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maandag 15 december 2008

De Bush Bende 53


Een geweldige worp en de boef Bush dook weg. Als niet-Arabische journalist stel ik bij deze dat ik mij volledig solidair verklaar met mijn schoenen gooiende Arabische collega. Ik roep al mijn collega's op hetzelfde te doen en dit sympathieke gebaar niet te beperken tot Bush! Deze moordenaars verdienen het.
Danny Schechter bericht:


How many journalists have attended political events that are really public relations exercises and felt used, insulted and abused? All of us.
How many have the courage to stand up and protest. That’s why I am proud to nominate Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt, for a special global Emmy Award for his services to the journalism of conscience, and for going beyond the constrictive call of duty by hurling his shoes—an insult in the Arab world– at the visiting President of the United States, the rarely honorable George W. Bush.
The correspondent personally was the recipient of the brutal violence that consumed Iraq last year, reports the Washington Post:
al-Zaidi, colleagues said, was kidnapped by Shiite militiamen last year and was later released.
JOURNALIST CONFRONTS BUSH IN BAGHDADAN EMMY NOMINATION FOR A SHOE THROWING JOURNALIST?MADOFF MAIMS
While Bush successfully ducked, Muntadar al-Zeidi’s accompanying remarks must be entered in the TV Hall of Fame as well and admired for brevity, although most of the news accounts truncated them, and distorted them.
He said: “This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog,” Steven Lee Myers of The New York Times reported in a pool report to the White House press corps.

Myers reported that when the man threw the second shoe, he added: “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.” Needless to say outrage over Iraqi victims of this war has been missing in most of the media for most of the war.
Bush, who has been dancing around critics for 8 years, ducked as the shoes whizzed past his head and landed with a thud against the wall behind him. He can duck but he can’t hide.
“It was a size 10,” Bush joked later.
Bad joke.
David Swanson, from ‘Let’s Try Democracy,’ comments:
I don’t advocate violence, even in response to violence, much less as substitution for words, and yet it seems to me that al-Zeidi has restored the good standing of journalists in the world. He’s punctuated his brief editorial with a statement in the universal language of television. A cream pie would have helped but would probably have tipped off the Secret Service to his plans. With the toss of two shoes, this journalist communicated more honest information to more people than a thousand New York Times exposes on aluminum tubes or expert commentaries on the Pentagon paid for by the Pentagon.
Gabriele from The Cat’s Dream requests your support;
Dear friends,
The brave Iraqi journalist Montadhar Al-Zaydi has shown to the world the emperor is naked. He’s been now taken hostage in his own country by the sectarian Quisling government of the Green Zone. Not only should he be released immediately; he must be honoured by any decent human being as a hero.
Please, sign this petition in his favour now .
Thanks,
Best wishes,Gabriele
AP reported:
“Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt. Iraqis whacked a statue of Saddam with their shoes after U.S. marines toppled it to the ground following the 2003 invasion.
White House press secretary Dana Perino suffered an eye injury in the news conference melee; NBC News reported she was hit in the face with a microphone. Bush brushed off the incident, comparing it to political protests at home.
“So what if a guy threw his shoe at me?” he said.”
Editors Note:The toppling of the statue was a staged event and photographs here.
AlJazeera reported:
The incident will serve as a vivid reminder of the widespread opposition to the US-led invasion of, and subsequent war in, Iraq - the conflict which has come to define Bush’s presidency.
Bush shrugged off the incident and quipped: “All I can report is that it’s a size 10.”
Adil Shamoo, an Iraqi analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, told Al Jazeera: “I think we should go beyond the shoe and think about the fact that the US should respect Iraq’s sovereignty in order to regain respect of the Iraqi people and the Arab world.
“I think Bush has increased terrorism against the United States and instability in the Middle East because of his policies.”
Comment by Blogreally.com:
Sometimes it is hard to tell what of news in the online world is The Onion and what is really news. We accept this is news.
Bush flew to Iraq? The journalists didn’t have take off their shoes like we do when we board a plane? They let ungrateful-shoe-throwers within 20 feet of the POTUS? How the mighty have fallen.
In answer to his question: “So what if a guy threw his shoe at me?” below is a video news item dated 11/26/08 from Jamal Dajani, an award winning producer and Senior Director of Middle Eastern Programming at Link TV:
The president must have missed the sight of tens of thousands of Iraqis who gathered in Firdous Square where Saddam Hussein’s statue once stood and chanted, “No, no, no to the occupiers!” He must have missed them dragging and pummeling his effigy with their shoes — a gesture of contempt in the Arab world — then jumping hysterically on it as they stamped out flames that had erupted after someone set it afire.
There he goes again! Standing in front of thousands of applauding soldiers at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, President Bush staunchly defended the US-led invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
“The consequences of success in Iraq will resonate far beyond that country’s borders… will resonate when your children and grandchildren begin to study the history of peace,” he said. “Success will frustrate Iran’s ambitions to dominate the region. Success will show millions across the Middle East that a future of liberty and democracy is possible.”
These telling images of “success” were beamed to millions of viewers in the Arab world. Are they waiting anxiously for a similar experience of liberty and democracy?
Leave it to Andy Borowitz to bring the news home.
Yankees Sign Iraqi Hurler - Shoe-throwing Right-hander Impresses Scouts
In their latest bid to beef up their pitching rotation for the 2009 season, the New York Yankees today signed Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zeidi to a three-year deal worth $32 million.
The right-handed al-Zeidi, 28, impressed the Yankee scouts with his performance in Baghdad yesterday when he threw both of his shoes at President George W. Bush. While neither of the shoes hit their target, both throws “had great velocity and good movement,” said Yankee owner Hank Steinbrenner.
“The first shoe was high and outside but the second one was right down the middle,” Mr. Steinbrenner said. The Yankee boss said that he was also impressed with Mr. al-Zeidi’s fighting spirit when Secret Service agents tackled him. “That could come in handy when we have a series with Boston,” he said.
Associate Editors Note: Good thing that I am not an Iraqi to join in solidarity to display my contempt as it pertains to this “end of an error,” for as “the Dissector” points out:
Cherie, had you been in Baghdad and had YOUR shoes on, they might have done real damage. YOUR shoes could be weapons of mass destruction:
$10,000,000,000,000.00 Hangover: a post from the DailyKos The Day the Dearth Stood Still by LithiumCola Sun Dec 14, 2008 at 02:03:01 PM PST
In the January issue of Harper’s Magazine (not online yet), Linda J. Bilmes, lecturer in public finance at Harvard’s Kennedy School, and Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and University Professor of Economics at Columbia, describe the cost of the Bush Presidency in an article titled “The $10 Trillion dollar hangover: Paying the Price for the Bush years.” NOTE: They have written this book and have a web site, Three Trillion Dollar War:
The result of deficit spending is debt. When President Bush took office, the national debt was $5.7 trillion. Now it is $10.6 trillion — and Congress voted in October to raise the debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion, the seventh such hike since President Bush to office and the second since last July. If, as is quite likely, we reach the new ceiling by January 20, the outgoing President will have managed to amass more debt than all of his predecessors combined.
Bilmes and Stiglitz further state, “the total bill for Bush-era excess — the total new debt combined with the total new accrued obligations — amounts to $10.35 trillion.”
In that time — that is to say, in the time that Washington was racking up that excess, using that money for something-or-other; the time from when President Bush took office to now — the cost of a family health insurance premium has gone up 87%; the number of uninsured people has gone up 19%; the number of families living in poverty has gone up 19%; real median household income has dropped 1%; and corporate profits have gone up 68%.'


