A small (10 m long) catamaran with pro-Palestinian activists of Jewish ethnicity has set sail from Cyprus in yet another attempt to breach the siege of the macro-camp for displaced persons in South Palestine. The boat, named Irene, carries fishing nets in a nonviolent act of defiance against Zionist apartheid, 8 crew members and two journalists.
Reuven Moskovitz, an Holocaust survivor, 82, declared:
It is a sacred duty for me, as a survivor, to protest against the persecution, the oppression and the imprisonment of so many people in Gaza, including more than 800,000 children.
He also said: we are two peoples but we have one future.
Reuven Moskowitz, Israeli citizen. Founder of unsegregated village Neve Shalom – Wahat al Salaam (Oasis of Peace). He is an Holocaust survivor.
Rami Elhanan, Israeli citizen. Lost his daughter Smadar in a suicide bombing in 1997 and is founding member of Bereaved Families Circle of Israelis and Palestinians (association of victims of the conflict).
Lilian Rosengarten, US citizen. Peace activist and psychotherapost. She is a refugee from Nazi persecution.
Yonatan Shapira, Israeli citizen. Former military pilot and member of Combatants for Peace.
Glyn Secker, British citizen. He is the boat captain and a member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians Executive Commitee.
Edith Lutz, German citizen. She is peace activist and a nurse. She was in the first boat to Gaza in 2008.
Update: somewhat anecdotally, Jews sans frontieres mentions today that Marion Kozak, mother of the two confronted Labor party leaders Ed and David Miliband, is among the 1600 signatories supporting the boat, whose names will be displayed in colorful banners by the crew, as member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians. She is a veteran left wing and Labor Party militant.
Update (Sep 28): Israel has taken the boat today. Not yet known whether in international or Gaza waters, in another illegal action in any case. The boat flies British flag so this is technically an act of war against the United Kingdom.
Physicians for Human Rights has asked for access to the kidnapped crew, as at least one of them is known to have a chronic illness and needs medical care.
Not long, dynamic and very explanatory video on what is wrong with Israel (if you had still any doubt). It is available in several languages (version here in English).
The fact that it can explain so much in so little time really shows why Israel and its Lobby cannot win even the propaganda war: because truth defends itself and does it with relative ease, because it's too easy to identify the racist, colonialist and genocidal nature of this abhorrent polity.
It has been named The Audacity of Hope, not for Obama but for his former pastor Jeremiah Wright, whom he shunned in order to get to the White House but from whom he borrowed the phrase anyhow.
I've just now come to know of this nonviolent movement of Israeli anarchists and other anti-Zionists against the wall of shame that Israel has set to enforce apartheid in Palestine.
Looks promising, specially as they have been growing slowly but steadily along the years. With the many differences, I can hint to a parallel with the antimilitarist struggle we held in the 1980s and early 1990s against conscription in the state of Spain, which was a total success.
The keys of the success were, I understand: nonviolence, pedagogy, grassroots organization and the fact that the system was so rotten and delegitimized that it was relatively easy to pull it down. Of course people went to jail for that... but that was part of the plan.
Similarly the state of Israel and its apartheid and criminal genocide is morally bankrupt and it is just a matter of time until it falls.
This kind of struggle is what is needed in order to mend the wounds. It is important, I think, that the lead is being taken by people with no religion when it is that farce of religious sectarianism what is used as pretext for apartheid and colonization.
When the early eurocentric UN approved to divide Palestine in two and give more than half to a mere 30% of its residents, mostly recent arrivals from Europe, it took a most unjust and criminal decision overall but maybe it is particularly striking that nearly all the "empty quarter" of the Negev desert, which was 100% Arab, was also given to the new State of Israel.
Ethnic cleansing, genocide, wars, massacres followed... they are still our daily bread. Now the Jewish National Fund and the State of Israel are forcing Bedouins out of their traditional settlements into US-like "Indian reservations". They are technically "Israeli citizens" but that won't make a difference: they don't belong to the chosen race and hence they are an obstacle for the mad Nazi dream of Israel of a state only for Jews in the land of others.
Some historical maps of the Zionist land-grab, to help understanding of the perpetual Nakba:
Conquest and banstustanization:
Ethnic composition in 1946 (after the post WWII Jewish migrations but before partition):
Jews were then only majority in Jaffa (modern Tel Aviv urban area) and most had arrived that very year. Before WWII there were only 10% Jews in Palestine.
