Palestinian Dr's Daughters Killed While Interviewed on Israeli TV

There seems to be no limits to the Israeli government's love of atrocity. I haven't been able to keep up with it all. The atrocity that is Israel's invasion of Gaza is beyond description, beyond words. It is totally unconscionable.

Just one case in point: frequently interviewed on Israeli TV, Dr. Ezz-El-Din Abu El-Eish, a Palestinian and resident of Gaza who works at works at Israel’s largest hospital, Tel Hashomer near Tel Aviv, was interviewed by cell phone while his daughters were killed by Israelis as described in this heartwrenching report:

This impressive and peaceful man has been stranded at home during the war. Israel’s Channel 10 TV has regularly interviewed him by phone about the situation. On one occasion, a tank gun aimed at his home - and Israeli media intervention saved him…

What we see in the clip [above] is Israeli anchor Shlomi Eldar holding a cellphone with Dr. Abu El-Eish on the other side, howling with misery. A tank shell has just hit his home and immediately killed three of his children (apparently they cut off the first seconds when the shell actually hit).”

And here's a part of the transcript:

“Eldar: …we have on the line Dr. Abu El-Eish, we have been talking with him over the past period… he [his home] was just shelled, his family is wounded, maybe I can replay…

Dr. Abu El-Eish: No one can get to us… (unclear)… Ya Rabi, Ya Rabi (my god).. [he continues to cry throughout while Eldar talks to the audience]

Eldar: They killed his family, over the past few days we have been… I think I’m a bit overwhelmed too because,… (tearing up) Dr. Abu El-Eish is a Tel Hashomer physician, [to the doctor] Abu El-Eish we are now in the studio, [back to the audience] and he kept fearing his family would get hurt, once this week he went on air to Gabi Gazit [another anchor], because this was the only way [apparently referring to the previous near-miss incident]…. In short, he was now hit, who was hurt Abu El-Eish?

Dr. Abu El-Eish: My girls, Ya Allah, Ya Allah

[around 1:00 into clip]

Eldar: He has eight children whom he has protected throughout the war, at his home in Beit Lahiya, maybe the only thing we can do is to ask someone who can, maybe in the IDF, Abu El-Eish can you tell me where your house is, maybe they will enable ambulances to get there

Dr. Abu El-Eish: (unclear) …to save them, to save them, but they are dead already they were hit in the head, it was in their heads [died] on the spot, on the spot, Shlomi, Ya Allah, … what have we done, what have we done [repeatedly]… they killed the family… [more screams in the background]“

It's an atrocity. The entire invasion of Gaza is a horrific slaughter and a tragedy. And to think this is being done to get votes from Israelis? Do they want the world to think the Israeli public is bloodthirsty, or what? If not, what the hell happened to their brains?

Apparently, their brains went the way of their hearts.

Naomi Klein: Want Mideast Peace? Boycott Israel

This heartening post by the ever-honest, ever-justice-loving Naomi Klein entitled "Want to End the Violence in Gaza? Boycott Israel" outlines the only path to Mideast Peace. Israel has never faced, and plans that it never will face, any consequences of a serious nature to its actions. It bombed Lebanon's airport to near-extinction, destroyed much of the country's infrastructure, and killed many children, women, and oh, don't forget, men - most of whom had nothing to do with the border skirmish in which two Israeli military men were kidnapped. Kidnap two soldiers of ours? We'll put you back to the stone age.

But Gaza was already hitting the stone age with a blockade that targeted mainly women, children, the sick and elderly. It has nothing to do with war. Israel's actions in the mideast are unconscionable. And then.... they invade. Invade a basically defenseless civilian population. Don't tell me this garbage about Hamas. Hamas was a legitimately elected government, supervised by Jimmy Carter. The U.S. in its infinite contortions of injustice metes out "justice" by labelling various groups of choice "terrorist", a title that means "fair game for invasion, attack, torture, whatever you can come up with."

It's been Bush's policy to say to Israel, "Sic 'em!" and then lean back and watch the sick show of slaughter, in Lebanon in '06 and now in Gaza. Always there's a "good reason": it's because of Hamas. They're terrorists! But Israel? They're defending themselves. Against homemade rockets. With cluster bombs, bombs of other descriptions dropped from supersonic jet fighters. It's a little "unbalanced"? But not terror?

From Naomi Klein:

It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.

In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on "people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era." The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions -- BDS for short -- was born.

Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause, and talk of cease-fires is doing little to slow the momentum. Support is even emerging among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors stationed in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the antiapartheid struggle. "The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves.… This international backing must stop."

Yet even in the face of these clear calls, many of us still can't go there. The reasons are complex, emotional and understandable. And they simply aren't good enough. Economic sanctions are the most effective tools in the nonviolent arsenal. Surrendering them verges on active complicity. Here are the top four objections to the BDS strategy, followed by counterarguments.

1. Punitive measures will alienate rather than persuade Israelis. The world has tried what used to be called "constructive engagement." It has failed utterly. Since 2006 Israel has been steadily escalating its criminality: expanding settlements, launching an outrageous war against Lebanon and imposing collective punishment on Gaza through the brutal blockade. Despite this escalation, Israel has not faced punitive measures -- quite the opposite. The weapons and $3 billion in annual aid that the US sends to Israel is only the beginning. Throughout this key period, Israel has enjoyed a dramatic improvement in its diplomatic, cultural and trade relations with a variety of other allies. For instance, in 2007 Israel became the first non–Latin American country to sign a free-trade deal with Mercosur. In the first nine months of 2008, Israeli exports to Canada went up 45 percent. A new trade deal with the European Union is set to double Israel's exports of processed food. And on December 8, European ministers "upgraded" the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a reward long sought by Jerusalem.

It is in this context that Israeli leaders started their latest war: confident they would face no meaningful costs. It is remarkable that over seven days of wartime trading, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's flagship index actually went up 10.7 percent. When carrots don't work, sticks are needed.

2. Israel is not South Africa. Of course it isn't. The relevance of the South African model is that it proves that BDS tactics can be effective when weaker measures (protests, petitions, back-room lobbying) have failed. And there are indeed deeply distressing echoes of South African apartheid in the occupied territories: the color-coded IDs and travel permits, the bulldozed homes and forced displacement, the settler-only roads. Ronnie Kasrils, a prominent South African politician, said that the architecture of segregation that he saw in the West Bank and Gaza was "infinitely worse than apartheid." That was in 2007, before Israel began its full-scale war against the open-air prison that is Gaza.

3. Why single out Israel when the United States, Britain and other Western countries do the same things in Iraq and Afghanistan? Boycott is not a dogma; it is a tactic. The reason the BDS strategy should be tried against Israel is practical: in a country so small and trade-dependent, it could actually work.