Thom Meens van de Volkskrant 3


Anderhalve maand geleden, op 2 november, schreef ik een brief aan Thom Meens met enkele vragen. Ik heb nog niets van hem vernomen, zelfs niet eens eens een bericht van ontvangst. Ik probeer het nogmaals. Destijds schreef ik dit:

'Ik heb net deze brief ge-emaild aan Thom Meens, ombudsman van de Volkskrant:
Geachte heer Meens,

Op 25 oktober jongstleden schreef u op uw website: ‘Sinds kort weten we het zeker. De redactie van de Volkskrant is verantwoordelijk voor de inhoud van ingezonden brieven, of het nu in de krant is of op de website. Die wetenschap haal ik uit een uitspraak van de Raad voor de Journalistiek…’Gezien het feit dat de Raad voor de Journalistiek dit nu heeft vastgesteld en gezien ook het feit dat volgens u: ‘Op de redactie deze uitspraak met tevredenheid’ is ontvangen, leg ik u de volgende brief voor die gisteren door de Volkskrant-redactie in vetgedrukte letters werd gepubliceerd. Het gaat hier om het schrijven van een meneer die aangekondigd wordt als een 'historicus.' Zijn naam is Martien Pennings, en zover ik kan nagaan is hij een rechtse activist die zijn mening op talloze reactionaire sites verkondigt. En dat gaat dan in de stijl van: ‘'Nahed !! Wereldwijf !!!Dit komt wel uit mijn tenen, want ik ben een man, ook érg hetero en zo. Maar ik heb zelden zo'n helder, voortreffelijk en tegelijk onpretentieus betoog gezien. Brok troost. Vooral omdat ik al héél lang geleden schreef over de vrouw in boerka: "Die wijven weten van hun eigen gezond niet. Dit moet je scharen onder de categorie van meisjes die zichzelf 'snijden' of anderszins psychiatrisch hulpbehoevend zijn." Nu heb jij die oorspronkelijk toch weer mannelijke gedachte gedienstig en braaf uitgewerkt.(Ah! Wij Bevruchters!) Mooie aanvulling op Jolanda Withuis, jouw stuk, Nahed. Ik (61) zat bij lezing te grommen en op de vraag van mijn elfjarige dochter zei ik: "Papa leest een prachtig stuk." Ze antwoordde: "Je kijkt niet blij." Waarop ik: "De vreugde zit diep van binnen." Grote Filosofen Met Piemel zouden hier jaloers op kunnen worden. Goddomme, Nahed, meid, dit is wel castrerend hoor! Al moet ik aan de andere kant zeggen: ik kan hier ook best een stijve van krijgen. Niks verkrachtends bedoeld, overigens. Ik ben geen Arabier of Zuid-Afrikaanse neger! Nou ja, ik ben dus heel ambivalent: tussen een assertieve erectie (geen zwarte, zo groot is-i niet) en geïntimideerd verschrompelen in, dus. Mooi hoor. Je bent een vrouw voor een goed gesprek, Nahed. En dan heel langzaam aftasten . . . . God, wat zit ik literair mijn best te doen! Zou ik dan tóch homo zijn? Temeer daar jouw kalender aan mijn keukenmuur hangt. "Mijn keukenmuur", dat schreef ik echt totaal gedachtenloos op . . . Geloof je me? Dag schatje.Martien Pennings.' Zie: http://hoeiboei.web-log.nl/hoeiboei/2007/06/vorige_maand_an.htmlBoven het schrijven van deze Martien Pennings in de Volkskrant staat: 'Schrijf de waarheid over Israel.' Maar nu, auteur Pennings beweert in vetgedrukte letters, zodat zijn boodschap geen enkele Volkskrantlezer kan ontgaan, het volgende: 'Correspondent Alex Burghoorn schrijft: "Een 20-jarige Palestijn heeft donderdagh een 86-jarige voorbijganger doodgestoken in de Joodse nederzetting Gilo, nadat hij al een politieagent ernstig had verwond. Israli's beschouwen Gilo als een zuidelijke buitenwijk van Jeruzalem, maar het ligt op Palestijns grondgebied dat Israel in 1967 heeft bezet." (Buitenland, 24 oktober) De laatste woorden van deze alinea zijn een voorbeeld van een standaardjargon dat consequent de waarheid geweld aandoet als het over Israel gaat. HonestReporting, een website die dit soort terloopse perverteringen van de waarheid bestrijdt, schrijft: 'Het grootste deel van Gilo is land dat rechtmatig is gekocht door