You can see that there were virtually no Jews south of Jerusalem but still the eurocentric UN of the time (still more than a decade until generalized decolonization) gave the projected Jewish state almost all of that region.
And now they evict the Bedouins with tax-deductible donations.
Where did all those terrorized and expelled Palestinians go?
To Jordan, Gaza, the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon, in this order. Gaza's population is made up essentially of refugees from what is now the State of Israel and their descendants. In Jordan and the West Bank registered refugees comprise 1/3 of all population, almost 1/8 in Lebanon. Others ended up in Kuwait, where they cheered Saddam Hussein's invasion (liberation?) which granted them citizenship, and yet others are scattered around the world.
Sources:Jews sans frontieres (video), Palestine Monitor (map), Public Opinion (map), Arab Though Forum (map). Some of the maps are originally from PASSIA, which has a great collection of historical maps of Palestine, which help understanding the essential crime of Israel and why this conflict has no solution while Israel is not forced to yield to the demands of the natives of Palestine.
Update: a report emphasizing the role of Israeli students, who volunteered as "police assistants", and their Nazi attitudes is available at Voltaire Net.
The evicted
and the evictors.
Feels to the Night of Broken Glass, really. But it's the daily bread at Nazi Israel.
The Israeli armed forces attacked several places in Gaza strip tonight, including Gaza city, murdering 12. One of them is said to be a leader of Hamas, the Islamist party which won the latest Palestinian elections, namely Issa Batran, 42.
I presume that all or most other victims are civilians. At this moment no figure of injured or relations of buildings or infrastructure destroyed are known to me.
Any undiscriminated attack on civilian areas and refugee camps are immoral and illegal war crimes. Furthermore there has been no provocation whatsoever that Zionists could use this time to pretend any justification for this attack, which is the first of its kind since the terrible and genocidal bombing of 2009.
Even more worrisome is the lack of apparent mention in the usual mainstream media such as BBC or Al Jazeera. I could only find reference at The Guardian.
I wonder how is the Zionist regime going to face the dramatic growth of nonviolent resistance initiatives against its apartheid system. After the announcement of a German Jewish organization of a new such anti-blockade ship, now it is Lebanese women who are organizing their own.
The reaction of the Zionazi bully has been to make war threats against Lebanon, arbitrarily making its government "responsible" from this "crime" of trying to bring aid to people who need it desperately.
Israel sends ship, within a 11-ship-strong US fleet and Egyptian protection, across the Suez canal. Hostile intent against Iran suspected (Y-Net News).
Interview with UN rapporteur on human rights in Palestine, Richard Falk (Window into Palestine).
Alan Hart: Israel’s Jews (as well as the Jews of the world and the whole of the Western world) had been lied to and deceived by their leaders (Window into Palestine).
The chorus of voices against the criminal blockade of Gaza continues growing. Now Amnesty International has denounced that the alleged "easing" of the blockade by Israel is nothing but a whitewash and that the Zionist state does not mean to actually comply with international law and stop punishing the people of Gaza as a whole.
In a press releaste, , Malcom Smart, AI Director for the Middle East and North Africa, declared:
This announcement sets clear that Israel does not intend to put an end to the collective punishment against the people of Gaza but only to mitigate it. This is not enough.
Although we must congratulate about any measure that smoothers the terrible humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel must comply with his obligations as occupying power under international law and immediately end the blockade.
As important as allowing the entrance of merchandises into Gaza is to allow their exit, something not mentioned in the government's announcement. The ban on most exports, on raw materials, on the free movement of people, has destroyed Gaza's economy.
It surprised me very much because the policy of the Red Cross is not to make public declarations in order to preserve their neutrality and keep the cooperation with all governments and other combatant forces.
It just underlines how dire and in violation of all humanitarian and even war law is the situation in Gaza, often compared with the Nazi concentration camps and the Warsaw ghetto.
The whole of Gaza's civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility. The closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law, declared the ICRC.
[Update: please read my 2012 independent analysis of Western Jews, Palestinians and other populations of West Asia, which adds some interesting nuances but in essence confirms what is said here].
This does not seem just another paper on Jewish genetics but more like The Paper. While it is pay per view and hence I haven't been able to read it in full , the material I could see at Dienekes' blog (same as in the supplementary material) is most revealing. I think this research will mark a before and after in Jewish genetics and also gives some interesting hints on other populations, specially in West Asia and North Africa.
