Gaza Emergency Protest (UK) + Background to the siege

compiled by Cem Ertür
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
27 December 2008

Gaza Emergency Protest – Sunday 28 December 2.00 pm – 4.00 pm and Monday 29 December 4.00pm ­ 6.00pm

You may already have seen the carnage being carried out, Guernica style on Gaza, on the pretext of Palestinian rockets being fired on southern Israel.

Yet it was Israel that violated the Gaza ceasefire back in early November, killing six Palestinians and wounding four. These killings are part of Israel¹s ongoing campaign of collective punishment against the 1.5 million residents of the Gaza Strip, which Israel has put under siege since June 2007.

This is precisely Israel’s historic tactic of provoking the Palestinians with assassinations and killings, right through declared ceasefires, and when there is a response, blaming the escalation on, as in this case, Hamas, who are acting in justified self-defence as an occupied people, under international law.The Geneva Convention bans military action that harms civilians, in this case an inevitability since the infrastructure attacked is in the heart of dense city centres, using deadlly F16s, and heavy war machinery against a defenceless population that has been crippled by a strangulating three year siege.This is basically a one-sided war.

Attacks on Gaza – contact your representatives, etc.

Dandelion Salad

Crossposted with permission from Jewish Peace News

Jewish Peace News
Dec. 27, 2008

Here is a small, practical, easy thing to do.

Thanks,

Racheli Gai.

Act now to end the strikes on Gaza!

The civilians in Gaza need your help now!

Washington, DC | December 27, 2008 | http://www.adc.org | The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) calls on the United States and the international community to take immediate action to pressure Israel to end its attacks and stop the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Reports indicate that Israeli air strikes today alone have killed 205 People in Gaza and have left over 400 more hurt. These strikes come after several weeks of a tight blockade which left many of Gaza’s 1.5-million inhabitants without sufficient food, water, fuel or medicine.

Let your elected representatives know that this course of action taken by the State of Israel is furthering a humanitarian disaster and an immediate suspension of hostilities on all sides is necessary to reinstate the ceasefire. Further, the collective punishments of the population of Gaza will not likely lead to security for Israelis. According to numerous surveys, similar attacks in the past have only served to garner more support to the extremist elements of Hamas and renewed rocket attacks on Israel.

Contact Your Elected Official Today and Add Your Voice to the Growing Number of Americans Calling for the Immediate Lifting of the Blockade and Siege of Gaza.  Click here to find your representatives and contact them now about this ongoing crisis!

Also contact President-Elect Obama and ask him to issue a statement calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities on http://change.gov/page/content/contact

see

Write To Congress

Attacks on Gaza – reports and analysis

Hamas press conference after Israeli Gaza strikes + Israel launches missile attacks on Gaza

Israeli Air Strikes Continue To Pound Gaza Strip + Hamas source: IDF strike unexpected

Israel Defense Forces get green light to strike Hamas

Landscapes of Occupation in Palestine

Israel-Palestine-Gaza-Occupation

Attacks on Gaza – reports and analysis + Today in Gaza by Safa Joudeh

Dandelion Salad

Crossposted with permission from Jewish Peace News

Jewish Peace News
Dec. 27, 2008

Sarah Roy, a longtime expert analyst of economic and political developments in the Gaza Strip identifies two objectives to Israel’s current military campaign. Neither of them is an attempt, officially claimed by Israel to be the goal of this attack, of stopping Hamas shelling of Israeli towns and villages. Israel, says Roy, aims “to ensure that the Palestinians there are seen merely as a humanitarian problem, beggars who have no political identity and therefore can have no political claims.” And it furthermore wants “to foist Gaza onto Egypt” thereby finalizing the political and territorial breakup of a Palestinian political entity.