Joden voor 1948. In de oorlog van 1948 is het Joodse land in Gilo bezet en geconfisqueerd door de Jordaanse regering. Van 1948 tot 1967 hebben de Joodse eigenaren hun bezit niet opgegeven en toen Israel het land terugveroverde in de Zesdaagse Oorlog werd Gilo gebouwd, niet vanwege de overwinning in de oorlog, maar vanwege aloude wettige landaankopen.'Nu mijn vraag: waarom wordt deze vet gedrukte nonsens, er is geen ander woord voor, door de Volkskrant gepubliceerd, en waarom worden artikelen die deze nonsens weerleggen niet vet afgedrukt door de Volkskrant, als ze uberhaupt al worden afgedrukt, wat veelal niet het geval is?Ik stel met nadruk nonsens, om onder andere de volgende reden: stel nu eens dat de pro-Israel organisatie HonestReporting gelijk zou hebben dat 'het grootste deel van Gilo... door Joden voor 1948' is gekocht, klopt dan de rest van de redenering? Nee, natuurlijk. Ik geef een voorbeeld: stel dat joods-Israeli's stukken land in Nederland hadden gekocht. Zouden deze 'aloude wettige landaankopen' dit land tot Israelisch grondgebied hebben gemaakt? Geen sprake van! Zelfs niet nadat Israel met veel geweld Nederland had bezet. Stel dat Martien Pennings, die zich afficheert als historicus, een huisje en een stukje land in Frankrijk koopt, dan nog wordt dit terrein niet Nederlands grondgebied. Dat weet ieder mens, behalve Martien en de Volkskrant-redactie. Waarom weet de Volkskrant dit niet? Volgende vraag: waarom verspreidt de Volkskrant bewust foutieve informatie? Ik stel die vraag aangezien u zelf het volgende schreef: ‘Sinds kort weten we het zeker. De redactie van de Volkskrant is verantwoordelijk voor de inhoud van ingezonden brieven, of het nu in de krant is of op de website.’ De Volkskrant is dus verantwoordelijk voor het in vette letters verspreiden van mis-informatie. Het feit dat het artikel van Pennings vet wordt afgedrukt, verhoogt niet de waarheid van zijn stelling, maar toont aan hoe propagandistisch de Volkskrant te werk gaat.
Nu 'de waarheid over Israel': In 1947 heeft de Verenigde Naties ongeveer 47 procent van het vooroorlogse mandaatsgebied Palestina aan de Palestijnen gegeven. In 1948 verdreven zionistische troepen met veel geweld en terreur tenminste 750.000 Palestijnse burgers van hun land, de helft van hen nog voordat Arabische troepen de Palestijnen te hulp schoten. Het gevolg was dat in 1948 Israel 78 procent van het aloude Palestina veroverde, en dus meer dan de helft van het door de VN aan de Palestijnen toegewezen land stalen. In 1967 veroverde Israel de resterende 22 procent, en heeft daarvan ongeveer de helft in beslag genomen. Het gevolg is dat de Palestijnen nu minder dan een kwart van hun volgens de VN rechtmatige gebied overhouden. U kunt deze informatie lezen bij joods-Israelische historici als Ilan Pappe, Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim, Tom Segev, Simha Flapan. Hun werk is in het Engels te verkrijgen en De etnische zuivering van Palestina, geschreven door Pappe, is zelfs in het Nederlands vertaald.Met andere woorden: Gilo ligt op grondgebied dat door de wereldgemeenschap bij monde van de Verenigde Naties aan de Palestijnen is gegeven en dit weigert Israel te erkennen. Extremistische zionisten gaan ervan uit dat het recht uit de loop van een geweer komt. Dat is een levensgevaarlijke houding, waarvoor ook het Westen een hoge prijs zal betalen. De geschiedenis wijst uit dat onrecht net zolang duurt tot het niet meer geaccepteerd wordt. Ik zou graag dat deze brief in de Volkskrant wordt gepubliceerd, op dezelfde plaats als de nonsens van de heer Pennings. De 'waarheid over Israel' kan, wat mij betreft, in gewone letters worden gepresenteerd, de feiten zijn al overtuigend genoeg, nietwaar. In afwachting van uw antwoord op mijn vragen,

