I recently watched - on Netflix btw! - an hour-long documentary film by Spanish documentary maker Hernan Zin, Born in Gaza (Nacido En Gaza).
This searing, unforgettable film focuses on the impact of Israel's 2014 serial massacres, aka Operation Protective Edge, on the child victims of the massacres.
(It could be considered as the filmic counterpart of Norman Finkelstein's magnum opus, Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom. Finkelstein's figure is 550 child deaths.)
Please watch and spread the word as widely as possible.
Showing posts with label Gaza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaza. Show all posts
Friday, August 2, 2019
Monday, July 8, 2019
Why Younger Australian Voters Can't See the Point of Democracy
What follows is based on the 2/7/19 report by The Australian's Rachel Baxendale, ALP pick of Israel critic stirs backlash.
Think, if you will, of the content of Baxendale's report as a case history:
Victorian politician Enver Erdogan, reportedly of Turkish Kurdish origin, began his political career as as member of Labor's Socialist Left on Melbourne's Moreland City Council at the time of Israel's Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009) onslaught on the Gaza Strip. To his great credit, Erdogan reacted instinctively to the carnage in the Gaza Strip by successfully moving a motion on council condemning the 'Israeli massacre in Gaza.'
Around a year later (?), when asked (by whom is not disclosed, but one assumes the usual suspects, Erdogan is reported to have said: 'Of course I fully support Israel's right to exist as an independent state and I support a two-state solution'. Keep in mind that whatever conversation Erdogan had at the time, and with whom, this is an out-of-context quote.
However, we then find Erdogan switching from Labor's Socialist Left to the most right-wing faction of the Labor Party, the Shop Distributive & Allied Employees Association (headed by Joe de Bruyn and known colloquially as The Shoppies) as part of a current stepping-stone to parachute him into an upper house seat in the Victorian state parliament.
This follows a recommendation of the Victorian ALP's administrative committee. In making the recommendation, the administrative committee would be bypassing normal rules that would have given local members full voting rights. Erdogan has reportedly declared that if elected, he would move to the southern metropolitan bayside area 'promptly.'
Note that, but for the following data, which I quote in full from The Australian's 2/7/19 Baxendale report, such 'parachuting' would have excited little or no controversy in and of itself:
"'There is deep local disquiet over the parachuting in of Mr Erdogan, a controversial figure with no connection to the southern metropolitan region,' said one local member, citing Mr Erdogan's motion on Israel as being of particular concern. 'If Mr Erdogan spent valuable council time on a conflict unrelated to council matters, what might he get up to in the Victorian upper house?'
In the same report, Erdogan is described as now 'close to former member for Batman David Feeney.' Note that Baxendale's later 5/7/19 report, Council colleagues troubled by Labor's hopeful new MP, has little to add to her earlier report except to assert that 'factional allegiances mean it is highly unlikely anyone other than Mr Erdogan will succeed...'"
On Feeney, see my 18/5/16 post The Appalling David Feeney MP, where I record him as follows: "The Palestinians should abandon their campaign to destroy Israel [by] abandoning the so-called 'right of return' for the descendants of the 1948 refugees'."
My point in raising the issue of Enver Erdogan is not that he is unique in his political shape-shifting, but rather typical of a system in which toeing the party line requires that any principles a would-be politician may have had prior to embarking on a political career, are invariably cast aside in the interest of carving out a career in party politics. This leads to the hypothesis that it is precisely this kind of behaviour that has brought our political class, whether at local, state or federal level, whether Labor, Liberal, or any other political party, into disrepute with younger voters. As the 2018 Lowy Institute poll, for example, reveals:
"Only 47% of Australians aged 18-44 years of age say 'democracy is preferable to any other kind of government." Or, to put it the other way around, 53% of Australians aged 18-44 see no point in Australian democracy.
Think, if you will, of the content of Baxendale's report as a case history:
Victorian politician Enver Erdogan, reportedly of Turkish Kurdish origin, began his political career as as member of Labor's Socialist Left on Melbourne's Moreland City Council at the time of Israel's Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009) onslaught on the Gaza Strip. To his great credit, Erdogan reacted instinctively to the carnage in the Gaza Strip by successfully moving a motion on council condemning the 'Israeli massacre in Gaza.'
Around a year later (?), when asked (by whom is not disclosed, but one assumes the usual suspects, Erdogan is reported to have said: 'Of course I fully support Israel's right to exist as an independent state and I support a two-state solution'. Keep in mind that whatever conversation Erdogan had at the time, and with whom, this is an out-of-context quote.
However, we then find Erdogan switching from Labor's Socialist Left to the most right-wing faction of the Labor Party, the Shop Distributive & Allied Employees Association (headed by Joe de Bruyn and known colloquially as The Shoppies) as part of a current stepping-stone to parachute him into an upper house seat in the Victorian state parliament.
This follows a recommendation of the Victorian ALP's administrative committee. In making the recommendation, the administrative committee would be bypassing normal rules that would have given local members full voting rights. Erdogan has reportedly declared that if elected, he would move to the southern metropolitan bayside area 'promptly.'
Note that, but for the following data, which I quote in full from The Australian's 2/7/19 Baxendale report, such 'parachuting' would have excited little or no controversy in and of itself:
"'There is deep local disquiet over the parachuting in of Mr Erdogan, a controversial figure with no connection to the southern metropolitan region,' said one local member, citing Mr Erdogan's motion on Israel as being of particular concern. 'If Mr Erdogan spent valuable council time on a conflict unrelated to council matters, what might he get up to in the Victorian upper house?'
In the same report, Erdogan is described as now 'close to former member for Batman David Feeney.' Note that Baxendale's later 5/7/19 report, Council colleagues troubled by Labor's hopeful new MP, has little to add to her earlier report except to assert that 'factional allegiances mean it is highly unlikely anyone other than Mr Erdogan will succeed...'"
On Feeney, see my 18/5/16 post The Appalling David Feeney MP, where I record him as follows: "The Palestinians should abandon their campaign to destroy Israel [by] abandoning the so-called 'right of return' for the descendants of the 1948 refugees'."
My point in raising the issue of Enver Erdogan is not that he is unique in his political shape-shifting, but rather typical of a system in which toeing the party line requires that any principles a would-be politician may have had prior to embarking on a political career, are invariably cast aside in the interest of carving out a career in party politics. This leads to the hypothesis that it is precisely this kind of behaviour that has brought our political class, whether at local, state or federal level, whether Labor, Liberal, or any other political party, into disrepute with younger voters. As the 2018 Lowy Institute poll, for example, reveals:
"Only 47% of Australians aged 18-44 years of age say 'democracy is preferable to any other kind of government." Or, to put it the other way around, 53% of Australians aged 18-44 see no point in Australian democracy.
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Project Rozana
So much to record. So little time. Here's one I've so far had to put on hold. It concerns the woes of, in the words of the appended bio to the opinion piece I'm about to highlight, "Jamal Rifi AM is a Lebanese-born Australian citizen who runs a medical practice in Sydney. He is a prominent member of the Lebanese Muslim community and was awarded The Australian newspaper's Australian of the year in 2015. https://projectrozana.org/"
Dr Rifi's woes are connected with his involvement in Project Rozana, but I'll leave it to him to relate them, as he has in a 31/5/19 opinion piece in The Australian, The children are all that count: Politics & Religion have no role on Project Rozana, where healthcare is paramount:
"During the past two weeks I have been subjected to an enormous amount of abuse from people whose agenda runs counter to mine Most of that abuse has appeared in Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, an influential Arabic language newspaper affiliated with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the country of my birth."
Now if I may interrupt here to clarify the status of Al-Akhbar. Asad Abukhalil, aka The Angry Arab, a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, has not only been a contributor to Al-Akhbar's pages but has had something of a love-hate relationship with the paper over the years, making him something of an objective source on the subject. Here, for example, are just two of his blog (The Angry Arab News Service) posts on Al-Akhbar:
"Ignorant Western correspondents who can't read Arabic refer to Lebanese daily, Al-Akhbar, as 'Hizbullah's paper'. Here is a supplement on Lenin published by the paper. You think Hizbullah likes Lenin?" (Al-Akhbar has a special supplement on Lenin: and you think that a Hizbullah paper would honour Lenin and Bolsheviks? November 13, 2017)
"Al-Akhbar's publisher, Ibrahim Al-Amin, published a scathing critique of Hizbullah and its corrupt role in Lebanese domestic politics. He takes on the party for its reluctance to engage in social justice struggle. But the party is not a progressive party so it is not surprising to me." (Criticisms of Hizbullah's political role in Al-Akhbar, September 15, 2017)
Having, I hope, clarified that Al-Akhbar is emphatically not "affiliated" with Hizbullah, let us return to the words of Dr Rifi:
"I have even been referred to the military court in Lebanon in a poorly disguised attempt to discredit me and silence my brother in Beirut, Major-General Achraf Rifi, a former director-general of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces, former minister of justice and an outspoken critic of Hezbollah and its masters in Iran." (ibid)
(What Dr Rifi does not divulge here is that his brother has "close ties to Saudi Arabia." (See Wikipedia entry for Achraf/Ashraf Rifi.))