4. Boycotts sever communication; we need more dialogue, not less. This one I'll answer with a personal story. For eight years, my books have been published in Israel by a commercial house called Babel. But when I published The Shock Doctrine, I wanted to respect the boycott. On the advice of BDS activists, including the wonderful writer John Berger, I contacted a small publisher called Andalus. Andalus is an activist press, deeply involved in the anti-occupation movement and the only Israeli publisher devoted exclusively to translating Arabic writing into Hebrew. We drafted a contract that guarantees that all proceeds go to Andalus's work, and none to me. In other words, I am boycotting the Israeli economy but not Israelis.

Coming up with our modest publishing plan required dozens of phone calls, e-mails and instant messages, stretching from Tel Aviv to Ramallah to Paris to Toronto to Gaza City. My point is this: as soon as you start implementing a boycott strategy, dialogue increases dramatically. And why wouldn't it? Building a movement requires endless communicating, as many in the antiapartheid struggle well recall. The argument that supporting boycotts will cut us off from one another is particularly specious given the array of cheap information technologies at our fingertips. We are drowning in ways to rant at one another across national boundaries. No boycott can stop us.

Just about now, many a proud Zionist is gearing up for major point-scoring: don't I know that many of those very high-tech toys come from Israeli research parks, world leaders in infotech? True enough, but not all of them. Several days into Israel's Gaza assault, Richard Ramsey, the managing director of a British telecom specializing in voice-over-internet services, sent an email to the Israeli tech firm MobileMax. "As a result of the Israeli government action in the last few days we will no longer be in a position to consider doing business with yourself or any other Israeli company."

Ramsey says that his decision wasn't political; he just didn't want to lose customers. "We can't afford to lose any of our clients," he explains, "so it was purely commercially defensive."

It was this kind of cold business calculation that led many companies to pull out of South Africa two decades ago. And it's precisely the kind of calculation that is our most realistic hope of bringing justice, so long denied, to Palestine.

Thank you, Naomi. Finally, someone speaks out. Let's hope others will hear your voice.

Israel Uses Unconventional Weapons Against Gazans

OUTRAGE! As if it's not enough to massacre hundreds of civilians in a show of overwhelming force by Goliath Israel against the prepped-by-starvation population of Gaza, now we learn from Mads Gilbert, a brave Norwegian doctor working in Gaza, that Israel is using unconventional weapons in their war on Palestine aka "War On Hamas". According to Dr. Gilbert:

"The Israelis are using a new type of very high explosive weapons which are called Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) and are made out of a tungsten alloy. These weapons have an enormous power to explode."

"All that is happening in Gaza here now is against international law, it is against humanity."

"Almost all of the patients we have received have these severe amputations. They seem to have been affected by this kind of weapon. Of course, we have many fragment injuries and burns but those who have got their limbs cut off, constitutes quite a large proportion.

You know we have a lot to do. Palestinian doctors, nurses and paramedics do an incredibly heroic job to save their people. Doctor Eric and I are just a small drip in the ocean, but we learn from them."

IN an interview, Dr. Gilbert addresses allegations that Israel is using depleted Uranium and is deliberately targeting civilians.

Doctor Mads Gilbert is a member of a Norwegian triage medical team present in the besieged Gaza Strip. The team has exposed that Israel has used depleted uranium weapons in its war on the impoverished territory which is home to 1.5 million Palestinians. He described the conditions inside Gaza in an exclusive Press TV interview.

Press TV: What can you tell about the uranium findings?

Dr. Mads Gilbert:The findings about the uranium I cannot tell you much about, but I can tell you that we have clear evidence that the Israelis are using a new type of very high explosive weapons which are called Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) and are made out of a tungsten alloy.
These weapons have an enormous power to explode.

The power of the explosion dissipates very quickly and the strength does not travel long, maybe 10 meters, but those humans who are hit by this explosion, this pressure wave are cut in pieces.

This was first used in Lebanon in 2006, it was used here in Gaza in 2006 and the injuries that we see in Shifa [Hospital] now, many many of them I suspect and we all suspect are the effect of DIME weapons used by the Israelis.

On the long term, these weapons will have a cancer effect on those who survive. They will develop cancer we suspect. There has been very little research on this but some research has been among other places in the United States, which show that these weapons have a high tendency to develop cancer. So they kill and those who survive risk having cancer.

If true, it appears to be a mass campaign of terror aimed and demoralizing the Palestinian people into capitulating into accepting a gulag archipelago as a so-called "homeland", which will be overseen and administrated by their captors, the Israelis, and in which their actual autonomy will be severely limited by the double-whammy of checkpoints and physical isolation and separation of these prison-islands from one another. Of course, rejection of the right of return means that it will not be a Palestinian "homeland" in the sense that Israel is a Jewish "homeland", but will be more of a pre-fabricated, US-Israeli-dictated residential living zone where basic human needs will be more likely to be allowed than they are in the current situation. Of course, neither the U.S. nor Israel considers "basic human needs" to include freedom of movement, or the ability of people expelled from their homes to return to their families and relatives.

And I have an appeal to the Israeli doctors and nurses. They are my colleagues. We belong to the same international community, the medical community. I wish that the good doctors and nurses in Israel tell their government to stop these atrocities. We cannot continue with this. We may differ in opinions, but you cannot treat the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza in this way.

And who are the majority of the victims? Terrorists?

Half of the population in Palestine are below 15 years and 80 percent of the people in Gaza live below the level of poverty defined by the UN. Now they don't have food, they don't have electricity. It's cold they don't have warmth and in addition to that, they are killed.

And so how many people have been affected by these unconventional weapons?

Dr. Mads Gilbert: Almost all of the patients we have received have these sever amputations. They seem to have been affected by this kind of weapon. Of course, we have many fragment injuries and burns but those who have got their limbs cut off, constitutes quite a large proportion.

It would seem that Israel is indeed using unconventional weapons. But since when did Israel care about conventions of war? Pre-emptive attacks, pre-emptive assassinations, collective punishment against civilians, and the imprisonment of an entire civilian population within its secure walls and guarded fences, the deprivation of liberty and the means of living, all these are against international law. And Israel joins with Dick Cheney, when faced with the condemnation of those who are brave and outrageously daring enough to give a damn about the people of Palestine:

"SO?"

How long will these outrageous acts continue? As long as the world looks on like a giant piece of inert protoplasm. Israel's banking on it.

Despots Rejoice! Israel Massacres Palestinians, Drops Seeds of Extremism

In a move guaranteed to increase violence and ensure there will never be peace in the Middle East, Israel slaughtered over 290 Palestinians in the already-beleaguered Gaza strip, in an air attack during which on Sunday, over 100 tons of bombs were dropped.

