Israel opened the crossing terminal Friday to allow several hundred Palestinians with foreign passports to leave Gaza, but kept reporters out.
. . . .
A military spokesman said Israel kept the journalists out because authorities at the crossing point were focused on processing the nearly 300 Palestinians exiting Gaza.
. . . .
The Erez crossing, which was expanded during renovations in recent years, has a large terminal designed to process thousands of people crossing in each direction daily.
Reporters without direct access to Gaza are less likely to raise questions about the level of civilian casualties and whether all who Israel claim are Hamas really are. B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, is calling for an investigation into at least one bombing. The video above has more details.
The ban on journalists also makes it harder to investigate claims like those made by a Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor with NORWAC. He reports that the aid Israel claims is reaching Gazan civilians is not being allowed in, and that the injuries seen possibly suggest the use of DIMEs:Israelis are using a new type of weapon with enormous explosive power that is having a devastating effect on the body. Palestinian colleagues are telling us of complete amputations and bodies that are split in two. Also they have more than 100 severe burns among the 2000 injured. And most of these burns are more than 50% of the body surface and second to third degree. So these are very severe burns and extremely severe injuries caused by probably some new types of weapon, maybe the DIME weapon which are tungsten alloy weapons which are also radioactive. These reports have not been scientifically confirmed but there is absolutely reason to believe that they used the new weapons.
Israel was accused of using DIME weapons in Gaza in 2006 (h/t mis78). From a Ha’aretz report at the time:
According to the site, the projectile comprises a carbon-fiber casing filled with tungsten powder and explosives. In the explosion, tungsten particles – a metal capable of conducting very high temperatures – spread over a radius of four meters and cause death.
According to the U.S.-based website Defense-Tech, "the result is an incredibly destructive blast in a small area" and "the destructive power of the mixture causes far more damage than pure explosive." It adds that "the impact of the micro-shrapnel seems to cause a similar but more powerful effect than a shockwave."
Defense-Tech discusses the possible radioactivity of the weapons here. These weapons are still "experimental" but Defense-Tech notes that Human Rights Watch is concerned about their use in densely populated areas such as Gaza.
While polling shows broad support within Israel for the government’s actions, protests by Israelis also continue:
Twenty-one left-wing activists were arrested on Friday morning after blocking the entrance to the IAF base at Sde Dov airport.
The activists carried signs and chanted slogans against the Gaza operation, poured red paint on themselves and lay down on the ground at the entrance to the base before police forces arrested them.
Demonstrations are being held around the world today – including 3,000 in Afghanistan – for locations in the US you can find a list here.
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Dunno about radioactive — but directed energy beam weapons maybe? Bloody savages.
Sarah Palin said she would never question anything that Israel did, likely so she wouldn’t get in trouble with her pastor. It might matter for healthcare who won the election, but for the Palestinians it looks like it didn’t matter a tinker’s damn as Obama appears to share Palin’s foreign policy.
Thanks, Siun. Gotta run ~ bbl.
I would think outrage in Afghanistan would definitely complicate Obama’s intentions there.
well, sure, they use modern weapons supplied by the us that have the most efficient killing properties. what’s wrong with that?
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2004/jan/19/00027/
Anyone who still believes that our military is not in Iraq at Israel’s behest (demand) is not paying attention. Israeli Military Advisors were flooding into the Pentagon’s “Office Of Special Plans” to visit with the Treasonous Doug Feith almost weekly in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. Karen Kwiatkowski worked there, and personally observed them being escorted in for private meetings without ever signing in to memorialize their coming and going.
This alone is EVIDENCE of IDF participation with Rumsfeld’s planning team – and a direct violation of the then-existing requirements that accurate visitor logs be key in the aftermath of 9/11. Feith and Rumsfeld violated US Law by allowing the IDF unfettered access inside the Pentagon for the purpose of planning an illegal use of US military forces.
It’s TREASON.
Interview Karen Kwiatkowski and ask her directly.
You saw the US leadership stand silently by as Israel laid waste to Lebanon, and yet again in Gaza. This is NOT coincidental. They control the US Congress.
