let us see what love can do

Published on Friday, January 9, 2009 by The Nation
Israel: Boycott, Divest, Sanction
by 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.

An Unnecessary War by: Jimmy Carter
The Washington Post-Thursday 08 January 2009

I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided.

After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had moved to other communities, and the streets, playgrounds and shopping centers were almost empty. Mayor Eli Moyal assembled a group of citizens in his office to meet us and complained that the government of Israel was not stopping the rockets, either through diplomacy or military action.

Knowing that we would soon be seeing Hamas leaders from Gaza and also in Damascus, we promised to assess prospects for a cease-fire. From Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was negotiating between the Israelis and Hamas, we learned that there was a fundamental difference between the two sides. Hamas wanted a comprehensive cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis refused to discuss anything other than Gaza.

We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day.

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Kinder USA is planning further operations in the region focusing on clean water and primary health care for children. Kinder USA will continue to update our donors as the information becomes available. Please continue to support our efforts by making an online donation of $500, $250, $100, or whatever you can afford on our website at www.kinderusa.org and choose Gaza ER on the drop down menu. We cannot stress the extreme gravity of the current situation nor the uncertain future.

The current situation in Gaza is appalling. 13,000 civilians have fled their homes, more than half children, and are now living in schools set up as shelters by UNRWA. For the majority of the population, there are no safe areas to flee. Hospitals in Gaza are overflowing with many dying in the hallways before being seen due to the overwhelming number of casualties. Generators are the sole power source keeping the hospitals operating around the clock; this will come to an end due to fuel shortages and spare parts making it impossible to operate life saving equipment.

We Lived to Tell the Story; Lebanon Rescued Us

Cynthia McKinney Date : 01-01-2009
http://www.freegaza.org/index.php?module=latest_news&id=c4ae4cd72afee54c...

Yesterday, we met with the President of Lebanon, the Chief of the Military, and the Interior Minister who all thanked us for responding and risking our lives on a mission of mercy; we profusely thanked them for rescuing us.

What would we have done, stranded out at sea, prohibited from reaching our destination, low on fuel, with a badly damaged boat if Lebanon had not accepted us? Lebanon sent their ships to find us. Lebanon rescued us. Lebanon welcomed us. And we are truly thankful.

Understanding the War on Gaza http://www.empirenotes.org/
They say the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime; it’s as good an explanation as any of the IDF’s reoccupation of the ruins of the settlement at Netzarim, near Gaza City.

For the majority of the Israeli population right now, including most definitely those settlers in the reserves who are back in their old stomping grounds after three years, the crime was the abandonment of the settlement and the withdrawal of military forces from permanent posts in Gaza.

Top 5 Lies about Israel's Assault on Gaza --By Jeremy R. Hammond --01/03/2009 --PalestineChronicle.com

'No place is safe within the Gaza Strip.' (Zoriah - zoriah.net)

Lie #1: Israel is only targeting legitimate military sites and is seeking to protect innocent lives. Israel never targets civilians.

NEW YEARS EVE with GEORGE W. BUSH (aka WORSE. PRESIDENT. EVER.)
By Linda Foley

A few days before New Year's Eve, the word went out......W is in Crawford! That was the universal distress signal among local anti-war and social justice activists to prepare for a road trip!

I went through my Camp Casey-Peace House closet and started pulling out the basics: air mattress, emergency rain poncho, flashlights, hand- and foot-warmer packs, quilt, protest signs, markers and poster board.

We will not be silent ---Kay Lucas

On the last day of 2008, the Waco Tribune-Herald made a rather mocking comment on the Editorial Page about Col. Ann Wright showing up in Hawaii as a war protestor to protest the President-Elect.

What perfect Universal alignment, that Barack Obama comes from the residential state of the most honored of U.S. peace activists, former U.S. Ambassador, Col. Wright. The editorial stated that Col. Wright wore a shirt imprinted with the statement: We will not be silent; a shirt that has become her new uniform. Wright also carried a sign that read: “Change U.S. Foreign Policy-Yes We Can,” while another sign read “Free Palestine.”

Who has more credibility to question US foreign policy? With her 26 years of military service to her country and additional years of serving in Ambassadorships in war torn regions across the globe, Col. Wright follows in the footsteps of other great former warriors turned peace activists, such as General Smedley Butler who wrote War is a Racket.