One of the good things is that finally comparison with Turks and other populations from that area where early Jewish Diaspora in the Hellenistic-Roman era is known to have lived, rather than in Palestine, in a time when Judaism (several sects including eventually Christianism) was still actively proselytizing.
Unlike what I used to think, Western Jews (Sephardi and Ashkenazi) do not cluster too well with the Turkish sample but they cluster almost perfectly with Cypriots and Lebanese. They seem to have no particular relation with Palestinians (nor Druze nor Negev Bedouins) but these also appear clearly different from other Arabs and in general any other sampled population.
This K-means analysis is for me the answer to all these endless discussions on the origin of Jews and Palestinians. Western Jews seem essentially to have coalesced in the Cypriot-Phoenician area probably by, essentially, conversion. Palestinians seem to be a uniquely distinct population, albeit somewhat admixed with their neighbors, which may well originate with the local Neolithic and certainly must have been there in early historical times.
In other words: Palestinians are most likely to be the true descendants from the Jews of the Biblical period, rather than modern Western Jews who seem more as originating from a Phoenician-Cypriot population which converted to Rabbinic Judaism for whichever reasons.
Other Jewish populations also seem to originate in conversion episodes but from different genetic pools. Hence Yemeni Jews appear as genetically Arab, Ethiopian Jews as Ethiopian, Indian Jews as Indian and Iraqi-Iranian Jews as Iranians. There may be some fine threading to enrich this overall picture but the essentials seem very clear in any case.
Anyhow, Moroccan Jews appear as just another branch of Western Jews (no particular relation with Moroccans is apparent) and I have not been able so far to identify the closest population to the small sample of Uzbek Jews. Also Turco-European Jews seem at least somewhat admixed with Europeans, something that was already well known.
As for other populations, I find interesting that an specific autosomal component of NW Africans has been detected (for the first time as far as I can tell). Many specific clusters have obviously not been detected because of the relative shallowness of the K-means analysis.
The supplementary materials have other interesting graphs, PC analysis of autosomal, Y-DNA and mtDNA genetics and a global K-means analysis of relevance when observing some peripheral Jewish populations specially but also providing some general hints on other populations (a very wide sample, specially in Eurasia).
I must cheer and congratulate the authors of this research for finally addressing the debate on Jewish (and Palestinian) origins with a worthy extended sample of many many populations, including key ones such as Turks, Cypriots and Lebanese (among others). The wording of the abstract doesn't say things as clearly as I do but their data speaks volumes.
Update: A reader, Joe, tells me that H.G. Wells already suggested this Phoenician true origin of Jews. In his book A Short History of the World, chapter XXII, he wrote, speaking of Semitic peoples, once all powerful but then defeated by the Indoeuropeans (Persians, Greeks, Romans):
Is it any miracle that in their days of overthrow and subjugation many Babylonians and Syrians and so forth, and later on many Phoenicians, speaking practically the same language and having endless customs, habits, tastes and traditions in common, should be attracted by this inspiring cult [Judaism] and should seek to share in its fellowship and its promise? After the fall of Tyre, Sidon, Carthage and the Spanish Phoenician cities, the Phoenicians suddenly vanish from history; and as suddenly, we find not simply in Jerusalem but in Spain, Africa, Egypt, the East, wherever the Phoenicians had set their feet, communities of Jews.
A brief review of the latest events re. the Zionist attack against the Freedom Flotilla and new initiatives.
17 activists still missing. Israel threw people to the sea
Window into Palestine reports that 17 peace activists who were aboard the Mavi Marmara are still unaccounted for and feared dead.
According to this source, Israeli troops threw four injured people to the sea and shot at blank point the man who raised the white flag indicating surrender and several people who were already hadcuffed.
This tells me that the lack of any sort of reaction by other countries may have co-adjuvated to some of the deads. Because most aboard the ship weared life jackets, so if a rescue mission would have been sent, they had a chance of finding those thrown by Israel to the sea still alive.
More videos, photos and first-person accounts
More raw footage has emerged, along with photos and declarations, clarifying the events at the Mavi Marmara. You can watch the video of some of the hottest moments of the Zionist aggression and pictures of the two Israeli soldiers neutralized in apparent self-defense actions by the people on the ship, and then taken care of by the very same people, at Ali Abuminah's blog.