And when the US suffers another horrible attack as a result of this barbaric carnage, invevitably we will be treated to another slack-jawed idiot chorus of “Why do they hate us?”
If this doesn’t prove that the US Government is controlled by Israel, nothing will.
Press Briefing by Scott McClellan, December 22, 2003.
Q Is the President in favor of international inspection of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which is pretty well known?
MR. McCLELLAN: I don’t know that I agree with that, the premise of your question. But the United States has a longstanding position of universal adherence to the treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. That has been our longstanding position –
Q They never signed it.
MR. McCLELLAN: — and that is universal adherence. Well, we have urged all states that have not yet adhered to the treaty to do so, and to accept the IAEA safeguards on nuclear activities that would come with it.
Q Are we trying to persuade Israel to sign it, and to be open to inspection?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think that, one, in terms of specifics about the Israeli government, you need to refer those questions to the Israeli government.
Q No, no, I’m asking our position.
MR. McCLELLAN: And I’ve told you that the long held position of the United States is the universal adherence to the nonproliferation treaty.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/briefing.html
this president has said in the past he wants to saddle the next president with his war
we also heard it said that israel would have a free hand to do whatever they want if mccain was not elected since the new administration would have a new direction israel has a free pass to do whatever they want
remember condi?
“the president is tired of swatting flies”
these are the big guns, no more swatting flies and obama’s hands are going to be tied if he impedes israel everyone will say “see?…we TOLD you obama is against israel”
this is where we are today
I don’t get the point of this series of posts on the evils of Israel. They are nominally at war with the entire Arab world. The Arab world likes the thorn in the side of Israil that the palestinians are. The palestinians are angry and without hope and act out in whatever violent way they can. Eventually Israel responds when it is tactically, strategically, or politically expedient. Palestinians disperse their arms and armies in civilian populations and people die. The palestinians are the pawns of the arab world and the punching bag for the Israiles and will be until they agree to a negotiated 2 state solution but neither side sees an advantage to this. Israel would prefer to keep settlements and put up with missles, the Arabs prefer to see the palestinans as leverage, and the palestinians have no hope with their current leadership (or any of their past leadership) of moving forward.
The bits of faux outrage about DIME weapons, or what have you, are quite faux. First, there’s no actual evidence that new weapons are being used, the quotation of unnamed norweigian doctors that never saw the weapons aside. Second, you can kill plenty of people with old fashioned weapons. Third, if they are being used, it would seem to be to mitigate collateral damage during a military conflict, overall a good thing (short of avoiding the conflict althgether)
Mike
Plunger – this is really, really old news. I made a speech that included long excerpts from this article in April, 2004 – almost 5 years ago.
yep! anyone would be well advised to google Kwiatkowsky and read her stuff from pre invasion onward.
Now THERE’S someone I’d love to see in a book salon here!
thanks, plunger!
Just three weeks after 9/11, this:
Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.
The palestinians are angry and without hope and act out in whatever violent way they can.
Guess that wouldn’t have anything to do with their land being stolen out from under them?
Your perception is measured in years, while the Zionists plan their expansion of territory, acquisition of resources and genocide of Arabs decades in advance. Your sense of time and theirs are completely different. Their mission is generational.
Today’s news needs to be comprehended in the context of a plan that was developed over half-a-century earlier.
Google “Eretz Israel”
Karl Rove used the term “discernible reality” in a manner intended to demean the US public – knowing full well the the mainstream media has served its role to disinform the populous into stupidity where matters such as these are concerned.
the absence of journalists is an important one, because their presence can work as unintended brake on violence. advocating for the unrestricted movement of journalist is one way we have to not only get information about what is happening, but also to possibly affect the level of violence.
Grow the fuck up.
Innocents are non-negotiable and are not collateral damage but murder pure and simple.
[Mod Note; let’s please avoid the insults]
Blame the british for poorly drawing lines at the end of WW2. There are a lot of aggreived people in the world. I doubt the palestinians have a bigger beef than half of them, and I doubt that Israel is going to spontaneously involute and turn itself into a park for greater Palestine. It is a reality on the ground that Israel will exist, and Palestine will have to deal with it.