"The abuse is directed at my involvement with Project Rozana, a humanitarian organisation that started in Australia in 2013 and is active in the US, Canada, Israel and Palestinian territory. I joined as a director in 2017. Among my fellow directors are inspirational communal leaders of the Muslim, Christian and Jewish faiths... Our single-minded desire is to build bridges to better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians through health... A cornerstone of Project Rozana is to provide lifesaving treatment for Palestinian children and to build the health capacity of Palestinian society... It's about the children... So why am I accused of promoting a policy of 'normalisation' between Palestinians and Israelis? Why have I become the punching bag of people in Australia and Lebanon who regard any affiliation with Jews, let alone professed Zionists, as being haram (forbidden according to Islamic law)? [...] During my 2017 visit [to Israel], I was privileged to meet Palestinian and Israeli volunteers who each day drive critically and chronically ill Palestinian children from their homes in the West Bank to the checkpoints and from these checkpoints to hospitals in Israel... This is a lifesaving service in the real sense of the word." (ibid)
You'll note here that there is no mention of taking critically ill children from Gaza to Israel for medical treatment. The case of Aisha a-Lulu, published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 14/6/19 under the title A little girl lost in Gaza politics (Isabel Debre & Fares Akram) is a case in point. Here are the relevant extracts from that piece:
"When Palestinian preschooler Aisha a-Lulu came out of brain surgery in a strange Jerusalem hospital room, she called out for her mother and father. She repeated the cry over and over, but her parents never came. Instead of a family member, Israeli authorities had approved a stranger to escort Aisha from the blockaded Gaza Strip to the east Jerusalem hospital. As her condition deteriorated, the child was returned to Gaza unconscious. One week later, she was dead... So far this year, about half of applications for patient companion permits were rejected or left unanswered by Israel, according to the World Health Organisation. That has forced more than 600 patients, including some dozen children, to leave the territory alone or without close family. [...] The Shin Bet [Israel's FBI] declined to comment on the case. But in a statement, it emphasised Israel's security concerns about Gaza patients and their companions. 'The terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip, headed by Hamas, are working tirelessly to cynically exploit the humanitarian and medical assistance provided by Israel,' it said. Efrat, of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, said he was confident that 'most of these rejections are arbitrary'."
Which begs the question: why isn't Dr Rifi's Project Rozana involved in cases like that of Aisha a-Lulu in Gaza? If Project Rozana has the ability to do what it does in the West Bank, with gravely ill Palestinian children such as Rozana, who have their parents by their side in hospital, then why doesn't the same pertain in Gaza? Has Dr Rifi ever raised the matter of gravely ill children from Gaza with Project Rozana? If so, what was their response? And if he hasn't raised the matter, why not?
Dr Rifi's woes are connected with his involvement in Project Rozana, but I'll leave it to him to relate them, as he has in a 31/5/19 opinion piece in The Australian, The children are all that count: Politics & Religion have no role on Project Rozana, where healthcare is paramount:
"During the past two weeks I have been subjected to an enormous amount of abuse from people whose agenda runs counter to mine Most of that abuse has appeared in Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, an influential Arabic language newspaper affiliated with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the country of my birth."
Now if I may interrupt here to clarify the status of Al-Akhbar. Asad Abukhalil, aka The Angry Arab, a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, has not only been a contributor to Al-Akhbar's pages but has had something of a love-hate relationship with the paper over the years, making him something of an objective source on the subject. Here, for example, are just two of his blog (The Angry Arab News Service) posts on Al-Akhbar:
"Ignorant Western correspondents who can't read Arabic refer to Lebanese daily, Al-Akhbar, as 'Hizbullah's paper'. Here is a supplement on Lenin published by the paper. You think Hizbullah likes Lenin?" (Al-Akhbar has a special supplement on Lenin: and you think that a Hizbullah paper would honour Lenin and Bolsheviks? November 13, 2017)
"Al-Akhbar's publisher, Ibrahim Al-Amin, published a scathing critique of Hizbullah and its corrupt role in Lebanese domestic politics. He takes on the party for its reluctance to engage in social justice struggle. But the party is not a progressive party so it is not surprising to me." (Criticisms of Hizbullah's political role in Al-Akhbar, September 15, 2017)
Having, I hope, clarified that Al-Akhbar is emphatically not "affiliated" with Hizbullah, let us return to the words of Dr Rifi:
"I have even been referred to the military court in Lebanon in a poorly disguised attempt to discredit me and silence my brother in Beirut, Major-General Achraf Rifi, a former director-general of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces, former minister of justice and an outspoken critic of Hezbollah and its masters in Iran." (ibid)
(What Dr Rifi does not divulge here is that his brother has "close ties to Saudi Arabia." (See Wikipedia entry for Achraf/Ashraf Rifi.))
"The abuse is directed at my involvement with Project Rozana, a humanitarian organisation that started in Australia in 2013 and is active in the US, Canada, Israel and Palestinian territory. I joined as a director in 2017. Among my fellow directors are inspirational communal leaders of the Muslim, Christian and Jewish faiths... Our single-minded desire is to build bridges to better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians through health... A cornerstone of Project Rozana is to provide lifesaving treatment for Palestinian children and to build the health capacity of Palestinian society... It's about the children... So why am I accused of promoting a policy of 'normalisation' between Palestinians and Israelis? Why have I become the punching bag of people in Australia and Lebanon who regard any affiliation with Jews, let alone professed Zionists, as being haram (forbidden according to Islamic law)? [...] During my 2017 visit [to Israel], I was privileged to meet Palestinian and Israeli volunteers who each day drive critically and chronically ill Palestinian children from their homes in the West Bank to the checkpoints and from these checkpoints to hospitals in Israel... This is a lifesaving service in the real sense of the word." (ibid)
You'll note here that there is no mention of taking critically ill children from Gaza to Israel for medical treatment. The case of Aisha a-Lulu, published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 14/6/19 under the title A little girl lost in Gaza politics (Isabel Debre & Fares Akram) is a case in point. Here are the relevant extracts from that piece:
"When Palestinian preschooler Aisha a-Lulu came out of brain surgery in a strange Jerusalem hospital room, she called out for her mother and father. She repeated the cry over and over, but her parents never came. Instead of a family member, Israeli authorities had approved a stranger to escort Aisha from the blockaded Gaza Strip to the east Jerusalem hospital. As her condition deteriorated, the child was returned to Gaza unconscious. One week later, she was dead... So far this year, about half of applications for patient companion permits were rejected or left unanswered by Israel, according to the World Health Organisation. That has forced more than 600 patients, including some dozen children, to leave the territory alone or without close family. [...] The Shin Bet [Israel's FBI] declined to comment on the case. But in a statement, it emphasised Israel's security concerns about Gaza patients and their companions. 'The terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip, headed by Hamas, are working tirelessly to cynically exploit the humanitarian and medical assistance provided by Israel,' it said. Efrat, of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, said he was confident that 'most of these rejections are arbitrary'."
Which begs the question: why isn't Dr Rifi's Project Rozana involved in cases like that of Aisha a-Lulu in Gaza? If Project Rozana has the ability to do what it does in the West Bank, with gravely ill Palestinian children such as Rozana, who have their parents by their side in hospital, then why doesn't the same pertain in Gaza? Has Dr Rifi ever raised the matter of gravely ill children from Gaza with Project Rozana? If so, what was their response? And if he hasn't raised the matter, why not?
Monday, June 24, 2019
The French Report
We've been hearing oodles in Murdoch's Australian, about the Report of the Independent Review of Freedom of Speech in Australian Higher Education Providers, March 2019, drawn up by former Chief Justice of the High Court Robert French, all of it designed to detract from French's key finding here:
"Repeated incidents in Australia in recent times do not establish a systemic pattern of action by higher education providers or student representative bodies, adverse to freedom of speech or intellectual inquiry in the higher education sector."
Instead, The Australian has ignored this key finding and homed in exclusively on French's reference to the adoption of a voluntary free speech code.
According to Sydney University's student paper, honisoit.com:
"Freedom of speech incidents at USyd represent the overwhelming majority of incidents amongst Australian universities if a 2018 audit by the conservative think tank Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), cited in the review, is to be believed."
(Note that the IPA audit was conducted by Matthew Lesh, formerly political affairs director of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS)).
And why has Sydney University, in particular, come under such scrutiny? Sydney University English department academic Nick Riemer here hits the nail squarely on the head with his quoted (in bold) comment in the following Sydney Morning Herald report:
"The John Howard-helmed Ramsey Centre's struggles to find a home for its degree in Western civilisation has prompted many to accuse the campuses of left-wing bias, but one of the most outspoken critics disagrees. Nick Riemer says universities are not full of lefties. 'The faculty that's in focus is the arts faculty,' he says. Claims it is dominated by cultural Marxists are 'nonsense. Most academics there are centrists'. In fact, he argues, his more left-wing colleagues are the ones under most pressure. 'The biggest irony about all of this is the freedom of speech code will I bet not be applied to the group that is most in need of it in my view, which is Palestine advocates,' he says." (Embracing comfortable ideas, Jordan Baker, 22/6/19)
So, absent Sydney University's arts faculty's courageously standing up for Palestinian rights, there would be no particular focus on Sydney University at all, no audit by the IPA's Matthew Lesh, and ultimately no French Report.
As Riemer points out, advocating for Palestine simply cannot be tolerated by the enemies of the Palestinians in this country. It is they, not the campus Zionists, who are in need of the protection of any campus free speech code which may be adopted.
(See, in particular, my 16/9/14 post Behind AUJS's Campus Offensive and remember that 2014 was the year of Israel's most brutal ever onslaught against the Gaza Strip, Operation Protective Edge, which necessitated an unprecedented PR blitz from Israel's propaganda outlets in the West, including Australia. Context is all.)
Meanwhile, back in the real world:
"At least 81 Palestinians were injured on Friday afternoon in clashes [sic] between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli soldiers in the eastern Gaza Strip, close to the border with Israel, medics said. Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, told reporters that 79 people as well as two paramedics had various injuries in clashes [sic] with the Israeli soldiers... " (81 Palestinians injured in clashes with Israeli soldiers in eastern Gaza Strip, xinhuanet.com, 22/6/19)
"Repeated incidents in Australia in recent times do not establish a systemic pattern of action by higher education providers or student representative bodies, adverse to freedom of speech or intellectual inquiry in the higher education sector."
Instead, The Australian has ignored this key finding and homed in exclusively on French's reference to the adoption of a voluntary free speech code.
According to Sydney University's student paper, honisoit.com:
"Freedom of speech incidents at USyd represent the overwhelming majority of incidents amongst Australian universities if a 2018 audit by the conservative think tank Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), cited in the review, is to be believed."
(Note that the IPA audit was conducted by Matthew Lesh, formerly political affairs director of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS)).