Then you can read to Ken O'Keefe's first person account of the events aboard the Mavi Marmara and then in Israeli military prisons, where he was tortured, at Window into Palestine. An important read to understand about nonviolence and self-defence, including quotes from Ghandi.
O'Keefe. Injuries courtesy of Israeli torturers
Al Jazeera's Jamal Eishayyal, a UK citizen, also has a first person account of the events aboard the Mavi Marmara and how the British government totally ignored him.
Unions take action
It is also important to mention how worker unions are taking direct action against Israel. Justice reported yesterday that a Swedish dock workers' union has declared a week of strict boycott against Israel at all Swedish ports. Today WiP reports that British largest union Unite has voted to join the BDSM campaign in the hope to replicate the workers' resistence that was so crucial in dismantling South African apartheid.
Jewish ship to be sent to Gaza with aid
Jewish activists have decided to join the actions against the blockade of Gaza by fleeting their own aid ship to break the blockade, reports Justice.
Israel legitimacy to exist questioned
There is also an interesting article by Christopher King at Window into Palestine denying the legitimacy of Israel to exist on light of international law and historical SdN/UN resolutions. The key issue being the rights of the natives of Palestine, logically.
Maybe, in all this stressful week of informations about the Zionist shameless murders and the Freedom Flotilla heroism, you remember that the ambassador of Israel in Spain, Raphael Schutz, totally lost his temper, perspective of reality or just somehow let his dark Nazi-Zionist soul get out of protocol at an interview with newspaper El Períodico... and shamelessly compared the victims of Israeli murders aboard the Mavi Marmara with those of traffic accidents (mentioned here on Friday), exclaiming "who cares?"
Today, the mother of one of the persons aboard the ship, journalist David Segarra (mentioned here), who yesterday returned to his hometown of Valencia among demonstrations of support, has published an open letter to Schutz that I am translating here integrally:
To the ambassador of Israel in Spain
Mister Schutz:
I am the mother of David Segarra Soler. Now it is 5 am of June 2nd. It is dawning at Valencia and I just learned of the liberation of all those kidnapped in Israeli territory, among them my son.
I must confess that right now I don't feel any hatred to you nor towards the state you represent, not because of an altruist nor noble nor religious reason, but because of pure egoism: hate destroys. A good example of this is being offered by your state to the World. Born from the feeling of collective guilt by a cowardly Europe that was not able to defend its Jewish citizens from another monstrous and self-destroying hate, Nazi hate, it would seem as if history has not taught you anything. You are repeating the same patterns of hatred, of death, of dehumanization of the rival, of occupation of lands, of construction of walls and barbed wire fences, of racial arrogance... just that now the victims do not carry a star sewn to their clothes and the ghetto is not in Warsaw. It is in Gaza and the West Bank.
I will not tell you about the personal hell I have gone through these days. It would be ridiculous when compared with the daily and continuous pain of the Palestinian mothers. I am a lucky woman: my son David comes back from the massacre of the Mavi Marmara alive and well. You may have destroyed his only "lethal weapon": the video-camera. But what you forget in your blind hatred is that human beings have eyes, ears, mouth and memory to tell the World all the horror they have witnessed. And against that, Mr. Schutz, all your powerful propaganda can do nothing.
I bid you farewell without further ado and in the more exciting moment of my life I want to transmit to you, as representative of Israel in my country, my deepest pity. As much pity as immense is the admiration for my son, whom you, with all your terror machinery, have not been able to bring into submission. The same that you will never be able to force the Palestinian People into submission either.
Free Gaza has posted today at their site an article saying that the ship is just 150 miles from Gaza. However:
The passengers on board the ship have stated, “communication is difficult and sometimes impossible and there are many rumors out there started by Israeli authorities, but there is no way we are going to Ashdod. We are, for sure, on our way to Gaza.”
The Malayo-Irish crew includes a Nobel Prize laureate, a Malaysian MP, a former UN Assistant Secretary General, a former Political Secretary to the PM of Malaysia, among other people, including Malaysian journalists.
Huwaida Arraf arrested at Bilin
Huwaida Arraf, chairwoman of Free Gaza, was arrested again by the Israeli authorities while taking part at a weekly nonviolent protest against the wall of shame, reports Free Gaza. Bilin is a Palestinian village strangled by the construction of the Apartheid Wall.
