Don’t tell me the Israelis are tired of the needless killings. It’s not like them.

Yes!! I know its not over, but at least (maybe) they can get some supplies/help to the people of Gaza..

The problem seems to me that Israeli politicians have a funny definition of ‘needless.’ God I hope this works.

i’m trying to figure out if the ceasefire means that the air and artillery attacks will stop, the israeli troops will be withdrawn, and the siege will be lifted. am still looking as i haven’t found it yet, but perhaps someone here already knows the conditions of the ceasefire?

Hopefully the UN can start to gather enough evidence to prosecute Olmertco for war crimes.
67 hrs & 5 min

This was a war that began for election purposes in Israel and stopped because of the approach of Inauguration. That large numbers of Palestinians were being killed and their homes destroyed was almost incidental.

And the blockade?

Book Salon upstairs Dave Zirin’s A People’s History of Sports in the United States

I don’t know, but would bet that the siege will be eased, not lifted, Food and medical supplies are going to come in. At no time soon are the Israelis going to stop trying to keep Hamas from bringing in rockets or any other heavy arms.

Too true, the cynical inhumanity of the Political Cla$$, both in Israel and in America is, simply, appalling and definitely constitutes fundamental crimes against humanity, while thumbing its haughty nose at reason, toleranace, and understanding.

Their days are numbered.

The entire world is witness, and it. does. understand …

How the people of Israel and America shall fare in the future depends upon what they, the people, choose to do (or not do) in the hours and days ahead.

There is NOT all the time in the world.

And, to pretend that ‘nothing’ has happened will prove a very dangerous assumption.

I’m glad Israel’s leaders are halting their nation’s most egregious war crimes and crimes against humanity directed against the civilians in the Gaza Ghetto.

Checking Haaretz, I don’t see that the war criminals who run Israel and the IDF will stop the act of war against Gaza and Gaza’s people: the blockade.

Until Israel stops their deadly and criminal blockade of food, fuel, and medical supplies, the state of Israel continues their act of war.

Though it’s good to see the Israelis’ claims they’ll stop bombing, rocketing, shooting, and incinerating Gaza civilians, their war on Gaza continues. Some “ceasefire”.

When was the last time the UN convicted anybody of war crimes and how many years afterward was it?

Check out the video (in Hebrew) in this post over at Turn Maine Blue:

http://turnmaineblue.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2294

All 3 of the doctor’s daugthers were killed while he was live on the air with an Israeli news program. The Israelis had shelled them…

http://www.reuters.com/article…..ML20090116

from the WSJ:

Mr. Olmert said Israel had made no deal with Hamas, but was acting unilaterally after receiving assurances from Egypt, the U.S. and other Western powers that they would assist Israel in preventing arms smuggling into Gaza. Mr. Olmert said Israel forces will maintain their positions inside Gaza for the time being, and said Israel would resume military operations if Hamas continued to fire rockets into Israel.

The cease-fire decision comes a day after a U.S.-Israel deal committing Washington to help Israel keep arms from reaching Hamas in Gaza. The U.S.-Israeli deal, signed by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Washington, specifically calls for the U.S. to deploy technical, intelligence and military assets across the Middle East to help prevent the smuggling of arms into Gaza.

The U.S. also committed to coordinating with NATO members and Mideast allies to prevent arms from reaching Gaza or Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, particularly from Iran.

The memorandum doesn’t call for the U.S. to employ its own troops in the Palestinian territories, but rather to provide training to local security forces. U.S. officials compared the scope of the agreement to the Proliferation Security Initiative, a Bush administration program that focuses on interdicting ships and airplanes believed to be trafficking equipment used in developing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.

U.S. officials said that the deal augments the diplomacy Egypt is currently leading to forge a formal cease-fire in Gaza. U.S. officials said the memorandum will remain in effect after President-elect Obama assumes power next week. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she has been briefing the Obama transition team on the memorandum’s implications.

Egypt is seeking an agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians to reopen border crossings into Gaza under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority. Cairo also wants to broker a rapprochement between Hamas and the Fatah party headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Several Western leaders were expected to descend on Egypt on Sunday to convene a special summit on Gaza negotiations.

The U.S. wants the Palestinian Authority, rather than Hamas, to control Gaza’s border crossings. Washington also believes Mr. Abbas should control the flow of any reconstruction aid into Gaza once hostilities end. “The PA comes back to save the people of Gaza,” said one Western diplomat in Jerusalem. “That’s the narrative.”

from yetnews:

The IDF is holding its fire, but forces will remain deployed in Gaza, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told reporters Saturday night following cabinet’s decision on a unilateral ceasefire in the Strip.