And why has Sydney University, in particular, come under such scrutiny? Sydney University English department academic Nick Riemer here hits the nail squarely on the head with his quoted (in bold) comment in the following Sydney Morning Herald report:
"The John Howard-helmed Ramsey Centre's struggles to find a home for its degree in Western civilisation has prompted many to accuse the campuses of left-wing bias, but one of the most outspoken critics disagrees. Nick Riemer says universities are not full of lefties. 'The faculty that's in focus is the arts faculty,' he says. Claims it is dominated by cultural Marxists are 'nonsense. Most academics there are centrists'. In fact, he argues, his more left-wing colleagues are the ones under most pressure. 'The biggest irony about all of this is the freedom of speech code will I bet not be applied to the group that is most in need of it in my view, which is Palestine advocates,' he says." (Embracing comfortable ideas, Jordan Baker, 22/6/19)
So, absent Sydney University's arts faculty's courageously standing up for Palestinian rights, there would be no particular focus on Sydney University at all, no audit by the IPA's Matthew Lesh, and ultimately no French Report.
As Riemer points out, advocating for Palestine simply cannot be tolerated by the enemies of the Palestinians in this country. It is they, not the campus Zionists, who are in need of the protection of any campus free speech code which may be adopted.
(See, in particular, my 16/9/14 post Behind AUJS's Campus Offensive and remember that 2014 was the year of Israel's most brutal ever onslaught against the Gaza Strip, Operation Protective Edge, which necessitated an unprecedented PR blitz from Israel's propaganda outlets in the West, including Australia. Context is all.)
Meanwhile, back in the real world:
"At least 81 Palestinians were injured on Friday afternoon in clashes [sic] between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli soldiers in the eastern Gaza Strip, close to the border with Israel, medics said. Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, told reporters that 79 people as well as two paramedics had various injuries in clashes [sic] with the Israeli soldiers... " (81 Palestinians injured in clashes with Israeli soldiers in eastern Gaza Strip, xinhuanet.com, 22/6/19)
Saturday, June 8, 2019
The Balancing Act 1
The British government has just issued an official report called the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Annual Human Rights & Democracy Report, which "provides an assessment of global human rights development in 2018 and reports on the human rights situation in the 30 human rights priority countries." Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA), and Hamas are included in the document. According to the Times of Israel, it:
"[S]aw continued violations by the Israeli government of international human rights and international humanitarian law in the context of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, including an increase in settler violence. While Israel's 'robust democracy' is acknowledged, the report expressed concern over 'pressure' exerted on members of civil society who criticize Israeli policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians. The document also expressed worries that last year's Jewish nation-state law could 'undermine' the rights of non-Jewish minorities. At the same time, the report accused both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas of 'continued human rights abuses'." (New UK human rights report accuses Israel of 'continued violations', Raphael Ahren, 7/6/19)
Note the document's spurious balancing act as reflected in the above news report. These days, sadly, whether such a report on Israeli massacres of Palestinians emanates from the United Nations itself, or from such human rights NGOs as Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International, it will invariably, and more to the point, criminally, be contaminated by the said spurious balancing act, and hence act as a cover for Israel's serial crimes against the Palestinians.*
It is only the meticulous scholarship of Norman Finkelstein, in his 2018 book Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom, with its laser-like analysis of reports by Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Council in particular - listed on the book's contents pages as Betrayal 1 and Betrayal 2 - which alerts us to the depth of this pernicious practice.
To show you what I mean, I intend, in my next two posts, to quote substantially from Betrayal 2, specifically under the (as will be seen ironic) heading, "Hamas War Crimes" (pp 315-324). I hope, in light of this new British government report, you'll bear with me and stay along for the ride. I can assure you that if you have any regard for the facts of the matter, it'll be well worth it.
Finally, do not hesitate to buy, order or steal a copy of Finkelstein's book!
[*As Finkelstein warns us on p 310 of his book: "In general, balance is an admirable quality: it connotes nonpartisanship and objectivity. But balancing out a wildly imbalanced balance sheet amounts to a partisan act of misrepresentation. The findings of UN-appointed commissions in other situations do take note of grossly lopsided balance sheets."]
"[S]aw continued violations by the Israeli government of international human rights and international humanitarian law in the context of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, including an increase in settler violence. While Israel's 'robust democracy' is acknowledged, the report expressed concern over 'pressure' exerted on members of civil society who criticize Israeli policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians. The document also expressed worries that last year's Jewish nation-state law could 'undermine' the rights of non-Jewish minorities. At the same time, the report accused both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas of 'continued human rights abuses'." (New UK human rights report accuses Israel of 'continued violations', Raphael Ahren, 7/6/19)
Note the document's spurious balancing act as reflected in the above news report. These days, sadly, whether such a report on Israeli massacres of Palestinians emanates from the United Nations itself, or from such human rights NGOs as Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International, it will invariably, and more to the point, criminally, be contaminated by the said spurious balancing act, and hence act as a cover for Israel's serial crimes against the Palestinians.*
It is only the meticulous scholarship of Norman Finkelstein, in his 2018 book Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom, with its laser-like analysis of reports by Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Council in particular - listed on the book's contents pages as Betrayal 1 and Betrayal 2 - which alerts us to the depth of this pernicious practice.
To show you what I mean, I intend, in my next two posts, to quote substantially from Betrayal 2, specifically under the (as will be seen ironic) heading, "Hamas War Crimes" (pp 315-324). I hope, in light of this new British government report, you'll bear with me and stay along for the ride. I can assure you that if you have any regard for the facts of the matter, it'll be well worth it.
Finally, do not hesitate to buy, order or steal a copy of Finkelstein's book!
[*As Finkelstein warns us on p 310 of his book: "In general, balance is an admirable quality: it connotes nonpartisanship and objectivity. But balancing out a wildly imbalanced balance sheet amounts to a partisan act of misrepresentation. The findings of UN-appointed commissions in other situations do take note of grossly lopsided balance sheets."]
Monday, June 3, 2019
Some Massacres are More Equal than Others
Like Orwell's well-known adage that 'some animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,' it would appear that some massacres, at least in the eyes of the Murdoch's Australian, are also more equal than others.
This could be said of Beijing's 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre as featured in Saturday's Australian. Forgive me for being cynical, and without, of course, detracting in any way from the gravity of the Tiananmen massacre itself, but I think it is safe to conclude that its commemoration in The Australian arises not from any real, heartfelt sorrow at the fate of its victims, but stems rather from the paper's enthusiastic embrace of Trump's anti-Chinese demonisation, rhetoric, and sabre-rattling:
"The first contingent of troops entered the square at about 1am on June 4. Live rounds were shot at civilians there and at other areas of central Beijing. No official death toll has been released but estimates range from several hundred to several thousand. Following the military engagement, up to 10,000 people were arrested - including most of the leaders of the protests who had refused to or were unable to flee China. Several dozen were later executed.
"The most famous, and poignant, incident to reach world attention featured 'tank man' - a lone, bespectacled figure carrying a shopping bag who walked in front of a contingent of 13 tanks that were driving west from the square on June 5. He moved sideways to try and speak to the soldiers inside before being pulled away by young men who emerged from the watching crowd - whether to rescue him or arrest him after emerging from the nearby Public Security Ministry remains unknown, as is his fate.
"Six days after the army cleared Tiananmen, Australian prime minister Bob Hawke shook with uncontrollable emotion, weeping as he addressed the huge crowd, including hundreds of Chinese students, gathered in Parliament House for a memorial service."(The ghost of Tiananmen still haunts, Rowan Callick, The Australian, 1/6/19)
But note this also:
"Renowned Sinologist John Fitzgerald... tells The Weekend Australian that while the students had an immediate impact on Australia's cities, their long-term contributions were probably more important: 'They brought Shanghai and Beijing dialects on to city streets, swelled the congregations in Pentacostal churches... " (ibid)
So why am I drawing attention to the Australian's coverage of Tiananmen?
In a word, Gaza.
The WHO estimates the still ongoing Israeli killings of Palestinians along the border fence from 30/3/18-30/3/19 at 277.
Before that came:
Operation Cast Lead (2008-09) saw the massacre of 14,000 Palestinians.
Operation Pillar of Defence (2012) saw the massacre of 100 Palestinians.
Operation Protective Edge (2014) saw the massacre of 2,200 Palestinians.
And before those came:
Operation Rainbow (2004) (with 59 Palestinian deaths accord. to HRW).
Operation Days of Penitence (2004) (with 133 Palestinian deaths accord. to B'Tselem).
Operation Summer Rains (2006) (with 416 Palestinian deaths accord. to B'Tselem).
Operation Autumn Clouds (2006) (with 53 Palestinian deaths (?)).
Operation Hot Winter (2008) (with 54 Palestinian deaths accord. to B'Tselem).
And before those came:
Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank (2002) (with 497 Palestinian deaths accord. to the UN Secretary General).
All of the above within this century.
No need, even to cite the casualties of the First Intifada (1987-1993) estimated, for the record, at between 1,162 -1,204 Palestinian deaths.
And so I wonder, rhetorically, has any Australian politician ever cried publicly for these Palestinian victims of Israeli guns, rockets, tanks, planes and warships? Have any ever wept in private?
Is there not a rank stench of hypocrisy in all of this?
This could be said of Beijing's 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre as featured in Saturday's Australian. Forgive me for being cynical, and without, of course, detracting in any way from the gravity of the Tiananmen massacre itself, but I think it is safe to conclude that its commemoration in The Australian arises not from any real, heartfelt sorrow at the fate of its victims, but stems rather from the paper's enthusiastic embrace of Trump's anti-Chinese demonisation, rhetoric, and sabre-rattling:
"The first contingent of troops entered the square at about 1am on June 4. Live rounds were shot at civilians there and at other areas of central Beijing. No official death toll has been released but estimates range from several hundred to several thousand. Following the military engagement, up to 10,000 people were arrested - including most of the leaders of the protests who had refused to or were unable to flee China. Several dozen were later executed.