Nothing will. Controlled? No. Undue influence by AIPAC? Yes. Support J Street.
Dude, calm down. I wasn’t arguing that innocents aren’t being killed or that they aren’t important. Just that they are considered a bargaining chip to too many in the conflict on both sides. In war, civilians will always be killed, often more than the combatants. It happens all the time. See Dresden or Tokyo for good examples. There has never been a war without noncombatant innocents being killed. So grow the fuck up right back at you. If there was a way to sort the bad guys and kill them without hurting anyone else, I’d love to hear how it works.
This meme is getting extremely old… Across all fronts in our GWOT, what would you propose the Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, etal… do? Mass their ‘armies’ so they can be decimated by one air strike or Arty barrage…? Wake up!
Collective punishment is a war crime.
And Israel will have to deal with the reality that the Palestinians exist – unless, of course, Israel kills them all. If Israel continues on this path, it may not exist in it’s present form either. It seems to have lost its way and is no longer the democracy it desired to be. What will it become?
Kwiatkowski’s 2003 and 2004 articles were interesting. But she is a Christian fundamentalist with similar views to Sarah Palin, IIRC. She’s a helluva lot smarter than Palin, but I’m wary of the good colonel.
This article really shatters the myth propogated by Israel about the dispersal of arms.
http://www.scholarsandrogues.c…..#more-6402
426 hrs & 32 min
For me, the point is that people are not bargaining chips and when a powerful nation starves them with a blockade and then bombs them day after day with hyper powerful new bombs I think we should notice and say stop – particularly when our government funds and supplies those attacks.
The world weary stance that cuts us off from recognizing the human cost seems an inadequate way to respond.
New post upstairs with LHP
I’m with you on that ET – and I think we have much better factual evidence to work with than much of what passes for info on this subject. We have direct voices from each community.
It is so easy to get caught in the verging on tinfoil space and so miss the immediate tragedy of now.
I chose the word “controls” very carefully. Totally controls Congress.
Former United States Senator J. William Fulbright, Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated repeatedly in 1973,
President George Prescott Bush admitted in a media interview in 1991 that he had been virtually blackmailed to grant a $10 billion dollar loan guaranty to the State of Israel, compliments of the American taxpayers. He described his contact as an agent of
Mr. Bush later approved the loan without objection from Congress.
See if you can ascertain what ever happened to the trial of two AIPAC executives caught red handed for spying in the AIPAC/Franklin espionage matter whereby Franklin passed top-secret intelligence on Iran directly to AIPAC.
See if you can ascertain whatever happened to Kobi Alexander, wanted here in the United States for his role in Comverse Infosys.
See if you can ascertain whatever happened to third class US Petty Officer Ariel Joseph Weinmann, a US submariner caught red-handed passing US nuclear secrets to Israel. You’ve never even heard about that one, have you?
An espionage case as critical as that of the Jonathan Pollard affair, totally buried from view by the controlled US media in 2006.
Where is then-Pentagon Comptroller, Dov Zakheim, and the $2.3 trillion that Rumsfeld professed went missing on 9/10?
The money that Israel needs to continue its campaign over the next generation has already been stolen from the US Treasury and DOD.
I reject there are bad guys to be killed.
I reject that violence is the quickest way to resolve any problem.
I reject war and all it’s machinery of death we glory in.
It’s downright sick.
apologies to the mods but I just beside myself in rage over how this year is starting out…..
CNN is saying the IDF has announced that their troops are in position to go and they are just waiting for the order.
We are paying for the Israeli weapons:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..e21591.htm
not exactly surgical strikes:
http://www.informationclearing…..e14753.htm
Kucinich:
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2008/12/29-3
??? — If IDF isn’t in Gaza yet, then how have these supposedly surgical new-weapon injuries been occurring before now? Either someone other than IDF has been in-territory doing that, or the strikes haven’t been so surgical, or else someone is lying. (Gee, imagine that.)