In imagining the daily details of life under Israel’s ever-tightening criminal siege, a recent resource was provided by the Israeli group, Physicans for Human Rights, following their dispatch of a research and aid delegation to Gaza. The PHR report, attached below noted, for instance, “a sharp increase of 300% in burns cases admitted to the burns department at Shifaa hospital in Gaza … over the past month. This is a result of the ongoing shortages in electricity, cooking gas and heating gas. These, along with the arrival of the cold winter months, have led the population of Gaza to light wood fires, resulting in dangerous conditions. Many of the burns cases reported to us have been of children…”

Rela Mazali

Racheli Gai adds:

The third piece we’re sending is by Ali Abunimah. In addition to exposing the hollowness of the claim that the bombing is in retaliation for the firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip, he reminds us that we must find ways to show our solidarity with the Palestinians, and to oppose Israel’s criminal activities.

Israeli air strikes kill 200 in Gaza

Dandelion Salad

Warning

This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

RussiaToday

At least 205 people have been killed and nearly 400 injured after Israel launched air strikes on Gaza City. Israeli military officials said more than 100 tonnes of bombs were dropped on Gaza by mid-afternoon on Saturday. Israel says the attacks are in retaliation for Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel.

Hamas press conference after Israeli Gaza strikes + Israel launches missile attacks on Gaza

Dandelion Salad

Warning

.

These videos may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

AlJazeeraEnglish

Taher al-Noono, a Hamas spokesman, speaks to reporters in Gaza following Israeli airstrikes which killed more than 155 people and wounded more than 200 others.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Hamas press conference after Israeli …“, posted with vodpod

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Israel launches missile attacks on Gaza

It is, according to Israel, just the beginning.

A wave of missile attacks on the Gaza Strip, which began on Saturday morning, bombarded security compounds belonging to Hamas, which controls the coastal territory.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Israel launches missile attacks on Gaza “, posted with vodpod

see

Israeli Air Strikes Continue To Pound Gaza Strip + Hamas source: IDF strike unexpected

Israel Defense Forces get green light to strike Hamas

Landscapes of Occupation in Palestine

Israel-Palestine-Gaza-Occupation

Israeli Air Strikes Continue To Pound Gaza Strip + Hamas source: IDF strike unexpected

Dandelion Salad

Warning

This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

VOTERSTHINKdotORG

December 27, 2008 News Corp

Bill Moyers Journal: Faith and Reason (must-see)

Dandelion Salad

Bill Moyers Journal
Dec 26, 2008

“In a world where religion is poison to some and salvation to others, how do we live together? How do we keep the public space between reason and faith, where most of us spend our lives, from becoming a no-man’s land of constant warfare between absolutes? It’s an old debate, this discussion of belief and disbelief. On one end of the spectrum people say, “Only religion counts.” On the other end, “Only reason counts.”

Gore Vidal on the Cold War + Democrats and Religion + The Future, Parts 1, 5, & 6)

Dandelion Salad

Gore Vidal on the Cold War (Part 1)

TheRealNews on Sep 4, 2007

Part one of a seven-part interview with Gore Vidal

Time travelling or does Obama have any kind of deal let alone a new ‘New Deal’? by William Bowles

By William Bowles
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Creative-i
27 December 2008

In the essay by Stanley Aronowitz ‘Facing the economic crisis’, we read the following summation,

Britain: New wave of human BSE/vCJD feared

Dandelion Salad

By Barry Mason
http://www.wsws.org
27 December 2008

News reports have raised the spectre of a second wave of deaths in Britain from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease vCJD as a result of people, overwhelmingly young adults, having consumed meat or meat products from cattle infected with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or Mad Cow Disease.

The first case of BSE was in Britain in 1984. It was associated with the growing practice of recycling the corpses of dead farm animals in the production of protein cattle feed. A similar disease in sheep had been recognised for many years. It is thought that the prion agent which causes the disease in sheep, Scrapie, had been able to jump the species barrier and infect cattle as well—the result of recycling animal remains in the production of cattle protein pellets.

[…]

via Britain: New wave of human BSE/vCJD feared.

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Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Debut Show (Richard C. Cook)

Note: Cindy moved her show to Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox.

You can listen to this interview with Richard C. Cook  here.

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Podcasts: http://www.green960.com/pages/podcasts.html

Cindy Sheehan for Congress

by Cindy Sheehan
Dandelion Salad
Featured Writer
Cindy Sheehan for Congress
December 27, 2008

We are very excited to announce that our show will premiere on Sunday, January 4th from 2pm to 3pm. You can listen on the radio at 960AM in the SF Bay Area, or the show can be streamed or podcast at the Green 960 website.