Recall for a moment that residents of Gaza have been under siege, without food, water, gas or medical supplies for what seems an interminable amount of time, and Israel has only allowed such humanitarian aid to "trickle down" in a sort of perverse economic starvation plan. We're talking, of course, about civilians. The "plan" was ostensibly to starve the people into submitting to Israel and rejecting Hamas. The result has been to create more hatred and extremism and despair. Great "plan", Israel! And now we're ready to witness more extremism and despair! Especially with the Arab world being run by megalomaniacs and despots. All hail the kings and dictators! As long as they feed us our oil, let them bulldoze their constituencies. To hell with people, constituencies, and the rule of law. Let the slaughter begin!

According to the AP, here's an update on how it went down:

Terrified prisoners fled a Gaza City jail bombed by Israeli warplanes on Sunday, their faces white with dust and red with blood as they stumbled over huge piles of rubble.

Across the territory, grieving families pitched traditional mourning tents of green tarp outside the homes. Yet the rows of chairs inside these tents remained largely empty, as residents cowered indoors for fear of new Israeli strikes. Plumes of gray smoke rising into the sky marked the site of the latest Israeli attacks.

Even for war-weary Gazans, who've lived through countless Israeli incursions, air attacks and months of bitter Palestinian infighting, the latest surprise Israeli air offensive was unusually traumatic. In all, more than 290 people — most of them Hamas policemen, but also 20 children — were killed in some 300 Israeli air attacks over two days.

On Saturday, shortly after Israel unleashed the deadliest-ever offensive against Hamas and its rocket squads, hospital morgues quickly overflowed. In the initial chaos, the dead were wrapped in blankets and lined up on the ground, as frantic relatives searched for their loved ones.

On Sunday, 25 unclaimed bodies still lay in the morgue of Gaza's largest hospital, Shifa, their faces disfigured beyond identification. In the southern town of Rafah, residents held a mass funeral for 14 people, including two brothers, and a father and son, all of them members of the Hamas security forces.

The shelling began at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, a work day in Gaza, just as children returned home from school, women shopped in local markets and police directed traffic.

So again, Hamas will come off to the Palestinians as the hero against the evil Israelis, if it's PR you care about. But who gives a damn about PR? The same people who have NOT ONE QUALM about killing 300 relatively defenseless people from the air? So what? Hiroshima killed far more. Can't come close to Hitler's murder roll. So why do we bother? The whole nation of Palestine is being wiped out from the air. Or no! The U.S. "kindly advised" Israel to "try" to avoid civilians, and the Israelis, from the goodness of their hearts, said "OK, we'll try"... And they added that they can't tell when this slaughter/siege will end, but "probably" not any time soon.

And why should they? Who gives a damn? The so-called Arab world is being held by the testicles by their Sacred Cow Dictators. I'm sure the Saudis are in a huge rush to stand firmly on the side of everybody and nobody. The Gulf States are equally castrated. The whole world is answering in chorus with Dick Cheney: "So?"

So what's new? How does Israel imagine that Palestinians will ever think of Israelis except as torturers, killers and usurpers? Gee, thanks, pal, for killing my parents, children, sisters, brothers, grandparents, and friends. Help yourself to my hovel of a home so you can bulldoze more space for your rich DNA-approved High-Caste Israelis to enjoy their superiority while we, the Untouchables, go homeless. Reasonable expectation, n'est pas?

Obviously, Israel has no intention of ever working towards peace. Their sole aim is to create such extreme and abject despair as to cause the Palestinians to agree to being herded around like cattle within a territory that is in fact a gulag archipelago. Their "homeland" is now a prison, without freedom to move, to make business, to live. All they are free to do is leave, give up, and kiss their Master Tormentors goodbye, while the Tormentors look at them in disgust and disdain, denying them the dignity of being called "human", except, or course, in asides in op/eds in certain newspapers that perhaps fear some weird ancient buried thing called "conscience". What was that?

Oh, yes, the great and holy Reasons! How could I, a pawn in a machine going nowhere, dare not to mention the Holy Fair & Honest Reasons! Dear World, We, the Israelis, because of the atrocities of the Holocaust, have taken residence in a spot of land once called some other name, but now called Israel, and sent its previous residents, bunch of backward pastoral/nomadic types, packing. They sold out - what were we to do? And it was and is a beautiful dream, for Zionists to find a Jewish Homeland by replacing Palestinians and removing their rights not only to live on their land, but to do business, eat, educate their families, or have medical care on their land. And if they DARE to FIGHT BACK, WE WILL DESTROY THEM!

Perfect reasoning! The Dream. Remember, the most important thing in the universe is to Have a Dream, and then Live That Dream. It trumps everything else. And Zionism trumps compassion, certainly. Of what use is compassion? People are being killed every day. Why pick on Israel? What did they do wrong? Have they no rights, in your view, to defend themselves?

So killing 300 Palestinians from the air is simply Israel's way of stopping what had become a sort of stone age "Offensive" from Hamas, throwing rockets and grenades into Sacred Israeli Territory by not Palestinians, not People, but... Terrorists.

Ah, yes, Terrorists! Notice that Israelis frequently refer to any Palestinian as a Terrorist. And they really believe it. So what is terror? It's an emotion. And why did Palestinians resort to terror? Because they had nothing else. You take a people without an army, without half-decent weaponry, without a country, without much in the way of land, many of them homeless or crowded several-families into a home so as not to be technically homeless, and then slaughter them from the air. Gee, it sure looks bad. But the important point to remember is to BLAME THE PEOPLE. BLAME THE PALESTINIANS. BLAME, ABOVE ALL, HAMAS.

You see, Israel is not responsible for anything it does. Everything it could possibly think to do is absolutely justified. It was first justified by the Holocaust. Now it is justifiable by the Palestinian Resistance. How dare those uppity niggers rise up in rebellion? After all, they ain't got the right DNA. If they did, we might have to leave them alone. In fact, if they had the right DNA, they would be sympathetic. How do you make people sympathetic to Israel? By showing your humanity. Too bad that's not the tactic du jour in right-wing neocon-run Israel...

Or am I insane? Yes, all the world is insane, and only Israel and the U.S., aka Israel's nana, are sane. They are sane because they are in power. But if they were not in power, they, too, would be despised. So power is just a way to not be despised.

But I really hate to believe there is no hope to get to the Israeli heart or its people. Is it true, the neocon idea that only terror fights terror? What do Gazans feel when their children are killed from the air? Happiness?

And how many Israelis were killed by Hamas in the rocket-firing binge that brought down on their heads this horrific overkill of retaliation? How many? 300? Let's see:

Israeli sources said more than 21 rockets and mortar shells landed on Western Negev. There were no reports of casualties.

