamsky if she said Day was light and dark was night.

Did you know that the Geneva Conventions - which the Johsonists ratified in 1951 - prohibit using military force against civilians ??? But then, when you are a Johnsonists , rules never apply to you !!!

Do not believe me just ask CrapperJed or Fatnannatank !!!

In the Bible, Goliath of Gath was a Philistine, the people from whom today’s Palestinians are descended. Ironically, the Palestinians of Gaza now find themselves in the position of David, facing a giant…

Bush blames Hamas for Gaza conflict.

(Yes the same Bush looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq)

Funny how he forgets how the self righteous Johnsonists blockade food , medicines and other vital goods from Gaza. An unjustified act of war in itself…

Inspired by the Johnsonist nonsense statements..... Toejamky praises attacks on innocent helpless Arab civilians . Always a legitimate targets in the Johnsonists way of conducting warfare.

In war, whether it is a world war or a war of revolution, guerrilla insurgents and partisans must use whatever means they have available to resist tyranny. If Hamas had the same conventional and nuclear weapons arsenal at their disposal that their Johnsonists oppressors have, they wouldn’t have to use crude rockets launched over their border defend themselves. Likewise, they wouldn’t have to use slingshots and rocks against tanks and attack helicopters, if they had their own. The U.S. government with ample support of many brain dead American sheep tax dollars. Provide those high-tech weapons of mass destruction and slaughter to the rabid Toejamskists terrorist state . If rambling out both sides of his mouth imbecile Frannie Johnson wants the Palestinians to “ fight fair ” . Then the Palestinians should be armed fairly and equally as the Johnsonists.

Otherwise, blaming Hamas and the Palestinians for fighting back against an overwhelming enemy however they can would be like blaming a rape victim for scratching her attacker while he held her down. But then, since when have the Johnsonists or their Sappy Shabbas Goy lackies in the west cared anything about double standards…or the lives of non-johnsonists ???

Many American politicians are firmly in the pocket of the AIPAC. 0r they are dual citizens of Toejamland such as Bloomberg, Lieberman or Feinstein etc.etc.etc. There are at least 11 Johnsonist Senators out of 100. Very good for a group that is less then 2% of the American population !!! Just see all Johnsonists appointments to the Messiah Obama's cabinet .

The average stupid American lemming never realize that they hand over 3 billion a year to Toejamland of tax dollars. That America manufactures and paid for those bombs that the Johnsonists are now dropping on the Palestinians in Gaza, nor do they know the history of the region nor do they have any idea who Rachel Corrie is or how she was murdered. Run over by a bulldozer paid for by the dumb American tax payer.

If you have been watching Fox News or CNN today you would think that America was invading Gaza, that is how saturated the American media is with this illegal war. All part of well planned out & executed effort to make Americans think they somehow are part of the Johnsonist Nation. And of course every 10 minutes there is another Toejamist or American Johnsonist unchallenged source reaffirming the righteousness of the Toejamland forces and the absolute evilness of Arabs . Toejamland is always the first state in the union .

Nothing these criminal scum Johnsonists get up to surprises me. Nor is it surprising is that the Western world is apparently blind to the crimes against humanity committed right under its nose. The Johnsonists have vast control over governments , main stream media & internet .

How do you know Toejamsky is lying her lips are moving !!!

My thoughts and prayers go out to the harmless Palestinians civilians, especially the dozens of innocent children maimed and murdered, all in the name of the criminal Johnsonists state's so-called " security ".

Toejamsky · Jan 5, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

It really doesn't take such a long winded diatribe to summarize the deal. Israel let 'em have gaza back though it's about as close as pasadena to santa monica and they started firing missles at civilians. Wouldn't stop. Haven't stopped. Israeli response, especially with Jihadist hiding behind and among civilians, assures civilian casualties.

G. K. TEMUJIN · Jan 6, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

What diatribe Franny ???

To much for you to read & comprehend lil' girl ???

With all those big words bandied about you should try using a dictionary it will make the tome go much faster and easier to understand for nitwits like yourself.

Or are you upset that someone has the chutzpah to challenge the bile you set forth as fact ??? How can anyone in the whole world have the seer audacity to challenge the Johnsonist elite party line ???