Hoogachtend
Stan van Houcke
Journalist
Amsterdam.'

Rabbijn Awraham Soetendorp

Geachte rabbijn Shalom Awraham Soetendorp,
Dit is een open brief aan u. In het Parool van afgelopen zaterdag las ik dat u vorige week 'in de Ridderzaal als jurylid van de Mensenrechtentulp zat.' U vertelde ook dat u 'Tony Blair in mei' had 'horen spreken op een bijeenkomst over het Midden-Oosten en daar erkende hij: "Ik ben tien jaar premier geweest en ik dacht dat ik goed was ingelicht over het Midden-Oosten, maar ik realiseer mij nu hoe weinig ik wist." Dat is vreesaanjagend om te horen; tegelijkertijd laat het zien dat je in leiderschap soms van de veilige weg af moet gaan.'

Ik deel uw mening en doe daarom een beroep op u als een van de leiders van de joodse gemeenschap in Nederland. Rabbijn Soetendorp, spreek u publiekelijk uit tegen de Israelische terreur tegen de burgerbevolking van Gaza. De situatie is door de Israelische belegering zo verslechterd dat volgens de kwaliteitskrant The Sunday Times: 'Gaza families eat grass as Israel locks border.' Zie: http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.com/2008/12/guus-valk-van-de-nrc-5.html

Opgesloten in een getto kunnen de Palestijnse mannen, vrouwen en kinderen geen kant op. En u weet hoe belangrijk de bescherming van vooral kinderen is, zeker als ze tot een vervolgde groep behoren. U zelf zei daarover in het Parool: 'Ik heb liefde en bescherming gehad, van anderen, en ik ben in leven gebleven. Dat, ja, dat is het doel van ieder mens: eraan bijdragen dat ieder kind die liefde en die bescherming heeft. Op de Dag van Respect stond ik voor vijftienhonderd kinderen en vertelde dat in de oorlog mijn leven is gered doordat die mensen respect voor mij hadden.' Vandaar mijn verzoek aan u om publiekelijk op te roepen de rechten van de Palestijnse kinderen te respecteren, zodat zij net als u tot volwaardige mensen kunnen uitgroeien. Spreek u uit tegen de terreur van Israel, die alleen maar leidt tot haat en contra-terreur. U zelf verklaarde dat persoonlijke verantwoordelijkheid nooit ophoudt. U zei tegen de Parool-verslaggeefster: 'Ik heb een stichting, niet zo bekend, die mij helpt, mijn idealen steunt. Dat is het Jewish Institute for Human Values.' Vandaar dat ik een beroep op u doe de Human Values van de Palestijnen onder de aandacht te brengen. Immers, u weet hoe belangrijk het is dat burgers goed worden geinformeerd en dat dit in het geval van Israel niet gebeurd, zoals uit de door u aangehaalde uitspraak van Tony Blair opnieuw blijkt. Ik weet dat u een fatsoenlijk mens bent, gedreven door joodse/humanistische waarden, die vecht 'voor een toekomst waarin ook Palestijnse kinderen alle rechten van de wereld hebben.'