Oh, and there is another total disaster in the way of Israeli "interpretation of facts." There is no distinction made between Hamas policemen and Hamas "militants." What the hell kind of security or peace do you expect if people cannot have policemen? What does it mean to kill police? So if they were Hamas? What other political party is there, pray tell? Calling them terrorists does not make them terrorists. They were protecting schoolchildren. But of course, who can protect schoolchildren from Israel? Israel fights from the air with supersonic jets against folks with primitive, ineffective weapons.

Yes, I can see they were in imminent danger. What a sense of balance!

Am I Not Human? When Security Trumps Compassion

In considering human rights abuse for the "Am I Not Human?" campaign, instead of focusing on one group, I will explore a number of examples of a pattern that appears in such abuse, and one America, as well as other powerful nations, must come to grips with: the conflict between security and compassion, between looking at others outside one's "group" as fellow human beings, or as threats.

One of the most obvious cases where this conflict is played out is in the War on Terror. It's easy to simplify the War on Terror as a conflict between Good - us, people who believe and claim they love democracy and freedom - vs. Evil - them, people we claim hate democracy and freedom, aka, the "terrorists".

But if one examines this issue more closely, it's obvious that there's more to it than that. In my last post for this blog campaign, I examined the inhumane treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government, and also by those countries who ignore the plight of the Palestinians, especially in Gaza. But many argue that the Palestinians support and foster terrorism, attacks on civilians by suicide bombers in peacetime situations, such as markets or theaters or, famously, the Olympics. The Israelis' treatment of Palestinians, they argue, is directly a consequence of those terrorist acts, which Israel must defend itself and its people against. It's a security issue. The apartheid wall, the collective punishment of entire families in Gaza for the acts of a few, the constant checkpoints, the deprivation of jobs, income, or basic food and other supplies, are all explained as necessary security measures.

The War on Terror was begun after 9/11 as a security measure. Suddenly we were attacked, unexpectedly, by Islamic terrorists, in the most horrific way. To defend ourselves and our country, Bush initiated a war against terror - with a huge backing of popular and congressional support. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the surveillance of all communications coming in & out of the country (as much as that is possible, and with certain perimeters), allowing the torture of terror suspects, the establishment of military tribunals and a detention center at Guantanamo Bay, detaining terror suspects indeterminately without legal recourse, extraordinary rendition, prison ships, the invasion of Afghanistan and ultimately the invasion of Iraq, Somalia and other lesser-known places - all these measures, now widely criticized as violating people's basic human rights, were enacted in the name of security.

Air strikes on targets that may include civilians - not just mistakes, but knowingly - are also allowed in the various battlefields in the war on terror. This is a deliberate calculation to gain the greater "good" - victory in war and then they hope enactment of "higher goals" such as democracy or access to oil - at the expense of the value of human life.

These air strikes have many strategic reasons - such as minimizing the risk to U.S. soldiers. That is all well and good. But it doesn't necessarily remove the "sin" of taking innocent lives. We're talking about children, women, families. These people did not ask the U.S. to invade. They do not understand exactly what's going on. And their support for the U.S. "mission" is shaken every time civilians are killed. Of course, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are killing civilians, too. Their concern for humanity, is touted as the reason for their war. They say the U.S. and Israel kill Muslim women and children, and so these extremist groups justify their attacks as a "defense" of "their people" against the American "aggressors". It's a matter, to them, of "security".

Saudi Arabia is extremely security-conscious. They are run by a sort of "benevolent" Mafia, the Saudi royal family, including thousands of princes, who get the lion's share of the country's substantion income from oil revenues. They use religion to maintain the loyalty of their citizen-subjects, and try to "modernize" their country in order to keep people happy and obedient. But women in Saudi Arabia, as showcased by the case of the girl from Qatif who was sentenced to whipping for being gang-raped, supposedly because she was with a man who was not her husband or brother. Only public outcry caused the King to ultimately pardon her, but without such publicity she would have had to endure punishment for being the victim of a heinous crime.

This is because in Saudi Arabia, women are still largely considered the "property" of their husbands or male relatives, and have few rights, not even the right to drive a car (unlike some other Muslim gulf states, for example). They are not allowed to appear in public except when covered completely from head to foot in black robes. Although many justify this as "Islamic", many more Muslims would disagree. There's nothing in and of itself wrong with head-covering - as long as it's voluntary. But morality-police enforce these laws, and women are severely restricted in their movements, ability to work or do much of anything outside the home, since they must always have a male relative escort. Many women in Saudi Arabia are huge Oprah Winfrey fans, as she discusses issues that women face in a compassionate way, helping some of these women deal with their lives and feel they have a purpose. Sometimes, under these conditions, women wonder if men believe they are in fact human.

Men in Saudi Arabia justify this attitude with what amounts to another security issue. They want to protect their privileged position in society and their ego-pumping "superiority" without the bother of "uppity" women, who pose a huge security risk for such men. Apparently the men do not think compassion for women involves consideration for their personal needs and pride, or just the ability to support themselves in the event their male relatives should die.

From Hitler's unspeakable atrocities which were justified by a need for security and "superiority", to slavery in the U.S., also justified by the need for "security" and prosperity in the agricultural South, to racist behavior around the world, often justified by the need to "protect" the supposedly "superior" group from some imagined destruction, invasion or "adulteration" by the "other", "inferior" groups, to the latest fear of "terrorists" which title is frequently applied to anyone Muslim... all these represent choices in favor of security and self-protection over compassion and consideration of the rights of others.

Even on a lesser scale, whenever security trumps consideration for the human element, oppression begins, and oppression is the greatest obstacle to true democracy and free society.

First, a free society cannot be created, maintained, inspired or made by force. That means war is out as a means of achieving it. Therefore, the War on Terror is doomed to failure, if its goal is making the world safe for democracy. War cannot make the world safe for anything except war.

Second, excessive infringement on human liberty cannot promote security, if it only acts on rigid, written laws and doesn't have the flexibility to act on the ground in a human way between human beings.

Here's an example of this in Dahr Jamail's lates article as he describes the situation he saw at an airport:

TSA is one of several security gifts from the Bush administration, or rather, from the twisted conjunction of corporate business and state power that oversees and safeguards our "freedom" and "democracy" through an elaborate system of control mechanisms.

Immediately in front of me, an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair was trying to reason with the security guard who was asking him to take off his sandals. "What do you want me to do? I didn't wear socks so you could see my feet since I'm unable to bend over and take off my sandals."

"Sir, you must comply with policy," the guard said in a raised voice, as three other TSA agents moved in behind him, arms folded ominously across their chests, and surrounded the elderly man in the wheelchair who requested their assistance, doing what he could to "comply." None of the guards stepped forward to take off his sandals for him in order to check his feet.