Habeas Corpus petition
Free Gaza attorneys have also issued an habeas corpus petition to the High Court of Israel demanding information about the health and whereabouts of the 54 passengers who were admitted to Israeli hospitals after the raid.
They also sent a letter to Israeli health officers asking them to set up a hotline for the families of the injured and deceased.
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, which calls to boycott Israel for its apartheid and genocidal policies, in response to the criminal attack against the Freedom Flotilla makes a call to:
Mobilize for an emergency Global BDS Day of Action on Saturday 5 June 2010 -- the 43rd anniversary of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem
Pressure governments to start implementing trade sanctions and arms embargos
We call specifically on transport and dock workers and unions around the globe to: Refuse to load/offload Israeli ships and airplanes, following the historic example set by the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) in Durban in February 2009 and endorsed by the Maritime Union of Australia (Western Australia).
According to Gara newspaper all radio contact with the peace ship Rachel Corrie, that is sailing towards Gaza loaded with much needed aid and even more needed love and hope, has been lost. The news article has a time stamp of 8:35 CET, two hours ago and is sourced to EFE agency, citing Audrey Bomse, attorney of Free Gaza.
We don't know where the ship is because we have lost radio contact with it. We suppose that Israel has intefered the system, she said.
Who cares?
In a related news item, Israeli ambassador in Spain, Raphael Schultz has compared the killings of peace activists with traffic accidents, saying:
Yes, nine people have died in that action but 155 died in a terrorist attack in India last week. Who cares? Have you heard anything about that? 23 Spaniards died at the reads last weekend.
According to Ynet News and also to Haaretz, both Israeli media outlets (handle with care), all survivors of the Freedom Flotilla, excepting seven severely injured who are being treated in hospitals at Israel but including the four Palestinians who had earlier been brought to trial, have finally been released.
Israeli courts accepted the argument of the defense that they could not be charged for being in ships attacked by Israel in international waters.
The bodies of the nine people (apparently the latest figure) murdered by Israel at sea have been flown to Turkey. Their identities are still not known, at least to me.
Turkish members of the flotilla got a well deserved heroes welcome at their arrival at Ankara, reports Desert Peace.
Declarations of Israeli ambassador in Washington evidence that the murderous attack against the Mavi Marmara was premeditated, reports Window into Palestine. The use of the term "nonviolent" in his declarations is absurd and offensive, by the way: Israel does not know what is nonviolence. He seems to mean "less violent" or "non-murderous" means, nothing else.
WiP also reports on Israeli MP aboard flotilla, Haneen Zoubi, denouncing that the goal of the criminal attack was to scare off further convoys. This seems obvious but what they have really achieved is the opposite: increased support for the Free Gaza project and most probably more and more resolute such convoys. As I said above, Israel with its violent neonazi ideology has no idea of what nonviolence means and, as I said in a comment here at Leherensuge on Monday, they have not, they cannot instill fear with such tactics, just rage, maybe pity.
They have achieved exactly the opposite of what they meant to. This cartoon describes it well:
What Israel has achieved with its gangster style is, at least to some extent, unite the civil societies at both sides of the Mediterranean above our cultural differences and, more often than not, above the stands of our weak and corrupt governments.
Again there is a single Humankind united by the blood spilled on the turquoise waters of the Mare Nostrum, by our love and admiration for the heroes of the Freedom Flotilla and by our determination to see the people imprisoned in the Gaza Ghetto and all those oppressed by the Palestine Apartheid (aka Israel) free and dignified.
The same blog has another article on how the only qualification needed to be in the US government seems to be unconditional love for Israel. It is based on a Haaretz article on the meaningless riff-raffs between Likudniks and Labor-Zionists on who is more Zionist than the other. In my opinion they all suck equally and US subservience to the Zionist International is really pitiful.
And this that comes now is something that really shames me, insults my humankind and boils my blood. But still I must show it:
The individual above is a Zionist counter-demonstrator at San Francisco, California (source), and what he is advocating for is for the Palestinian Holocaust. These monsters, these most vile criminals, these Jewish Nazis are not satisfied by ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people from their lands and dumping them by millions into a tiny strip of land. They are not satisfied with then bombing them with napalm and depleted uranium, nor with cutting them off from all but the very essentials and still calling them "terrorists" when they dare to defend themselves maybe throwing a powerless rock against a tank.