Mijn concrete verzoek aan u is nu om de eerbiedwaardige Amerikaanse geleerde Richard Falk publiekelijk te steunen. Professor Falk is een van de meest vooraanstaande pleitbezorgers in de wereld van de mensenrechten, en als zodanig de speciale VN-rapporteur voor de bezette Palestijnse gebieden. Hij mag van Israel niet naar de bezette gebieden. Leest u zelf:

'DCI deeply concerned as Israel denies entry to SR Falk
[RAMALLAH, 15 December 2008] –

DCI-Palestine is deeply concerned by news received this morning from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Ramallah that the UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory, Professor Richard Falk, was denied entry into Israel and deported to Switzerland by the Israeli authorities. Professor Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, was planning to conduct his first official visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) this month. The objective of the visit was to collect information for a report to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2009. On this visit, Professor Falk was to meet among others Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli journalist Amira Hass, UN agencies and NGOs working in the Occupied Territory, including DCI-Palestine. The visit was supposed to take place from 14 to 20 December. Professor Falk landed at Ben Gurion airport in Israel yesterday and was detained all night before being deported to Switzerland, on the first plane to Geneva this morning. The two colleagues accompanying him were allowed into Israel but are unable to carry out the visit without the Special Rapporteur. DCI-Palestine is also concerned by reports that their laptops were taken from them. Israel has always criticised the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the OPT because it does not address human rights in Israel, but Professor Falk's appointment in March 2008 particularly angered Israel because of Falk’s outspoken views on the Israeli military occupation and Israeli policies in the OPT. [DCI/PS, 27 March 2008]This week, Professor Falk issued a statement equating Israel's policies in the Gaza Strip to crimes against humanity. He said the siege of Gaza constituted a “continuing flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law” and amounted to collective punishment by Israel. [DCI/PS, 9 December 2008] Throughout 2006-2008, Israel denied entry three times to the High-level Fact-finding Mission to Beit Hanoun headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and established under Council Resolution S-3/1 to investigate the impact of the Israeli military operations carried out there around 8 November 2006. Israel’s refusal to facilitate the implementation of the Resolution prevented the Mission from discharging its mandate until May 2008, when the Mission decided to travel to Beit Hanoun via Egypt [BBC]. Israel’s refusal to cooperate with independent experts mandated by the UN to investigate human rights violations is unacceptable; all the more so if they represent attempts by the Israeli government to protect its politicians and military commanders from being held accountable for grave human and child rights violations; and especially in light of the fact that independent and impartial investigations into killings by the Israeli military are never conducted by Israel, despite numerous calls from both Israeli and Palestinian civil society. DCI-Palestine supports Professor Falk’s call for accountability, and calls on the international community to publicly denounce Israel’s lack of transparency and put pressure on the current government to cooperate with the UN’s efforts to improve the human rights situation in the OPT.
DCI-Palestine had been asked by OHCHR in Ramallah to prepare a briefing for Professor Falk. We will be sending a detailed report on the detention and abuse of Palestinian children by the Israeli authorities to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as to the Special Rapporteur to aide his report to the UN Human Rights Council. “The deportation of Professor Falk is a clear and blatant attack against the UN, its mission and its staff and shows how far Israel can go in challenging the international community. It is time to put more pressure on the Israeli government to hold it accountable for all the human rights violations it is committing in the OPT and to force Israel to comply with internationally recognised human rights norms and standards”, said DCI-Palestine General Director Rifat Odeh Kassis. Professor Falk does not intend to attempt to re-enter Israel in the immediate future.'

In afwachting van uw antwoord,
vriendelijke groet,
Stan van Houcke

Guus Valk van de NRC 5


Via Sonja, informatie die de Nederlandse commerciele massamedia verzwijgen. Waarom besteedt Guus Valk, correspondent van de NRC, hier geen aandacht aan en wel aan de gekte van Geert Wilders? De kwaliteitskrant The Sunday Times bericht:

'Gaza families eat grass as Israel locks border
Marie Colvin

AS a convoy of blue-and-white United Nations trucks loaded with food waited last night for Israeli permission to enter Gaza, Jindiya Abu Amra and her 12-year-old daughter went scrounging for the wild grass their family now lives on.
“We had one meal today - khobbeizeh,” said Abu Amra, 43, showing the leaves of a plant that grows along the streets of Gaza. “Every day, I wake up and start looking for wood and plastic to burn for fuel and I beg. When I find nothing, we eat this grass.”
Abu Amra and her unemployed husband have seven daughters and a son. Their tiny breeze-block house has had no furniture since they burnt the last cupboard for heat.
“I can’t remember seeing a fruit,” said Rabab, 12, who goes with her mother most mornings to scavenge. She is dressed in a tracksuit top and holed jeans, and her feet are bare.
Conditions for most of the 1.5m Gazans have deteriorated dramatically in the past month, since a truce between Israel and Hamas, the ruling Islamist party, broke down.
Israel says it will open the borders again when Hamas stops launching rockets at southern Israel. Hamas says it will crack down on the rocket launchers when Israel opens the borders.
The fragile truce technically ends this Thursday, and there have been few signs it will be renewed. Nobody knows how to resolve the stalemate. Secret talks are under way through Egyptian intermediaries, although both sides deny any contact.
Israel controls the borders and allows in humanitarian supplies only sporadically. Families had electricity for six hours a day last week. Cooking gas was available only through the illegal tunnels that run into Egypt, and by last week had jumped in price from 80 shekels per canister (£14) to 380 shekels (£66).
The UN, which has responsibility for 1m refugees in Gaza, is in despair. “The economy has been crushed and there are no imports or exports,” said John Ging, director of its relief and works agency.
“Two weeks ago, for the first time in 60 years, we ran out of food,” he said. “We used to get 70 to 80 trucks per day, now we are getting 15 trucks a day, and only when the border opens. We’re living hand to mouth.”
He has four days of food in stock for distribution to the most desperate - and no idea whether Israel will reopen the border. The Abu Amra family may have to eat wild grass for the foreseeable future.'