“We are holding our fire, but will remain vigilant,” he said, “We’ve met our military objectives and are now holding our fire, but Hamas may fire at the forces and the home front. The army will remain deployed in Gaza and is prepared to continue and even expand the operation if needed. Israel’s citizens must also be prepared.

The defense minister added: “We did not go to battle with cries of joy; you go to battle when there is no other choice; you set realistic goals, prepare meticulously and apply all the necessary force. This is what we’ve been doing in Gaza. This is a just war.”

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who spoke before Barak, said the unilateral ceasefire will take effect at 2 am Sunday, while stressing that “this is not a ceasefire with Hamas. These are understandings with sources in the international community which Hamas, as an illegitimate entity, has no place to be involved in.”

“

Selise, seems to me that the cease-fire is based on the Rice-Livni agreement. I read the actual document somewhere online this a.m.

I’ll think back and try to find a link.

Didn’t sound to me like there were any concessions to Hamas’ position. One reason for the rushed-up Rice/Livni agreement was so Israel would not have to abide by any agreement with Hamas that might come out of the Egypt peace talks.

I don’t like what Rice has wrought. Hope congress knocks it down.

“…an illegitimate entity …”

Is this one of those cases where “it takes one to know one”?

The current spate of dehumanizing the ‘other’, now made quite ‘legitimate’ by Bu$hCo, bodes rather ill for the future of all of us.

Perhaps though, the ‘nuance’ required to recognize this fact is lacking in all who would be President.

We shall see.

Link to the ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ /s/ by Rice & Livni:

Israel-US Memorandum of Understanding

how exactly is this consistent with a ceasefire?

The Israeli army decided to annex lands from the Palestinian villages of Husan and Nahhalin, near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, in order to expand the illegal Gush Azion settlement bloc

if true, this report is indicative of a continuation of past israeli gov policies towards the palestinians, which seem to me to go something like: we will not kill you if you will learn to live in pens like stray dogs that no one wants, with no rights whatsoever including no right to your land.

thanks.

Whop-te-do. From the dead to the murders; may you never have a good nights rest EVER again, may the dead children gather at the foot of your bed ,illuminated w/ your white phosphorus, to haunt you daily in a long life.
To anyone who murders someone, may you be haunted, by that forsaken soul, forever.

I have been looking for you. The diary we were on is closed for comments. I have learned lots and none of it is good. When you have an hour, watch this video..’Beyond Treason’. It will explain what the DU that the US uses everywhere is doing to the water and soil of every country where they use these weapons. Genetic damage forever to the citizens; depleted uranium has a shelf life of 4.5 billion years. At 35 minutes into the video, you will see photos of Iraqi babies. Warning..graphic. Iraqi doctors have tried to tell Americans what is happening, but they have been banned from the US. What Israel is dumping on Gaza will cause genetic defects for many generations.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/i…..8;aid=9037

The MOU between Isreal & the US is either a declaration of war on a huge region, or just completly unenforceable. Or both.

Patrol that huge area? How? The Eriteria Pirates operate in a small area, and they are out-of-control.

What’s the implementation plan? Inspect every merchant ship and fishing boat? Satellites with X-Ray vision? A 30 foot wall all the way around Gaza? A huge moat between egypt & Gaza?

And why are we, the US Citizens on the hook to pay for this?

ROFLAMO

“4. The United States will accelerate its efforts to provide logistical and technical assistance and to train and equip regional security forces in counter-smuggling tactics, working towards augmenting its existing assistance programs”

Oh right. The War on Drugs has really taught us to be 100% efficitive at supressing smugling. Continuing to LAMO.

Gaza invasion: Powered by the U.S.

Taxpayers are spending over $1 billion to send refined fuel to the Israeli military — at a time when Israel doesn’t need it and America does.

It’s well known that the U.S. supplies the Israelis with much of their military hardware. Over the past few decades, the U.S. has provided about $53 billion in military aid to Israel. What’s not well known is that since 2004, U.S. taxpayers have paid to supply over 500 million gallons of refined oil products — worth about $1.1 billion –- to the Israeli military. While a handful of countries get motor fuel from the U.S., they receive only a fraction of the fuel that Israel does — fuel now being used by Israeli fighter jets, helicopters and tanks to battle Hamas.