Sure, it would be much efficient if they would stand in straight lines and face annihilation, but that’s unlikely. The issue is, as I have tried to point out, that the calculations everyone is making (on all sides here) give the palestinian civilian a value of 0.
If I want to launch an uncontrolled rocket into Israel with no idea where it will land, I decide that the risk (or benefit) of it killing someone outweighs the risk (or benefit) that the area I launched it from is now a military target. If I launch it from a school, or an apartment, or whatever, either I don’t think Israel will attack it, or I don’t care if they attack it because the benefit (launched missle) outweighs the risk, or I want them to attack it because I view the PR of the blown up apartment as part of the equation.
You misstate. The point is, that for people with your ethical rules people are not bargaining chips. For others, they are. You just don’t like it and think it is wrong.
Just because you ‘reject’ it does not make it so. There are always going to be bad guys, and there are always going to be people willing to kill to get what they want. Stopping them by whatever means needed is sometimes the correct thing to do. Violence is a terrible solution of course, but sometimes it is the only choice. Only a child cannot see this. Heck, lets unplug our computers and fly to Somalia to act as nonviolent human shields and give peace a chance and…well, we won’t, because there are terrible violent people there that would as soon kill you as look at you.
I just looked at the list of demonstrations at the end of Siun’s post.
Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi are not on the list. Hmmm.
A modest proposal: Urge Israel to relocate Sderot
The two state solution is fiction. If Israel were serious about giving up land, there would be discussions in the Knesset and the press about the relocation of the 450,000 settlers on the West Bank. Where are those people going to live in any kind of functional way?
It seems foolish for the U.S. to pour millions of dollars in aid to Israel to maintain Sderot, the city where most of the Palestinian rockets have fallen. Sderot is only a half mile away from Gaza. It has 22,000 citizens, 3,000 of whom have voluntarily moved to other parts of Israel. It would be cheaper for the U.S. to relocate these people to Tel Aviv or some other place than to continue to so expensively fortify them.
About one-third of the town is on welfare. Sderot is a run down town. During the past 8 years, 14 people have been killed in Israel as the result of homemade missiles fired from Gaza. (More people have died of auto accidents in one month in Israel.) They are mostly recent Russian immigrants who are there temporarily anyway. The intelligent thing to do would be for the U.S. to encourage Israel to relocate these people now. Israel isn’t poor. If it did, U.S. taxpayers would be able to spend some of their hard-earned money on people such as the Katrina homeless in the U.S.
Better still: How ’bout we offer to relocate the entire state of Israel to Nevada? No wait, that’s too harsh. Give ‘em, I dunno, Colorado or someplace nice like that. You know, separate the battling kids.
So your solution is a population transfer of Israelis from a town near their border to one out-of-range of the present generation of rockets? Why not a population transfer of Palestinians to a range whereby they cannot launch missles into Sderot? (In case you are unclear about the m,iniscule sizes we are talking about, Gaza is not big enough to move the Palestinians so that they cannot reach Sderot with present day rockets, and Israel is 7 miles wide at its thinnest Green Line point, so you can’t move too far before you end up out of the country!) You are correct that the rockets are not an existential threat to the state of Israel, nor have they been particularly lethal. But for a country to relinquish any of its territory voluntarily to those it is in the middle of a terriorial dispute with seems like bad bargaining. One commentator correctly pointed out that the Palestinian civilians are pawns in a game played by those in power in the various Arab capitals as well as between the PLO and Hamas. The civilians in Sderot are pawns as well.
Between the Zionists, Xtian Fundies, and Muslims all trying their damndest to destroy the world as we know it, I am very glad that I am a citizen of Tahiti.
Yes, we also have our religious nuts also, but they are a lot fewer and not as whacky as those I meet on a daily basis here in good ole Orygun….
So the Palestinians shouldn’t do that, you would argue?
Nice to see where our tax money for R & D goes…guess solar power is too complicated for our engineering wunderkinds.
I know I’m not allowed to call anyone an antisemite. But can I make an exception for Plunger? Please?