In exasperation he shouted, "I'm asking for help, and you won't do it, so what do you want me to do? What the Hell am I supposed to do? What are you afraid of? I'm an old man in a wheelchair! Are you afraid of my sandals?"

The guards would not allow him through the x-ray until he eventually lowered his voice. We must never upset the status quo, because that is an important pillar of a system that holds change in dread. Do not rock the boat, and don't you dare speak up, lest it indicate that something is wrong.

It requires no crystal ball to see that we are embedded in a system that has no qualms about harassing old men in wheelchairs or making pregnant women walk through x-ray machines. It is the same system that is killing scores of Iraqi and Afghan civilians daily, and killing the planet systemically. It is a system that requires us to be sleepwalkers, rather than alert and sensitive humans.

Sometimes the security-frenzy can taint people on the ground who act as vigilantes, as in this attack by Israeli settlers against Palestinians:

Last night 40 Jewish settlers went on a rampage in the long-suffering Palestinian city of Hebron, throwing rocks, smashing windows and slashing tires. One Palestinian resident reports:

“The stone-throwing tonight was not rioting, it was with intent to kill … Settlers threw stones at us from the fifth floor. I picked one up and it weighed at least a kilo…

“We’re eight families, 60 people in all, and we are constantly threatened … Yesterday huge stones just barely missed two of my cousins. If they had been hit they would have been killed.”

Why not turn to the IDF for protection?

“He claims his family had asked Border Guard officers to form a separation between them and the settlers, but that the latter had continued throwing stones indiscriminately at both parties.

Al-Jabri went on to say that after a settler had threatened to slaughter his entire family he complained to IDF soldiers, but they didn’t respond. “He took out his gun, put it to his mouth, and said, ‘Deir Yasin, Deir Yasin’, referring to the massacre in the village of Deir Yasin in 1948,” he said.

“I was shocked to hear a soldier tell me, ‘There’s nothing I can do, and there’s no use complaining, the settlers and we are one,” al-Jabri added.”

And, indeed, none of the pogromists have been arrested so far, despite many of them undoubtedly being repeated offenders.

In this latter case, the police (enforcers, protectors) and vigilantes unite against the "other" group, who have been branded as a threat, and hence, in security terms, fair game.

It's telling that Israel refuses to attend the U.N conference on racism, where they reasonably expect they would be castigated for their human rights violations against the Palestinians. But others make a valid point that this is not the only case of racism or denying human rights and should not somehow be showcased to the detriment of help for other oppressed people, such as those in, for example, Myanmar, or even North Korea, both of which nations seek a high degree of security and power concentrated in the hands of a very few.

It seems that militarism often clashes with compassion, and it is that very conflict which played out in the 2008 election, where Barack Obama's election signified to many a mandate for compassion instead of hyper-securityism or militarism that the GOP ended up signifying after the Bush administrations many misadventures. Let's hope this really does become Obama's legacy: the triumph of compassion over fear, which is the only true road to lasting security.

"Am I Not Human?" Blog Campaign: Gaza & The Palestinians

Electronic Village has initiated a blogging campaign for human rights, touching such crucial issues as the genocide in Darfur, held on the 27th of each month. Thinkbridge blog is proud to participate in this campaign, featuring today the human rights debacle that is Gaza in the Palestinian Territories.

Israel's continuing policy of collective punishment is in effect destroying Palestinian families' health and welfare, preventing them from making a living or even living. It is like living in a prison without being fed, clothed, medically attended to and denied access to all of the above. It is like slavery to a master who does not even acknowledge one's usefulness as, say, a worker. It is to be a community of pariahs, hated and condemned simply for being Palestinians, the original inhabitants of the lands including Israel. It is an occupation that grows like a cancer in the form of settlements, homes built for richer and more powerful Israelis who simply decide to bulldoze a couple, or a dozen, of the 4th-class "sub-human" Palestinian ancestral homes, in order to make way for what for all practical appearances looks like the Master Race, or at least the first-class citizens.

Of course, this kind of discussion is absolutely forbidden. From some of the history, many fear they could be targeted by a hit squad just for stating that this policy is racist, cruel, inhuman, oppressive, immoral, unfair, unjust, and despicable. It defies belief that the very people, the Jews, who suffered the most horrendous mass murder and torture and humiliation that anyone could have imagined under the Nazi regime in Germany, could now treat an entire people as sub-human, denying them basic human rights for medical care, trade, food, water, and fuel - all under the guise of "anti-terrorism". The Nazis, too, considered the Jews a "threat" to the German nation. They were a "security threat" in a way hauntingly parallel to the way Palestinian Arabs are seen as a "security threat" to the state of Israel.

Except the Jews were not the original inhabitants of Germany and were not displaced by German immigrants. This point is lost on most people, though.

In fact, the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians is in itself a type of Holocaust denial. What possible lessons could one gain from the Holocaust, if not the moral depravity of racism and of singling out one ethnic community for slaughter, torture, and denial of the right to basic human rights? Of course, Israel is not slaughtering or torturing Palestinians on the same scale the Nazis did to the Jewish people. But it is nonetheless absolutely denying Palestinians' human rights. And this, in fact, creates more enemies, hence a far greater security risk. Aside from the humanitarian issue. Are not Palestinians, too, human after all?

It seems the United States does not truly consider Palestinians human in the sense that Israeli Jews are human, except in carefully worded rhetoric. Whenever a single Jew is threatened or injured, the U.S. government is quick to condemn the "terrorists". Whenever a group of Palestinians are killed, even if they are children or minors, they are always depicted as "terrorists" or "militants" or, at best, "suspects". The word "terrorist" is the newest racist tool to deny a community its humanity. If they are "terrorists" or even "terrorist suspects", they are immediately and completely denied any right to be considered human.

Aside from that, the rest are, at best, "collateral damage". So the inhabitants of Gaza are "collateral damage", forgotten at the moment, their lives, sorrows and troubles are not our business, not of our interest. They have nothing to offer us, the idea goes. They are "terrorists", they are "Islamic militants" - another new term to deny humanness in others - and any attempt to defend themselves or their dignity is considered a "threat" which must be "subdued", usually by guns or air strikes. It is the very threat to their peace and the denial of their right to make a living or trade or even seek medical help that kills hope, the hope of being thought of as human.

While the Presidential candidates hold the world riveted until election day, places like the Gaza strip are very much forgotten and very much in the same progressively worse misery they were when some attention reached them. Thankfully, human rights groups inside Israel, and in other parts of the world are trying to do something.

A group of international experts Sunday blasted Israeli authorities for denying their entry into the Gaza Strip for a mental health conference, urging the international community to end Israel's actual occupation.

"We strongly protest the decision by the Israeli authorities to deny entry permits to 120 international academics and concerned professionals" who had been invited to attend the "Siege and Mental Health, Walls vs. Bridges" conference originally scheduled in Gaza City, said Professor Alice Rothschild from U.S. Harvard University at a press conference.

