De Israelische Terreur 476

"We are slowly dying"

Sameh A. Habeeb writing from the occupied Gaza Strip,

Live from Palestine, 3 December 2008

Israel has further tightened the screw on Gaza, where some areas have been completely plunged into darkness as fuel shortages shut down Gaza's sole power plant 25 days ago.The power cuts affect all activities dependent on electrical power as the remaining power sources provided by Israel and Egypt cannot serve the needs of the whole of the Gaza Strip. Access to drinking and irrigation water is affected, as well as sewage treatment, risking disease. Already, this means that millions of liters of sewage water pollute the Mediterranean Sea on a daily basis.Israel is also denying food to the 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. According to the Popular Committee Against the Siege, basic food items like milk, flour, cooking oil, meat, rice and legumes are not sufficiently available. Some figures indicate that only 15 percent of Gaza's food needs are getting in through the Israeli-controlled borders.Palestinians in Gaza are also being denied the right to access medical treatment. Basic medicines have vanished from the Strip, including those for the treatment of diabetes, heart conditions, asthma and other chronic diseases. There are also shortages of medicine to treat cancer and renal and liver diseases. Sterilization and disinfectant supplies, as well as other needs for the safe treatment medical patients, are in short supply. Machines that mean life or death for Gaza patients are breaking down because Israel is not allowing the import of spare parts. Doctors will have a hard time even diagnosing patients because the power cuts have damaged CT and x-ray equipment at Gaza's hospitals.Gaza's population is largely dependent on humanitarian aid as Israel has been denying them the right to work since it started imposing closure on the Strip years ago. But now even humanitarian aid is being largely banned from the Strip, and Israel has severely restricted aid to the UN agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA. With UNRWA unable to distribute food aid to its hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries (the majority of Gaza's residents are the descendents of refugees who were forced from their homes and property in what is now Israel, 60 years ago), widespread hunger is not a question of if but when.Israel has ensured that it's not just Gaza's human population that will be going hungry, but its animals as well. For four weeks Israel has not allowed the import of fodder, while Gaza's agriculture requires 150 tons per day. Gaza's agricultural sector, already suffering since Israel began to prevent the export of food products from Gaza a year and a half ago, is severely affected by the lack of vaccinations, seeds, insecticides and fertilizer in the Strip. Gaza has become a place where a normal life is impossible. "I'm fed up," said Khalil Barakat, a middle-aged, unemployed refugee of the Beach refugee camp. "We are caged like animals in Gaza. If I had a chance to emigrate to live my remaining years in peace, then I would love to."This writer asked an old friend of his, a young mother named Um Muhammad Abu Ouf, how her family has been affected by the siege. As darkness descended upon Gaza City's Omar al-Muktar Street, she replied, "The siege has become a daily nightmare, day and night. Electricity cuts off and that frightens my 11-month-old infant. It makes conditions unsafe for him. Further, I'm trying to get some fortified food for him. I went to many stores and shops but in vain. I could not find any food nor necessary supplies for my son as there is a shortage of a lot of the basic products needed to care for infants, such as milk, diapers and so forth."Meanwhile, Nahed Deeb, who feared that famine looms near, was similarly frustrated: "We are slowly dying and no one is taking action. I lost my work eight years ago and I'm dependant on irregular aid. This is applicable to hundreds of thousands in normal circumstances. Nevertheless, poor people like me are no longer getting any kind of support."It is unlikely that the people of Gaza will have a respite from Israel's siege of collective punishment as the Israeli Defense Ministry recently announced that Gaza's crossings would remain closed until further notice. Israeli forces also this week prevented a Libyan boat loaded with three thousand tons of foodstuffs from reaching Gaza's shore, under the pretext that the boat carried weapons. However, a Qatari boat is scheduled to set sail from Cyprus in an attempt to deliver humanitarian aid to the Strip, and Turkish, Kuwaiti, Yemeni and Jordanian boats are to also attempt to break the siege, and Palestinian leaders in Israel have pledged to do the same this weekend.If the siege is designed to pressure Palestinians in Gaza to surrender their rights, as one resident who identified himself as Mr. Muhammad asserted, Israel will be met with resistance: "We have been patient for 60 years now. We passed more cruel times than this. So why give up this year? We have to be adamant and patient and the siege will be eventually lifted."Sameh A. Habeeb is a photojournalist, humanitarian and peaceactivist based in Gaza, Palestine. He writes for several news websites on a freelance basis.'

