ORGANIZATIONS SUPPORTING GAZA

• The Free Gaza Movement
• Grassroots International
• Gaza Community Mental Health Programme
• Gaza Mental Health Foundation
• Middle East Childrenʼs Alliance (MECA)
• United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
• World Health Organization West Bank and Gaza Office

ORGANIZATIONS COLLECTING DONATIONS FOR RELIEF IN GAZA

• American Charities for Palestine
• American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA)
• American Taskforce on Palestine
• CARE International in the West Bank and Gaza
• Christian Aid
• Islamic Relief
• KinderUSA
• Palestine Childrenʼs Relief Fund
• Palestine Red Crescent Society
• Physicians for Human Rights – Israel
• Mercy Corps
• Middle East Childrenʼs Alliance (MECA)
• Red Cross Partners Respond to Crisis in Gaza
• ReliefWeb Updates on Occupied Palestinian Territories
• United Palestinian Appeal
• United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)
• Friends of UNRWA

30 comments on “Action for Gaza”

1. Emmanuel

   28 December, 2008

   

   The best way to help Gaza would be to call on Hamas to ask for a ceasefire. The goal of this operation, in the long run, is to end the constant barrage of rocket fire on Israeli civilians, or at least reduce it considerably.

   So far, very few of the Gazans killed were civilians. I’m sorry about every innocent life lost. However, most of the dead were Hamas militants (including members of Hamas Police) and I’m not sorry for them or their families one bit.

   Hamas was shocked by Israel’s actions, and I’m very happy about that. Israel wanted to continue the ceasefire. Hamas refused, the Hamas got what it deserved.
2. finebeer

   28 December, 2008

   

   Ask HAMAS to call for a ceasefire? It’s ISRAEL doing the killing, you delusional person. Israel could have the rocket fire end today. Easy: end the occupation. END THE OCCUPATION. Its their land, their waters, their airspace, their right to move freely.

   You are a fine specimen for Israeli delusion and blindness. You claim you are sorry for every innocent life lost only to follow it up by saying you are not sorry for the families of Hamas Police. So you blame whole families now as well? People wonder how Israel’s massacres are applauded by you apparently bloodthirsty lot–well, you’ve just proved the perception.
   Reality check: Collective punishment is a WAR CRIME. Wanton massacres is a WARCRIME. What Israel is doing is GENOCIDE.

   Lie # 1: YOU ARE DEAD WRONG: most of those killed were CIVILIANS. Just like in Lebanon 2006. CIVILIANS.

   Lie # 2: if Israel really wanted to continue the ceasefire, it would have stopped breaking it. Israel didn’t want to contniue the ceasefire, it wanted the total submission of Gazans.

   You have no credibility, no courage and no empathy. You might ask the wizard of Oz for a heart, a brain and courage to see. Also, read a fellow Jew to provide a good example as to how you would be if you had: Mondoweiss
3. Emmanuel

   29 December, 2008

   

   You don’t know what the hell genocide IS if you think killing terrorists fits the bill. From today’s New York Times: “Palestinian officials said that most of the dead in Gaza were security officers for Hamas, including two senior commanders, and that at least 600 people had been wounded in the attacks”.

   Even during the tahadiyah (ceasefire), rockets kept coming from Gaza, although less frequently. Also, Hamas kept smuggling arms to attack Israel.

   And now to your extremely simplistic statement:

   “Israel could have the rocket fire end today. Easy: end the occupation. END THE OCCUPATION. Its their land, their waters, their airspace, their right to move freely.”

   We ended the occupation of Gaza. Didn’t help. What we got in return was more rockets inside Israel. I support ending the occupation of the West Bank, but it mustn’t be unilateral. It can only come as part of an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians in which both sides will declare they’ll stop fighting each other. Hamas is not willing to do that, except for temporary ceasefires here and there, but no permanent peace until Israel stops existing.

   Even if Israel completely pulled out today from all the territories it captured in 1967 and lifted the embargo on Gaza, Hamas and Islamic Jihad would still shoot rockets at Israel.

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5. Miche

   29 December, 2008

   

   There is nothing going on in my area of the states but I found out after I moved that I relocated in Warmongerville.

