Terror & lies: Israel unleashes brutal pogrom against Gaza

 This article originally appeared on the Kasama Project, 18 July 2014. Reposting here to preserve the links. It can also be read here.

“Free Free Palestine! Down Down Israel!”

by ISH
Wednesday's direct Israeli hit on four young children playing football on a Gaza beach tells a story.
It epitomizes the entire disgusting episode in occupied Palestine that has unfolded since the collapse of so-called peace talks earlier this year. Western journalists witnessed the precision targeting of the four children by the Israeli naval forces who blockade the Gaza coastline. Pictures of the tiny torn bodies being carried away from the scene filled the internet.

The US network NBC immediately pulled the reporter who had honestly reported on the targeting of the children. Predictably Israeli spokesmen offered a few brutally transparent crocodile tears for “unfortunate mistakes,” and yet the very next day the Israelis killed more children, and proceeded to bomb the Al-Waffa Orthopedic Hospital into oblivion. Shortly afterwards, a few hours ago as of this writing, Israeli tanks crossed into Gaza under the cover of darkness, marking a significant escalation of the Israeli extermination campaign against the Palestinian population.

Dawn is about to break on an unknown future for the almost 2 million people crowded into the small, impoverished, besieged enclave of Gaza. Over 250 Palestinians have already been killed, almost 2,000 wounded. 80% of the dead are non-combatants, and an obscene number are children. It is estimated that one Palestinian child has been killed by Israel every three days for the past 13 years, so the events of the current Israeli offensive are far from an anomaly.

What is happening in Gaza is not a conflict, it's a massacre. What is happening is not a war, but a pogrom, the herding together and culling of the captive Palestinian population.

Israel and its supporters have crafted a brutal narrative absolving themselves of all guilt for the mass murder they are committing. From the Israeli government, and the legions of Zionist agents spouting officially approved “hasbara,” or “explanations” in the media and on the internet, down through the echelons of politicians in countries far and wide — here in the US including conservative and liberal alike — we hear that Israel is just “defending itself” and “trying to prevent civilian casualties.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Israel knows what it is doing, fully consented to by President Obama and the US government. Wielding the spectre of “Islamic terror,” Israeli apologists blame the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas for their own actions in the most grotesque and self-serving ways. With the utterance of the word “Hamas” all morality and human empathy is to be cast aside, and all license for brutality and inhumanity assured. The Zionists blame Hamas for using the population of tiny, crowded Gaza as human shields, as though there was someplace in Gaza not to be a human shield, as though there was someplace else either Hamas or the population could go. But the truth must be told: as one person noted on twitter, “blaming Hamas for firing rockets at Israel is like blaming a woman for punching her rapist.”

The accomplices of Israel in the American media are unstinting. The day of the assassination of the four children, the so-called paper of record The New York Times ran a small sub-headline: “Boys Drawn to Gaza Beach and Into Center of Mideast Strife,” while running a feature photo and headline about “An Israeli Town's Emergency Routine” that lamented the effect of Gaza's rockets on the town's beach lifestyle and the sleep habits of local residents. Thus the dead children are blamed for their own deaths and the inconvenience of Israelis ranked worse than the murder of whole Palestinian families.

Meanwhile pictures are readily available of crowds of Israelis camped out on the heights outside Gaza having carnage-viewing parties, where cheers go up every time the light and noise of bombs striking their targets becomes clear.

It's not hard to find accounts of what life is really like for the population of gaza. “This night is one of those terrifying ones. dark, no electricity, smoky haze and constant bombing and shaking. windows are breaking!” tweeted one Gaza resident, Mohammed Omer. Many firsthand accounts are too heartbreaking to retell. The pharmacist just back from study in Cuba, his young wife now a widow. The child who finds out his whole family has just been killed. The eighteen members of a family slaughtered just to eliminate one Hamas government official, who in the end was the only one to survive.

