Gaza - protests against Israel

[Brown Sauce]

Robert Fisk: Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask
7 January 2009

So once again, Israel has opened the gates of hell to the Palestinians. Forty civilian refugees dead in a United Nations school, three more in another. Not bad for a night's work in Gaza by the army that believes in "purity of arms". But why should we be surprised?

Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead – almost all civilians, most of them children and women – in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same 2006 bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians?

What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. "Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties," yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. And every president and prime minister who repeated this mendacity as an excuse to avoid a ceasefire has the blood of last night's butchery on their hands. Had George Bush had the courage to demand an immediate ceasefire 48 hours earlier, those 40 civilians, the old and the women and children, would be alive.

What happened was not just shameful. It was a disgrace. Would war crime be too strong a description? For that is what we would call this atrocity if it had been committed by Hamas. So a war crime, I'm afraid, it was. After covering so many mass murders by the armies of the Middle East – by Syrian troops, by Iraqi troops, by Iranian troops, by Israeli troops – I suppose cynicism should be my reaction. But Israel claims it is fighting our war against "international terror". The Israelis claim they are fighting in Gaza for us, for our Western ideals, for our security, for our safety, by our standards. And so we are also complicit in the savagery now being visited upon Gaza.

I've reported the excuses the Israeli army has served up in the past for these outrages. Since they may well be reheated in the coming hours, here are some of them: that the Palestinians killed their own refugees, that the Palestinians dug up bodies from cemeteries and planted them in the ruins, that ultimately the Palestinians are to blame because they supported an armed faction, or because armed Palestinians deliberately used the innocent refugees as cover.

The Sabra and Chatila massacre was committed by Israel's right-wing Lebanese Phalangist allies while Israeli troops, as Israel's own commission of inquiry revealed, watched for 48 hours and did nothing. When Israel was blamed, Menachem Begin's government accused the world of a blood libel. After Israeli artillery had fired shells into the UN base at Qana in 1996, the Israelis claimed that Hizbollah gunmen were also sheltering in the base. It was a lie. The more than 1,000 dead of 2006 – a war started when Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on the border – were simply dismissed as the responsibility of the Hizbollah. Israel claimed the bodies of children killed in a second Qana massacre may have been taken from a graveyard. It was another lie. The Marwahin massacre was never excused. The people of the village were ordered to flee, obeyed Israeli orders and were then attacked by an Israeli gunship. The refugees took their children and stood them around the truck in which they were travelling so that Israeli pilots would see they were innocents. Then the Israeli helicopter mowed them down at close range. Only two survived, by playing dead. Israel didn't even apologise.

Twelve years earlier, another Israeli helicopter attacked an ambulance carrying civilians from a neighbouring village – again after they were ordered to leave by Israel – and killed three children and two women. The Israelis claimed that a Hizbollah fighter was in the ambulance. It was untrue. I covered all these atrocities, I investigated them all, talked to the survivors. So did a number of my colleagues. Our fate, of course, was that most slanderous of libels: we were accused of being anti-Semitic.

And I write the following without the slightest doubt: we'll hear all these scandalous fabrications again. We'll have the Hamas-to-blame lie – heaven knows, there is enough to blame them for without adding this crime – and we may well have the bodies-from-the-cemetery lie and we'll almost certainly have the Hamas-was-in-the-UN-school lie and we will very definitely have the anti-Semitism lie. And our leaders will huff and puff and remind the world that Hamas originally broke the ceasefire. It didn't. Israel broke it, first on 4 November when its bombardment killed six Palestinians in Gaza and again on 17 November when another bombardment killed four more Palestinians.

Yes, Israelis deserve security. Twenty Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure indeed. But 600 Palestinians dead in just over a week, thousands over the years since 1948 – when the Israeli massacre at Deir Yassin helped to kick-start the flight of Palestinians from that part of Palestine that was to become Israel – is on a quite different scale. This recalls not a normal Middle East bloodletting but an atrocity on the level of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. And of course, when an Arab bestirs himself with unrestrained fury and takes out his incendiary, blind anger on the West, we will say it has nothing to do with us. Why do they hate us, we will ask? But let us not say we do not know the answer.

[Colston]

Kanoute shows support for Palestinians
www.middle-east-online.com

SEVILLE - Sevilla's Malian international striker Frederic Kanoute displayed a t-shirt with the word "Palestine" during his side's 2-1 Spanish Cup over Deportivo Coruna in the Spanish Cup. The 31-year-old lifted his jersey to show the t-shirt with the word written in various languages after his side scored late Wednesday in what was seen as an act of support for Palestinians in Gaza where an Israeli military offensive has claimed more than 700 lives since it began on December 27.

France-born Kanoute, a Sevilla player since a 2005 move from English Premiership side Tottenham, is a practising Muslim who has supported various humanitarian causes in the past. In 2006 he set up a foundation to help orphans in Mali and the following year he reportedly spent around 500,000 euros (700,000 dollars) of his own money to save a privately owned mosque in Seville from being sold after a contract to use the premises by the local Muslim population had expired.

Kanoute now faces possible sanctions from football authorities if they consider that he broadcast a political message during an official match.

[luke]

[Brown Sauce]

thx Luke.

there was a Palestinian doctor, living in the UK on radio 5 live this evening. He had 16 members of his family killed a couple of days ago. He was asked did he feel anger, he said "yes, unfortunately I do", (I'm paraphrasing here). He was asked does he feel any anger towards hamas, he said, "no, every occupied country has a right of resistance", he was then quickly faded out.

Twats, the first time anyone speaks up for hamas that I've heard from in the last couple of weeks is faded ... the air was once again blue ...

he also said that the school that was bombed was a place of refuge for families that had their houses blown up. they were sent there by the UN ....

