A special place in hell

You don't know me anymore, Lord. Not after Gaza

Wherever we find ourselves this Rosh Hashanah, 450 children will be sitting beside us, uninvited. They will neither squirm nor feel restless. But we will. They were alive last year, and now they are dead.

Haaretz

By Bradley Burston | Sep. 1, 2014 | 4:47 PM |  

This year, we're starting from scratch, Lord. It's almost Rosh Hashanah, and You don't know me anymore. Not after Gaza.

I thought things were bad a year ago. And the year before that. Turns out, I didn't know a thing.

More than anything, I still need to know what actually happened in the war this summer. And, despite my best instincts, I still don't really want to know.

This morning I took down the machzor, looking for some form of hope in the Rosh Hashanah service. This is what the prayer book opened to: What is read, and what is repeated, before the ram's horn is blown for the first time.

Min Hameitzar – From the narrow strip, from the terrifying, dark, claustrophobic walled-off place, from the space whose very name is My Distress ….

This year, we read aloud the name of Daniel Tragerman, beloved of his family, four years old, child of God, descendant of Abraham, killed in Kibbutz Nahal Oz. May his blessed memory be, in time, for peace.

Karati Yah – I called to You, Lord. I called You. There was no one else to call.

This year, we read aloud the name of Kamal Ahmed al-Bakri, beloved of his family, four years old, child of God, descendant of Abraham, killed in Gaza City. May his blessed memory be, in time, for peace.

Annani BaMerchav Yah – The Lord answered me, and set me free, answered me and put me in a place of openness, spaciousness, freedom.

This year, we read aloud the name of Aseel Muhammad al-Bakri, beloved of her family, four years old, child of God, descendant of Abraham, killed in Gaza City. May her blessed memory be, in time, for peace.

Koli Shamata – You've heard my voice. You heard me when I cried.

This year, we read aloud the name of Anas Ibrahim Hammad, beloved of his family, four years old, child of God, descendant of Abraham, killed in Rafiah. May his blessed memory be, in time, for peace.

Al Ta'lem Oznecha L'ravchati Lshav'ati – When I cry out, don’t just shut Your ears to my plea for relief, the sound of my breathing, my sighs, my cry for help.

This year, we read aloud the name of Khalid Suleiman al-Masri, beloved of his family, four years old, child of God, descendant of Abraham, killed in Rafah. May his blessed memory be, in time, for peace.

I don't know the truth, Lord.

I do know that all of this could have been avoided. But it wasn't. And we are all responsible.

I do know that all this could have stopped sooner, and these children left alive. But it wasn't. And they weren't. And we are all responsible.

Tuv Ta'am VaDa'at Lam'Deini, Ki BaMitzvotecha He'emanti – Teach me good judgment and knowledge, teach me to be sensible and fair and reasonable and understanding, because I was once, I have been, a believer in your commandments.

This year, we read aloud the name of Do'aa Mustafa Al Mahmoud, beloved of her family, four years old, child of God, descendant of Abraham, killed in Rafah. May her blessed memory be, in time, for peace.

Wherever we find ourselves this Rosh Hashanah, in whatever synagogue or open field or home we happen to be, an additional 450 children will be sitting beside us, uninvited. They will behave themselves. They will make not a sound. They will neither squirm nor feel restless. But we will.

They were alive last year, and now they are dead. And we are all responsible.

Nombres de los niños muertos en los 50 días de bombardeos

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/gaza/11056976/The-children-killed-in-Gaza-during-50-days-of-conflict.html?utm_content=bufferfd294&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Israel y Hamás aceptan un alto el fuego indefinido tras 50 días de ofensiva

http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2014/08/26/actualidad/1409062017_189267.html

The diferencie between children

The difference between children

It is human that the killing of an Israeli boy, a child of ours, would arouse greater identification than the death of some other child. What is incomprehensible is the Israeli response to the killing of their children.

By Gideon Levy | Aug. 24, 2014 | 4:16 AM

After the first child, nobody batted an eye; after the 50th not even a slight tremor was felt in a plane’s wing; after the 100th, they stopped counting; after the 200th, they blamed Hamas. After the 300th child they blamed the parents. After the 400th child, they invented excuses; after (the first) 478 children nobody cares.

Then came our first child and Israel went into shock. And indeed, the heart weeps at the picture of 4-year-old Daniel Tregerman, killed Friday evening in his home in Sha’ar Hanegev. A beautiful child, who once had his picture taken in an Argentinean soccer team shirt, blue and white, number 10. And whose heart would not be broken at the sight of this photo, and who would not weep at how he was criminally killed. “Hey Leo Messi, look at that boy,” a Facebook post read, “you were his hero.”