The Oct. 27-28 conference, sponsored by the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP) in cooperation with the Gaza office of World Health Organization (WHO), is aimed to examine the impact of the conflict in the Palestinian enclave on local children, families, and communities and to support the development of appropriate mental health and psycho-social services, said GCMHP in a statement.

The group said the WHO office handed over its request for entry permits for 80 experts and health professionals, mostly from Europe and North America, in late September, and 40 others submitted their applications via other channels.

In mid-October, the Israeli military authorities informed the WHO office that all requests were turned down, without giving any reason, according to the conference organizers.

Israel holds a knife at Palestine's throat, and anyone who wants to get in has to pass by that knife. Very few ever get past.

Miri Weingarten, a spokeswoman of the Physicians For Human Rights-Israel organization, said that her group contacted the relevant authorities and found that the denial was a political rather than security decision.
Meanwhile, the press conference also said that 16 doctors from Britain who planned to enter the poverty-stricken strip in November to treat local patients have also run into a closed door.

Note that many Jews are furious at this policy. It is not, certainly, a Jewish policy, but rather a right-wing Israeli policy. Note that the right-wing Israelis are aligned with the neocons in the Republican party in the U.S. It's time that these two right-wing movements stop being the Party of the Mean-Spirited and Cruel and face up to the fact that these policies are totally counterproductive.

And the cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians has not improved the conditions of Palestinians in Gaza from a humanitarian standpoint. The only beneficiary of this cease-fire has been Israel.

“If anything, existing evidence discloses a harsher regime of confinement and siege imposed on the Gazan population,” Richard Falk, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, told the General Assembly’s third committee (social, humanitarian and cultural) yesterday.

He said Palestinians continue to face difficulties in obtaining exit permits to receive specialised medical treatment in Israel or elsewhere that is not available in Gaza.

“Such delays and denial of permission has resulted in a growing number of tragic deaths, severe mental and physical suffering, and constitutes a violation of the duty of the occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention to take all reasonable steps to protect the health and well-being of the population under occupation, with exceptions only to the extent absolutely necessary for upholding security.

“These restrictions appear unrelated to credible security claims, and hence a punitive form of collective punishment, which is consistent with the overall maintenance of the siege that has been applied to Gaza since July 2007.”

Israel's claim of "security threats" seems excessive in this case, and the tragedy that is Gaza is unconscionable. Meanwhile, some Israeli settlers continue their violence even against Israeli authority when it curtails their extremist behavior. Just yesterday, October 26,

Israel's outgoing prime minister on Sunday called for a crackdown on extremist Jewish settlers who attacked and threatened Israeli troops and vandalized Palestinian property.

The settler rampage on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Hebron came after Israeli forces demolished an illegal settlement outpost that had been set up by a well-known ultranationalist extremist, Noam Federman.

But it's not an isolated incident - it's a movement.

Settlers also vandalized a nearby Muslim cemetery and slashed the tires of two dozen Arab-owned cars, the Israeli military said.

Israeli human rights groups and senior military officials have expressed concern about growing violence by the most militant among the about 300,000 West Bank settlers in recent months.

The Israeli army commander in the West Bank, Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni, warned in a newspaper interview earlier this month that the number of settlers engaged in violence has ``grown into the hundreds.''

Critics have long complained that settler vigilantes are allowed to act with impunity and that the security forces often look the other way, particularly when it comes to settler violence against Palestinians.

And it is this very movement that the less-extreme in Israel have to make concessions to, or at least think so. And act on that thought.
And so, when it comes to Gaza, things like education are almost an impossible dream:

The right to education is a fundamental human right - one not often honoured in the occupied Palestinian Territories, where thousands of students are blockaded by the Israeli authorities who refuse them the right to freedom of movement.

Rami Abdu, who last month succeeded in crossing the Rafah border to take up his PhD in finance at Manchester Metropolitan University, is one such victim. “I got a full scholarship to Manchester one and a half years ago. I tried to cross the border four times and I sent messages to human rights groups, but like many students I was unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, death is all too often the result of denied human rights. More than education or trade, the very right to live is being denied to an entire people.

At least 255 Palestinians, including approximately 100 children, died in Gaza awaiting Israeli-issued permits to leave for outside treatment. Medical facilities in the Strip are subpar with a lack of supplies, medicines and working equipment. Without imports repairs cannot be made and simple treatments are difficult to administer.

In Gaza, 81% of residents are living below the poverty line. And as for justice, picking up Palestinians or attacking their families and then arresting them is commonplace. After arrest?

According to B’Tselem some 85% of Palestinian detainees have been tortured during interrogation.

And in one year alone, 68 Gazan children were killed as a result of collective punishment by the Israeli government.

Since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have killed more than 860 children in the OPT, the majority of them in the Gaza Strip.

In response to these IOF killings of children, and IOF consistent use of excessive lethal force against Palestinian children, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights is launching "Blood on Their Hands" -- a major investigative report on child killings perpetrated by the IOF in the Gaza Strip.

"Blood on Their Hands" examines IOF killings of children in the Gaza Strip from June 2007 through June 2008. During this period, IOF killed 68 children in the Gaza Strip. (For the purpose of this reports, PCHR defines a child as a boy or girl younger than the age of 18 who is not taking part in hostilities.) The report provides data, analysis and testimonies on the killings of these children, including detailed testimonies from eye-witnesses and bereaved families, which highlight the horrific nature of these IOF child killings. The report also examines the psychological impact of child deaths on other children in the Gaza Strip, especially those children who have witnessed IOF killings.

Is this the way the "Sole Democracy in the Middle East" is shining a "light" to the supposedly "dark" neighbors??? Is this America's best friend? Or is Israel the tin man, in desperate need of getting back his heart?

Heathlander: Israel Gets License to Kill With Impunity

In spite of much-touted free speech in the blogosphere, it is still rare to find an eloquent advocate for human rights in that most unstable of border/nation disputes, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Heathlander is right at the top of those, in my view, and has brought up a critical issue: Israel's "free hand to kill" journalists, Palestinians, protesters, and other civilians who dislike its policies.

As you may recall, the brains heading up the British Israel Communications and Research Centre claimed in a recent(ish) letter to the Guardian that the death of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana (pictured) was “accidental” (see my response here). Shana was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza earlier this year when a tank crew fired two shells at him as he was filming from a mile away. Eight other civilians aged between 12 and 20, including six children under 16, were also killed in the attack.