   I’m not a person of faith but my thoughts are with all the innocents who are affected by the offensive.

   __
   Thanks, Miche
6. finebeer

   29 December, 2008

   

   Emmanuel, you are full of sh*t and your lies continue.

   1. The IHT is the international edition of the NYT and is the mouthpiece of the Bush administration by and large. Most other sources report INDISCRIMINATE ATTACKS, which by definition target CIVILIANS. Does an air strike ask “are you a “militant” or not” before it strikes you? Air strikes have hit SCHOOLS, FACTORIES, MOSQUES and PEOPLES HOUSES. Its hit children to and from SCHOOL. Your link is dead, btw, but its credibility is as good as dead anyway.

   2. The ceasefire was BROKEN BY ISRAEL. Hamas killed no-one during the ceasefire. Israel tightened its siege, starving the population, for which Gazans have EVERY RIGHT TO RESIST. Hamas leader Meshaal has offered a ceasefire (see Y’Net): this was rejected by Israel.

   3. Israel DID NOT END the occupation of Gaza. It STILL CONTROLS its airspace, borders, and movements. Withdrawing a few illegal settlements does not constitute ending an occupation, which Israel is doing more than ever.

   4. You continue your lies, distortions and misinformation by stating:

   “Hamas is not willing to do that, except for temporary ceasefires here and there, but no permanent peace until Israel stops existing.

   Even if Israel completely pulled out today from all the territories it captured in 1967 and lifted the embargo on Gaza, Hamas and Islamic Jihad would still shoot rockets at Israel.”

   The 2002 Saudi Plan has been uniformly accepted and offered: it was REJECTED BY ISRAEL. Your “even if” statement is entirely speculative. You won’t know unless your government talks with Hamas, recognizes them as the REALITY and LEGITIMATELY ELECTED government of Gaza, and your government refuses to talk with them. Hamas has now ditched its 1987 Charter calling for Israel’s destruction when it started out as a militant organization: what excuse does Israel now have? NONE.

   Israel is the neighborhood bully INTENT ON WAR AND DESTRUCTION. Every civilized government should repudiate its monstrous actions, expel it from the UN, and boycott and shun it like apartheid South Africa.
7. Dave Bath

   29 December, 2008

   

   (1) Israel claims the right to bomb Iranian nuclear plants even though they are ten years from producing weapons-grade uranium. This means Israel accepts a 10-year pre-emptive window to attack military assets before they exist.

   (2) By this reasoning, isn’t every Israeli citizen (including children with less than ten years to go before they join the military) a military asset and therefore a legitimate target?

   (3) For the record, I condemn all belligerents – but the starvation of Gaza seems to me the most belligerent (because most of the targets are non-combatants) act of recent times.
8. finebeer

   29 December, 2008

   

   To add to Dave’s points, another corrective about targeting of civilians from Ali Abunimah in today’s Guardian (‘We have no words left’):
   
   Israel claims most of the dead were Hamas “terrorists”. In fact, the targets were police stations in dense residential areas, and the dead included many police officers and other civilians. Under international law, police officers are civilians, and targeting them is no less a war crime than aiming at other civilians.

   And on Israel’s worsening of the siege during the ceasefire, in both Gaza and the West Bank, he also notes:
   Any act of resistance including the peaceful protests against the apartheid wall in the West Bank is always met by Israeli bullets and bombs. There are no rockets launched at Israel from the West Bank, and yet Israel’s extrajudicial killings, land theft, settler pogroms and kidnappings never stopped for a day during the truce.
9. 99

   29 December, 2008

   

   finebeer: I think you will find that Israeli completely oblivious to decency and sanity, oblivious to truth, no matter what you say, or how well you say it… actually, no, IMPERVIOUS is the word for it.

   For everybody else, I have been collecting up a lot of information and throwing it into one post, links, pictures, information on planned protests, bits of my own outrage, the works… some of it from Ann’s stash of links, but a lot of it from all over. Here.

   I want Israel moved to the South Pole. :-(
10. Dave Bath

    29 December, 2008

    

    99 said:

    “I think you will find that Israeli completely oblivious to decency and sanity, oblivious to truth, no matter what you say, or how well you say it… actually, no, IMPERVIOUS is the word for it.”