Exploration of ideas is not such a bad thing since these powers are in deadly gridlock … and the “deciders” on both sides aren’t dying … civilians are. But thanks for your dripping sarcasm.
See above.
No charge, and FWIW I’m not kidding about giving serious territory to make this stop. The unwilling taking of territory was what started all this, and it has become obvious to me that only a willing gift of territory can make it stop.
this is somewhat related to this post. we went into iraq and constantly threaten iran for “seeking” wmd technology. it seems that all agree that israel has atomic weapons. how did they get them? how did they get weapons grade fissile materials for their bombs? do they have processing reactors in operation? (which we accuse iran of building) how did/do they obtain the raw uranium? (remember the niger yellow-cake that iraq supposedly was after) we are so involved in “controlling” all other nations (read:muslim or communist) access to wmd technology but there is nothing ever said about israel. doesn’t seem that we are really concerned about the spread of wmd’s- just the spread of wmd’s to those whom don’t kowtow to our wishes. the only way these rebel countries will see this technology is when we drop the weapons on their populace (as has been proposed by the wingnuts and neocons) in pursuit of “bringing democracy to the rest of the world”.
The anti Semite accusation doesn’t have any power around here. We know it for what it is…an attempt to stop the speaking of the truth. And the truth is what plunger speaks.
Those under occupation have a right to resist and those who are occupying have a duty to maintain order. Those are the rules and it usually results in a a good deal of misery. But occupation is part of the end-game of a war, and hopefully, the occupier and occupied can make whatever political, territorial, etc, correction is necessary to resolve the causes of the war, and the occupation can end.
So if you were talking about attacks on occupying troops or attacks on settlers or one of the Intifadahs, I would unhappily agree that this is all part of the rules.
But we are talking about Gaza and Hamas. Israel is not occupying Gaza, Hamas is the government there. Israel (and Egypt) control Gazas borders. This serves to both keep Hamas at a fairly primitive level of weaponry, though they may well have some good stuff that hasn’t been seen yet). Yes, it is also to impose enough suffering that Israel can extract better terms from whatever negotiations eventually ensue. This is what Hamas rockets are for as well.
There are many such solutions that can be posited to the Israel Palestinian problem, including “67 borders and right of return for Palestinians”. Personally I see that as an initial position that is going to be subject to negotiation (as I would see an Israeli statement that “Jerusalem will never again be divided”). The 1967 borders were the 1948 cease-fire lines with small changes. There is no reason to think that the 67 borders are sacred after 40 years. Hamas position is “accept 67 borders as a start, and then use whatever territory it has in order to destroy Israel”. The PLO had a similar plan for “stages” that they eventually dropped as part of the Oslo process.
If you believe that the 1948 war is not over, as Hamas seems to, then destruction of Israel is a viable end-game. But to consider such special treatment ONLY for THIS particular country that was created in 1948 reeks of anti-seitism. How about Pakistan : created at the same time, a thorn in the side of an ancient neighbor and a destabilizer in its region, and it exported nuclear weapons technology! How about Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) : created at the same time as Israel and has had a horribly destabilizing impact on the region (see Jordan Sept 1969, see Southern Lebanon between 1969 and 1973).
To say “take the Israelis and move them to Nevada”, but make no such suggestion for any other nation state seems as if there must be something special in the writers attitude towards Jews. (Of course, if he also wants the Arabs of Israel moved to Nevada, then there is no anti-semitism). Similarly, becoming incensed at Israels purported posession of nuclear weapons, out of all the countries that have or are trying to have nuclear weapons, seems suspect. (In case someone is going to jump in with some comment about Iran, I lived through MAD in the US and can live through it in the MidEast). Again, if American weapons somehow become immoral when Israelis use them but do not get the same outcry when others use them, it seems like there is anti-semitism present.
But most here accept a two state solution. Perhaps it gets restarted with a cease-fire, perhaps it requires Hamas destruction so that the PLO can be in charge of the whole of WB and Gaza.