The Israeli military gives Palestinians momentary warning of impending doom, the so-called knock on the roof warning shot.  The Israelis claim this absolves them of responsbility for what happens next. Palestinian poet Lena Khalaf Tuffaha exposes the horrible reality:

"They call us now.
Before they drop the bombs.
The phone rings
and someone who knows my first name
calls and says in perfect Arabic
“This is David.”
And in my stupor of sonic booms and glass shattering symphonies
still smashing around in my head
I think "Do I know any Davids in Gaza?"
They call us now to say
Run.
You have 58 seconds from the end of this message.
Your house is next.
They think of it as some kind of war time courtesy.
It doesn’t matter that
there is nowhere to run to.
It means nothing that the borders are closed
and your papers are worthless
and mark you only for a life sentence
in this prison by the sea
and the alleyways are narrow
and there are more human lives
packed one against the other
more than any other place on earth
Just run.
We aren’t trying to kill you.
It doesn’t matter that
you can’t call us back to tell us
the people we claim to want aren’t in your house
that there’s no one here
except you and your children
who were cheering for Argentina
sharing the last loaf of bread for this week
counting candles left in case the power goes out.
It doesn’t matter that you have children.
You live in the wrong place
and now is your chance to run
to nowhere.
It doesn’t matter
that 58 seconds isn’t long enough
to find your wedding album
or your son’s favorite blanket
or your daughter’s almost completed college application
or your shoes
or to gather everyone in the house.
It doesn’t matter what you had planned.
It doesn’t matter who you are
Prove you’re human.
Prove you stand on two legs.
Run."

The politicians have all blamed Hamas for prolonging Gaza's agony by rejecting a ceasefire that Israel briefly accepted. Yet the ceasefire, hatched in Washington, suggested to Israel by the military-lead government in Egypt and not even discussed with the Hamas leadership (all in hiding for fear of assassination by Israel) was really more of a demand for surrender. The fact that Hamas countered with an eminently reasonable 10-year truce plan  was entirely ignored by the pro-Israel media.

A few months ago the politicians were trumpeting yet another round of “peace” talks, aimed at the final surrender of the Palestinian people to their Zionist occupiers. But it all went to shit when even the collaborationists in the ruling Palestinian Authority couldn't stomach Israeli intransigence and their continued ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. Talks were broken off, and the American negotiators led by the creepy secretary of state John Kerry packed up and went home. The Fatah-led branch of the Palestinian Authority running the West Bank announced a unity deal with the Hamas-led branch of the Palestinian Authority running Gaza. Despite widespread skepticism among Palestinians that unity would stick, all hell broke loose as the Israelis and Americans went into full panic mode.

Escalating land seizures, so-called “settlement” building and daily violence against the Palestinians was becoming routine for the Israeli apartheid state: but an alliance of Hamas and Fatah opened up the possibility that Israel would lose its PA partner in oppression, and Israel began to do everything in its power to sabotage the unity agreement.

In June, three teenaged Israeli settlers (one of whom was old enough to be in the Israeli military) went missing while hitchhiking in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli government accused Hamas of kidnapping the settlers, and launched a massive dragnet across the West Bank. Hundreds of Palestinians were kidnapped by the Israeli government, and several were killed. People had their homes ripped apart by Israeli soldiers. After a couple weeks the settlers were found dead, and it's clear they were killed more or less right away. It's been widely suggested that the Israeli government knew this, but used the interval to whip up a racist frenzy across Israeli society against Palestinians. As of this writing, no actual tie between the killings and Hamas has been established; indeed it's been suggested it was the work of supporters of the ISIS network ravaging Syria and Iraq.

Very little of the media narrative bothered to question why Israeli teenagers were wandering around with impunity in militarily occupied territory. The Hebron area of the occupied West Bank where these events unfolded is one of the most segregated of the occupied territories: Israeli military force barricades a small settler outpost protecting Israeli-only roads and Israeli-only neighborhoods from the local Palestinian population. The local settlers routinely brutalize Palestinian civilians. Frankly, the three Israeli settlers should be compared to teenaged Belgian colonists wandering around the Belgian Congo in 1914 or German teens wandering around occupied Ukraine in 1942.

The disappearance of the three settlers provided the Israeli government with an excuse to whip up a frenzy of vengeance. It was aimed at Hamas, but directed against all Palestinians. Mobs chanted “Death to the Arabs.” Israeli young people created facebook memes dehumanizing Arabs. Prime Minister Netanyahu himself raised the call for revenge. The Israeli government has created a vicious rationalization for its actions that is almost unbearably and tragically ironic given the facts on the ground: “A deep and wide moral abyss separates us from our enemies,” said Netanyanu. “They sanctify death while we sanctify life. They sanctify cruelty while we sanctify compassion.” This should be called what it is, racist contempt for the Palestinians. It is the justification for the Israeli policy of collective punishment.