    That’s because Judaic sacred texts advocate genocide, and most famously in Joshua, which I use here to infer that …

    The only difference between the positions on genocide of Joshua and Hitler is that Joshua would claim he was “only following orders”, which is no defence in international law. Zionists (including de facto Zionists in the Israeli cabinet) are also following the orders of their god as written in their sacred texts.
11. 99

    29 December, 2008

    

    Whereas I’m pretty sure it has only to do a life of compounding mental error upon mental error, strictly to uphold the posture of an outraged-by-imagined-victimhood member of the chosen. In any case, this Emmanuel bot is impervious, relentlessly impervious, to truth, to decency, to any need of any being beyond its own need to manipulate its environment to its advantage.

    So I wanted to share that to spare any here who have no experience with this particular incarnation of inevitability.

    ANN! This post most seriously rocks. I hope the world comes here to see it.
12. Emmanuel

    29 December, 2008

    

    Seriously, I have no idea why I keep coming here. All it achieves is getting me upset and none of you ever budge even a bit. It always sounds as if I’m an Evil One, the mouthpiece of Little Satan. It just shows how extreme your views are if even my moderate pro-peace, pro-two states views, are taken as fascist by you. . Anyway, I’ll continue in my futile ways.

    finbeer:

    1. You believe the NY Times is a Bush mouthpiece (which amazes me, since it is one of the most liberal, anti-Bush newspapers in the States), and I believe Al-Jazzeera is a Hamas mouthpiece (so is Ali Abuminah, a well known supporter of terrorism against Israel). I guess we don’t even have a common ground when it comes to reliable sources.

    It is true that not only Hamas compounds have been hit, and that is unfortunate. I am deeply sorry for any innocent life lost, but I don’t believe Israel aimed at the civilian targets, and from the reports I’ve been reading and hearing (including CNN and other reliable international sources) the vast majority of targets hit belonged to Hamas’s armed forces, including the police, which in Hamas’s case ain’t exactly a civilian organization. I wonder if Hamas Police is even considered a civilian police force by international law, considering the fact that nobody recognizes Hamas’s control of Gaza as legitimate.

    2. Mashaal offered a ceasefire after Israel’s operation started. Before the operation Israel was interested in continuing the ceasefire, but Hamas shot at Israel. During the so-called ceasefire nobody was killed on the Israeli side, but Hamas did not stop the Qassams, just reduced the amount fired at Israel. Israel did conduct a few raids into Gaza near the end of the ceasefire when it had info that long range missiles were being smuggled in. Was it right in its action? I don’t know.

    I hope a ceasefire is reached soon. First step – halting mutual attacks. After a while, when Hamas shows that it is adhering to the ceasefire completely and stopping other organizations from attacking Israel (which it did not do during the previous ceasefire) then the crossings should open. By the way, Israel has been allowing aid to come in even during this operation. Palestinian patients have been coming to Israeli hospitals, including one Palestinian injured by a Qassam that misfired last week (it is rumored that he was the one trying to launch it, but I don’t know if it’s true).

    3. You’re right that Israel still maintains control over Gaza’s borders and airspace. We can’t allow a territory ruled by a terrorist organization which vows to destroy us to have open borders. They’re successful enough in smuggling arms against our civilians as it is. Imagine what a nightmare it would be for Israel if Hamas would be free to import as many advanced weapons as it wants.

    4. The Saudi plan was rejected by Hamas. Members of the Israeli government have recently shown interest in the plan, and I’m glad, though they should have shown interest a long time ago.

    Israel talks to Hamas indirectly. Hamas themselves have not shown a willingness to even consider permanent peace with Israel. Do you have proof they have dropped their 1987 charter calling for the destruction of Israel?

    Dave:

    (1)This has nothing to do with Gaza, but I’ll indulge you: Iran will be able to produce nukes very soon, by some estimates, much sooner than ten years from now. Attacking Iran is a very bad option. I would rather see the nuclear program halted by peaceful means.