I apologize to both you and Freb for getting defensive. Actually I was floating an interesting idea offered to me from a really smart and better informed friend whom I wish could respond to you now instead of me.
My friend told me that in Sderot, the US helps finance 15 second warning systems and fortified rooms. A lot of money and energy for an insecure city whose residents are transient and poor. My friend said that mostly Russian immigrants live there with the intention of moving out to the West Bank as soon as their finances improve and as I said above, a significant number have readily left because of the fear and anxiety.
Israel seems willing to do anything … anything … to guarantee there will never be a 2-state solution.
To withdraw people from Sderot would necessitate overcoming the Israeli collective ego, but it would show that the Israel leadership cares about the very people it claims to be protecting and be willing to embrace an alternative peace-seeking behavior to help save its citizens and the lives of innocent non-Israeli civilians. It could repair international respect and free the US from its financial and political and military collusion with the massacre the corporate medias of Israel and the US are deftly avoiding verbalizing and acknowledging.
I thought it was interesting you said, “separate the battling kids.” That was pretty astute since that is what they are in terms of moral immaturity on a tragically destructive scale, and one kid has exponential super-strength. There are no interceding wise and powerful parent figures on the horizon. Oh that there were. Not the UN. Not the enabling cohort, the US. The Geneva Convention exists, but we see how the US role-modeled profound disregard of that.
According to Chris Hedges, Richard Falk, a Princeton law professor, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories has labeled what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza as a “crime against humanity.” Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as a “flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down by Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
Falk says that Hamas is also violating international law, but this does not legalize Israel’s imposition of “a collective punishment of a life- and health- threatening character on the people of Gaza.”
Each day the 1.5 million people are subject to an unspeakable ordeal. The blockade has caused acute anemia among the children. The sonic booms have caused widespread deafness, especially among the children who will require heaering aids. Malnutrition affects 75% of the population. He said there are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people without the will to live. He claims 50% of all Gazan children under the age of 12 lack the will to live. Now, most of Gaza without power. Hospital deaths occur because of that, even with generators. Medical supplies are dwindling. There is a lot more.
I have been focused on the people killed by the bombing. But the psychological trauma and physical wounding of the survivors is profound.
Intimating one is an anti-Semite to raise these issues is a red herring defense.
Claiming to know what is in their minds as a statement of fact is bit presumptive, don’t ‘cha think?
This was a statement made by an Israeli leader about how they would expect the Arabs to feel about Israel’s actions, I believe. Please provide a source.
The people of this particular country (Israel) are not indigenous, but imports.
The people of pakistan have existed there since ancient times, they were not displaced. Britain carelessly redrew the borders during thier colonial pursuits and are the original cause of the upheaval. Following their lead, the US has committed underhanded meddling and facilitated regime changes of leaders not willing to do the US’ bidding.
The nuclear weapons issue is a red herring hoisted by your own petard. Do you really want to get into accusations of the sale of nukes to countries such as Pretoria and China. The exporting of technology by Pakistan has not been proven, and in fact nuclear technology sold on the black market points to Israeli agents, and may or may not have involved the ISI agent Khan. (Read Sibel Edmonds)
I don’t understand the point you are making with these dates specifically, but the redrawing of borders and the creation of Israel has had a devastating effect on the region from the beginning.
This goes again to indigenous populations, and returning property to the dispossessed former inhabitants that are now housed in densely populated jail like structures, lacking basic necessities and proper sewage, let alone the ability to live a decent life.
However, I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring those dangerous settlers in amongst our own population. Maybe Germany can take them back to offset the neo-nazis they most resemble.
The US and Israel are using flechette bombs, which the rest of the world has agreed not to use.
No one here defends their use, except you.
There is a difference between having nukes and threatening other countries with them.
Israel has gone rogue, defying the UN in it’s attacks against Gaza, refusing to comply with NPT, and threats of bombing other states with nukes.
Sorry, but it is not for others to choose the leaders of a people, when pushing democratic principles down their throats. The current elections due to take place in Israel have more to do with attacking Gaza than anything else. Lebanon paid the price last time.