[luke]

[faceless]

100 000 people is quite a turnout - and it's no surprise that it became somewhat violent.

[luke]

Up to 200,000 protest Israeli aggression in Central London

The estimated turnout for this protest, according to Andrew Murray, was 200,000. I don't mind what precise figure people put on it, but it was massive, and certainly above 100,000. To this can be added the protests across the UK, which respectively numbered in hundreds and thousands. As I said earlier, this was the largest ever pro-Palestinian demonstration in the United Kingdom. I met a guy I know from MPAC at the start, and he agreed that the size of the demo was astonishing - this was as we were crowding into Hyde Park, before it even really kicked off. The severity of what Israel is imposing on Gaza, with the assistance of UK arms and the benevolence of UK diplomacy, has galvanised people in a way that we haven't seen since 2003. The tone of the protest was also very different from past demonstrations. For one thing, there was much more visible condemnation of the Arab regimes that are complicit in this attack. When speakers called for the Egyptian regime to be overthrown, the cheers were among the loudest of the day. For another, there is a great desire that this historic demonstration become the basis for a campaign. In some form or another, there is a desire to sanction Israel, up to and including a full-blown boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign. I would be delighted if such a campaign could be made to work.

This brings me to something else I want to point out about the demonstration. In today's Guardian, over seventy Jewish writer and activists wrote to condemn Israel's atrocities in Gaza. It calls for a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, which was also recently backed by Naomi Klein. This letter was cited twice by speakers, one of them Azzam Tamimi, who said "this war is not between Muslims and Jews, it is between the oppressed and the oppressor". The other speaker who I think was Ismail Patel said something that I think is extremely important, reflecting what Alexei Sayle said at last week's demonstration: it is long past time to stop allowing the state of Israel to call itself "the Jewish State". It is a travesty that a racist state that imposes apartheid and mass murder on the Palestinians has for so long been allowed to legitimise itself with reference to Jewish suffering, and particularly the Nazi holocaust. When its soldiers are bestialising themselves in Gaza, coldly murdering people in the most humiliating way, and imposing a system that seems in some respects to be deliberately redolent of the Warsaw Ghetto, the idea that Israel is the bearer of a legacy of resistance to fascism is disgusting, and absurd. Now, I know full well that we are not watching a repeat of the Final Solution, but it shouldn't have to get that far before Palestine has its Marek Edelmans. And we should not hesitate to support them when they defend Palestine.

Finally, a word about the apparent ruckus outside the Israeli embassy. I didn't see it become at all serious, but I do know the police sealed off hundreds and perhaps more people in the area, and it has to be said that the police acted as if they wanted a fight. They had tried to confine an enormous amount of people into a densely barricaded bottleneck and, as far as I could see, this made the stewards' job more difficult. A number of protesters did evidently want to get into the Israeli embassy, and I did notice that one of them got onto the entrance walls and waved a Hamas flag around. Frankly, good. The logical thing to do at this point would be to expel the Israeli ambassador and convert the building into the embassy of a future Palestinian state. But, as angry as people justifiably are, and as much as one would have every reason to expect a riot at this point, I personally saw nothing that could have even notionally justified the kind of clampdown that the police eventually imposed.

from http://leninology.blogspot.com/ wheres theres also some pictures and videos

[faceless]

Not a great video, but I'm sure better ones will turn up.

[faceless]

Here's a better quality version of Galloway's speech on Thursday.

[luke]

heres a short report and some pics from the edinburgh protest ( from medialens );

Absolutely excellent protest today, good turnout on a cold day that turned into some real foul weather, and I have to say some pretty poor publicity. Easily 10,000.

Highlights of the day:

Ross bandstand waiting on the speakers, during a lull in the warm up acts a shrill voice could be heard piping "George Bush where are you? I want to hit you with my shoe". Big Cheer, turned out to be a kid of about 5 I think, the little tyke was punted onto the stage where he lead a mass rendition of the chant.

The other highlight was hearing from a guy from the Red Cross in Gaza City (didn't catch his name I'm afraid) who was addressing the rally via a mobile phone. Whole crowd went quiet to hear what he was saying, very moving.

[faceless]

This is great news to hear that GG's leading an emergency convoy of fire engines and ambulances to Gaza. I'd love to take part in that, so I'll need to find out how to offer my services.

[faceless]

I hadn't heard about this group before. It really shows the bias of the media when such a group are basically ignored. These Jewish people are the ones who can start making the change - even though they're often accused of being traitors; purely on the basis that they don't want to be bloodthirsty bastards. That's the very definition of political Zionism though - 'you're either with us or against us, and if you're against us you will be attacked'.

[luke]

Ten Israeli soldiers choose jail over Gaza

Bethlehem – At least ten soldiers have opted for prison terms rather than going through with their deployment.

The refusals would be the first of their kind since Israel launched its massive air, sea and ground assault on the Gaza Strip,

On "conscience’s grounds," the soldiers refused orders to head to the Gaza Strip, they said.

Preferring a 14-day prison stint and rounding criticism from fellow soldiers and society at large, at least ten are awaiting trial for violations of orders. One said he simply could not go through with the deployment.

No'em Levna, a first lieutenant in Israel's army, refused to serve in Gaza, saying, "We killed 900 Palestinians in 17 days, including hundreds of children."

"If violence must be used, it should be used minimally, and that isn't what’s happening," he added. "Killing innocent civilians cannot be justified. Nothing justifies this kind of killing. It’s devilish."

"It is Israeli arrogance based on logic. It’s saying, 'if we hit more, everything will be okay,'" he said. "But the hatred and anger we are planting in Gaza will rebound on us."

from http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=34906

[Brown Sauce]

let's hope it's the first of many.

[mickyv]