    (2) How can you compare human beings, especially little kids, to nuclear facilities? When a country like Iran keeps talking about its fantasies to see a world where you don’t exist and is developing the weapons to make that possible – those facilities are legitimate military targets. Civilians, on the other hand, are not legitimate targets. You have no idea which civilians are in the reserves and which aren’t. Today, for instance, Grad missiles killed one Arab citizen of Israel and injured several others. Are they legitimate targets, even though they probably never served in the army (though they might have)? You claim you’re against violence, but this sounds like an excuse for targetting civilians.

    As I’ve commented on your blog, Dave, the current situation has nothing to do with Jewish scripture.

    99: Funny, I was wishing something similar for Gaza. If only Gaza could peacefully detach itself from the mainland and travel somehwere close to Gibraltar, if not further away.
13. finebeer

    29 December, 2008

    

    Emmanuel, that you are the “moderate” is a searing indictment of the travesty Israel has become. You state you are not sorry for Gazan families. You think these air strikes — a war crime — are justified, and you ask us to believe you are the moderate? Get real.

    * As for the “liberal” NYT, I stated Bush administration mouthpiece, not Bush mouthpiece. The NYT mostly supported the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, for example. It didn’t function as a “liberal” media outlet should in scrutinizing that administration’s actions, AT ALL.

    * You claim “nobody recognizes Hamas’s control of Gaza as legitimate.” WRONG. The Carter Center oversaw these elections. Plenty of world governments recognize the democratically elected legitimacy of Hamas. The US and Europe are the world minority, not majority.

    * Ceasefires were REPEATEDLY offered by Hamas well before this six-month one.

    * Re Iran, it has a right to a nuclear program. I would see the nuclear WEAPONS program of ISRAEL halted by peaceful means.

    * Your claims about Iran are outright lies: “When a country like Iran keeps talking about its fantasies to see a world where you don’t exist and is developing the weapons to make that possible – those facilities are legitimate military targets.”

    THe IAEA has authoritatively said there is no evidence of a nuclear weapons program, and Iran has every right to develop nuclear energy. Where has Iran kept “talking about its fantasies to see a world where you don’t exist and is developing the weapons to make that possible”??? You are talking rubbish.

    You are impervious as 99 says. Gazans have every right to be there, unlike Israelis who stole land, won’t live in peace in the region, keeps attacking its neighbors and is an out-and-out nuclear-armed bully subsidized by the USA.

    Finally, one wonders why you persist with the propaganda. Hamas has indicated some willingness to accept the Saudi peace plan provided the Right of Return is protected.

    2002
    Hamas would accept Saudi peace plan, spokesman says
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/04/28/MN222422.DTL

    2006
    Hamas weighs Saudi initiative
    http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1145961230656

    2007 “Haniyeh told Reuters in an interview that his group would not oppose an Arab peace initiative which the summit is expected to relaunch, but would not give in on the Palestinian refugees’ right of return.
    http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/843076.html

    These air attacks are depraved and is the latest disgusting atrocity from a warmongering nation that endangers the whole world.
14. Emmanuel

    30 December, 2008

    

    “You state you are not sorry for Gazan families. You think these air strikes — a war crime — are justified, and you ask us to believe you are the moderate?”

    I don’t feel sympathy for the families of those who have lost terrorist Hamasnik relatives. I do feel sorry for families who have lost members who are innocent civilians.

    The attacks on Hamas are justified because they are aimed at militants and their goal is to end Hamas fire upon our own innocent civilians (and Hamas, unlike Israel, is deliberately targetting civilians).

    “Gazans have every right to be there, unlike Israelis who stole land, won’t live in peace in the region, keeps attacking its neighbors and is an out-and-out nuclear-armed bully subsidized by the USA.”

    Who said Gazans have no right to be there? Palestinians have a right to be in the West Bank and Gaza and Israelis have a right to be in Israel proper.

    Israel and its neighbors have been mutually attacking each other. Your distorted black and white view of the world is far from reality.

    “Hamas has indicated some willingness to accept the Saudi peace plan provided the Right of Return is protected.”

    Since Israel can’t accept the right of return, it means any agreement Israel will reach with more moderate Palestinians and the Arab League will be rejected by Hamas.

    “THe IAEA has authoritatively said there is no evidence of a nuclear weapons program, and Iran has every right to develop nuclear energy. Where has Iran kept “talking about its fantasies to see a world where you don’t exist and is developing the weapons to make that possible”??? You are talking rubbish.”