Suddenly death has a face and dreamy blue eyes and light hair. A tiny body that will never grow. Suddenly the death of a little boy has meaning, suddenly it is shocking. It is human, understandable and moving. It is also human that the killing of an Israeli boy, a child of ours, would arouse greater identification than the death of some other child. What is incomprehensible is the Israeli response to the killing of their children.

In a world where there is some good, children would be left out of the cruel game called war. In a world where there is some good, it would be impossible to understand the total, almost monstrous unfeelingness in the face of the killing of hundreds of children – not ours, but by us. Imagine them standing in a row: 478 children, in a graduating class of death. Imagine them wearing Messi shirts – some of those children wore them once too, before they died; they also admired him, just like our Daniel from a kibbutz. But nobody looks at them; their faces are not seen, no one is shocked at their deaths. No one writes about them: “Hey Messi, look at that boy.” Hey, Israel, look at their children.

An iron wall of denial and inhumanness protects the Israelis from the shameful work of their hands in Gaza. And indeed, these numbers are hard to digest. Of the hundreds of men killed one could say that they were “involved”; of the hundreds of women that they were “human shields.” As for a small number of children, one could claim that the most moral army in the world did not intend it. But what shall we say about almost 500 children killed? That the Israel Defense Forces did not intend it, 478 times? That Hamas hid behind all of them? That this legitimized killing them?

Hamas might have hidden behind some of those children but now Israel is hiding behind Daniel Tregerman. His fate is already being used to cover all of the sins of the IDF in Gaza.

The radio yesterday already talked about “murder.” The prime minister already called the killing “terror,” while hundreds of Gaza’s children in their new graves are not victims of murder or terror. Israel had to kill them. And after all, who are Fadi and Ali and Islaam and Razek, Mahmoud, Ahmed and Hamoudi – in the face of our one and only Daniel.

We must admit the truth: Palestinian children in Israel are considered like insects. This is a horrific statement, but there is no other way to describe the mood in Israel in the summer of 2014. When for six weeks hundreds of children are destroyed; their bodies buried in rubble, piling up on morgues, sometimes even in vegetable refrigeration rooms for lack of other space; when their horrified parents carry the bodies of their toddlers as a matter of course; their funerals coming and going, 478 times – even the most unfeeling of Israelis would not allow themselves to be so uncaring.

Something here has to rise up and scream: Enough. All the excuses and all the explanations will not help – there is no such thing as a child that is allowed to be killed and a child that is not. There are only children killed for nothing, hundreds of children whose fate touches no one in Israel, and one child, just one, around whose death the people unite in mourning.

Behind the IDF shooting of a 10-year-old boy

It's not clear why an Israeli soldier shot Khalil Anati in the Al-Fawar refugee camp. What is clear is that the shooter didn't stay around long enough to offer assistance, or to watch the boy die.

By Gideon Levy and Alex Levac | Aug. 21, 2014 | 4:04 PM

Mohammed Anati with his younger son, this week. Khalil was about to enter sixth grade. Photo by Alex Levac