"The most famous, and poignant, incident to reach world attention featured 'tank man' - a lone, bespectacled figure carrying a shopping bag who walked in front of a contingent of 13 tanks that were driving west from the square on June 5. He moved sideways to try and speak to the soldiers inside before being pulled away by young men who emerged from the watching crowd - whether to rescue him or arrest him after emerging from the nearby Public Security Ministry remains unknown, as is his fate.
"Six days after the army cleared Tiananmen, Australian prime minister Bob Hawke shook with uncontrollable emotion, weeping as he addressed the huge crowd, including hundreds of Chinese students, gathered in Parliament House for a memorial service."(The ghost of Tiananmen still haunts, Rowan Callick, The Australian, 1/6/19)
But note this also:
"Renowned Sinologist John Fitzgerald... tells The Weekend Australian that while the students had an immediate impact on Australia's cities, their long-term contributions were probably more important: 'They brought Shanghai and Beijing dialects on to city streets, swelled the congregations in Pentacostal churches... " (ibid)
So why am I drawing attention to the Australian's coverage of Tiananmen?
In a word, Gaza.
The WHO estimates the still ongoing Israeli killings of Palestinians along the border fence from 30/3/18-30/3/19 at 277.
Before that came:
Operation Cast Lead (2008-09) saw the massacre of 14,000 Palestinians.
Operation Pillar of Defence (2012) saw the massacre of 100 Palestinians.
Operation Protective Edge (2014) saw the massacre of 2,200 Palestinians.
And before those came:
Operation Rainbow (2004) (with 59 Palestinian deaths accord. to HRW).
Operation Days of Penitence (2004) (with 133 Palestinian deaths accord. to B'Tselem).
Operation Summer Rains (2006) (with 416 Palestinian deaths accord. to B'Tselem).
Operation Autumn Clouds (2006) (with 53 Palestinian deaths (?)).
Operation Hot Winter (2008) (with 54 Palestinian deaths accord. to B'Tselem).
And before those came:
Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank (2002) (with 497 Palestinian deaths accord. to the UN Secretary General).
All of the above within this century.
No need, even to cite the casualties of the First Intifada (1987-1993) estimated, for the record, at between 1,162 -1,204 Palestinian deaths.
And so I wonder, rhetorically, has any Australian politician ever cried publicly for these Palestinian victims of Israeli guns, rockets, tanks, planes and warships? Have any ever wept in private?
Is there not a rank stench of hypocrisy in all of this?
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Eurovision Update
Remember Radio National's Fran Kelly interview with Sydney University political science academic and self-described "Eurovision fanatic," Anika Gauja? (See my 5/5/19 post Zero Gravitas.)
Well, trawling through Gauja's Eurovision tweets from Tel Aviv (and omg their name is legion!), just to see what else, if anything, she was up to over there, I noticed the following:
*Apart from #Eurovision, for the next two weeks I'll be based at the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem, working with Gidi Rahat and the reform team on improving the health of Israeli political parties @IDIisrael (13/5/19)
Improving the health of Israeli political parties? The mind boggles. Now I may be naive, but I would have thought that parties such as Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, HaBayit HaYehuda and the rest are fairly brimming with Zionist self-esteem and Greater Israel vigour.
Then, back to Eurovision itself, there's this:
*There's something about Israel's hosting of #Eurovision that reminds me of that kind of person who always turns the conversation round to be about themselves (14/5/19)
What a stunning revelation! Who, but our Eurovision fanatic, would have thought that Eurovision in Israel would be all about... Israel?
Hm, I wonder when Operation Eurovision, or whatever it's called, will resume again in Gaza now that the party's over...
Well, trawling through Gauja's Eurovision tweets from Tel Aviv (and omg their name is legion!), just to see what else, if anything, she was up to over there, I noticed the following:
*Apart from #Eurovision, for the next two weeks I'll be based at the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem, working with Gidi Rahat and the reform team on improving the health of Israeli political parties @IDIisrael (13/5/19)
Improving the health of Israeli political parties? The mind boggles. Now I may be naive, but I would have thought that parties such as Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, HaBayit HaYehuda and the rest are fairly brimming with Zionist self-esteem and Greater Israel vigour.
Then, back to Eurovision itself, there's this:
*There's something about Israel's hosting of #Eurovision that reminds me of that kind of person who always turns the conversation round to be about themselves (14/5/19)
What a stunning revelation! Who, but our Eurovision fanatic, would have thought that Eurovision in Israel would be all about... Israel?
Hm, I wonder when Operation Eurovision, or whatever it's called, will resume again in Gaza now that the party's over...
Saturday, May 18, 2019
Operation Breaking 'Breaking the Silence'
The Israeli organisation Breaking the Silence, an organisation of Israeli veterans working to end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, which collects and publishes the testimonies of Israeli soldiers on the reign of terror inflicted by the IDF on occupied Palestinians, has done sterling work in exposing the brutal reality of Israeli military rule in the West Bank and Gaza.
Here, for example, are but three BTS testimonies among many from Israel's 2014 Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, reproduced by Norman Finkelstein in his breathtaking 2018 book Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom (pp 258-60):
[What were you shooting at?]
At houses.
[Randomly chosen houses?]
Yes.
[How much fire were you using?]
There was constant talk about how much we fired, how much we hit, who missed. There were people who fired 20 shells per day. it's simple. Whoever feels like shooting more - shoots more. Most guys shot more. Dozens of shells [per day], throughout the operation. Multiply that by 11 tanks in the company.
***
I don't know how they pulled it off, the D9 operators didn't rest for a second. Nonstop, as if they were playing in a sandbox. Driving back and forth, back and forth, razing another house, another street. And at some point there was no trace left of that street... Day and night, 24/7, they went back and forth, gathering up mounds, making embankments, flattening house after house.
***
There was one afternoon that the company commander gathered us all together, and we were told that we were about to go on an offensive operation, to 'provoke' the neighborhood that dominated us, which was al-Bureij... Because up until then, we hadn't really had any engagement with them... [W]hen it started getting dark my tank led the way, we were in a sort of convoy, and there was this little house. And then suddenly we see an entire neighborhood opening up before us, lots of houses, it's all crowded and the moment we got to that little house, the order came to attack. Each [tank] aimed at whichever direction it chose... And that's how it was really - every tank just firing wherever it wanted to. And during the offensive, no one shot at us - not before it, not during it, not after it. I remember that when we started withdrawing with the tanks, I looked toward the neighborhood, and I could simply see an entire neighborhood up in flames, like in the movies. Columns of smoke everywhere, the neighborhood in pieces, houses on the ground, and like, people were living there, but nobody had fired at us yet. We were firing purposelessly.
However, as Finkelstein warns:
"Once Israel successfully browbeat the international human rights community into submission, the only remaining chink in its armor was domestic human rights organizations. Of these, Breaking the Silence most aroused Israel's wrath. The soldier eyewitness testimonies it had compiled after each of Israel's massacres in Gaza were us unimpeachable as they were devastating. Israel consequently set out in a very public way to destroy Breaking the Silence... Should it neutralize breaking the Silence, Israel will have cleared the last obstacle in its path to committing future massacres in Gaza. Henceforth, no one will be around to compellingly document its crimes for a Western audience. However reputable and reliable Palestinian human rights organizations might be, unfortunately and unfairly, they lack credibility among the broad public in the West. In the 'operations' to come, Israel will be able to carry on as it pleases, emboldened in the knowledge that it can do so with guaranteed impunity. It's a new sequence of catastrophes waiting to happen." (p 288)
Could this be Operation Breaking Breaking the Silence's opening salvo?
"A group of active reserve duty IDF soldiers are flying to the UK this summer to share their testimony in parliament with MPs. This event, hosted by the [former Labour] MP [turned independent in February] Ian Austin in the Palace of Westminster on June 11, is part of a campaign on the dilemmas faced by Israeli soldiers on the ground. Organised by the Israel Britain Alliance and the organisation 'My Truth', the event will include opportunities for parliamentarians to put questions to soldiers." (IDF reserve soldiers hosted by MP Ian Austin in parliament to share testimony, Mathilde Frot, jewishnews.timesofisrael.com, 16/5/19)
Here, for example, are but three BTS testimonies among many from Israel's 2014 Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, reproduced by Norman Finkelstein in his breathtaking 2018 book Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom (pp 258-60):
[What were you shooting at?]
At houses.
[Randomly chosen houses?]
Yes.
[How much fire were you using?]
There was constant talk about how much we fired, how much we hit, who missed. There were people who fired 20 shells per day. it's simple. Whoever feels like shooting more - shoots more. Most guys shot more. Dozens of shells [per day], throughout the operation. Multiply that by 11 tanks in the company.
***
I don't know how they pulled it off, the D9 operators didn't rest for a second. Nonstop, as if they were playing in a sandbox. Driving back and forth, back and forth, razing another house, another street. And at some point there was no trace left of that street... Day and night, 24/7, they went back and forth, gathering up mounds, making embankments, flattening house after house.
***
There was one afternoon that the company commander gathered us all together, and we were told that we were about to go on an offensive operation, to 'provoke' the neighborhood that dominated us, which was al-Bureij... Because up until then, we hadn't really had any engagement with them... [W]hen it started getting dark my tank led the way, we were in a sort of convoy, and there was this little house. And then suddenly we see an entire neighborhood opening up before us, lots of houses, it's all crowded and the moment we got to that little house, the order came to attack. Each [tank] aimed at whichever direction it chose... And that's how it was really - every tank just firing wherever it wanted to. And during the offensive, no one shot at us - not before it, not during it, not after it. I remember that when we started withdrawing with the tanks, I looked toward the neighborhood, and I could simply see an entire neighborhood up in flames, like in the movies. Columns of smoke everywhere, the neighborhood in pieces, houses on the ground, and like, people were living there, but nobody had fired at us yet. We were firing purposelessly.