According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, between 2004 and 2007 the U.S. Defense Department gave $818 million worth of fuel to the Israeli military. The total amount was 479 million gallons, the equivalent of about 66 gallons per Israeli citizen. In 2008, an additional $280 million in fuel was given to the Israeli military, again at U.S. taxpayers’ expense. The U.S. has even paid the cost of shipping the fuel from U.S. refineries to ports in Israel.

In 2008, the fuel shipped to Israel from U.S. refineries accounted for 2 percent of Israel’s $13.3 billion defense budget. Publicly available data shows that about 2 percent of the U.S. Defense Department’s budget is also spent on oil. A senior analyst at the Pentagon, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, says the Israel Defense Force’s fuel use is most likely similar to that of the U.S. Defense Department. In other words, the Israeli military is spending about the same percentage of its defense budget on oil as the U.S. is. Therefore it’s possible that the U.S. is providing most, or perhaps even all, of the Israeli military’s fuel needs.

http://www.salon.com/news/feat….._invasion/

OT..good news..

The Iraqi journalist detained after throwing his shoes at President George W. Bush is in good shape and was allowed to meet with his brother on Friday, although he has been denied access to his lawyer, his family said.

His brother said information about the support had been kept from the journalist.

“Some officers told him that half of the Iraqis were against him. But he was very happy when he heard that all the Iraqis support him. He even cried when he heard that there were even demonstrations on his behalf in the United States,” Dhargham al-Zeidi said.

The visit followed a New York Times report that al-Zeidi has only been allowed two visitors since his detention.

Defense lawyer Dhia al-Saadi told AP he has only been allowed to meet his client once.

“I submitted many petitions to the Judge of the case and I expect to meet Muntadhar next week,” he said.

Al-Zeidi has been charged with assaulting a foreign leader, but an appellate court is considering a motion to reduce the charges to simply insulting Bush.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/w…..ower_N.htm

http://another-green-world.blo…..omana.html covers my thoughts, the pacification of Gaza is a pretty imperial project, election ratings up for the governing party of Israel, more restrictions for people in Gaza and plenty of weapons tested….so glad their is a pause in the military adventure but we need justice for Gaza

So Gazans had an election.

Hamas was the winner of that election. Not Fatah. Why? Fatah is the Israeli puppet/corrupted by Israeli buy offs/pay offs. Fatah did not win the election in Gaza. Just like GOP did not win 2008 election in America.
Or Likud may or may not win upcoming Israeli election.

So then–Gazans can have an election–but only vote for who Israel approves or has the puppet strings tied to?

So if Likud wins next Israeli election then it is OK for Arab Palestinians to decide Israel voted wrong and take out Likud because Israeli’s made the wrong choice?

This in essence is what Israel has based or premised what it has now done to and in Gaza on. This is Israel’s claim or premise for killing over 1,000 Gazans and raining devastation on Gaza–an already destitute place.

This is right how again? This Israeli subjugation of Gaza and Gazans is right in what way?

Ceasefire? Must be getting close to Israeli election eh?

Good to see you, bb. I’ll watch your video. I’ve seen many of the horrors on DU’s immediate and long-term effects. The recent lab tests on the effects of the DIME shells state that the rice-grain size pieces that enter the body of those hit also cause DNA changes. Doctors in Gaza are telling of bodies with the eyeballs completely missing.

I could not even find the Jim White article that we were posting to. Now the links you and I gave have disappeared.

Thanks for all you’re doing, bluebutterfly.

That’s great news, bluebutterfly. At least it appears that he is no longer being tortured.

There are so many people suffering for acts of those who carried out Bush’s evil orders; it amazes me that people all over the world still look to Obama’s presidency with hope that America will again lead the world in standing up for what is decent and good and right….dreams of the desperate?

You are welcome. Glad that you found my comment. Because of the number of times I returned, I’d bookmarked the diary. We were not disappeared after all!

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/3028#Respond

No. Dreams of good people who want peace on this planet. People who amazingly, considering the death and destruction of the past eight years, do not blame the American people for what has happened.

Yup..Feb 10..

The view from Russia.

On the international stage, George W. Bush is a president nobody will miss. His “watch”, as he calls it, is synonymous with the torture chamber of Abu Ghraib, the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay (the worst human rights violation on the island of Cuba), breach of international law, disrespect for the UN Charter, perpetration of war crimes, mass slaughter and countless other charges.