The picture on the mourning poster shows the beautiful, sad face of a boy, his head wrapped in a keffiyeh, his skin sallow, his eyes wide open. In the photograph, one of two images used for the posters, the boy is already dead. Only his open eyes give the impression of life. In the other poster, the eyes are already closed for all time.
Khalil Anati was 10 years and eight months old and came from the Al-Fawar refugee camp, south of Hebron in the West Bank, when he was killed. An Israeli soldier had opened the door of his armored jeep, picked up his rifle, aimed it at the upper body of the boy, who was running with his back to the soldier, and cut him down with one bullet, fired from a distance of a few dozen meters.
It was early morning on Sunday, August 10. The street was almost empty – the idleness, the unemployment and the heat in this squalid refugee camp leave people in their beds late – and the soldiers were apparently in no danger. According to testimony, there were only another three or four young children in the street; they were throwing stones at the jeep. There were no “riots” and no mass “disturbances.”
Khalil tried to advance another few meters after the bullet lodged in his lower back, before falling to the ground in the middle of the narrow alley, its width about that of a person, that ascends to his home. Someone heard him shout, in Arabic: “The bastards shot me.” By the time he arrived at the hospital in Hebron – he had been transported in a private vehicle since the camp does not have an ambulance – he was dead from loss of blood.
The soldier who shot him quickly shut the door of the jeep and hightailed it out of the camp, together with his buddies. Mission accomplished.
The bereaved father, Mohammed, asks now with dry eyes why the soldier who killed him did not at least offer his son first aid, or summon help. “If they are human beings, that is what they should have done. Why didn’t they do that?”
We sat this week in front of the Anatis’ ramshackle home, a few meters from the scene of the crime. No other refugee camp is comparable to Al-Fawar, in terms of wretchedness and forlornness. A putrid stench wafts from the bursting garbage bins, which no one empties, and from the sewage that flows unchecked through the alleys. An Israeli who has never been here cannot begin to imagine what it’s like. It’s also a tough place, which the army rarely enters.
But on that fateful Sunday two army jeeps, one of them flying a huge Israeli flag, drove in, escorting a vehicle of Mekorot, the national water company, which had apparently come to check the pipes connecting to the camp’s wells.
Khalil was shot to death at about 9:30 in the morning. His father, a scrap peddler, was still asleep. Only the boy’s uncle, Mahmoud Anati, peering out of his window which overlooks the narrow alley, saw what was going on and spotted the jeep. He rushed to his 80-year-old father, Ahmed Anati, Khalil’s grandfather, who was at that moment on the roof of a house that is being built as part of a special United Nations Refugee Agency project, for the camp’s old people.
Mahmoud told his father to come inside, for fear of the soldiers; from experience he knows that the troops are quick to fire teargas in order to disperse the children. He hustled his aged father into the house, but is today consumed with feelings of guilt for not having done the same for his nephew.
The street, Mahmoud recalls, was quiet. Then he suddenly heard a single shot ring out and his nephew shout. He rushed into the alley. A construction worker at the site of the home for the aged had already picked up the bleeding boy and was running with him toward the main street, in order to flag down a car to take him to the hospital.
At one point, Khalil fell from the worker’s hands. He and Mahmoud picked him up and put him the car of a Bedouin man who was visiting in the camp. They shouted to people to call an ambulance, but knew that would take precious time, so they sped in the private car to Al Ahli Hospital in Hebron.
As the car left the camp, Khalil stopped moving, and by the time they reached the hospital, he was no longer breathing. Mahmoud tried to staunch the bleeding with his hands. The boy’s last words to his uncle were, “Don’t be afraid.”
The uncle had hoped there would be soldiers at the pillbox – the guard tower at the edge of the camp – who could summon aid, but it was deserted. He remembered that a few days earlier, there had been a road accident nearby in which Israelis were involved, and the army had called in a helicopter to evacuate them.
As the uncle recalls the events of that day, the father sits by his side, silently. Mohammed goes to the cemetery every day now, to visit his son.
Musa Abu Hashhash, a veteran field worker for the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, arrived at Al Ahli at about 10:30 A.M. the day the boy was killed, and saw his body in the hospital morgue. Abu Hashhash, who has already seen a great deal in his work, was especially shocked by this incident. He published an article about it on the website of the Palestinian news agency Ma’an under the headline, “The Coward,” referring to the soldier who killed the boy and fled.
Immediately after the event, the Israel Defense Forces’ Spokesperson’s Unit published a statement on its website, stating (in a rare instance) that the IDF “regrets” the boy’s death.
The spokesperson’s unit also provided the following response to an inquiry from Haaretz: “During routine activity by IDF forces, which were providing security for work being carried out by the water authority in the vicinity of Al-Fawar, violent disturbances erupted, during which the force opened fire. The IDF regrets the death of the Palestinian minor who was killed in said incident. In accordance with standard policy, the Military Police’s investigatory unit has launched an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the incident. At the conclusion of the inquiry, the findings will be passed on to the Military Advocate General’s office for examination and for decisions on any further action.”
During our visit, we saw a few children were playing in the local “community center” – a shabby, tattered room in the heart of the camp, with three old computers and a tabletop soccer game – its walls covered with pictures of their deceased friend, Khalil. Yakub Nasser entered the room in his electric wheelchair. Now 19, he too was shot here by soldiers, in 2009, when he was 14. Since then his legs have been paralyzed and he’s been confined to a wheelchair.
As for Khalil, he was supposed to have attended a local day camp during the final days of the summer vacation, and was also getting ready to enter the sixth grade. He had been accompanying his father as he sold used clothing and old television sets; he buys them from a dealer in nearby Halhoul and offers them for sale to the camp’s residents.
Two days before his death, neighbors had collected donations for residents of the Gaza Strip. Khalil stole a blanket from home and brought it to the local mosque as his contribution to his brethren in Strip.