    Mohamed ElBaradei has recently admitted the IAEA failed in its attempts to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program. As for Iran not wanting to wipe out Israel – Ahmedinijad has talked repeatedly about the end of the Zionist entity and Zionism in general, which sounds to me like wiping out Israel.
15. finebeer

    30 December, 2008

    

    (1) “Who said Gazans have no right to be there?”

    You did, even if just in jest: “If only Gaza could peacefully detach itself from the mainland and travel somehwere close to Gibraltar, if not further away.”

    “Palestinians have a right to be in the West Bank and Gaza and Israelis have a right to be in Israel proper.”

    Israel “proper” according to international law and international consensus is 1967 borders. Why does Israel continue to build illegal settlements on Palestinian land, to this day? Why does Israel not define its borders?

    (2) “Israel can’t accept the right of return” It is a right enshrined in international law. There has to be some accommodation and compromise from Israel by those who wish to return to their land.

    (3) Sorry, don’t confuse what the article is saying. El Baredai says the IAEA has not succeeded in halting Iran’s nuclear program, not nuclear weapons, which Iran has every right to develop.

    When will Israel submit to IAEA inspections, as Iran has?

    When will Israel sign the NPT treaty, as Iran has?

    When will Israel end the occupation and stop stealing Palestinian land and resources?

    When will ISrael halt its barbaric bombing of Gaza?

    (4) “sounds to me like wiping out Israel.” Ahmadinejad is not the only one looking for an end to the zionist entity, many of us are. We are looking for a multi-religious confederation. You read threats into Ahmadinjad’s statements, as you do with the intelligent and mild-mannered Ali Abunimah.

    You see threats where others see justice. That is the problem with Israel and its programming of the populace to the tune of fear and paranoia. You need to wake up.
16. Emmanuel

    30 December, 2008

    

    (1) 99 said he’d like to see Israel move to the South Pole – that’s the context of my joke about Gaza becoming an island (besides, Gazans would still stay in Gaza, even if it’s somewhere else, so I never actually said they don’t have a right to be there :) )

    I oppose the existance of the settlements and support their evacuation as part of a peace deal that would create a Palestinian state.

    (2) The Palestinians can’t get both a two state solutuion and the right to return to Israel itself. That would just create two Palestinian states. As part of a peace deal, the Palestinians have to give up part of their demands. That’s the meaning of compromise.

    Israel should compensate the refugees, but not take them in.

    (3) You said it yourself – Israel hasn’t signed the NPT and Iran has. That means that under international law Iran has to submit to IAEA inspections and Israel doesn’t.

    (4) Yes, as a Zionist, as most Israelis are, the end of Zionism is threatening to me. Stick to the two-state solution, not to regime change within Israel. Israel should give full equality of rights to the non-Jews within it, but that’s still not the end of Zionism.
17. peoplesgeography

    31 December, 2008

    

    On the existence of the settlements, your own opinion has been noted: it is however Israeli policy that is at issue. The Israeli regime refuses to evacuate settlements in the West Bank and in fact continues to illegally build new ones.

    Palestinians have compromised to the nth degree, Israel has not compromised an inch and in fact uses talks as cover to dodge meaningful peace and steal more land. The evacuation from Gaza only resulted in a tightening of Israeli control in contravention of international law. The meaning of compromise is give and take, not take-take-take.

    On ground already covered, Israel has yet to retreat to 1967 borders in order to make a two state solution possible. You already know its actions are actively militating against a two state solution at all. I agree with Finebeer about the one state idea since Israel has displayed absolutely no willingness to allow a Palestinian state. There is no evidence it will do so in the foreseeable future.

    As a non-signatory, Israel may not have to abide by the NPT but since it is a member of the UN it is bound to abide by UN resolutions and other areas of international law such as the Geneva Conventions.

    I won’t get into a debate about the future or demise of zionism here, but as to sticking to solutions rather than regime change: Israel should certainly take that advice. Respect the elected officials of a state and observe normal diplomatic talks rather than target democratically elected leaders (via harassment, assassinations, kidnaps, unlawful detention etc).