Zie: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10008.shtml

De Israelische Terreur 475

Jewish settlers throw stones at a Palestinian home in the West Bank city of Hebron, 4 December. (ActiveStills)

Hebron settlers take their fight into Israel

Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada,

7 December 2008

Extremist settler groups currently involved in violent confrontations with Palestinians in the center of Hebron have chosen their next battleground, this time outside the West Bank.A far-right group know as the Jewish National Front, closely associated with the Hebron settlers, is preparing to march through one of the main Arab towns in northern Israel. The march, approved by the Israeli high court back in October, is scheduled to take place on 15 December, the group announced this week.The police are expecting to deploy thousands of officers to prevent trouble, and have limited the number of Front members participating to 100. The march will not enter the heart of the city, say police, though it is not yet clear whether Front members will be allowed to carry the guns most have been issued as settlers.The Front says it will wave Israeli flags in what the group has dubbed a demonstration of "Jewish Pride" through Umm al-Fahm, home to nearly 45,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel.The Front's main platform is the expulsion of all Palestinians from what it calls "Greater Israel," which also includes the West Bank and Gaza. It skates close to illegality with veiled suggestions that Palestinian citizens of Israel should also be ethnically cleansed."We will march through Umm al-Fahm with flags to send everyone a message that the Land of Israel belongs to us," Baruch Marzel, the Front's leader, declared.The move has aroused furious opposition from local residents and the leadership of the Palestinian minority. Jamal Zahalka, an Arab member of the parliament, called the court decision a "legitimization of racism": "We will use our right of protest and defend Umm al-Fahm from these fascists and racists."It is not the first time that Umm al-Fahm has attracted the interest of Israel's far-right.The Kach party -- led by Rabbi Meir Kahane -- held a similar march in 1984, the year it won representation in the Israeli parliament for the first time. A decade later the movement, which organized attacks on Palestinians, was outlawed as a terrorist organization.However, the banning of Kach has been laxly enforced. Several former Kach leaders, including Marzel, himself a Hebron settler, have reinvented the group as the Jewish National Front. Marzel has made several unsuccessful attempts to stand for parliament, and is due to run again in February.The march through Umm al-Fahm is partly intended as an election ploy, according to Jafar Farah, of the Arab political lobby group Mossawa."The actions of the settlers from Hebron have not been generally popular with Israeli Jews. Through this provocation in Umm al-Fahm, the Front hopes that it can win greater sympathy from the public."Marzel has conducted similar stunts before against Palestinian citizens, who constitute a fifth of the Israeli population. His supporters have marched in the Arab town of Sakhnin in the Galilee and through an Arab neighborhood of the "mixed city" of Jaffa.But Farah believes Umm al-Fahm has been chosen this time because it can be more easily marketed as an "enemy city."In recent years the town has gained a wide notoriety among the Jewish pubic. Its residents angrily took to the streets in October 2000 to protest the early stages of the army's crushing of the second Palestinian intifada. Clashes with police led to three local residents being shot dead.'