Guía de un judío que "se autoodia" para responder a los sionistas

http://mg.co.za/article/2014-07-30-a-self-hating-jews-guide-to-answering-zionist-talking-points

Casi 200 niños muertos en Gaza

http://dci-palestine.org/documents/july-28-update-child-death-toll-gaza-approaches-200-and-rising

Video: Nurti Peled en el Tribunal Russell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwiCtCm0r4E#t=215

Video: llamado de artistas, activistas y celebridades a la libertad palestina

http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/celebrities-palestinian-gazanames.html

Video: "Gaza: ¿es una guerra contra los niños?"

http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/18670/video_gaza-is-this-a-war-on-children

Judíos a favor del derecho al retorno de los palestinos

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-milazzo/jews-say-end-the-war-on-g_b_5614806.html

Jews Against Genocide (JAG)

We, Jews Against Genocide, came to Yad Vashem, Israel’s memorial of the genocide committed against Jews, to honor the Palestinian children who are dying in a genocide committed by Jews.

We brought dolls to symbolise the children of Gaza, and tried to bring a glimpse of the horror that Gazan’s face, to Israel’s doorstep. We hope to show Israel, and the world, the absurd reality of using the memory of one genocide to justify another.

We invite compassionate people from across the globe to join the outcry by staging similar protests in front of Israeli embassies and consulates around the world. Please send pictures of your actions to jewagainstgenocide1948@gmail.com.

Just as we honor the people who were murdered seven decades ago in Europe because they were Jews, we are here to honor the people who are being murdered at this very moment because they are the indigenous people of this land who are not Jews.

The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines Genocide as, “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; [...]“

The children of Gaza, who are being systematically murdered as we write this article, constitute 52% percent of the population under siege in the strip. The vast majority of these children are descendants of refugees from historical Palestine.

In the current round of atrocities committed by the Israel occupation army, so far dozens of children have been murdered in their homes, with Israel’s war-making leadership vowing “much higher costs” on the Palestinian side as the bombing and shelling continues.

The war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza today are the latest stage of an ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the indigenous people of this land.

The Jewish State was founded on the Zionist principle of “maximum Jews on maximum land, and minimum Arabs on minimum land”, which was made reality through sixty-six years of continued assault against Palestinians, denying them the right to live freely and peacefully in their historical homeland.

The Israeli regime has turned the beautiful Gaza strip into a densely populated ghetto, with unsafe water, untreated sewage, and insufficient resources and electricity. This ghetto has become a concentration camp, through repeated Israeli massacres in what the Goldstone Report described as an effort to, “humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish[ing] its local economic capacity.”

We express our support and solidarity for the Palestinian civil society’s call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, until it complies with the three basic demands of:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Never Again for Anyone - End Israel's Genocide of Palestinians

Jews Against Genocide (JAG)

Resources:

United Nations, preventing Genocide:http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/adviser/genocide_prevention.shtml

Palestinian civil society call for BDS: http://www.bdsmovement.net/call

United Nations, human rights in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories:http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf

viernes sangriento en Gaza

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/bloody-friday-12-children-among-dozens-killed-israels-merciless-slaughter

Lowest deeds from loftiest heights Israel’s 'heroic' pilots push buttons and joysticks, battling the weakest and most helpless of people.
By Gideon Levy | Jul. 15, 2014 | 1:21 AM | 1

 They are the most articulate, polished, brilliant and educated of soldiers. They study at the best universities during the course of their military service, come from the best homes, the most highly regarded high schools. For years they are trained for their job, in electronics and avionics, strategy and tactics, and of course flying. They are the very finest of Israeli youth, destined for greatness. They really are the very best, ‘bro: They are the ones who become pilots, the best pilots, and they are now perpetrating the worst, the cruelest, the most despicable deeds.

 They sit in the cockpit and push buttons and joysticks. It’s a war game. They determine life and death, from their lofty place in the sky they see only black dots running around in panic, fleeing for their lives, but also some who wave their hands in terrible fear from the roofs. The black arrow points at the target, and already a mushroom of black smoke rises – poof, a slight tremor in the wing, as the saying goes; a “good” hit, and they’re already embarking on the next sortie.

 They have never seen an enemy plane coming toward them – the last aerial battle of the Israel Air Force took place before most of them were born. They never saw the whites of the eyes and the red blood of their victims from up close. They are heroes who are battling the weakest, most helpless people who have no air force and no aerial defense, barely even a kite.

And they are considered heroes par excellence, the real he-men, who will go far in civilian life. They will marry the best girls, live in a nice communal settlement, become El Al captains, ‘techies or businessmen, vote for Yair Lapid and Meretz, and raise their children to be upright citizens.