    Otherwise, Israeli hypocrisy, hubris and chutzpah will itself sabotage its zionist enterprise. The neighbourhood bully needs to grow up.
18. Emmanuel

    31 December, 2008

    

    Don’t forget that creating the Palestinian Authority and granting it various degrees of control over territory, including part of Hebron, was a compromise. It was a big leap. Israel has also made offers that the Palestinians rejected (they had a right to reject them, but it shows Israel was willing to give Palestinians a state on more territory than the PA currently controls). Hopefully, after the election Prime Minister Tzippi Livni will give more territory to the Palestinians. Israel, however, will completely retreat to the 1967 borders only as part of a peace deal, not before that.

    It seems odd to abandon one solution (two states) because it will be hard to implement, and instead take up another solution (one state/Isratine), that is even harder and probably impossible to implement. But nevermind. We’ll never agree on this one.
19. 99

    31 December, 2008

    

    I have been yelling for a one state solution for at least three years. PALESTINE… return it all to the rightful state of Palestine, and any Israelis who don’t mind being Palestinians should be welcome, and the rest can just leave or be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

    Simple as heck.

    Just as heck.

    And waaaaaaaaaay overdue.
20. peoplesgeography

    31 December, 2008

    

    Yes, PA has every right to reject insulting crumbs and it doesn’t need Israel to “grant” it authority over anything. I’m with 99, its overdue, and only a matter of time now, since Israel repudiates a 2 state solution.
21. 99

    31 December, 2008

    

    Yikes. I have gone batshit crazy over the last four days, blogging the snot out of this. Since there was no way on earth I could get to one of the protests, I put together a little string of sample photos from demonstrations around the world here. I feel as though someone should wire me to the definitive news service for this stuff so I don’t have to feel so scattered while trying to pull it all together, and I do mean wire me physically to it.

    I’m becoming snappish with hemp activists and gays who are still flailing about Pastor Warren at the Obama inauguration and a bunch of other busybody causes that are cropping up at the blog I moderate. I even became stern with a friend who wanted me to use that bullhorn to get donations for the kid who went in and bid up a bunch of the public lands they want to drill on to prevent them from drilling. He’s definitely a hero, but, er, he knew what he was doing and any number of movie stars will foot his legal bills. It just flips me out how impervious to the agony of so many people can be.

    On the one hand, I tell myself they can’t really be blamed, because if they’ve heard about any of it at all, it’s only through the most biased and propagandistic lens imaginable, but on the other, shit! Ann! I just want to deck them! Clock their sorry asses.

    So, I may be getting in my unthinkably-wrong-for-bathing tub to soak one or the other half of me… or perhaps I’ll just fill my sink with ice and stick my head in it now….

    xoxoxox
22. Emmanuel

    31 December, 2008

    

    “[The PA] doesn’t need Israel to “grant” it authority over anything”

    In other words, anything Israel gives the Palestinians is not a concession on its part, it’s just the implementation of some kind of objective justice. In your mind, only the Palestinians compromise, because they have all the rights to the whole area while the Israelis don’t have any.

    99: In these hard times for Israel, at least I have one thing to console me: that you’re eating your heart out over the fact that Israel exists and it isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

    “the rest can just leave or be prosecuted for crimes against humanity”

    So all Israelis are war criminals, huh? Adults who have nothing to do with the military and children included? Should I be put on trial as well?

    There are only two options: two states or war. Isratine is not an option. I prefer the current state of affairs over a hellish reality where our enemies are the majority in the country.
23. peoplesgeography

    31 December, 2008

    

    It sounds you are the one getting a little heated Emmanuel, since you are veering off reasoning and seem to be trying to put words in my (and 99’s) mouth.

    Any authority the PA has derives from the Palestinian people, it is not something Israelis can grant to them as if this were a constitutional monarchy. The Palestinians are the indigenous inhabitants (as are many Jews), not free settlers. And nowhere is it suggested that Palestinians “have all the rights to the whole area while the Israelis don’t have any.” We both agree about 1967 borders; Hebron is in the West Bank and Israel then does not have moral authority to grant it governance of part of the town. It may be a concession, but Israel is not ceding or “granting” anything that doesn’t already properly belong in the purview of Palestinian government.