Lees verder: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10009.shtml

Nederland en Afghanistan 185

Taliban destroy 100 trucks in biggest raid on Nato supplies bound for Afghanistan • Islamist leader warns of increase in armed attacks • $10bn given to Pakistan to fight war on terror 'wasted'

* Saeed Shah in Islamabad, Richard Norton-Taylor and Simon Tisdall
* The Guardian, Monday December 8 2008

Gunmen mounted the biggest attack yet on Nato supplies going to Afghanistan yesterday, torching more than 100 trucks carrying equipment at a depot in north-west Pakistan, the main route for supplies to troops in land-locked Afghanistan.
Security guards at two depots in Peshawar were outnumbered by more than 200 militants at around 3am. About 70 Humvees, which were loaded on some of the trucks, were destroyed. Most of the vehicles were reduced to charred hulks of metal. "They fired rockets, hurled hand grenades and then set ablaze 96 trucks," said a senior police officer in Peshawar, Azeem Khan.
The attack came as Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar urged western forces to leave Afghanistan before thousands of their troops were killed in the Islamist group's renewed insurgency.
Omar, believed to be hiding in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, said in an email statement: "I would like to remind the illegal invaders who have invaded our defenceless and oppressed people that it is a golden opportunity for you at present to hammer out an exit strategy for your forces. The current armed clashes which now number into tens will spiral up to hundreds of armed clashes. Your current casualties of hundreds will jack up into the thousands."
The Taliban has a permanent presence in 72% of the territory of Afghanistan, up from 54% last year, and is expanding its control beyond the rural south of the country, the International Council on Security and Development, formerly the Senlis Council, says in a report today.
The independent thinktank and research organisation says three of the four main routes leading out of Kabul, the capital, are threatened by the Taliban.
Most of the additional American troops arriving in Afghanistan early next year will be deployed near Kabul, the New York Times reported yesterday, citing American military commanders.
The Pakistani Taliban have begun to focus increasingly on choking off the supply path through Pakistan, which is used to take over 70% of military equipment, food, fuel and other vital provisions to western soldiers across the border.
Supplies are trucked hundreds of miles from the port at Karachi across Pakistan to Peshawar, and then onward to Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass.
A security guard at one of the depots said there had been 13 of them trying to hold out against the militants yesterday; they had been forced to give up after about half an hour. One security guard was killed in the shoot-out.
Another guard, Mohammad Rafiullah, said: "They were shouting Allahu Akbar (God is greatest) and Down With America. They broke into the terminals after snatching our guns."
Security was supposed to have been tightened after a Nato convoy passing through the Khyber Pass was recently ransacked. Television pictures have subsequently shown Taliban guerrillas in Pakistan's lawless tribal area driving around in Humvees looted from that assault.'

Lees verder: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/08/afghanistan-taliban-nato-raid-pakistan

Obama 65

'Right-Wingers and Neocons Love Obama's Cabinet Appointments
Posted by Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet at 9:51 AM on November 30, 2008.

A collection of praise for Obama's White House team from Karl Rove, David Brooks, Henry Kissinger and more.
Post Tools EMAIL PRINT 230 COMMENTSAs Barack Obama's opus, Team of Rivals, continues its rolling debut, the early reviews are in and the "critics" are full of praise for the cast:
"[T]he new administration is off to a good start."-- Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell.
"[S]uperb ... the best of the Washington insiders ... this will be a valedictocracy -- rule by those who graduate first in their high school classes."-- David Brooks, conservative New York Times columnist
"[V]irtually perfect ... "-- Senator Joe Lieberman, former Democrat and John McCain's top surrogate in the 2008 campaign.
"[R]eassuring."-- Karl Rove, "Bush's brain."