Israeli lawmaker Ayelet Shaked posted this genocidal screed on facebook: “Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there...They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists.”

In the aftermath of the settlers being found dead Israeli thugs beat up Palestinians; thugs in uniform rearrested many of the Palestinians freed from Israeli prisons under peace agreements. One young man was brutally burned alive. While eventually three Israelis were arrested for killing the young Palestinian, the Israeli disinformation machine initially tried a vile bit of pinkwashing, at first claiming that young Mohammad Abu Khdeir was killed by his own family for being gay. Khdeir's Palestinian-American cousin was subsequently beaten senseless by Israeli police. (As with the death of the young Turkish-American Furkan Dogan on the Mavi Marmara blockade runner ship at the hands of Israeli pirates a few years ago, all of a sudden the US government lost interest in the welfare of American citizens abroad).

What are the stakes as Israel attempts to pummel the Palestinians of Gaza into submission?
New York based Palestinian activist Amin Hussein says, “why is surrender at this juncture so dangerous? Because Israel intends either to beat Gaza and the resistance into submission so they can function like the PA but in Gaza, or pave the way for Israel’s entry into Gaza to destroy the resistance, kill as many people as possible, make the price in life so unbearable, that people would wish it would end. Egypt has provided cover for genocide. This is how genocides happen. You blame the victim for the necessity to kill them. This is a war on the Palestinian people in which Arab countries, including the counter-revolutionary neoliberal Palestinian Authority and the international community, are paving the way for death and destruction, way beyond what we have seen.” Hussein urges concrete solidarity against the horrors now unfolding: “Us, being in the streets, doing more, we bring the one-sided war home.”

There is so much more to discuss about Palestine. About the role of the various resistance factions, the contradictory but ultimately counterrevolutionary role of the Palestine Authority, about the prospects for a single democratic and socialist state where Muslims, Christians, Jews and atheists can live together. But for now the moral imperative is exposing the truth about the murderous pogrom that Israel has unleashed, and standing in solidarity with the residents of Gaza, indeed with all Palestinians.

Although most world governments have closed their eyes to the Israeli attack on Gaza, mass demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinians have taken place all over the world expressing the revulsion of common people against what the Israelis are doing. I urge you to find a solidarity action in your area, and take a stand with the right of the Palestinians to resist Israeli brutality. Don't let the Palestinians stand alone.

Despite advances on the front of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, the situation in Palestine is grim right now. One can only hope that the Israeli butchers have taken a step too far; and that the justified rage of people against their crimes of war will make itself known. The late Palestinian communist poet Tawfiq Ziad expressed it well:

“Gentlemen, you have transformed
our country into a graveyard
You have planted bullets in our heads,
and organized massacres
Gentlemen, nothing passes like that
without account
All that you have done
to our people is
registered in notebooks."

Mrs. Miniver Goes To Gaza 2014

I saw the bottom of photo of Muslims in Gaza worshipping in a bombed-out Mosque on the eve of the Eid festival and was reminded instantly of the climactic scene in the 1942 wartime movie "Mrs. Miniver" where the local priest holds service in the bombed out local church and calls out the names of the dead.

Today comes the news that on Eid itself, an Israeli drone attacked and killed children playing in front of Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Despite the whining deflection, it's clear Israel knows what it is doing. It is intentionally murdering children because it doesn't believe Palestinians are fully human. If this sounds familiar, it's because it is.

ARE THERE ANY QUESTIONS?

Again, today, I was lucky. And yet my eyes are filled with tears.

I spent my morning on the computer. Although my extended unemployment would allow me to sleep until noon or stay awake all night, I try to keep to a fairly normal human schedule. I wake up, I listen to the news on the radio. My cat leads me to his food dish, so I open a can. I breakfast at my desk. I log into my computer, checking Facebook, and a few other sites.

I have been relishing the coverage of Alakhbar English, a secular left-wing site out of Beirut. Their coverage of the Israeli pogrom on Gaza is righteously outraged, and their posture untainted by the immorality of Saudi or Qatari paymasters. A few days ago they put up a page: "The victims of Gaza: A list of Palestinians killed in Israel's ongoing assault." It keeps a running tally of the casualties, printing their names, their ages, and the brutal circumstances of their murder. It's hard to read; overwhelming. The passing of each precious life coolly noted, each child, woman, man, each martyr to the cause of living their own lives documented one last time.