    And nowhere does 99 say all Israelis are war criminals (!) I’ll let her speak for herself, as she so ably does, but your leaps here defy logic.
24. Emmanuel

    31 December, 2008

    

    “It may be a concession, but Israel is not ceding or “granting” anything that doesn’t already belong in the purview of Palestinian government.”

    Well, the fact is that without Israeli agreement the PA would not have been formed, and it wouldn’t have authority over these areas without Israel actively handing them over.

    The problem is that, generally speaking, Palestinians and their supporters see all of their demands as the natural rights of the Palestinians. Israel doesn’t get any credit for any concessions, since it is just giving the Palestinians what Israel owes them anyway. This makes many Israelis question whether the demands will ever stop, even after there is a Palestinian state.

    Saying that all Israelis should either leave the country, accept living in a Palestinian state or stand trial for war crimes sure does sound like all Israelis (at least the ones who stay without accepting the one state solution, regardless of whether they take up arms or not) are war criminals. It is exactly like an Israeli saying that all Israeli Arabs who do not accept Zionism should be put on trial.
25. 99

    31 December, 2008

    

    Not all Israeli’s are war criminals. Those who would not live in peace and brotherhood in Palestine would pretty certainly be the ones who have been directing or cheerleading this slaughter, or the ones too timid to say a word against it. It would shake out that way for certain. Any Israeli convinced the Palestinians would murder them feels this way because Israel has been heaping murder upon murder in their greed, over their own shame, for 60 long years… can’t even imagine civilization anymore. I count you among those who can’t even imagine civilization, Emmanuel. You have worked your fingers to the bone to make that clear.
26. peoplesgeography

    31 December, 2008

    

    The PA exists with joint agreement, not by an Israeli “grant” as if it were a solo dispensation. From Wikipedia’s entry: “The Palestinian Authority is a subsidiary agency of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) … The Palestinian National Authority was formed in 1994, pursuant to the Oslo Accords between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the government of Israel, as a 5-year interim body during which final status negotiations between the two parties were to take place but never did.”

    The reason Israel may not get credit is because of its record. It keeps claiming that it withdrew from Gaza when nothing could be further from the truth and it still controls Gazan airspace, waters, entry and exit and so on. When there’s a genuine peace gesture, to which the assassinated Rabin came close, I believe strongly credit will be given where it is due.

    In 99’s comment, the flippancy (as well as the seriousness) is clearly recognised, just as with your Gaza quip.
27. 99

    31 December, 2008

    

    It is exactly like an Israeli saying that all Israeli Arabs who do not accept Zionism should be put on trial.

    If you actually believe that complete hogwash, you have a perfect defense at trial. They’ll put you in a nice padded place….

    Good night.
28. 99

    31 December, 2008

    

    It looks as though my comment before the last one has been eaten by cyberspace?

    __

    Note from Ann: Its there now, 99. When comments come rapid-fire, wordpress sometimes sends them to the moderation queue. You’re too quick for it! And on that note, you’re getting the last word. I’m shutting up shop for 2008 as its 9.36pm and the fireworks await. Happy New Year …

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30. corneilius

    27 January, 2009

    

    Gaza requires a deeper examination of reality than is common, if a resolution is to be found. That does not mean that an immediate end to the hostile environment around the palestinian people created by the Israeli / USA/ UK Government should not be called for.

    All this talk abour agreements, who did what, when is really beside the point. What we are talking about is the reality of dismembered children.

    Most of what I have read above is merely a continuation of war, of sides picked. Few seem to face the reality of Power in our lives, mostly because of the enforced disconnect that is engineered through ‘schooling’. Schooled children become parents who school their children.

    “Hardly any of the ‘symptoms’ of psychological distress may correctly be seen as medical matters. The so-called ‘neuroses’, ‘psychoses’ and related forms of suffering are nothing to do with faulty biology; nor indeed are they the outcome of individual moral weakness or other personal failing. They are the creation of the social world in which we live, and that world is structured by power.

    Social power may be defined as the means of obtaining security or advantage, and it will be exercised within any given society in a variety of forms: coercive (force), economic (money power) and ideological (the control of meaning).

    Power is the dynamic which keeps the social world in motion. It may be used for good or for ill.

    One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society.”

    From David Smail…..

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