We are very excited about our first show. Progressive talk show host, Bree Walker (also owner of Camp Casey in Crawford, TX) will be my debut co-host and we will be talking to economist Richard Cook about his intriguing “Cook Plan” for not only economic recovery, but future economic stability and we will also be talking to legendary singer/songwriter, Graham Nash, who will tell us about his current projects and we will talk about the relevance of protest music, then and now.

We have received so many excellent ideas for guests and future show topics and we really want you to feel like you are invested in this grass-roots community (local, national and world) show!

Donate now to help keep this non-corporate, people-driven show on the air!

One of our segments will be called: Your One-Minute Soapbox. Please submit an MP3 to our producer, Tiffany, (tiffany@CindySheehansSoapbox.com) and we will be selecting a few to air each week. Please feel free to rant about whatever you want (for a minute), or promote an action or activity for peace and/or justice.

We will also have a segment called: Ask Cindy!

We will be selecting as many questions as we can every week to read on the air and answer, you can email your questions to: Cindy@CindySheehansSoapbox.com

Questions for our guests? Email: Dede@CindySheehansSoapbox.com

The views and opinions expressed on Cindy’s Soapbox will not necessarily reflect Cindy’s views, since we are desirous of presenting a wide range of opinions and alternative solutions to the difficult challenges we face today.

see

Bailout for the People: “The Cook Plan” by Richard C. Cook

Cook-Richard C.

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse 2

India Awaits Green Light for Raids on Pakistan By Usman Khalid

Dandelion Salad

By Usman Khalid
December 26, 2008 “Information Clearinghouse”

The Pentagon has announced that the US would withdraw troops from Iraq to reinforce Afghanistan sending one brigade soon after the New Year and another three in spring 2009. This has the approval of President Elect Barack Obama. It is believed that the objective is a ‘surge’ in Afghanistan on the lines General Petreus had in Iraq. But President Hamid Karazai would like the additional troops to supplement the clandestine operations by RAW (India’a CIA) on Pakistan’s border. It now appears that President Zardari of Pakistan is just as eager for India and America to shift focus to his country. His reason: he wants the ISI and the Army to be tamed. It seems that Pakistan has the reincarnation of the Sheikh Mujib as a leader. And it was Mujibs’s treachery that precipitated the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war and Pakistan’s defeat.

The grim anniversary of the fall of Dhaka on 16 December 1971 is commemorated every year in Pakistan but this year it had more poignancy than ever before. Pakistan appears to be living through similar trauma all over again. The war clouds gather after ‘free and fair’ elections. In 1971, an indicted RAW Agent – Sheikh Mujib – secured the most seats in Pakistan’s parliament. Despite having contested the elections on the basis of Six Points that sought to make Pakistan a confederation, President Yahya Khan decided to honour the verdict of the people. He met Sheikh Mujib in Dhaka and asked him to assume the office of the Prime Minister. Sheikh Mujib accepted the offer and the press were briefed accordingly. Three days later, he informed the President that he had to decline the offer under pressure from his party colleagues. Now we know (from the chapter written by Dr Mu’min Chowdhury of Bangladesh in ‘Authentic Voices of South Asia’) why? Sheikh Mujib had asked for confirmation directly from India Prime Minster Indira Gandhi that India would invade East Pakistan if he made UDI – Unilateral Declaration of Independence. When he met President Yahya Khan, that confirmation had not been received. When he got the confirmation he declined the offer to become the Prime Minister and preferred to become a prisoner instead. That shows the dilemma of traitors. Once Sheikh Mujib agreed to work for RAW, he was a pawn; he had to do the bidding of his agent handlers. A maverick like him was more valuable in a Pakistani jail to give substance to the propaganda that Pakistanis would never transfer power to a Bengali as Prime Minister. The fact that most of the Prime Ministers of united Pakistan belonged to East Pakistan did not matter. Propaganda is more credible than the truth in the hands of the disciples of Kautaliya.