An Israeli military inquiry this week reached the same conclusion, exonerating the soldiers responsible on the grounds that they had “reasonably” mistaken Shana’s camera for a mortar or anti-tank weapon. As excuses go this is nearly as risible as Israel’s claim that Mohammed Omer, a Palestinian journalist who suffered a complete nervous breakdown and several broken ribs after being beaten and tortured by Israeli agents, merely “lost his balance and fell“.

So we're talking about a pattern of behavior, and a pattern of covering up that behavior. There is definitely an almost unwritten code with the mainstream media that Israel is off-limits: nole mi tangere. This unwritten code, translated into something of a phobia, almost a knee-jerk refusal to question Israel's actions, has led to Israel's upping the ante, continuing a policy of Security Sanctions All.

Reuters condemned the decision as “effectively giving soldiers a free hand to kill”, thereby “severely curtail[ing] the freedom of the media to cover the conflict.”

Also noted,

The effect of the ruling, Amnesty concluded, will be to “reinforce the culture of impunity that has led to so many reckless and disproportionate killings of children and other unarmed civilians by Israeli forces in Gaza.”

Read more...

Israel Antoinette Always Gets the Cake, So Why Does She Use Thug Tactics?

Dahr Jamail tells of this harrowing experience suffered by Muhammad Omer, a Palestinian journalist who, along with Dahr Jamail, received the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in London on 16 June (1).

On his return home, Omer was badly beaten up and physically and psychologically abused by Israel's security forces, Shin Bet. At the Allenby Bridge crossing, from Jordan to the West Bank, he was met by the Dutch official who was to ferry him back into Gaza. The official waited outside as Omer entered the Israeli building. Omer was told to turn off his mobile phone and remove the battery. When he asked if he could call his embassy escort, he was told sternly he was not allowed. A Shin Bet officer searched his luggage and rifled through his documents. "Where's the money?" he asked Omer. "Where are the English pounds you have?" They wanted to confiscate his prize money, which Omer was wise enough not to carry on his person.

Omer was surrounded by eight armed Shin Bet officers. This is how he described what happened next. "A man called Avi ordered me to take off my clothes. I had already been through an x-ray machine. I stripped down to my underwear and was told to take off everything. When I refused, Avi put his hand on his gun. I began to cry: `Why are you treating me this way? I am a human being.' He said: `This is nothing compared with what you will see now.' He took his gun out, pressing it to my head, and with his full body weight pinning me on my side, he forcibly removed my underwear. He then made me do a concocted sort of dance. Another man, who was laughing, said:
`Why are you bringing perfumes?' I replied: `They are gifts for the people I love.' He said: `Oh, do you have love in your culture?'

"I had now been without food and water and the toilet for 12 hours and, having been made to stand, my legs buckled. I vomited and passed out. All I remember is one of them gouging, scraping and clawing with his nails at the tender flesh beneath my eyes. He scooped my head and dug his fingers in near the auditory nerves between my head and eardrum. The pain became sharper as he dug in two fingers at a time. Another man had his combat boot on my neck, pressing it into the hard floor. I lay there for over an hour. The room became a menagerie of pain, sound and terror."

Now you may think this can't be a pattern of behavior, it may be, as reported back in 2000 by the Guardian, typical of the era from '88-'92, the Intifada, and things have since been rectified. And such practices of physical coercion were banned by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1999. Since then it's documented that only "moderate physical pressure" can be exerted against terrorist or other suspects. What that means may be open to interpretation. Perhaps humiliation, sexual degradation, and physical deprivation are "moderate" to Shin Bet.

Or maybe the right-wing in Israel considers all of that irrelevant: declare a self-defense and its battles, and impose a humanitarian disaster on an entire population of men, women and children. Which, of course, means Gaza. As stated here:

The humanitarian condition of the one and a half million men, women and children illegally incarcerated in Gaza is now at its worst point in the last 40 years of Israeli occupation.

Israel’s pitiable attempts to achieve absolute security through absolute domination have only led us all into disaster. The rocket attacks by militants in Gaza against Israeli civilians are as deplorable as they are predictable – given the suffering caused by this blockade – but these attacks are also irrelevant to the humanitarian catastrophe caused by Israel’s siege. The one does not justify the other. The one cannot justify the other.

Self-defense to Israel also can mean, say, decimating the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon - like the country's one major airport - in response to the kidnapping by one group of two Israeli soldiers. This is certainly not covered by "torture" statutes. It's war, and all's fair...

Meanwhile, what's wrong with a little incarceration? What's wrong with incarcerating the entire population of Gaza because of the rocket attacks on Israel? What's wrong with incarcerating Palestinian journalists? What's wrong with slanting the news? What's wrong with violating human rights? What's wrong with a little "pressure" now and then? What's wrong with a few lies? What's wrong with being heavy-handed? What's wrong with Israel holding more than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of them without charges, detention being renewable every 6 months??? Israel cannot be held accountable for any of its actions. Israel is above reproach. Israel has not been fully born yet, apparently. Israel considers itself forever under siege, extremely delicate, more so than Marie Antoinette, a virtual fetus trapped in a virtual womb, waiting to be born. Born, presumably, by C-section, judging by the heavy use of the virtual, or actual, sword, or its more explosive surrogates.

As the very astute Seth Freedman of the Guardian said in reporting about Israeli Jews with a totally different attitude towards Palestinians:

Despite the general perception that Israeli Jews are under constant threat of attack when they venture into the Wild West Bank, a group of dedicated volunteers from the Villages Group put paid to that myth on their regular solidarity visits to local Palestinian farmers. "Perhaps we cannot bring about a general peace," reads their website, "but we can perform deeds of peace."

In fact, Mr. Freedman titles his article "Ehud, Noam and Elad disprove the myth that Jews who venture into the West Bank are putting their lives in danger", referring to members of the Villages Group who are dedicated, along with other humanitarian groups, to creating a bridge between Israeli and Palestinian people in spite of all efforts of the Israeli government to keep the two neighbors in a constant state of war, fear, and conflict.

But for every small step forward Ehud and his colleagues make in terms of bridge building, the Israeli government and the IDF make ten massive leaps back. We visited the cave village of Mukfara, whose recently-built, minuscule mosque has just been issued with a demolition order by the army. "Settlers build illegally day after day," said Mahmud Hammada, the muchtar of the hamlet, "whilst we are on our recognised land yet still cannot even build a mosque in which to pray."

As Dahr Jamail pointed out:

The fourth Geneva Convention (GC) (1949) states: (1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons: (a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture (c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment."

B'tselem documents so much Israeli violation of the Geneva Conventions - to this very day and hour - that it's obvious Israel joins Dick Cheney & George W. Bush et. al. in their disregard for human rights when it comes to human rights-abusers' favorite Reason for All Abuses: security. They seek absolute security. Absolute control. In the case of Israel, absolute authority of Jews over and to the exclusion of all other nationalities. And this is unconscionable. It corrupts absolutely. Let the guilty take responsibility.