However, as Finkelstein warns:
"Once Israel successfully browbeat the international human rights community into submission, the only remaining chink in its armor was domestic human rights organizations. Of these, Breaking the Silence most aroused Israel's wrath. The soldier eyewitness testimonies it had compiled after each of Israel's massacres in Gaza were us unimpeachable as they were devastating. Israel consequently set out in a very public way to destroy Breaking the Silence... Should it neutralize breaking the Silence, Israel will have cleared the last obstacle in its path to committing future massacres in Gaza. Henceforth, no one will be around to compellingly document its crimes for a Western audience. However reputable and reliable Palestinian human rights organizations might be, unfortunately and unfairly, they lack credibility among the broad public in the West. In the 'operations' to come, Israel will be able to carry on as it pleases, emboldened in the knowledge that it can do so with guaranteed impunity. It's a new sequence of catastrophes waiting to happen." (p 288)
Could this be Operation Breaking Breaking the Silence's opening salvo?
"A group of active reserve duty IDF soldiers are flying to the UK this summer to share their testimony in parliament with MPs. This event, hosted by the [former Labour] MP [turned independent in February] Ian Austin in the Palace of Westminster on June 11, is part of a campaign on the dilemmas faced by Israeli soldiers on the ground. Organised by the Israel Britain Alliance and the organisation 'My Truth', the event will include opportunities for parliamentarians to put questions to soldiers." (IDF reserve soldiers hosted by MP Ian Austin in parliament to share testimony, Mathilde Frot, jewishnews.timesofisrael.com, 16/5/19)
Thursday, May 16, 2019
The NeverEnding Nakba
"Israeli soldiers have shot 16 people at the Gaza frontier on a day of rallies commemorating the mass displacement of Palestinians during the war that led to Israel's creation in 1948. Each year... on 15 May, Palestinians mark the nakba, or catastrophe..." (Israeli forces shoot 16 Palestinian protesters at Gaza frontier, Oliver Holmes/ Hazem Balousha, theguardian.com, 16/5/19)
Quite how the above squares with this later paragraph is anyone's guess:
"Gaza's health ministry said a total of 65 people were wounded by live fire, shrapnel, rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas. It said the 65 included 22 children and three paramedics." (ibid)
Certainly Israel's Haaretz made no bones about it. Here's their lead paragraph:
"Sixty five Gazans were injured Wednesday as Israeli security forces used live fire, tear gas and skunk spray against 10,000 protesters commemorating Nakba Day along the Gaza border, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported." (10,000 Gazans march on Nakba Day, 65 injured in clashes with Israeli forces, Yaniv Kubovich & Jack Khoury, 15/5/19)
Quite how the above squares with this later paragraph is anyone's guess:
"Gaza's health ministry said a total of 65 people were wounded by live fire, shrapnel, rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas. It said the 65 included 22 children and three paramedics." (ibid)
Certainly Israel's Haaretz made no bones about it. Here's their lead paragraph:
"Sixty five Gazans were injured Wednesday as Israeli security forces used live fire, tear gas and skunk spray against 10,000 protesters commemorating Nakba Day along the Gaza border, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported." (10,000 Gazans march on Nakba Day, 65 injured in clashes with Israeli forces, Yaniv Kubovich & Jack Khoury, 15/5/19)
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Dave Sharma Watch 2
Poor old Dave Sharma's reportedly under email attack from some nutter claiming "he was facing a year in jail for not disclosing that his father was from Trinidad and Tobago," and "would end a global conspiracy to cover up molestation by the church and establishment." (Better call in Mossad, The Sauce, Sunday Telegraph, 12/5/19)
OMG, what to do? Well, Dave being Dave and all, it's obvious who he's gonna call, innit?
"... Dave Sharma enlisted ex-Mossad cyber-security specialist Adi Ashkenazy." (ibid)
There you go!
And Dave is pointing the finger at - wait for it - "foreign influence." (ibid)
Now that's chutzpah for you!
Still, despite his woes, Dave, who reportedly "persuaded" PM Morrison to relocate Australia's embassy to Jerusalem during last October's Wentworth by-election, should surely derive some comfort from such 'good' news as this:
"Israeli occupation forces have sharply escalated their demolitions of Palestinian properties in East Jerusalem. As a result more Palestinians have been made homeless this year than in all of 2018." (Israeli home demolitions skyrocket in Jerusalem, Tamara Nassar, electronicintifada.net, 11/5/19)
Meanwhile, back in the real world, it's business as usual for the valiant Israeli Defense Forces:
"Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian on Friday during weekly protests along the border with Israel, Gaza health officials say. In addition to the 24-year-old male fatality, 30 other people were wounded by live gunfire during the protest, in which thousands participated they said." (Israeli troops kill Palestinian at Gaza border protest - medics, Nidal Almughrabi, editing Catherine Evans, uk.reuters.com)
OMG, what to do? Well, Dave being Dave and all, it's obvious who he's gonna call, innit?
"... Dave Sharma enlisted ex-Mossad cyber-security specialist Adi Ashkenazy." (ibid)
There you go!
And Dave is pointing the finger at - wait for it - "foreign influence." (ibid)
Now that's chutzpah for you!
Still, despite his woes, Dave, who reportedly "persuaded" PM Morrison to relocate Australia's embassy to Jerusalem during last October's Wentworth by-election, should surely derive some comfort from such 'good' news as this:
"Israeli occupation forces have sharply escalated their demolitions of Palestinian properties in East Jerusalem. As a result more Palestinians have been made homeless this year than in all of 2018." (Israeli home demolitions skyrocket in Jerusalem, Tamara Nassar, electronicintifada.net, 11/5/19)
Meanwhile, back in the real world, it's business as usual for the valiant Israeli Defense Forces:
"Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian on Friday during weekly protests along the border with Israel, Gaza health officials say. In addition to the 24-year-old male fatality, 30 other people were wounded by live gunfire during the protest, in which thousands participated they said." (Israeli troops kill Palestinian at Gaza border protest - medics, Nidal Almughrabi, editing Catherine Evans, uk.reuters.com)
Sunday, May 12, 2019
Offensive vs Defensive Wars...
... your msm guide:
OFFENSIVE WAR
"Syrian government and allied Russian warplanes have intensified a week-long bombardment of Syria's Idlib province, targeting hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure as tens of thousands of residents fled toward the border with Turkey, activists and monitors in the rebel-held region said. The serial campaign has killed about 100 civilians and put at least 10 hospitals out of service." (Air strikes shatter Idlib truce, Zakaria Zakaria, Washington Post/Reuters/Sydney Morning Herald, 8/5/19)
"Waves of Russian and regime jets and helicopters have poured missiles and barrel bombs onto the enclave in the past week, destroying hospitals and killing scores of civilians." (Civilians, hospitals target of new Assad blitz, Richard Spencer, The Times/The Australian, 8/5/19)
defensive war
"In the course of [Operation] Cast Lead [2008-09], Israel had damaged or destroyed 'everything in its way,' and not in its way, including 58,000 homes, 1,500 factories and workshops, 280 schools and kindergartens, electrical, water, and sewage installations, 190 greenhouse complexes, 80% of agricultural crops, and nearly one-fifth of cultivated land. Whole neighborhoods were laid waste. It also damaged and destroyed 29 ambulances, almost half of Gaza's 122 health facilities (including 15 hospitals), and 45 mosques. By the time it withdrew, the IDF had left behind fully 600,000 tons of rubble and 1,400 corpses, 350 of them children." (Gaza: An Inquest into It's Martyrdom, Norman Finkelstein, 2018, p 127)
OFFENSIVE WAR
"Syrian government and allied Russian warplanes have intensified a week-long bombardment of Syria's Idlib province, targeting hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure as tens of thousands of residents fled toward the border with Turkey, activists and monitors in the rebel-held region said. The serial campaign has killed about 100 civilians and put at least 10 hospitals out of service." (Air strikes shatter Idlib truce, Zakaria Zakaria, Washington Post/Reuters/Sydney Morning Herald, 8/5/19)
"Waves of Russian and regime jets and helicopters have poured missiles and barrel bombs onto the enclave in the past week, destroying hospitals and killing scores of civilians." (Civilians, hospitals target of new Assad blitz, Richard Spencer, The Times/The Australian, 8/5/19)
defensive war
"In the course of [Operation] Cast Lead [2008-09], Israel had damaged or destroyed 'everything in its way,' and not in its way, including 58,000 homes, 1,500 factories and workshops, 280 schools and kindergartens, electrical, water, and sewage installations, 190 greenhouse complexes, 80% of agricultural crops, and nearly one-fifth of cultivated land. Whole neighborhoods were laid waste. It also damaged and destroyed 29 ambulances, almost half of Gaza's 122 health facilities (including 15 hospitals), and 45 mosques. By the time it withdrew, the IDF had left behind fully 600,000 tons of rubble and 1,400 corpses, 350 of them children." (Gaza: An Inquest into It's Martyrdom, Norman Finkelstein, 2018, p 127)
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
More Zionist Hypnosis in Australian MS Press
Whether it's the Nine Entertainment Co press, or the Murdoch, both rags are adamant that Israel and Hamas have fought THREE WARS since 2008:
"... the two sides, we have fought three wars... over the last decade." (Toll rises as Gaza violence flares, Nidal al-Mughrabi, AP, Reuters, Sydney Morning Herald, 6/5/19)
"Israel and Hamas... have fought three wars... since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007." (Rockets, missiles shatter Gaza truce, Fares Akram, AP/The Australian, 6/5/19)
"Israel says its blockade is necessary to stop weapons reaching Hamas, with which it has fought three wars since the group seized control of Gaza in 2007... " (Ceasefire claimed as attacks ebb, Nidal al-Mughrabi/Jeffrey Heller, Reuters/Sydney Morning Herald, 7/5/19)
"Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008 and the escalation brought them to the brink of another." (Israel, Palestinians pull back from brink, AFP/The Australian, 7/5/19)
But were they really WARS, or more akin to just shooting fish in a barrel?