We should pay close attention to Col. Wright, who served as Deputy Chief of Mission to Afghanistan in 2001 – 2002, and others who “question authority,” as true patriots who seek to restore our country’s credibility as a world leader. Our country finds itself facing unprecedented challenges on numerous fronts and complacency with the status quo of US foreign policy threatens to continue our downward spiral. As Naomi Kline illustrates in her excellent book Shock Doctrine-The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, our leaders have led us to the edge of the precipice. We really must ask some hard questions, such as:

Why do we continue to supply $2.4 billion in aid to Israel? As reported in the Dec. 14, Parade’s, Intelligence Report, a Tribune-Herald supplement, “virtually all of that money is used to buy weapons (up to 75% made in the U.S. ) Beginning in 2009, the U.S. plans to give $30 billion over 10 years.”

Perhaps some Central Texas citizens were irritated and annoyed by protests from Wright and other peace activists who questioned the Bush regime. That pales in comparison to what the Palestinians (and Iraqis) have endured for years. While American war profiteers were enriched by our tax dollars being used as shocking and awful exploding torments to Palestinians cut off from basic human necessities of water, food and medical supplies for years by the U.S. supported Israeli government.

I’m honored to call Col. Ann Wright my friend, and proud to have joined her in inflicting a little irritation to the locals; to national and international government and the media, as we stood up and spoke out about our governments’ policies. I’m confident that I speak for other peace activists, as well. I am not proud that I was somewhat ignorant of those policies until I became involved with the Crawford Texas Peace House and the Waco Friends of Peace. However, I have learned much more truth about U.S. foreign policy from Wright and other local, national and international peace activists over the past six years than I have from corporate media. Ignorance may be bliss, but it often leads to disaster.

New Years in Crawford.

The Brush-cutter in Chief is in residence through New Years Day.

Alan, Harrison and Doris were there yesterday to continue the ongoing vigil of distress. This is a last opportunity of 2008 to express an opinion. The Peace House will be open and Janelle Ellis has offered to come and cook again this year.

The House is available for our peacemaking family, so do come and help close the final year of this disastrous reign of terror and join us in ringing in a New Year in the ongoing struggle for peace and justice.

Please reply if you are coming.

May Peace Finally Prevail on Earth.
Kay

Starhawk on Gaza Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Dear friends,

All day I’ve been thinking about Gaza, listening to reports on NPR, following the news on the internet when I can spare a moment. I’ve been thinking about the friends I made there four years ago, and wondering how they are faring, and imagining their terror as the bombs fall on that giant, open-air prison.

The Israeli ambassador speaks movingly of the terror felt by Israeli children as Hamas rockets explode in the night. I agree with him—that no child should have her sleep menaced by rocket fire, or wake in the night fearing death.

But I can’t help but remember one night on the Rafah border, sleeping in a house close to the line, watching the children dive for cover as bullets thudded into the walls. There was a shell-hole in the back room they liked to jump through into the garden, which at that time still held fruit trees and chickens. Their mother fed me eggs, and their grandmother stuffed oranges into my pockets with the shy pride every gardener shares.

That house is gone, now, along with all of its neighbors. Those children wake in the night, every night of their lives, in terror. I don’t know if they have survived the hunger, the lack of medical supplies, the bombs. I only know that they are children, too.

I’ve ridden on busses in Israel. I understand that gnawing fear, the squirrely feeling in the pit or your stomach, how you eye your fellow passengers wondering if any of them are too thick around the middle. Could that portly fellow be wearing a suicide belt, or just too many late night snacks of hummus? That’s no way to live.

But I’ve also walked the pock-marked streets of Rafah, where every house bears the scars of Israeli snipers, where tanks prowled the border every night, where children played in the rubble, sometimes under fire, and this was all four years ago, when things were much, much better there.

And I just don’t get it. I mean, I get why suicide bombs and homemade rockets that kill innocent civilians are wrong. I just don’t get why bombs from F16s that kill far more innocent civilians are right. Why a kid from the ghetto who shoots a cop is a criminal, but a pilot who bombs a police station from the air is a hero.