Do not worry the vast majority of moronic masses in the USA have not one hint as to the evil shenanigans the greedy Johsonist tribalist are conducting every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year....year after year after year after year......

Rest easy pathetic one !!!

Toejam Johnson your secrets are safe from the sound sleeping American public. Keep typing your gross fabrications there is a sucker born every minute.

scrimmage · Jan 6, 2009

Re: Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

Toejamsky said:
It really doesn't take such a long winded diatribe to summarize the deal. Israel let 'em have gaza back though it's about as close as pasadena to santa monica and they started firing missles at civilians. Wouldn't stop. Haven't stopped. Israeli response, especially with Jihadist hiding behind and among civilians, assures civilian casualties.

Toejamsky;
You'd like to distort reality by offering up a simple explanation of a complex process which led up to the current events happening in Gaza today,but it's just not so.
3 years ago Israel removed all Jewish settlers from Gaza,and from there-on have tightened the noose on the remaining 99.5% Palestinian population.
Lie #2 of 5 below,from a Foreign Policy Journal analysis, should adequately address your baseless claim about Hamas firing "missles" at civilians being a legitmate reason for the outsized Israeli assault on Gaza.In fact Israel violated the cease-fire on November 4th,2008,and things have escalated from there, this was part of Israel's strategic objective for Gaza as they needed pretexts to launch their aggression.

Top 5 Lies About Israel?s Assault on Gaza

January 3, 2009
by Jeremy R. Hammond
From:
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com...top-5-lies-about-israels-assault-on-gaza.html

Lie #1) Israel is only targeting legitimate military sites and is seeking to protect innocent lives. Israel never targets civilians.

The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated pieces of property in the world. The presence of militants within a civilian population does not, under international law, deprive that population of their protected status, and hence any assault upon that population under the guise of targeting militants is, in fact, a war crime.
Moreover, the people Israel claims are legitimate targets are members of Hamas, which Israel says is a terrorist organization. Hamas has been responsible for firing rockets into Israel. These rockets are extremely inaccurate and thus, even if Hamas intended to hit military targets within Israel, are indiscriminate by nature. When rockets from Gaza kill Israeli civilians, it is a war crime.

Hamas has a military wing. However, it is not entirely a military organization, but a political one. Members of Hamas are the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people. Dozens of these elected leaders have been kidnapped and held in Israeli prisons without charge. Others have been targeted for assassination, such as Nizar Rayan, a top Hamas official. To kill Rayan, Israel targeted a residential apartment building. The strike not only killed Rayan but two of his wives and four of his children, along with six others. There is no justification for such an attack under international law. This was a war crime.

Other of Israel?s bombardment with protected status under international law have included a mosque, a prison, police stations, and a university, in addition to residential buildings.
Moreover, Israel has long held Gaza under siege, allowing only the most minimal amounts of humanitarian supplies to enter. Israel is bombing and killing Palestinian civilians. Countless more have been wounded, and cannot receive medical attention. Hospitals running on generators have little or no fuel. Doctors have no proper equipment or medical supplies to treat the injured. These people, too, are the victims of Israeli policies targeted not at Hamas or legitimate military targets, but directly designed to punish the civilian population.

Lie #2) Hamas violated the cease-fire. The Israeli bombardment is a response to Palestinian rocket fire and is designed to end such rocket attacks.

Israel never observed the cease-fire to begin with. From the beginning, it announced a ?special security zone? within the Gaza Strip and announced that Palestinians who enter this zone will be fired upon. In other words, Israel announced its intention that Israeli soldiers would shoot at farmers and other individuals attempting to reach their own land in direct violation of not only the cease-fire but international law.

Despite shooting incidents, including ones resulting in Palestinians getting injured, Hamas still held to the cease-fire from the time it went into effect on June 19 until Israel effectively ended the truce on November 4 by launching an airstrike into Gaza that killed five and injured several others.

Israel?s violation of the cease-fire predictably resulted in retaliation from militants in Gaza who fired rockets into Israel in response. The increased barrage of rocket fire at the end of December is being used as justification for the continued Israeli bombardment, but is a direct response by militants to the Israeli attacks.

Israel's actions, including its violation of the cease-fire, predictably resulted in an escalation of rocket attacks against its own population.

Lie #3) Hamas is using human shields, a war crime.