Here is the incomparable Norman Finkelstein once again on the first of these alleged 'wars', Israel's Operation Cast Lead (2008-09), in which he irrefutably testifies to the latter characterisation:
"To justify the magnitude of the devastation it wreaked, Israel endeavored to depict the Gaza invasion as a genuine military contest. [US analyst Anthony] Cordesman* delineated in ominous detail, enhanced by tables, graphs, and figures, the vast arsenal of rockets, mortars, and other weapons that Hamas allegedly manufactured and smuggled in through tunnels (including 'Iranian-made rockets' that could 'strike at much of Southern Israel' and 'hit key infrastructure'), as well as the 'spider web of prepared strong points, underground and hidden shelters, and ambush points' Hamas allegedly constructed. He reported that according to 'Israeli senior officials,' Hamas mustered 6,000-10,000 'core fighters.' He juxtaposed the 'Gaza war' with the 1967 war, the 1973 war, and the 2006 war, as if they belonged on the same plane. He expatiated on Israel's complex war plans and preparations, and he purported that Israel's victory was partly owing to its 'high levels of secrecy,' as if the outcome would have been different had Israel not benefited from the element of surprise. The Israeli brief alleged that Hamas 'amassed an extensive armed force of more than 20,000 armed operatives in Gaza,' 'obtained military supplies through a vast network of tunnels and clandestine arms shipments from Iran and Syria,' and 'acquired advanced weaponry, developed weapons of their own, and increased the range and lethality of their rockets.'
"Nonetheless, even Cordesman was forced to acknowledge, if obliquely, that what Israel fought was scarcely a war. He conceded that Hamas was a 'weak, non-state actor,' whereas Israel possessed a massive armory of state-of-the-art weaponry; that the Israeli air force 'faced limited threats from Hamas's primitive land-based air defense'; that 'sustained ground fighting was limited'; that the Israeli army avoided engagements where it 'would be likely to suffer' significant casualties; and that 'the IDF used night warfare for most combat operations because Hamas did not have the technology or training to fight at night.' However, overwhelmingly, Cordesman persisted in his dubious depiction of Cast Lead. Israel had demonstrated that it could fight 'an air campaign successfully in crowded urban areas,' according to him, as well as 'an extended land battle against a non-state actor.' In fact, the air campaign was not a 'fight' any more than shooting fish in a barrel is a fight. As if (however unwittingly) to bring home this analogy, Cordesman quoted a senior Israeli air force officer who boasted, 'The IAF had flown some 3,000 successful sorties over a small dense area during three weeks of fighting without a single accident or loss.' But how could it be otherwise if 'the planes operated in an environment free of air defenses, enjoying complete aerial superiority'? Depicting Cast Lead as a protracted ground war was no less detached from reality Hamas was barely equipped, barely present in the conflict zones, and barely engaged by Israeli forces except when it could not fight back." (Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom, 2018, pp 63-64)
[*"Shortly after Operation Cast Lead ended on 18 January 2009, Anthony Cordesman published a report titled The 'Gaza War': A strategic analysis. It warrants close scrutiny both because Cordesman has been an influential military analyst, and because the report neatly synthesized and systematized Israel's makeshift rebuttals as criticism of the invasion mounted." (ibid, p 39) And how often have we heard this Israeli apologist on Radio National over the years?]
"... the two sides, we have fought three wars... over the last decade." (Toll rises as Gaza violence flares, Nidal al-Mughrabi, AP, Reuters, Sydney Morning Herald, 6/5/19)
"Israel and Hamas... have fought three wars... since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007." (Rockets, missiles shatter Gaza truce, Fares Akram, AP/The Australian, 6/5/19)
"Israel says its blockade is necessary to stop weapons reaching Hamas, with which it has fought three wars since the group seized control of Gaza in 2007... " (Ceasefire claimed as attacks ebb, Nidal al-Mughrabi/Jeffrey Heller, Reuters/Sydney Morning Herald, 7/5/19)
"Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008 and the escalation brought them to the brink of another." (Israel, Palestinians pull back from brink, AFP/The Australian, 7/5/19)
But were they really WARS, or more akin to just shooting fish in a barrel?
Here is the incomparable Norman Finkelstein once again on the first of these alleged 'wars', Israel's Operation Cast Lead (2008-09), in which he irrefutably testifies to the latter characterisation:
"To justify the magnitude of the devastation it wreaked, Israel endeavored to depict the Gaza invasion as a genuine military contest. [US analyst Anthony] Cordesman* delineated in ominous detail, enhanced by tables, graphs, and figures, the vast arsenal of rockets, mortars, and other weapons that Hamas allegedly manufactured and smuggled in through tunnels (including 'Iranian-made rockets' that could 'strike at much of Southern Israel' and 'hit key infrastructure'), as well as the 'spider web of prepared strong points, underground and hidden shelters, and ambush points' Hamas allegedly constructed. He reported that according to 'Israeli senior officials,' Hamas mustered 6,000-10,000 'core fighters.' He juxtaposed the 'Gaza war' with the 1967 war, the 1973 war, and the 2006 war, as if they belonged on the same plane. He expatiated on Israel's complex war plans and preparations, and he purported that Israel's victory was partly owing to its 'high levels of secrecy,' as if the outcome would have been different had Israel not benefited from the element of surprise. The Israeli brief alleged that Hamas 'amassed an extensive armed force of more than 20,000 armed operatives in Gaza,' 'obtained military supplies through a vast network of tunnels and clandestine arms shipments from Iran and Syria,' and 'acquired advanced weaponry, developed weapons of their own, and increased the range and lethality of their rockets.'
"Nonetheless, even Cordesman was forced to acknowledge, if obliquely, that what Israel fought was scarcely a war. He conceded that Hamas was a 'weak, non-state actor,' whereas Israel possessed a massive armory of state-of-the-art weaponry; that the Israeli air force 'faced limited threats from Hamas's primitive land-based air defense'; that 'sustained ground fighting was limited'; that the Israeli army avoided engagements where it 'would be likely to suffer' significant casualties; and that 'the IDF used night warfare for most combat operations because Hamas did not have the technology or training to fight at night.' However, overwhelmingly, Cordesman persisted in his dubious depiction of Cast Lead. Israel had demonstrated that it could fight 'an air campaign successfully in crowded urban areas,' according to him, as well as 'an extended land battle against a non-state actor.' In fact, the air campaign was not a 'fight' any more than shooting fish in a barrel is a fight. As if (however unwittingly) to bring home this analogy, Cordesman quoted a senior Israeli air force officer who boasted, 'The IAF had flown some 3,000 successful sorties over a small dense area during three weeks of fighting without a single accident or loss.' But how could it be otherwise if 'the planes operated in an environment free of air defenses, enjoying complete aerial superiority'? Depicting Cast Lead as a protracted ground war was no less detached from reality Hamas was barely equipped, barely present in the conflict zones, and barely engaged by Israeli forces except when it could not fight back." (Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom, 2018, pp 63-64)
[*"Shortly after Operation Cast Lead ended on 18 January 2009, Anthony Cordesman published a report titled The 'Gaza War': A strategic analysis. It warrants close scrutiny both because Cordesman has been an influential military analyst, and because the report neatly synthesized and systematized Israel's makeshift rebuttals as criticism of the invasion mounted." (ibid, p 39) And how often have we heard this Israeli apologist on Radio National over the years?]
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Zionist Hypnosis in Australian MS Press
Rockets, missiles shatter Gaza truce (Fares Akram, AP/The Australian, 6/5/19)
"[Israeli] retaliatory barrages"
"retaliatory airstrikes"
"retaliatory airstrikes"
Toll rises as Gaza violence flares (Nidal al-Mughrabi, AP/Reuters/Sydney Morning Herald, 6/5/19)
"Israel hit back"
"Israel retaliated"
"[Israeli] tanks and aircraft responded"
Israel, Palestinians pull back from brink (AFP/ The Australian, 7/5/19)
"Israeli retaliatory strikes"
"Israel said it strikes were in response to"
"[Israeli] retaliatory barrages"
"retaliatory airstrikes"
"retaliatory airstrikes"
Toll rises as Gaza violence flares (Nidal al-Mughrabi, AP/Reuters/Sydney Morning Herald, 6/5/19)
"Israel hit back"
"Israel retaliated"
"[Israeli] tanks and aircraft responded"
Israel, Palestinians pull back from brink (AFP/ The Australian, 7/5/19)
"Israeli retaliatory strikes"
"Israel said it strikes were in response to"
Shoot at Anything that Moves
Whenever you read about Israeli war crimes in Gaza in the msm, the latter's stenographers will faithfully parrot Israeli army spin about every effort being taken to ensure that Palestinian civilians come to as little harm as possible during the course of military operations. In fact, the opposite is true. For Israel, all Palestinians are the enemy. Hence, Palestinian civilians will always bear the brunt of any such Israeli attack.
Here is more from Norman Finkelstein on the original Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009):
"Parrying the censorious thrust of these human rights reports, Israel's brief declared that it 'took extensive measures to comply with its obligations under international law,' and that... the IDF directed attacks 'solely against military objectives,' and endeavored to ensure that 'civilians and civilian objects would not be harmed...
"Based on what journalists and human rights organizations found, and what Israeli soldiers in the field testified, however, a radically different picture of Cast Lead comes into relief. 'We're going to war,' a company commander told his soldiers before the attack. 'I want aggressiveness - if there's someone suspicious on the upper floor of a house, we'll shell it. If we have suspicions about a house, we'll take it down... There will be no hesitation.' A combatant remembered a meeting with his brigade commander and others where the 'rules of engagement' were 'essentially' conveyed as, 'if you see any signs of movement at all you shoot.' Other soldiers recalled, 'If the deputy battalion commander thought a house looked suspect, we'd blow it away. If the infantryman didn't like the looks of that house - we'd shoot' (unidentified soldier); 'If you face an area that is hidden by a building - you take down the building. Questions such as 'who lives in that building[?]' are not asked' (soldier recalling his brigade commander's order); 'As for rules of engagement, the army's working assumption was that the whole area would be devoid of civilians... Anyone there, as far as the army was concerned, was to be killed' (unidentified soldier); 'We were told: 'any sign of danger, open up with massive fire' (member of a reconnaissance company); 'We shot at anything that moved' (Golani Brigade fighter); 'Despite the fact that no one fired on us, the firing and demolitions continued incessantly' (gunner in a tank crew). 'Essentially, a person only need[ed] to be in a 'problematic' location,' a Haaretz reporter found, 'in circumstances that can broadly be seen as suspicious, for him to be 'incriminated' and in effect sentence to death'." (Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom, pp 44-45)
Here is more from Norman Finkelstein on the original Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009):
"Parrying the censorious thrust of these human rights reports, Israel's brief declared that it 'took extensive measures to comply with its obligations under international law,' and that... the IDF directed attacks 'solely against military objectives,' and endeavored to ensure that 'civilians and civilian objects would not be harmed...