"I am gobsmacked by these appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a President McCain ... this all but puts an end to the 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional summits with dictators, and other foolishness that once emanated from the Obama campaign ... [Hillary] Clinton and [James] Steinberg at State should be powerful voices for 'neo-liberalism' which is not so different in many respects from 'neo-conservativism.'"-- Max Boot, neoconservative activist, former McCain staffer.
"I see them as being sort of center-right of the Democratic party."-- James Baker, former Secretary of State and the man who led the theft of the 2000 election.
"[S]urprising continuity on foreign policy between President Bush's second term and the incoming administration ... certainly nothing that represents a drastic change in how Washington does business. The expectation is that Obama is set to continue the course set by Bush ... "-- Michael Goldfarb of the neoconservative Weekly Standard.
"I certainly applaud many of the appointments ... "-- Senator John McCain
"So far, so good."-- Senator Lamar Alexander, senior Republican Congressional leader.
Hillary Clinton will be "outstanding" as Secretary of State-- Henry Kissinger, war criminal
Rahm Emanuel is "a wise choice" in the role of Chief of Staff-- Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, John McCain's best friend.
Obama's team shows "Our foreign policy is non-partisan."-- Ed Rollins, top Republican strategist and Mike Huckabee's 2008 campaign manager
"The country will be in good hands."-- Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush's Secretary of State
**Team of Rivals will be playing all day, every day for at least the next four years**

Tagged as: karl rove, joe lieberman, james baker, barack obama, john mccain, hillary clinton, david brooks, mitch mcconnell, rahm emanuel, max boot, lindsey graham, michael goldfarb, lamar alexander, henry kissinger, condoleeza rice
Jeremy Scahill pledges to be the same journalist under an Obama administration that he was during Bill Clinton and George Bush's presidencies. He is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army and is a frequent contributor to The Nation and Democracy Now! He is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute.
« The AlterNet Blogs
« War on Iraq « Jeremy Scahill
Zie: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/waroniraq/109160/

Obama 64

Noam Chomsky: 'one thing surprising about the election was that it wasn't a landslide. By the usual criteria, you would expect the opposition party to win in a landslide under conditions like the ones that exist today. The incumbent president for eight years was so unpopular that his own party couldn't mention his name and had to pretend to be opposing his policies. He presided over the worst record for ordinary people in post-war history, in terms of job growth, real wealth and so on. Just about everything the administration was touched just turned into a disaster. [The] country has reached the lowest level of standing in the world that it's ever had. The economy was tanking. Several recessions are going on. Not just the ones on the front pages, the financial recession. There's also a recession in the real economy. The productive economy, under circumstances and people know it. So 80% of the population say that the country's going in the wrong direction. About 80% say the government doesn't work to the benefit of the people, it works for the few and the special interests. A startling 94% complain that the government doesn't pay any attention to the public will, and on like that. Under conditions like that, you would expect a landslide to a opposition almost whoever they are. And there wasn't one.So one might ask why wasn't there a landslide? That goes off in an interesting direction. And other respects the outcome was pretty familiar. So once again, the election was essentially bought. 9 out of 10 of the victors outspent their opponents. Obama of course outspent McCain. If you look at the -- and we don't have final records yet from the final results, but they're probably going to be pretty much like the preliminaries a couple of months ago. Which showed that both Obama and McCain were getting the bulk of their financing from the financial institutions and for Obama, law firms which means essentially lobbyists. That was about over a third a few months ago. But the final results will probably be the same. And there is a -- the distribution of funding has over time been a pretty good predictor of what policies will be like for those of you who are interested, there's very good scholarly work on this by Tom Ferguson in Umass Boston, what he calls the investment theory of politics. Which argues essentially that elections are moments when groups of investors coalesce and invest to control the state and has quite the substantial predictive success. Gives some suggestion as to what's likely to happen. So that part's familiar. The -- what the future is as I say, depends on people like you.'

Lees verder: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/108964/

Obama 63

Chomsky: Is There Truth in Obama's Advertising?

By Noam Chomsky, Democracy Now!. Posted November 28, 2008.

In a fascinating speech, Chomsky warns, "Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below." Let's begin with the elections. The word that the rolls off of everyone's tongue is historic. Historic election. And I agree with it. It was a historic election. To have a black family in the white house is a momentous achievement. In fact, it's historic in a broader sense. The two Democratic candidates were an African-American and a woman. Both remarkable achievements. We go back say 40 years, it would have been unthinkable. So something's happened to the country in 40 years. And what's happened to the country -- which is we're not supposed to mention -- is that there was extensive and very constructive activism in the 1960s, which had an aftermath. So the feminist movement, mostly developed in the 70s -- the solidarity movements of the 80's and on till today. And the activism did civilize the country. The country's a lot more civilized than it was 40 years ago and the historic achievements illustrate it. That's also a lesson for what's next.