There has been no evidence that Hamas has used human shields. The fact is, as previously noted, Gaza is a small piece of property that is densely populated. Israel engages in indiscriminate warfare such as the assassination of Nizar Rayan, in which members of his family were also murdered. It is victims like his dead children that Israel defines as ?human shields? in its propaganda. There is no legitimacy for this interpretation under international law. In circumstances such as these, Hamas is not using human shields, Israel is committing war crimes in violation of the Geneva Conventions and other applicable international law.

Lie #4) Arab nations have not condemned Israel?s actions because they understand Israel?s justification for its assault.

The populations of those Arab countries are outraged at Israel?s actions and at their own governments for not condemning Israel?s assault and acting to end the violence. Simply stated, the Arab governments do not represent their respective Arab populations. The populations of the Arab nations have staged mass protests in opposition to not only Israel's actions but also the inaction of their own governments and what they view as either complacency or complicity in Israel's crimes.

Moreover, the refusal of Arab nations to take action to come to the aid of the Palestinians is not because they agree with Israel?s actions, but because they are submissive to the will of the US, which fully supports Israel. Egypt, for instance, which refused to open the border to allow Palestinians wounded in the attacks to get medical treatment in Egyptian hospitals, is heavily dependent upon US aid, and is being widely criticized within the population of the Arab countries for what is viewed as an absolute betrayal of the Gaza Palestinians.

Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been regarded as a traitor to his own people for blaming Hamas for the suffering of the people of Gaza. Palestinians are also well aware of Abbas' past perceived betrayals in conniving with Israel and the US to sideline the democratically elected Hamas government, culminating in a counter-coup by Hamas in which it expelled Fatah (the military wing of Abbas' Palestine Authority) from the Gaza Strip. While his apparent goal was to weaken Hamas and strengthen his own position, the Palestinians and other Arabs in the Middle East are so outraged at Abbas that it is unlikely he will be able to govern effectively.

Lie #5) Israel is not responsible for civilian deaths because it warned the Palestinians of Gaza to flee areas that might be targeted.

Israel claims it sent radio and telephone text messages to residents of Gaza warning them to flee from the coming bombardment. But the people of Gaza have nowhere to flee to. They are trapped within the Gaza Strip. It is by Israeli design that they cannot escape across the border. It is by Israeli design that they have no food, water, or fuel by which to survive. It is by Israeli design that hospitals in Gaza have no electricity and few medical supplies with which to treat the injured and save lives. And Israel has bombed vast areas of Gaza, targeting civilian infrastructure and other sites with protected status under international law. No place is safe within the Gaza Strip.
<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> </SCRIPT><SCRIPT src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" type=text/javascript> </SCRIPT><SCRIPT>window.google_render_ad();</SCRIPT><IFRAME name=google_ads_frame marginWidth=0 marginHeight=0 src="http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-1033856974407952&dt=1231218785109&lmt=1231218785&prev_slotnames=5798092218%2C3863113057%2C6230542315%2C9861432218&output=html&slotname=4672564200&correlator=1231218781765&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.foreignpolicyjournal.com%2Farticles%2F2009%2F01%2F03%2Fhammond_top-5-lies-about-israels-assault-on-gaza.html&ea=0&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fcryptogon.com%2F&frm=0&ff=Arial&biw=1003&bih=564&adx=39&ady=5036&ga_vid=669327789.1231218782&ga_sid=1231218782&ga_hid=1303894951&flash=9.0.115.0&u_h=768&u_w=1024&u_ah=738&u_aw=1024&u_cd=32&u_tz=-300&u_his=5&u_java=true&dtd=16" frameBorder=0 width=0 scrolling=no height=0 allowTransparency></IFRAME>

Jeremy R. Hammond is the editor of Foreign Policy Journal, a website dedicated to providing news, critical analysis, and opinion commentary on U.S. foreign policy from outside of the standard framework offered by government officials and the mainstream corporate media, particularly with regard to the "war on terrorism" and events in the Middle East. He has also written for numerous other online publications. You can contact him at jeremy@foreignpolicyjournal.com.<SCRIPT src="http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/test_domain.js"></SCRIPT><SCRIPT src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/render_ads.js"></SCRIPT><SCRIPT>window.google_render_ad();</SCRIPT>

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Your tax dollars at work,for Israel.

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