"Based on what journalists and human rights organizations found, and what Israeli soldiers in the field testified, however, a radically different picture of Cast Lead comes into relief. 'We're going to war,' a company commander told his soldiers before the attack. 'I want aggressiveness - if there's someone suspicious on the upper floor of a house, we'll shell it. If we have suspicions about a house, we'll take it down... There will be no hesitation.' A combatant remembered a meeting with his brigade commander and others where the 'rules of engagement' were 'essentially' conveyed as, 'if you see any signs of movement at all you shoot.' Other soldiers recalled, 'If the deputy battalion commander thought a house looked suspect, we'd blow it away. If the infantryman didn't like the looks of that house - we'd shoot' (unidentified soldier); 'If you face an area that is hidden by a building - you take down the building. Questions such as 'who lives in that building[?]' are not asked' (soldier recalling his brigade commander's order); 'As for rules of engagement, the army's working assumption was that the whole area would be devoid of civilians... Anyone there, as far as the army was concerned, was to be killed' (unidentified soldier); 'We were told: 'any sign of danger, open up with massive fire' (member of a reconnaissance company); 'We shot at anything that moved' (Golani Brigade fighter); 'Despite the fact that no one fired on us, the firing and demolitions continued incessantly' (gunner in a tank crew). 'Essentially, a person only need[ed] to be in a 'problematic' location,' a Haaretz reporter found, 'in circumstances that can broadly be seen as suspicious, for him to be 'incriminated' and in effect sentence to death'." (Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom, pp 44-45)
Monday, May 6, 2019
Israel Provokes, Palestinians Retaliate
Whenever you read lying msm accounts of Israel's most recent brutal hammering of Gaza, of the 'Palestinians attack/Israel responds' variety, keep in mind that Israel is essentially a one-trick pony. Its modus operandi of the past few days in Gaza is just a re-run of all those other brutal hammerings, stretching back to Operation Cast Lead of 27 December 2008-18 January 2009.
And just to remind you of that prototypical Israeli military rampage, here is Norman Finkelstein's meticulous account of same, taken from his latest must-read book, Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom (2018):
"In June 2008, Hamas and Israel entered into a cease-fire brokered by Egypt, but in November of that year Israel violated the cease-fire. It carried out a lethal border raid on Gaza... Then and now, the objective was to provoke retaliation and thus provide the pretext for a massive assault.
"Indeed the border raid proved to be the preamble to a bloody invasion. On 27 December 2008, Israel launched 'Operation Cast Lead.' It began with an aerial and ground assault. Piloting the most advanced combat aircraft in the world, the Israeli air force flew nearly three thousand sorties over Gaza and dropped one thousand tons of explosives, while the Israeli army deployed several brigades equipped with sophisticated intelligence-gathering systems, and weaponry such as robotic and TV-aided remote-controlled guns. On the other side, Hamas launched several hundred rudimentary rockets and mortar shells into Israel. On 18 January 2009, Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire, 'apparently at the behest of Barack Obama, whose presidential investiture was to take place two days later.' However, the siege of Gaza persisted. The Bush administration and the US Congress lent Israel unqualified support during the attack... But overwhelmingly, international public opinion (including wide swaths of Jewish public opinion) recoiled at Israel's assault on a defenseless civilian population. In 2009, a United Nations Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Mission, chaired by the respected South African jurist Richard Goldstone, released a voluminous report documenting Israel's commission of massive war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. The report accused Hamas of committing cognate crimes but on a scale that paled by comparison. It was clear that, in the words of Israeli columnist Gideon Levy, 'this time we have gone too far.'
"Israel officially justified Operation Cast Lead on the grounds of self-defense against Hamas rocket attacks. Such a rationale did not, however, withstand even superficial scrutiny. If Israel wanted to avert Hamas rocket attacks, it would not have triggered them by breaching the 2008 cease-fire. It could also have opted for renewing - and for a change, honoring - the cease-fire. In fact, as a former Israeli intelligence officer told the Crisis Group, 'The cease-fire options on the table after the war were in place there before it.' If the goal of Cast Lead was to destroy the infrastructure of terrorism,' then Israel's alibi of self-defense appeared even less credible after the invasion. Overwhelmingly, Israel targeted not Hamas strongholds but 'decidedly 'non-terrorist,' non-Hamas' sites.
"The human rights context further undermined Israel's claim of self-defense. The 2008 annual report of B'Tselem (Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) documented that between 1 January and 26 December 2008, Israeli security forces killed 455 Palestinians, of whom at least 175 were civilians, while Palestinians killed 31 Israelis, of whom 21 were civilians. Hence, on the eve of Israel's so-called war of self-defense, the ratio of total Palestinians to Israelis killed stood at almost 15:1... In Gaza alone, Israel killed at least 158 noncombatants in 2008, while Hamas rocket attacks killed 7 Israeli civilians, a ratio of more than 22:1. Israel deplored the detention of one Israeli combatant captured in 2006, yet Israel detained some 8,000 Palestinian 'political prisoners,' including 60 women and 390 children, of whom 548 were held in administrative detention without charge or trial... It's ever-tightening noose around Gaza compounded Israel's disproportionate breach of Palestinian human rights. The blockade amounted to 'collective punishment, a serious violation of international humanitarian law.' In September 2008, the World Bank described Gaza as 'starkly transform[ed] from a potential trade route to a walled hub of humanitarian donations.' In mid-December, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that Israel's '18-month-long blockade has created a profound human dignity crisis, leading to a widespread erosion of livelihoods and a significant deterioration in infrastructure and essential services.' If Gazans lacked electricity for as many as 16 hours each day; if Gazans received water only once a week for a few hours, and 80 percent of the water was unfit for human consumption; if one of every two Gazans were unemployed and 'food insecure'; if 20 percent of 'essential drugs' in Gaza were 'at zero level' and more than 20 percent of patients suffering from cancer, heart disease, and other severe conditions were unable to get permits for medical care abroad - if Gazans clung to life by the thinnest of threads, it traced back, ultimately, to the Israeli siege. The people of Gaza, OCHA concluded, felt 'a growing sense of being trapped, physically, intellectually and emotionally.' To judge by the human rights balance sheet at the end of 2008, and setting aside that the cease-fire was broken by Israel, didn't Palestinians have a much stronger case than Israel for resorting to armed self-defense?" (pp 13-16)
And just to remind you of that prototypical Israeli military rampage, here is Norman Finkelstein's meticulous account of same, taken from his latest must-read book, Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom (2018):
"In June 2008, Hamas and Israel entered into a cease-fire brokered by Egypt, but in November of that year Israel violated the cease-fire. It carried out a lethal border raid on Gaza... Then and now, the objective was to provoke retaliation and thus provide the pretext for a massive assault.
"Indeed the border raid proved to be the preamble to a bloody invasion. On 27 December 2008, Israel launched 'Operation Cast Lead.' It began with an aerial and ground assault. Piloting the most advanced combat aircraft in the world, the Israeli air force flew nearly three thousand sorties over Gaza and dropped one thousand tons of explosives, while the Israeli army deployed several brigades equipped with sophisticated intelligence-gathering systems, and weaponry such as robotic and TV-aided remote-controlled guns. On the other side, Hamas launched several hundred rudimentary rockets and mortar shells into Israel. On 18 January 2009, Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire, 'apparently at the behest of Barack Obama, whose presidential investiture was to take place two days later.' However, the siege of Gaza persisted. The Bush administration and the US Congress lent Israel unqualified support during the attack... But overwhelmingly, international public opinion (including wide swaths of Jewish public opinion) recoiled at Israel's assault on a defenseless civilian population. In 2009, a United Nations Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Mission, chaired by the respected South African jurist Richard Goldstone, released a voluminous report documenting Israel's commission of massive war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. The report accused Hamas of committing cognate crimes but on a scale that paled by comparison. It was clear that, in the words of Israeli columnist Gideon Levy, 'this time we have gone too far.'
"Israel officially justified Operation Cast Lead on the grounds of self-defense against Hamas rocket attacks. Such a rationale did not, however, withstand even superficial scrutiny. If Israel wanted to avert Hamas rocket attacks, it would not have triggered them by breaching the 2008 cease-fire. It could also have opted for renewing - and for a change, honoring - the cease-fire. In fact, as a former Israeli intelligence officer told the Crisis Group, 'The cease-fire options on the table after the war were in place there before it.' If the goal of Cast Lead was to destroy the infrastructure of terrorism,' then Israel's alibi of self-defense appeared even less credible after the invasion. Overwhelmingly, Israel targeted not Hamas strongholds but 'decidedly 'non-terrorist,' non-Hamas' sites.