What's next will depend on whether the same thing happens. Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below. And the answer to what's next depends on people like you. Nobody else can answer it. It's not predictable. In some ways, the election -- the election was surprising in some respects.

Going back to my bad prediction, If the financial crisis hadn't taken place at the moment that it did, if it had been delayed a couple of months, I suspect that prediction would have been correct. But not speculating, one thing surprising about the election was that it wasn't a landslide. By the usual criteria, you would expect the opposition party to win in a landslide under conditions like the ones that exist today. The incumbent president for eight years was so unpopular that his own party couldn't mention his name and had to pretend to be opposing his policies. He presided over the worst record for ordinary people in post-war history, in terms of job growth, real wealth and so on. Just about everything the administration was touched just turned into a disaster. [The] country has reached the lowest level of standing in the world that it's ever had. The economy was tanking. Several recessions are going on. Not just the ones on the front pages, the financial recession. There's also a recession in the real economy. The productive economy, under circumstances and people know it. So 80% of the population say that the country's going in the wrong direction. About 80% say the government doesn't work to the benefit of the people, it works for the few and the special interests. A startling 94% complain that the government doesn't pay any attention to the public will, and on like that. Under conditions like that, you would expect a landslide to a opposition almost whoever they are. And there wasn't one.

So one might ask why wasn't there a landslide? That goes off in an interesting direction. And other respects the outcome was pretty familiar. So once again, the election was essentially bought. 9 out of 10 of the victors outspent their opponents. Obama of course outspent McCain. If you look at the -- and we don't have final records yet from the final results, but they're probably going to be pretty much like the preliminaries a couple of months ago. Which showed that both Obama and McCain were getting the bulk of their financing from the financial institutions and for Obama, law firms which means essentially lobbyists. That was about over a third a few months ago. But the final results will probably be the same. And there is a -- the distribution of funding has over time been a pretty good predictor of what policies will be like for those of you who are interested, there's very good scholarly work on this by Tom Ferguson in Umass Boston, what he calls the investment theory of politics. Which argues essentially that elections are moments when groups of investors coalesce and invest to control the state and has quite the substantial predictive success. Gives some suggestion as to what's likely to happen. So that part's familiar. The -- what the future is as I say, depends on people like you.

The response for the election was interesting and instructive. It kept pretty much to the soaring rhetoric, to borrow the cliche, that was the major theme of the election. The election was described as an extraordinary display of democracy, a miracle that could only happen in America and on and on. Much more extreme than [what] Europe [could accomplish]. There's some accuracy in that if we keep to the West. That couldn't have happened anywhere else. Europe was much more racist than the United States and you wouldn't expect anything like that to happen.

On the other hand, if you look at the world, it's not that remarkable. So let's take the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti and Bolivia. In Haiti, there was an election in 1990 which really was an extraordinary display of democracy much more so than this.

In Haiti, there were grassroots movements, popular movements that developed in the slums and the hills, which nobody was paying any attention to. And they managed, even without any resources, to sweep into power their own candidate. A populist priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. That's a victory for democracy when popular movements can organize and set programs and pick their candidate and put them into office, which is not what happened here, of course.

Lees verder: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/108964/

The Empire 364

“We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all
United States corporations. This conjunction of an immense military
establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.
The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in
every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We
recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to
comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are
all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of
government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence,
whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The
potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will
persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our
liberties or democratic processes.”


President Dwight D. Eisenhower in a televised speech 1961

En toch nog zijn er mensen die denken dat Obama change betekent. Alsof hij in staat zou zijn deze macht, die inmiddels alleen maar immens veel groter is geworden, te bedwingen.