And they will forget what they did during their military service. Forget? They never really knew. From the F-16 you can’t see very much. They are not Border Policemen who chase children in the alleyways, beat and abuse them. They aren’t members of the Golani Brigade who invade homes in the middle of the night, in search and kidnap operations. Nor are they soldiers from the Kfir Brigade who stand at the checkpoints. Nor members of the undercover Duvdevan unit or the Duchifat battalion. Nor do they use foul language or humiliate others. Their language is clean. They are the pilots. His Majesty’s pilots, in the most moral army in the world.

As of this writing, they have already killed almost 200 people and wounded approximately 1,000, most of them civilians.

Two nights ago they killed the 18 members of the Al-Batash family. The “target” was Gaza police chief Taysir al-Batash, and the result was 21 dead, including 18 members of his family, among them six children and four women. A family, wiped out.

I would like to meet the pilot or the operator of the drone who pushed the death button. How do you sleep at night, pilot? Did you see the pictures of the death and destruction you sowed – on television, and not just in the crosshairs? Did you see the crushed bodies, the bleeding wounded, the frightened children, the horrified women and the terrible destruction you sowed from your sophisticated plane? It’s all your doing, you excellent young man.

Yes, the fault is not (only) the pilots’. They obey orders. One former IAF commander, Maj. Gen. Ran Goren, said on Shabbat that they are moral. The most moral. But are they really such robots? Do they understand what they are doing? Do they even know? After all, it’s harder to brainwash them with hatred and fear, it’s harder to convince them that all Gazans are animals. And yet they obey orders with bloodcurdling automatism and blindness, push the right button at the right time – those of you who are known for your accuracy.

Do they really all believe that they are serving the country and its security needs, by means of the 1,000 sorties and the 1,000 tons of bombs that they have already dropped on top of the unfortunate Gaza Strip?

As far as we know, not one of them has “arisen” as of yet. In 2003, 27 of their colleagues did something far more courageous than completing all their “battle” sorties: They wrote a letter of refusal to carry out operations that might endanger civilians in the territories. But not this time. There isn’t a single person like Yonatan Shapira or Iftach Spector (two of the signatories back then), who will get up and ask: Is this the way? There isn’t a single person who will salvage their honor. Not a single one who will refuse to take part in this death squadron. Not a single one.

Would you want to live in the new Israel that is beckoning? It will not tolerate any opinion that is different; the people will speak in unison, like a choir; the media will declaim statements dictated by the government. By Gideon Levy | Jul. 17, 2014 | 2:57 AM | 7 If everything was to be in their own image, and if the state was to look the way they want it to, it is very doubtful that they would want to live there. I write “they” because I do not know how to define them; it has not been limited to the moderate and radical right for some time. Nor has it been only the center and the center-left. Nor just the national anthem. It’s almost everyone now. An evil spirit has wrapped itself around everyone, and it is the true zeitgeist of Israel in 2014. If, as looks likely, it takes complete control, they will not want to live in this new Israel of theirs either, which they created with their own hands. The new State of Israel will no longer tolerate any opinion that is different, any alternative idea. Subversive ideas are out of the question; even asking questions that few people ask will be utterly prohibited. The people will speak in unison, like in a chorus, as uniform as the Red Army Choir. The media, too, will speak in one voice, declaimed right out of the statements dictated to it by government and army spokesmen. None of this is a dream. The nightmare is already here. “Quiet — we’re shooting” during times of war and also during times of calm. Criticism will be confined to clearly limited subjects: classroom size and the price of cottage cheese may be criticized,; so can tycoons and the coffee prices at Ben-Gurion airport. The theater and cinema may be criticized too, all within the bounds of good taste, of course. Exposes about mayors and singers who cheated on their taxes and politicians who fired their maids are allowed, but not a word about war crimes. The fighting press will fight against road accidents, but never, of course, against the rules of engagement. Writing about crime families is fine, but writing about the crimes of the occupation and the settlements is off-limits. The weather forecast will not be subject to censorship at all. In times of war, the situation is different, of course. When the cannons roar, we may not even let out a peep. We may criticize the army and the defense establishment, but only from one direction: Why didn’t they let the army win? Let it “do its job,” beat the hell out of them, bombard them, crush them even more, conquer even more, cut off the electricity, tighten the siege and ramp up the killing, pain and devastation as much as possible; to exalt the might of the troops, to praise the daring of the pilots. To bring the Arabs back to the Stone Age and Gaza to the Middle Ages. That is allowed. The most moral thing on earth — as much as possible; doubting it is forbidden. One may also cry victim without limit. Ignorance will be crowned as a national goal. Haaretz will be outlawed. Describing the suffering of the other side will be prohibited in the new Israel. At most, Rorschach pictures from the cockpit, with no faces and with no blood, will be allowed. Hinting that the other side may be in the right will be punished with imprisonment; identifying with its pain will be treason, with its proper sentence. Until the death penalty is instituted — it is on its way — life imprisonment and maybe stoning in the city square, as the majority wishes. The majority also wishes to conquer Gaza, bomb Iran, piss on international law, throw out the Arab members of Knesset, all the Arabs of Israel, all the left-wingers. That is how it will be, as it wishes. The new Israel will not shrink from any of it. It will also become even more religious as a state run according to Jewish law: We already have signs of a holy war in God’s name in Gaza. Homosexuality will continue to be permitted — it is good for tourism, but “homo” will become an official curse word. The new justice system will finally be honest with itself: One law for Jews and another for Arabs will be in the law books, not just in court. The new Israel will become a pariah throughout the world. The last convoys of support, which arrived thanks to the voice of resistance still being heard from it, will vanish utterly. That’s nothing for us: America is in our pocket, and even if it is not, that is no big deal. Israel will become a Jewish state under siege, completely Jewish. Without Arabs, without leftists, without a press, without criticism. And now, answer honestly: Would you want to live there? It is almost here already.