"The human rights context further undermined Israel's claim of self-defense. The 2008 annual report of B'Tselem (Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) documented that between 1 January and 26 December 2008, Israeli security forces killed 455 Palestinians, of whom at least 175 were civilians, while Palestinians killed 31 Israelis, of whom 21 were civilians. Hence, on the eve of Israel's so-called war of self-defense, the ratio of total Palestinians to Israelis killed stood at almost 15:1... In Gaza alone, Israel killed at least 158 noncombatants in 2008, while Hamas rocket attacks killed 7 Israeli civilians, a ratio of more than 22:1. Israel deplored the detention of one Israeli combatant captured in 2006, yet Israel detained some 8,000 Palestinian 'political prisoners,' including 60 women and 390 children, of whom 548 were held in administrative detention without charge or trial... It's ever-tightening noose around Gaza compounded Israel's disproportionate breach of Palestinian human rights. The blockade amounted to 'collective punishment, a serious violation of international humanitarian law.' In September 2008, the World Bank described Gaza as 'starkly transform[ed] from a potential trade route to a walled hub of humanitarian donations.' In mid-December, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that Israel's '18-month-long blockade has created a profound human dignity crisis, leading to a widespread erosion of livelihoods and a significant deterioration in infrastructure and essential services.' If Gazans lacked electricity for as many as 16 hours each day; if Gazans received water only once a week for a few hours, and 80 percent of the water was unfit for human consumption; if one of every two Gazans were unemployed and 'food insecure'; if 20 percent of 'essential drugs' in Gaza were 'at zero level' and more than 20 percent of patients suffering from cancer, heart disease, and other severe conditions were unable to get permits for medical care abroad - if Gazans clung to life by the thinnest of threads, it traced back, ultimately, to the Israeli siege. The people of Gaza, OCHA concluded, felt 'a growing sense of being trapped, physically, intellectually and emotionally.' To judge by the human rights balance sheet at the end of 2008, and setting aside that the cease-fire was broken by Israel, didn't Palestinians have a much stronger case than Israel for resorting to armed self-defense?" (pp 13-16)
More Guardian Stenography for Israel...
... but, interestingly, someone at the Guardian inadvertently neglected to pull a sentence contradicting it.
Guardian Australia headline:
Six killed in Gaza as Israel responds to multiple rocket attacks
First sentence of report:
"An infant and her pregnant mother were among six people killed in Gaza after Israel responded with airstrikes and tank fire to about 250 rockets being fired over the border by Palestinian militants..." (Emma Graham-Harrison, 5/5/19)
Paragraph 5 of same report:
"The spike in violence began on Friday when two Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli security forces during protests along the Israeli-Gaza perimeter fence."
So the headline and first sentence of the report, both of which toe the insidious Israeli propaganda line of 'Palestinians always attack/Israelis merely respond', is discredited in paragraph 5 of the same report.
Guardian Australia headline:
Six killed in Gaza as Israel responds to multiple rocket attacks
First sentence of report:
"An infant and her pregnant mother were among six people killed in Gaza after Israel responded with airstrikes and tank fire to about 250 rockets being fired over the border by Palestinian militants..." (Emma Graham-Harrison, 5/5/19)
Paragraph 5 of same report:
"The spike in violence began on Friday when two Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli security forces during protests along the Israeli-Gaza perimeter fence."
So the headline and first sentence of the report, both of which toe the insidious Israeli propaganda line of 'Palestinians always attack/Israelis merely respond', is discredited in paragraph 5 of the same report.
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Operation Heavy Metal Contamination
Meanwhile, back in the Gaza Ghetto...
Remember odious Sharon government adviser Dov Weisglass telling the world at the time of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 that, because Hamas won the subsequent 2006 Palestinian elections, Israel had decided to "put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger"?
Well, quite apart from blockading the people of the Gaza Ghetto, periodically bombing and shelling them, and gunning them down every Friday at border demonstrations, Israel has other, more insidious, ways of killing them off. For example:
Hospital centered surveillance of births in Gaza, Palestine, 2011-2017 and heavy metal contamination of the mothers reveals long-term impact of wars, from Reproductive Toxicology, Vol.86)
Highlights
*Surveillance of births over 6 years, 2011-2017, in an area ridden by two intervening military attacks and under blockade and assessment of heavy metals contamination.
*Environmental resilience of heavy metals toxicants and teratogens, introduced by by war-remnants determines chronic intake and high load in women hair in 2016.
*Hot spots of contamination and negative birth outcomes in women resident near unmanaged waste sites, and of low birth weight at term with poor nutrition, consequences of the economic blockade.
Abstract
Prevalence of preterm, low birth weight and birth defects increased significantly since 2011 in Gaza, Palestine. No change in known co-factors of reproductive health justified this rise. Two military attacks in 2012 and 2014 introduced novel risk factors for outcomes at birth: contamination by teratogenic and carcinogenic heavy metals weapon-remnants, ongoing impoverishment, and impaired rehabilitation of waste management. It was previously shown that mothers exposed to military attacks had higher metal load than those unexposed and mother's heavy metals trans-pass placenta. We investigated association in time of heavy metal contamination and reproductive health using hospital-based surveillance (2011-2016-2018) of births, accompanied by assessment in 2016 of metal load in mother and newborn hair. Mother's housing proximal to unmanaged waste predicted preterm birth and birth defects, and these women had highest load of heavy metals. Poor diet predicted low birth weight. Circumstances prevent investigation of heavy metals molecular impact(s) during fetal development. (sciencedirect.com)
Remember odious Sharon government adviser Dov Weisglass telling the world at the time of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 that, because Hamas won the subsequent 2006 Palestinian elections, Israel had decided to "put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger"?
Well, quite apart from blockading the people of the Gaza Ghetto, periodically bombing and shelling them, and gunning them down every Friday at border demonstrations, Israel has other, more insidious, ways of killing them off. For example:
Hospital centered surveillance of births in Gaza, Palestine, 2011-2017 and heavy metal contamination of the mothers reveals long-term impact of wars, from Reproductive Toxicology, Vol.86)
Highlights
*Surveillance of births over 6 years, 2011-2017, in an area ridden by two intervening military attacks and under blockade and assessment of heavy metals contamination.
*Environmental resilience of heavy metals toxicants and teratogens, introduced by by war-remnants determines chronic intake and high load in women hair in 2016.
*Hot spots of contamination and negative birth outcomes in women resident near unmanaged waste sites, and of low birth weight at term with poor nutrition, consequences of the economic blockade.
Abstract
Prevalence of preterm, low birth weight and birth defects increased significantly since 2011 in Gaza, Palestine. No change in known co-factors of reproductive health justified this rise. Two military attacks in 2012 and 2014 introduced novel risk factors for outcomes at birth: contamination by teratogenic and carcinogenic heavy metals weapon-remnants, ongoing impoverishment, and impaired rehabilitation of waste management. It was previously shown that mothers exposed to military attacks had higher metal load than those unexposed and mother's heavy metals trans-pass placenta. We investigated association in time of heavy metal contamination and reproductive health using hospital-based surveillance (2011-2016-2018) of births, accompanied by assessment in 2016 of metal load in mother and newborn hair. Mother's housing proximal to unmanaged waste predicted preterm birth and birth defects, and these women had highest load of heavy metals. Poor diet predicted low birth weight. Circumstances prevent investigation of heavy metals molecular impact(s) during fetal development. (sciencedirect.com)
Sunday, April 28, 2019
56th Black Friday
Words fail:
"On the 56th Friday of the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege, Israeli forces wound 110 civilians, including 37 children, 3 women, 4 paramedics and a journalist." (mondoweiss.net, 27/4/19)
"On the 56th Friday of the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege, Israeli forces wound 110 civilians, including 37 children, 3 women, 4 paramedics and a journalist." (mondoweiss.net, 27/4/19)
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Pre-Election Fundraising at the Pratt's 4
"The news [that Anthony Pratt is the richest man in the country] comes after a big week for the Visy executive chairman and Pratt Industries owner who, though he is a supporter of US President Donald Trump, hosted a $5,000-a-head fundraising function for Bill Shorten at his Raheen mansion in Melbourne mid-week. A Liberal Party fundraiser was held two weeks earlier at Raheen." (Pratt sails to top - and happiness, John Stensholt, The Australian, 30/3/19)
So Anthony Pratt supports Trump, Shorten and Morrison.
Dumb question: What could these three possibly have in common?
And far from Palestine:
"The pair [Pratt and Gina Rinehart, the second richest person in the country] reveal that Mr Pratt likes to sing the Beatles song Oh! Darling from the seminal Abbey Road album to Mrs Rinehart and flew to Cambodia to support her Cambodian Children's Fund earlier this year." (ibid)
Meanwhile, in Palestine:
"Israeli forces have killed three Palestinians, including two teenagers, and shot 46 others at gatherings on the Gaza frontier marking the anniversary of the demonstration movement, the territory's ministry of health said." (Israeli fire kills four Palestinians says Gaza health ministry, Oliver Holmes and Hazem Balousha, theguardian.com, 31/3/19)
So Anthony Pratt supports Trump, Shorten and Morrison.
Dumb question: What could these three possibly have in common?
And far from Palestine:
"The pair [Pratt and Gina Rinehart, the second richest person in the country] reveal that Mr Pratt likes to sing the Beatles song Oh! Darling from the seminal Abbey Road album to Mrs Rinehart and flew to Cambodia to support her Cambodian Children's Fund earlier this year." (ibid)
Meanwhile, in Palestine:
"Israeli forces have killed three Palestinians, including two teenagers, and shot 46 others at gatherings on the Gaza frontier marking the anniversary of the demonstration movement, the territory's ministry of health said." (Israeli fire kills four Palestinians says Gaza health ministry, Oliver Holmes and Hazem Balousha, theguardian.com, 31/3/19)
Monday, March 18, 2019
'Israel Mourns'
The arch-terrorist who presides over a worse-than-apartheid state never misses a trick:
"Israel mourns the wanton murder of innocent worshipers in Christchurch and condemns the brazen act of terror in New Zealand. Israel sends its condolences to the bereaved families and its heartfelt wishes for a speedy recovery to the wounded." (Tweet @netanyahu, 15/3/19)
Seldom has the stench of hypocrisy been so rank.
As it happens, 19 of the 50 slain were reportedly of Palestinian origin, and hence, in one form or another, already the victims of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
And this, just before, or after - I don't know which, and it hardly matters - Netanyahu ordered 100 airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.
"Israel mourns the wanton murder of innocent worshipers in Christchurch and condemns the brazen act of terror in New Zealand. Israel sends its condolences to the bereaved families and its heartfelt wishes for a speedy recovery to the wounded." (Tweet @netanyahu, 15/3/19)
Seldom has the stench of hypocrisy been so rank.
As it happens, 19 of the 50 slain were reportedly of Palestinian origin, and hence, in one form or another, already the victims of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
And this, just before, or after - I don't know which, and it hardly matters - Netanyahu ordered 100 airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.
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