zondag 14 december 2008

De Westerse Terreur 21

“The chickens come home to roost”
US misdeeds fuelling violence and terror
15 December 2008By Paul J. Balles

Paul J. Balles looks at how the USA’s contempt for international law and norms of civilized behaviour, and its sponsorship of state terrorism, are rebounding on it and its allies and friends worldwide.Thirty-nine women and children and eight teenagers at a wedding could hardly be mistaken for militants. Yet that's what the US military said about the 47 civilians murdered in an air strike in Afghanistan (BBC 11/07/08). Do we imagine, for a minute, that anyone vaguely knowing these people would forgive their tormentors and murderers?When a superior officer ordered three of his US marines not to take time to process the prisoners according to the rules, the threesome took turns blowing their prisoners’ brains out in Fallujah in 2004 (Los Angeles Times 11/07/08). How many of us would seriously think that stories of these atrocious misdeeds weren’t broadcast by word of mouth through all of the Arab and Islamic worlds?"We did a study on 3,000 children in Gaza," says, Dr Eyad al Saraj, a child psychologist. "45 per cent of them said the worst thing they have witnessed was the beating of their fathers by the Israeli soldiers. That was the symbol of security and power for them and it was shattered." Is it any wonder that these children grow up finding new symbols of power in the model of the man with the Kalashnikov? After the US media reported Reverend Jeremiah Wright's sermon as an example of a bad influence on Barack Obama, few people wanted to face the truth of what Wright said about the chickens coming home to roost:
We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy. We killed hundreds of hard-working people; mothers and fathers who left home to go that day, not knowing that they would never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima! We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye! Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school, civilians – not soldiers – people just trying to make it day by day. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant? Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yards! America's chickens are coming home to roost! Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism.
How many Americans are ready to admit that 9/11 was a crime of our own making? Paul Craig Roberts, former US underecretary of the Treasury says: "America’s brutal crimes against the Muslim world have invited every Muslim to become a law unto himself – a revolutionary. It is not terror that Washington confronts but revolution."Here's a “chickens come home to roost” theme in Roberts' view after the carnage in Mumbai. Roberts describes the provocation to terror well, and his analysis bears repeating:
The attack on Mumbai required radicalized Muslims. Radicalized Muslims resulted from the US overthrowing the elected government in Iran and imposed the Shah [the faux Shah Pahlavi]; from the US stationing troops in Saudi Arabia; from the US invading and attempting to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, bombing weddings, funerals and children’s soccer games; from the US violating international and US law by torturing its Muslim victims; from the US enlisting Pakistan in its war against the Taliban; from the US violating Pakistan’s sovereignty by conducting military operations on Pakistani territory, killing Pakistani civilians; from the US government supporting a half century of Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their lands, towns and villages; from the assault of American culture on Muslim values; from the US purchasing the government of Egypt to act as its puppet; from US arrogance that America is the supreme arbiter of morality.
Military interrogator Matthew Alexander's reactions to abuses of prisoners are revealing of the policies and practices that lead to resistance. According to experts on terror, inhumane treatment produces nothing of any value; it leads only to hatred and a desire for revenge.
I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on US and coalition forces in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our programme of detainee abuse.
How do we expect the family, friends, relatives and members of the tribes of the victims of our policies and practices to react?Call it what you will – chickens coming home to roost, revolution, resistance, victims – but don’t dismiss the arrogant immorality of brutalizing the world as someone else’s evil.
Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. For more information, see http://www.pballes.com.