AIC: Targeting Palestinian children as a conduit to ceasefire

http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/features/human-rights/8300-targeting-palestinian-children-as-a-conduit-to-ceasefire

Gideon Levy: Would you want to live in the new Israel that is beckoning?

Gracias a Jessica Bekerman por el envío.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.605528#.U8dh7xaPJJE.gmail

Lista de los nombres de las víctimas, Gaza, julio 2014

http://972mag.com/nobody-should-be-a-number-names-of-those-killed-in-gaza/93274/

De Gideon Levy

Israel's real purpose in Gaza operation? To kill Arabs

Since the first Lebanon war over 30 years ago, Israel's main strategy has been killing Arabs. The current atrocious war in Gaza is no different.

The goal of Operation Protective Edge is to restore the calm; the means: killing civilians. The slogan of the Mafia has become official Israeli policy. Israel sincerely believes that if it kills hundreds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, quiet will reign. It is pointless to destroy the weapons stores of Hamas, which has already proved capable of rearmament. Bringing down the Hamas government is an unrealistic (and illegitimate) goal, one that Israel does not want: It is aware that the alternative could be much worse. That leaves only one possible purpose for the military operation: death to Arabs, accompanied by the cheering of the masses.

The Israel Defense Forces already has a “map of pain,” a diabolical invention that has replaced the no less diabolical “bank of targets,” and that map is spreading at a sickening pace. Watch Al Jazeera English, a balanced and professional television channel (unlike its Arabic sister station), and see the extent of its success. You won’t see it in Israel’s “open” broadcast studios, which as usual are only open to the Israeli victim, but on Al Jazeera you will see the whole truth, and perhaps you will even be shocked.

The bodies in Gaza are piling up, the desperate, constantly updated tabulation of mass killing that Israel boasts of, which already numbers dozens of civilians, including 24 children as of noon on Saturday; hundreds of people injured, in addition to horror and destruction. One school and one hospital have already been bombed. The aim is to strike homes, and no amount of justification can help: It’s a war crime, even if the IDF calls them “command-and-control centers” or “conference rooms.” Granted, there are strikes that are much more brutal than Israel’s, but in this war, which is nothing other than mutual attacks on civilians — the elephant against the fly — there aren’t even any refugees. In contrast to Syria and Iraq, in the Gaza Strip the inhabitants do not have the luxury of fleeing for their lives. In a cage, there’s nowhere to run.

Since the first Lebanon war, more than 30 years ago, the killing of Arabs has become Israel’s primary strategic instrument. The IDF doesn’t wage war against armies, and its main target is civilian populations. Arabs are born only to kill and to be killed, as everyone knows. They have no other goal in life, and Israel kills them.

One must, of course, be outraged by the modus operandi of Hamas: Not only does it aim its rockets at civilian population centers in Israel, not only does it position itself within population centers — it may not have an alternative, given the crowded conditions in the Strip — but it also leaves the Gazan civilian population vulnerable to Israel’s brutal attacks, without seeing to a single siren, shelter or protected space. That is criminal. But the barrages of the Israel Air Force are no less criminal, on account of both the result and the intent: There isn’t a single residential building in the Gaza Strip that is not home to dozens of women and children; the IDF cannot, therefore, claim that it does not mean to hurt innocent civilians. If the recent demolition of the home of a terrorist in the West Bank still stirred a weak protest, now dozens of homes are being destroyed, together with their occupants.