The Israeli military regularly bombs and uses snipers to attack Palestinian ambulances. Article 20 of the 1949 GC states: "Persons regularly and solely engaged in the operation and administration of civilian hospitals, including the personnel engaged in the search for, removal and transporting of and caring for wounded and sick civilians, the infirm and maternity cases shall be respected and protected."

Is it not ethnic cleansing? And why torment journalists for telling the truth? What is Israel trying to hide, if "security" truly justifies all?

Israel has blockaded Gaza, isolating and starving the 1.5 million Palestinians who live there. In 2006 Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said: "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet,
but not to make them die of hunger."

He's so out of touch with compassion, he makes a joke out of it.

Article 23 of the 1949 GC states: "Each High Contracting Party shall allow the free passage of all consignments of medical and hospital stores and objects necessary for religious worship intended only for civilians of another High Contracting Party, even if the latter is its adversary. It shall likewise permit the free passage of all consignments of essential foodstuffs, clothing and tonics intended for children under 15, expectant mothers and maternity cases."

The Israeli government has threatened to close orphanages for Palestinian children in Hebron, which would be another violation of international law, for article 24 of the Geneva Convention states clearly: "The Parties to the conflict shall take the necessary measures to ensure that children under fifteen, who are orphaned or are separated from their families as a result of the war, are not left to their own resources, and that their maintenance, the exercise of their religion and their education are facilitated in all circumstances. Their education shall, as far as possible, be entrusted to persons of a similar cultural tradition."

Obviously, GC principles were also violated in Omer's treatment by the Shin Bet.
The Israeli government sees itself as above the Geneva Convention, in much the same way the Bush-Cheney administration sees itself as above the GC, and for the same reason: Security.

Security is the reasons all human rights abusers use to justify their abuse. All dictators use security to justify their abuse of power. And it's the number one reason they "suppress the press." Strongarming journalists is normally the tactic of totalitarians, governments who don't want the people to know what's going on. Is that the case with Israel, or what????

Attacking journalists is not new. On 16 April Fadel Shanaa, a Palestinian
cameraman working for the news agency Reuters, was killed by a rocket fired
during an Israeli military incursion into the Gaza Strip. His assistant, Wafa Barbakh, was seriously injured. Both were in vehicle clearly marked "Press". This appears to be part of systematic targeting of journalists by the Israeli military. Since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000, the Israeli military has killed at least nine journalists, including an Italian and a Briton. At least 170 other journalists have been wounded by the Israeli military during this period.

Former Dutch ambassador Jan Wijenberg said of what happened to Omer: "This is by no means an isolated incident, but part of a long-term strategy to demolish Palestinian social, economic and cultural life... I am aware of the possibility that Mohammed Omer might be murdered by Israeli snipers or bomb attack in the near future. . . [Omer] is a moderating voice, urging Palestinian youth not to court hatred but seek peace with Israel."
Janet McMahon, managing editor of the Washington Report on Middle East
Affairs, for which Omer writes, says he is still in hospital. "He may go home,
or have an operation. He's still in a lot of pain, and it's hard for him to
swallow, or to breathe deeply. He's being fed intravenously."

Obviously, to the Israeli government, Omer is merely a security risk, not a human being, much less a journalist with certain rights. They don't bother to see if he really poses a threat, but bulldoze him like so much Palestinian ... paraphernalia? what's the term that combines "homes" with "trash"? ... like the unwanted Palestinian presence bulldozed for the ethnically pure settlers whose rights are inalienable, unlike the rights of Palestinians. Is this not racist?? Well, honestly, is not Israeli policy both racist - OPENLY racist! - and at the same time smacks of totalitarianism, if you happen to be born on the wrong side of the DNA tracks.

Israel's "gross imbalance of power" is funded by none other than Uncle Superpower. It's absolutely cool on all sides of the U.S. political spectrum to sing the praises of Israel and vow to defend it tooth and nail, even if it means violating a Geneva Convention clause or two. Who gives a damn about the Geneva Conventions anyway? We want power, security, not "human rights". Damn those "human rights activists", always getting in the way.

That's why "absolute power corrupts absolutely." Human rights are the basis for most moral codes, and abandoning those, even partly, means one has become corrupt.

According to Defence for Children International, Israel has "engaged in gross violations of international human rights and humanitarian law". Between 1967 and 2003, Israel destroyed over 10,000 Palestinian homes, and that continues.

So how can they claim to be any better than Bush, Cheney, or any of a number of dictatorships in Africa, Asia, or elsewhere that we will not name, and whom we dare condemn? How in good conscience can America give a carte blanche to this flagrant affront to justice and goodwill in the name of security? Easy. Do it all the time. In the Middle East, America makes sure Israel Antoinette always gets the cake. And America makes sure she defends it, too. By all means, by all means...

Israeli Soldiers Stand Guard as Settlers Tie Palestinian Farmer to Pole, Beat Him

Alerted by Heathlander at this post, you can also see the original article in Ha'aretz, with videos on both sites.

A group of West Bank settlers on Saturday beat a 31-year-old Palestinian man in the southern Hebron Hills, after having tied him to a telephone pole. Left-wing activists later videoed a settler kicking Madahat Abu-Kirash, the victim, as he remained tied up and was surrounded by Israeli security forces. The soldiers subsequently removed the settler from the scene. Hebron police opened an investigation into the incident after Abu-Kirash submitted a complaint, claiming that he had been beaten all over his body.

According to the left-wing organization Ta'ayush, whose members were close to the scene of the assault and witnessed part of it, the incident began when residents of the settlement of Asael accused Abu-Kirash of setting a field alight a few hundred meters away from their homes. Abu-Kirash, a teacher, told the settlers in response that he had come to perform agricultural work on land he owns. He denied any connection to the fire. Ta'ayush members said that the Palestinian's explanation was of no avail, and the settlers proceeded to forcibly take him to the bounds of the settlement, where they tied him up and beat him.

IDF troops who were called to the area gave him medical treatment on the spot, after which a Red Crescent ambulance took him to a hospital. Abu-Kirash later returned to his home from the hospital. "When we arrived at the scene there were already lots of the army's troops. I saw a settler approach him and kick him, as he was tied to the pole... [Abu-Kirash's] whole body was bound up, I saw they bandaged a head wound and he was half unconscious," said a Ta'ayush activist who was present during the incident. The chairperson of the South Hebron hills regional council, Zviki Bar-Hai told Haaretz that those responsible for starting the fire and setting the nearby fields ablaze were not from the area, rather they were either Palestinians or extreme left-wing activists.

A month ago, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem released a video which it said showed the start of an assault on Palestinian farmers by masked, stick-wielding Israeli settlers.

Will this too be sanitized before people can see it?