De Israelische Terreur 484


'Who are the fools that reward Israel’s criminal behaviour?
By Stuart Littlewood
15 December 2008
Stuart Littlewood highlights the rank hypocrisy and double standards of British and European friends of Israel who not only brazenly defend Israeli war crimes, racism and other violations of basic Palestinian human rights, but seek to reward Israel for its criminal behaviour.Members of the European Parliament recently took a critical view of proposals to upgrade the EU-Israel Association Agreement and put down amendments designed to toughen up the conditions. "It's time for the Israeli government to stop considering itself above the law and start respecting it,” warned Luisa Morgantini, the Parliament’s vice-president. As a result, the vote was postponed – “a political stunt”, said the frustrated Israel lobby. In the meantime, all 27 EU ministers voted unanimously to approve the upgrade. However, it is not a done deal just yet. The EU Parliament still has to vote on this.Most citizens, myself included, are baffled by the way the EU operates. One thing is certain: it has little to do with democracy. I seem to remember that when they voted in 2002 to suspend the EU-Israel Agreement on account of Israel’s continual violation of human rights, they were ignored by the Commission and Council of Ministers – that’s Western democracy for you.
Meet Israel’s European friends
Why would anyone in Europe think it a good idea to reward Israel’s disregard for international law and common decency? One of the MEPs in my region in England, a Conservative Friend of Israel, explained his position:
I have been closely following recent developments in the Middle East... I believe there is significant benefit in closer economic and commercial ties between the EU and the only functioning and embedded democracy in the Middle East. I have great sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians ... but, in my view, the state of Israel has been placed in an impossible position by the continuation of terrorist attacks mounted from Gaza. The motive behind the Israeli restrictions was a refusal to tolerate unending and increasing attacks from Hamas and other terrorist groups... I wish to see a two-state solution with an essentially Jewish state of Israel at peace with an essentially Palestinian neighbour, which is free from thuggery and terrorism, and where democracy and social and economic well-being can flourish.
Another, also Conservative, wrote in similar vein:
I am familiar with the situation in Israel and the occupied territories as well as the suffering of many innocent Palestinian caught up in the maelstrom of the terrorist actions of Hamas and the Israeli counter attacks... The Conservatives are opposed to any new settlement building in the occupied territories yet I support an enhanced agreement with Israel, because Israel, as a democratic government, is very similar to Britain. They hold free and fair elections, have a free press, healthy and lively public debate, an independent judiciary and uphold the rule of law. Because of these values Israel finds itself at the front line fighting the existential threat of Islamist terrorism.
Note the way the situation is redefined to make Israel smell good: Hamas the terrorist, Israel only responding, Israel imposing “restrictions” (when in truth it’s a full-blown blockade all the way down to shelling Gazan fishing boats), wishing to see a Palestinian neighbour “free from thuggery” (that’s funny coming from people who admire and support an apartheid state, the plain-language description of Israel by the president of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto, and many, many others).Yet another Conservative MEP the other side of the country sent out the same distorted framing of the situation, which we can assume is “standard issue” in the Conservative Party. He too was "very familiar with the situation in Israel and the occupied territories", adding that the separation barrier had “considerably reduced the ability of suicide bombers to cross over and kill innocent Israeli civilians who are still subject to Hamas rockets launched from Gaza”.It angers me that these MEPs claim to know everything but actually know only the nonsense they are spoon-fed. Israel is no liberal Western-style democracy, it is an ethnocracy with a racist agenda. I am deeply offended to be told by such ignorant people that we in Britain share its values. And when I recently asked a newspaperman in Jerusalem if the Israeli press was free he laughed in my face. Most of the time Israel bars journalists, and even medics, from entering Gaza to witness and report. Upholding the rule of law? Maybe for Jews. Some 9,000 Palestinians, including women and children, abducted from their homes, are banged up in Israeli prisons, many without charge or trial. There are several reports, even by Israeli organizations such B'Tselem, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and the Centre for the Defence of the Individual, drawing attention to Israel’s torture and medical neglect of prisoners and detainees. When the Palestinians exercised their democratic right in free and fair elections in 2006, Israel and Western leaders rejected their choice and resolved to destroy their embryonic democracy and bring Palestinian civil society to its knees in an orgy of vicious collective punishment. As for the Hamas government now confined to Gaza, does it not have a perfect right under international law to take up arms (the same right the Israeli government pretends is exclusively its own) to defend its people against the brutal oppression of an illegal invader and occupier? As for terrorists, anyone who has been to the Holy Land knows who they are.How come the EU finds it so difficult to uphold justice in the Middle East? Meet the European Friends of Israel (EFI). And what does the EFI do? Its purpose includes:
expanding and reinforcing European support of Israel.
providing decision-makers and those who influence public opinion with propaganda lies about the Middle East, and, evidently, there are enough gullible fools to swell EFI’s ranks.
At the core of EFI’s work, says the website, is a belief that Israel deserves better recognition of the cultural and democratic bonds that it shares with the EU. EFI’s objective is to “improve and help foster an environment in which Israel’s commercial interests are enhanced. Our aim is to increase the number of Europeans who share this belief and encourage them to take individual political action."In signing up to support such a lawless foreign power, how can our politicians possibly conform to the Principles of Public Life, in particular the Principle of Integrity, which lays down that holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organizations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties?And have they bothered to read and understand the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which they are pledged to observe and promote?EFI, as you might expect, is economical with the truth. It says that Israel didn't really want to build the Wall and resisted doing so for more than 35 years, but “was forced to act... It is important to stress, as repeatedly mentioned by Israeli officials, that the fence is not political, and is not a border.” On the contrary, the Wall has been instrumental in Israel’s seizure of more than 38 per cent of the West Bank, including prime agricultural land and strategic water resources. These areas are now off-limits to Palestinians. Eighty per cent of the West Bank's precious water is diverted to illegal settlers while Palestinians are strictly rationed or go without. If it is simply a security fence, then why wasn’t it built within Israel’s recognized border?
Is an Israeli life more precious than a Palestinian life?
Another EFI gem was this statement after 27 months of siege:
Faced with unremitting rocket attacks from Gaza (4,000 rocket and mortar attacks on its civilians since the Jewish state dismantled every settlement and removed every settler from Gaza in 2005), the government of Israel has shown great restraint as it takes action to defend its citizens, the right and the prime obligation of any nation.'