No these bastard sons of Hitler won't rest until they can be fully compared with the murderer of their ancestors, until they can reproduce to the tiniest detail the ovens of Auschwitz and Matthaussen.
That is Israel, that is Zionism.
And I'm not exaggerating: that is exactly the plan that at least many Zionists, the most vocal and determined ones, have: to exterminate or deport all Palestinians and make everything from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River (at least) Jewish-only land. Never mind they just arrived yesterday.
No words can really express what I feel in front of that, just determination to keep my stand and make what I can to make the much needed changes happen, to make Justice real again.
First of all I have to say that I woke up from my nap, many hours ago, listening accidentally to a patio conversation among various neighbors outraged at the crimes of Israel. A Rumanian neighbor (easy to pick apart by her strong accent) in particular was very outraged at the horror of Gaza as gigantic prison and compared Apartheid South Africa favorably to the situation of Palestine. It really reflects how nearly every single person is outraged at Israel.
News:
Al Jazeera reports that Israel is deporting either by plane or through the border of Jordan all the kidnapped activists on board of the ships. The figure is finally of circa 700 and not 500 as reported earlier by some sources.
At least four Palestinian/Israelis, Free Gaza Movement board director, Lubna Masarwa, Sheik Raed Salah, leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Mohammed Zeidan, Director of International Advocacy Programme for the Arab Association for Human Rights and Hamed abu Dabis are facing multiple serious criminal offences for their participation in a peaceful voyage to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
No information is yet known on the injured, some of them severely so, or on the corpses of the murdered ones. Their names seem still not known either.
Al Jazeera also says that Egypt is opening the Gaza border to humanitarian aid, though it is not clear for how long on under which restrictions.
The article also includes the declarations of journalist Mohamed Vall, who was aboard the Mavi Marmara:
The Israeli assault took those of us on the ship by complete surprise. We saw about 30 war vessels surrounding this ship, and helicopters attacking with very luminous bombs. More troops came and immediately opened fire, and killed people on the ship without any distinction.
In this other article there are photos of some of the aid carried by the flotilla after Israeli search: toys, books, clothes, wheelchairs.
The Qatari news site also has an opinion article by Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, very critical of Israel, as well as some images from the still ongoing popular protests across the World, even inside Israel.
Also La Haine covers to some extent with photos, videos and links the protests happening in Europe, such as this one at Milan:
Justice has, among other interesting stuff, a Haaretz report on the cross-accusations in the Kneset between Israeli MP Hanin Zoabi, who was aboard of the flotilla, and fascist (Likud, NU, etc.) elements in the racist legislative body.
Kawther Salam includes an article explaining how Zionist soldiers shot each other (they are said to be "the elite" but the images I have seen show them extremely nervous and unprofessional).
International Solidarity Movement offers the declarations of Greek passengers of the Freedom Flotilla, denouncing the Zionist ultra-violence, declaring that they refused to sign the inculpatory declarations provided by the Zionist military after their kidnapping, demanding the Greek government to break relations with Israel and declaring their intent to repeat their feat until the siege of Gaza is lifted:
Until the biggest concentration camp created by Israelis in the 21st century stops to exist.
Sabbah Report has an article by US academic Alan Sabrosky, really saying that the ball is in the US court and that the situation created by Israel by this aggression is so serious that nobody, absolutely nobody, would opposse or doubt if the USA took the much belated initiatives to either break the Gaza siege by force, establish sanctions against Israel or suspend Israel from UN membership.
It is only US attitude of subservience to Zionism what blocks the World from taking the much needed action against the rogue state.
The McLoughling Post has a report on Israeli pacifist movement B'Tselem's information director, Lizi Sagi, denouncing Israel as a Nazi state.
At Palestine Video I found this most interesting interview with rapper Immortal Technique at a New York demonstration saying very clarifying things:
It really made me think, added to watching yesterday at TV Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11, including a very brief caption of Cynthia McKinney and other Afroamerican congresswomen some years ago opposing the anti-terrorist laws passed by the Bush administration, that the USA could really have much better people in positions of power, including the presidency and Congress.
Just that for that it would need to be a real democracy and not a media-crazy.