Retired generals and commentators on active duty compete to make the most monstrous proposal: “If we kill their families, that will frighten them,” explained Maj.Gen. (res.) Oren Shachor, without batting an eyelid. “We must create a situation such that when they come out of their burrows, they won’t recognize Gaza,” others said. Shamelessly, without question — until the next Goldstone investigation.

A war with no goal is among the most despicable of wars; the deliberate targeting of civilians is among the most atrocious of means. Terror now reigns in Israel as well, but it’s unlikely there is a single Israeli who can imagine what it’s like for Gaza’s 1.8 million inhabitants, whose already miserable lives are now totally horrific. The Gaza Strip is not a “hornet’s nest,” it is a province of human desperation. Hamas is not an army, far from it, despite all the fear tactics: If it really did build such a sophisticated network of tunnels there, as is claimed, then why doesn’t it build Tel Aviv’s light rail network, already?

The 1,000-sortie and 1,000 tons of explosives marks have almost been reached, and Israel is waiting for the “victory picture” that has already been achieved: Death to Arabs.


HAARETZ, Monday, July 14, 2014 Tammuz 16,

México: viernes 11 de julio frente a SRE seguido de "Otra vez Gaza" de M. Landi

Gracias a Eduardo Mosches por el envío
¡Alto al bloqueo y los bombardeos contra civiles en Gaza, Palestina!
Manifestación VIERNES 11 de julio, 13:00 horas. Frente a la Secretaria
de Relaciones Exteriores, Av. Juárez 20. Centro Histórico, Ciudad de México.
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Palestina

No es una guerra, es una masacre

Otra vez Gaza

María Landi 

http://mariaenpalestina.wordpress.com
“La causa palestina no es la causa del pueblo palestino solamente, 
sino la causa de cada revolucionario/a, dondequiera que esté, por ser 
la causa de las masas explotadas y oprimidas de nuestro tiempo.” 
Ghassan Kanafani. (Escritor ? y militante ?palestino ?del FPLP 
asesinado por el Mossad en 1972).

Esta nueva ofensiva sobre Gaza no es más que otro ensayo de 
prepotencia gratuito e impune de Israel sobre el pueblo palestino. 
Gaza es, entre otros horrores, el campo de ??’testeo?’? de la 
industria militar y de seguridad israelí, esa que se promociona 
diciendo que “los productos están probados en el terreno” (el terreno 
es la carne del pueblo palestino). Esa industria que ? las empresas 
israelíes? le venden a todos nuestros países, ?la misma ?que entrena a 
nuestras policías, militares y servicios de inteligencia?; la que le 
compran hasta los gobiernos ‘izquierdistas’ de América Latina.

El secuestro y asesinato de tres jóvenes colonos en junio (que ningún 
grupo palestino reivindicó, y que algunos incluso sospechan que podría
ser una operación encubierta) ha sido la excusa que Israel aprovechó 
para lanzar durante tres semanas una operación de castigo colectivo 
sobre el pueblo palestino, primero sobre Cisjordania con la operación 
“Guardián de mi hermano” y ahora sobre Gaza con la operación “Borde protector”.

Ya varias fuentes han probado que Israel sabía que los colonos estaban 
muertos y dónde estaban sus cuerpos pocas horas después del secuestro, 
pero lo ocultó (incluso a sus familias) para desatar durante dos 
semanas una violenta ofensiva en Cisjordania, con el único objetivo de 
destruir a Hamas (a dos semanas de haberse alcanzado un acuerdo 
histórico de unidad entre este grupo y Fatah). El saldo fueron una 
veintena de personas muertas, varias decenas heridas, centenares 
detenidas, miles de hogares allanados y saqueados y algunas decenas 
directamente destruidos. Académicos, legisladores, personalidades, ex 
presos y simples militantes sociales fueron arrestados por ser 
miembros o simpatizantes de Hamas.

Como eso no bastaba, Israel se lanzó el domingo pasado sobre Gaza, con 
la excusa de ‘defenderse’ de los cohetes lanzados por la resistencia 
palestina (no necesariamente o no únicamente por Hamas), que son 
simplemente la reacción desesperada ante la barbarie que está 
sufriendo su pueblo. Cohetes caseros inofensivos que nunca ocasionan 
víctimas y casi ningún daño material significativo. Israel tiene un 
eficiente escudo aéreo defensivo y refugios antimisiles en todas las 
ciudades y pueblos cercanos a Gaza.