The payment, in return, was the divorce of the United States of America from every precept of human decency defended by every court of law everywhere on the planet. George W. Bush is a president nobody will miss. His regime’s defence of Israel’s numerous massacres (a “country” which claimed that civilian victims of its murderous campaigns with military hardware “shouldn’t have been there”) was a telling reminder that Washington and NATO’s nerve centres are located in Tel Aviv.

On his “watch” the USA hit historic records of unemployment, the world’s economy entered an unprecedented meltdown and the basic fundamentals of capitalism were proven to be utterly inadequate, something economists had been trying to prove for ages.

For this, thank you, George W. Bush. In eight short years you did what generations of academics had been trying to do for centuries. The only ones who will miss you are those who hate the United States of America, because every circus needs a clown.

http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/106968-1/

Thank you for the quote.
If you think of it next time, either block-quote the quoted segment, or put it inside quotation marks. It lets the reader know immediately that the material is quoted from another source without clicking the link.
Thanks.

By block-quote you mean to put quotation marks at beginning and end of the article? I am a bit lost here..doesn’t a link automatically mean that it is from a source?

The portion you paste into the comment from the external source, yes.
Internet speeds vary, and not everyone can freely access the links provided.

Also, it is not always clear where the quoted material ends and the commenters words begin. Setting the quoted part off from the commenter’s words is a nice way to distinguish.

Can I just put something like **** under any comment from me?

Just something to set your quoted text off from your commentary.

Or like this…

“Or like this…”

Or like this…

You are speaking to the barely computer literate one here. The blue line is cool..how does one ‘get’ it?

-Type or paste in the text as you wish
-hilight the text you want included in the blockquote
-In the toolbar above the text entry box, click ONCE on the double quote icon
-Preview your comment

Thank you, bluebutterfly. I watched your film ‘Beyond Treason’. I had seen it before and bought the DVD which I passed on to my kids.

It seems to me that in the Rice/Livni ‘Memo of Understanding’, the US is agreeing to participate in seeing that Gaza is blockaded, policed, confined in that open-air pen, and utterly controlled by Israel’s dictates and a quisling figurehead of their own people. I vehemently do not agree to that contract which Rice signed. I do not believe she has treaty-making powers.

I have held the theory for some time, especially since this assault on Gaza, that Israel is the US’s weapon against the Arabic people; and because of Israel’s strategic location. can be used as our weapon against much of Africa, Europe, Russia, and parts of Asia. That’s why they have the bomb, why we stockpile weapons there, why we all but give them F15s, F16s and drones, and supply them with the WMDs of depleted uranium and now DIME (dense, inert, metal explosives) shells and bombs, and white phosphorus.

Bush’s has been a totally rotten regime that used illegal means to take office. I can’t figure the majority of our congress. I fear most lack wisdom or sold out to campaign contributors to purchase their seats.

Is Obama for real, or are we seeing in him and hearing from him what we are projecting upon him?

Thanks, Mod. I needed that info, too.

Ask AIPAC? Obama will resist them only if forced to. He has to feel more pressure from citizens of the US, than he does from AIPAC. Nobody gives up power without being forced to and the Zionists have a lot.

MSM must be forced to change their lousy propaganda spewing ways and start telling the truth. I’d like to see pickets outside of the major stations like MSM, along with a boycott of all advertisers. They are the enemy. They are the enablers of the Afghanistan and Iraq illegal invasions. From 20 minutes after the planes hit on 911, they allowed reality to be co-opted by Bush’s version of reality. MSM allowed Bush to take away your freedoms from that day to today. By not resisting things like the Patriot Acts, they sold you all to the highest bidder..the neocons.

Whistle blowers might help force Obama in the right direction. He will need immense pressure of the truth in his face. If he does not allow the prosecution of war criminals, you will have lost your country. No longer will you have a Constitution to protect you; no longer will the US be a nation ruled by law, rather it will be ruled by corrupt men. It is a case of wait and see what transpires. Personally, I don’t feel optimistic that Americans won’t have to fight to regain what has been taken during the past eight years.

It will be necessary to vote out almost everyone that presently calls themselves a Democrat. One by one, they have to be replaced by men and women who will put the US, not Israel, first. A slow process, but the only one that will bring positive and lasting results. The recent vote to support Israel showed that there is a serious problem with all of your senators..except the WH5, of course.

Keep an eye on the action page at AIPAC. Know thy enemy. When they send out a call to put pressure on senators, FDL needs an action letter to counteract theirs. It would be powerful if FDL went together with other progressive sites. Numbers matter.