Palestine Video includes this most revealing interview by Russia Today (a media outlet I have already praised before for their impartiality) to Danny Schechter on how the mainstream media, specially in the USA, allows itself to be manipulated by Israel and the Zionist Lobby:
Also the UN Human Rights Council has voted by overwhelming majority to condemn Israeli actions and to dispatch an international probe on Israel's behavior.
Palestine Think Tank has translated to English the full discourse of Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan, a couple of days ago in Chile, on the murderous Israeli attack in international waters to aid ships, several of which were Turkish jurisdiction. Some excerpts follow: Today I do not only want to speak to my dear people but to all of humanity.
... Despots, gangsters even pirates have specific sensitiveness, follow some specific morals. Those who do not follow any morality or ethics, those who do not act with any sensitivity, to call them such names would even be a compliment to them. Israel has, by attacking a ship with volunteers from 32 countries, in fact defied the world. World peace has been deeply wounded. This brazen, irresponsible, reckless government that recognises no law and tramples on any kind of humanitarian virtue, this attack of the Israeli government by all means – but by all means, must be punished.
...
Those ships were all ships of mercy. And their cargo was the heart of humanity.
So far it has been an outstanding moral victory for the side of Justice, Peace and Freedom in the conflict between the Global Civil Society and the Zionazi Enemy-Of-All: Israel's ugly truth has been unveiled (again) at a high cost and it's clear that the Zionist colonial project is morally bankrupt in the face of the World.
But this has not finished yet. The six ships that were intercepted the other night are just part of the planned Freedom Flotilla. One ship, the Rachel Corrie, of Irish flag, was delayed and is right now somewhere between Malta and Gaza, other two ships had "technical problems" (were probably sabotaged by the Zionists) and had to stay in port in Turkey.
The final decision is not yet taken but it's very possible that the Rachel Corrie with or without the other ships will head to Gaza in the following days.
Among the people aboard this ship is Peace Nobel laureate Máiread Corrigan-Maguire, wrongly reported earlier among those attacked by Israel, who is one of the promoters of Free Gaza.
The departure of the Rachel Corrie has been announced in various blogs and news sites but so far I had not really emphasized it because it lacked clear confirmation. According to Window into Palestine the final decision has not yet been taken but the ship has clearly departed from Malta already.
In any case, Greta Berlin, a speaker for the Free Gaza project declared:
We are an initiative to break Israel’s blockade of 1.5 million people in Gaza. Our mission has not changed and this is not going to be the last flotilla.
Here follows a nice video-report on what is the Rachel Corrie vessel and what aid is carrying to Gaza:
In other developments, it seems that Israel is set to deport as quick as possible all kidnapped activists. Though there are also news that some of the Palestinian ones are being subject to trial.
Also Basque newspaper Gara has this beautiful image of Gazans throwing carnations to the Mediterranean in homage to the victims of Israel's madness:
Surely one can write forever on this genocide but one can also for a change merely held respectful silence for the victims without reparation, for the victims of Zionist terror that still claim for return and that are still being murdered by the same arrogant criminal gang.
The natives of what is now insultingly called Israel, dumped by their enemies in the Gaza Strip, display their hope in that key, the key of what was once their home (photo from Gara).
Justice when? There cannot be peace without return, without civil rights, without democracy.
A 1200 ton cargo ship, named VM Rachel Corrie for the US human rights activist murdered by Israel in 2003 left Ireland on Friday to join the other ships of the Freedom Flotilla at the Eastern Mediterranean.
The flotilla carries construction materials, medical equipment and school supplies, all much needed in the concentration camp and all forbidden by Israel to enter it.
The terrorist state of Israel is making clear signs that it won't allow the ships, which won't ever enter Israeli waters, to reach Gaza, which has been subject to a genocidal blockade by Israel and its Egyptian vassal, under the shameful indifference of the "international community".
A new military order, what means "law" for the West Bank and East Jerusalem, will allow the Israely Army to deport any person, particularly Palestinians, who do not carry "proper identification". Alternatively they could be jailed for seven years.
This is an obvious attempt to push the genocide one step beyond expelling (to the Gaza Ghetto, I presume) all Palestinians they can in order to annex the West Bank.
All this withe the boot-licking complacency of Western powers, who, in spite of all insults by Israel, choose to submit to the Zionist diktats against all decency, dignity and common sense.
Update: full details of the new Nazi Israeli order at Sabbah Report.
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