De Commerciele Massamedia 168

Our Disinformed Electorate
We saw more aggressive fact-checking by journalists in this election than ever before. Unfortunately, as a post-election Annenberg Public Policy Center poll confirms, millions of voters were bamboozled anyway.
By Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Brooks Jackson factcheck.org Dec 13, 2008 Updated: 9:22 a.m. ET Dec 13, 2008

More than half of U.S. adults (52 percent) said the claim that Sen. Barack Obama's tax plan would raise taxes on most small businesses is truthful, when in fact only a small percentage would see any increase.
More than two in five (42.3 percent) found truth in the claim that Sen.
John McCain planned to "cut more than 800 billion dollars in Medicare payments and cut benefits," even though McCain made clear he had no intent to cut benefits.
The first falsehood was peddled to voters by McCain throughout his campaign, and the second was made in a pair of ads run heavily in the final weeks of the campaign by Obama.
These aren't isolated examples. One in four (25.6 percent) of those who earned too little to have seen any tax increase under Obama's plan nevertheless believed that he intended to "increase your own federal income taxes," accepting McCain's repeated claims that "painful" tax hikes were being proposed on "families." Nearly two in five (39.8 percent) thought McCain had said he would keep troops in combat in Iraq for up to 100 years, though he'd actually spoken of a peacetime presence such as that in Japan or South Korea. Close to one in three (31 percent) believed widely disseminated claims that Obama would give Social Security or health care benefits to illegal immigrants, when in fact he would do neither.
We're not surprised. As we wrote in "unSpun: finding facts in a world of disinformation," the same thing happened in 2004 when majorities of voters believed untrue things that had been fed to them by the Bush and Kerry campaigns.
One reason is obvious: Political ads run thousands of times and reach far more people than articles on FactCheck.org. On our best day, we were read by 462,678 visitors. By contrast, the Obama campaign aired two ads claiming that McCain planned to cut Medicare benefits a total of 17,614 times at a cost estimated to be more than $7 million – which is several times more than FactCheck.org's entire annual budget.
There are deeper reasons as well. We humans all have a basic disposition to embrace our side's arguments and reject or ignore those offered by an opponent. Our polling reflects that. After taking differences in age, race, gender and education into account, Republicans were still 4.4 times more likely than Democrats to believe that Obama would raise taxes on most small businesses, and Democrats were 3.2 times more likely than Republicans to believe that McCain would cut Medicare benefits. Simply put, partisanship trumps evidence.
This also helps explain why so many people accept the most preposterous claims circulated by chain e-mail messages and ignorant or irresponsible bloggers. Our poll found nearly one in five (19 percent) falsely think Obama is a Muslim, and even more (22 percent) find truth in the claim that he's nearly half Arab. Republicans were 2.8 times more likely than Democrats to buy the Muslim claim, and just over twice as likely to swallow the half-Arab notion.
This is "group think" in action. We humans tend to marry, date, befriend and talk with people who already agree with us, and hence are less likely to say, "Wait a minute – that's just not true."
Consultants also dupe us by exploiting our partisan preconceptions. People tend to believe Democrats are more likely than Republicans to raise taxes, so McCain was pushing on an open door when he repeatedly claimed Obama would raise taxes on ordinary voters, and not just the most affluent. By the same token, Obama found it easy to sell his bogus claim that McCain planned to cut Medicare benefits by 22 percent, because Republicans have a reputation as opponents of social programs.
Voters aren't highly knowledgeable about government to begin with. Our poll shows that nearly one in three (31 percent) think Congress or the president, not the Supreme Court, have the final call on whether laws are constitutional. Nearly one in 10 (9.9 percent) think Republicans still control the House of Representatives, even though they've had two years to catch up on results of the 2006 elections.
And voters, once deceived, tend to stay that way despite all evidence.
Nearly half in our poll (46 percent) agreed that Saddam Hussein played a role in the attacks of September 11, even though no solid evidence has ever emerged to support this notion.'

Genocidi

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