Gaza en cambio está totalmente bloqueada por Israel desde hace casi 8 
años por tierra, agua y aire. No tiene escudos antimisiles ni 
refugios, ni una sola via de salida, porque también Egipto ha cerrado 
el paso de Rafah. 1.600.000 personas (una grandísima proporción, 
menores de edad) están atrapadas sin escapatoria posible, a merced de 
los bombardeos israelíes (solo ayer fueron más de 400) en una franja 
estrecha de 45 por 15 km (350 km2), sin agua potable, sin electricidad
y casi sin combustible ni materiales médicos para que los hospitales y 
las ambulancias atiendan a las personas heridas. Al día de hoy 9 de 
julio, ya hay 53 víctimas mortales en Gaza, que se suman a las 11 del 
domingo (9 en Gaza y 2 en Cisjordania), y 460 personas heridas. Y la 
cifra sube cada hora.

Las víctimas en Israel son? cero. ?Y es la mejor prueba de que esto no 
es una guerra ni un intercambio de fuego cruzado, como nos quieren 
hacer creer la narrativa israelí y ?la prensa ?occidental ? que le 
hace coro?: es una masacre perpetuada por el cuarto ejército más 
poderoso del mundo sobre la zona más densamente poblada del mundo y 
sobre un pueblo que no tiene ni tuvo nunca ejército ni aviación ni 
armada, y que desde hace casi 70 años resiste (mayoritariamente por 
medios no violentos) al régimen de ocupación militar y colonización 
racista más brutal y prolongado del siglo XX, y el único que perdura 
en el siglo XXI con la la impunidad y la legitimidad ? que le otorga 
el mundo ‘civilizado’.

Los poderes occidentales y los medios masivos, en contra de todas las 
resoluciones del Derecho Internacional y de la ONU? (que Israel viola 
sistemáticamente y que esos medios ocultan), sigue repitiendo la 
narrativa sionista de que “Israel tiene derecho a defenderse”. El 
ladrón, usurpador y ocupante de la propiedad ajena se presenta como 
víctima y afirma su derecho a defenderse de la natural y justificada 
reacción de los robados, colonizados y oprimidos? desde hace cuatro o 
cinco generaciones, a los que convierte en victimarios. Y el mundo le 
da la razón.

Esto sigue ocurriendo periódicamente porque Israel no ha tenido que 
pagar, hasta ahora, ningún precio por sus reiteradas y cotidianas 
violaciones del derecho internacional humanitario y de los derechos 
humanos. Después de la operación “?Plomo fundido”‘? (2008-2009)? que 
dejó 1400 víctimas en Gaza en 20 días de bombardeos, el Informe 
Goldstone? (encargado por la ONU)? halló a Israel culpable de crímenes 
de guerra. Pero la comunidad internacional lo desconoció, el Consejo 
de DDHH de la ONU lo archivó, y no tomó ninguna medida para sancionar 
a Israel.Por eso hay que mirar esta crisis en perspectiva y no caer en 
la trampa de discutir “quién disparó primero” (un cohete casero o un 
misil), sino recordar que, en palabras de Frank Barat, Coordinador del 
Tribunal Russell sobre Palestina: “Israel declaró la guerra al pueblo 
palestino en 1947/1948, cuando limpió étnicamente la mayor parte de su 
patria. Esto tiene que quedar claro y ser repetido constantemente en 
estos momentos en que los analistas tratan de responder la pregunta: 
“¿Quién empezó?”. Mientras Israel continúe con sus políticas de 
ocupación, colonización, limpieza étnica y castigo colectivo, no tiene 
nada de lo que quejarse. Las y los palestinos van a resistir por todos 
los medios posibles, y tienen derecho a hacerlo.” ?

De hecho, ?vale la pena recordar que la Resolución 3101 de la Asamblea 
General de la ONU ? ?(de diciembre de 1973) afirma el derecho de los 
pueblos bajo dominación colonial y extranjera, y bajo regímenes 
racistas, a luchar por su autodeterminación?. Palestina se defiende 
como puede, y no solo tiene el derecho: también tiene el deber de hacerlo.

Y como dijo hoy Samah Sabawi, escritora y activista gazatí exiliada en 
Australia: “Cuando hagan las cuentas, cuando cuenten los cohetes 
palestinos cayendo en Israel, o las bombas israelíes cayendo sobre 
Gaza, cuando cuenten las y los palestinos muertos a lo largo de los 
años y los muertos israelíes, y las personas heridas, por favor no 
olviden contar los minutos, las horas, los días y los años de 
ocupación. Todos y cada uno de los días que los y las palestinas 
nacieron y murieron sin ciudadanía, todos y cada uno de los días que 
vivieron sin derechos, sin sueños, sin trabajo, sin agua, sin tierra, 
sin casa? No olviden contar el ttiempo? el tiempo que los palestinos 
perdieron a merced de la ocupacción militar más larga, más brutal y 
más opresiva del mundo” [que ya lleva casi 70 años].

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