I shared the link on Facebook. I noticed the metadata that Facebook shows with the post was outdated, reading "Updated July 22 at 6:45 pm: The Gaza health ministry has confirmed the deaths of 627 Palestinians so far in the besieged..." and then it drops off. Yet when I shared the link this morning, July 24, the article itself read a total of 746 deaths. I paused to consider what I had done yesterday, while the electrons of metadata caught up with the typing of a careful webmaster. I had not died. I had not had my home bombed, with or without warning. I had not had my sister, my mother, my father, my children, my friends killed, or maimed. I was not sent screaming into the street in mortal panic. I was very very lucky in my apartment thousands of miles away from, no, I won't call it a war...thousands of miles away from that massacre. What cosmic accident plunked me down here, privileged only to bear distant witness?

This morning I took care of tasks in the warmth of a humid, overcast, but quiet Brooklyn day. I worked on a flyer for a brilliant Palestine solidarity action tomorrow night, the guerrilla transformation of a benefit for the IDF into a benefit for medical aid for Gaza. My cat begged for some of my lunch. I drank iced coffee, followed by some delicious sour cherry juice from Turkey. I'm looking at the clock noting the time I must leave the house to be at tonight's Gaza solidarity rally in downtown Manhattan.

I checked back on my Facebook share this afternoon. The metadata stayed unchanged. I clicked through to the link.

Five hours.

"Updated July 24 at 7:00 pm: The Gaza health ministry has confirmed the deaths of 784 Palestinians so far in the besieged strip since Israel began its relentless assault on July 8. Among those killed, at least 175 were aged 18 or younger."

784.

Thirty-eight more precious lives taken, like that, in the moments it took me to avoid doing my laundry. I couldn't hear the screams, the cries, the crashing of bombs and bricks, I couldn't smell the smoke, the sulfur. I couldn't save any lives, stop any killing. I couldn't offer solace to anyone's unimaginable grief. I couldn't shut up the voices on the radio making grotesque rationalizations for their even more grotesque actions.

My rage seethes, leaving a hollow pit in my chest. I feel impotent, powerless.

This morning certain people I knew online spent time blaming the Palestinians for their own deaths, and in those hours more Palestinians — more people — were actually and literally killed by a calculating, cruel enemy.

Five hours. What did I do this morning? Again I was very lucky.

Everybody I know is okay today, going about their business.

Yet why are my eyes wet from tears?

Something awful is happening right this moment. Shut your eyes, turn away, it's still there, even if you can't see it.

It's time to do something.

Channelling Grief, Despair and Rage

This haunting photo shows volunteers sitting in the lobby of Al-Wafa orthopedic hospital in Gaza, acting as human shields after the hospital received warning shots from the IDF. A day or two later, the hospital was leveled by Israel.

At the start of the Israeli offensive against Gaza I promised my comrades I would write something about Gaza. As the days went by I found myself paralyzed. The rage at what was unfolding flowed through me, but the words jumped around inside my head like little wounds that wouldn't congeal.

I have never had such a difficult time writing anything before in my life. The past week has filled me with grief and despair. Beyond the horror of what's being done to virtually defenseless human beings is my sense of disgust at the people rationalizing the murder of children: all these defenders of Israel, whether politicians or just heartless regular people. But what's happening now is so important. This is a test of our humanity.

We as human beings cannot afford to look away from what is happening. It's ugly but it's really happening. The question is what will we do about it. So this is my article on the tragic affairs in Gaza. Finally last night the words came together and I was able to finish the article I had promised at 1 in the morning. I'm proud of it. I hope you'll read it.

What is happening in Gaza is not a conflict, it's a massacre. What is happening is not a war, but a pogrom, the herding together and culling of the captive Palestinian population.

Israel and its supporters have crafted a brutal narrative absolving themselves of all guilt for the mass murder they are committing. From the Israeli government, and the legions of Zionist agents spouting officially approved “hasbara,” or “explanations” in the media and on the internet, down through the echelons of politicians in countries far and wide — here in the US including conservative and liberal alike — we hear that Israel is just “defending itself” and “trying to prevent civilian casualties.” Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Read all of "Terror & Lies: Israel unleashed brutal pogrom against Gaza."

OWS Veterans Organizing Gaza Solidarity Action in NYC

Activists who cut their teeth in NYC's Occupy Wall Street movement are organizing a "Funeral March" in solidarity with the people of Gaza on Friday. There's a facebook page for the event. I'm proud to have contributed the flyer design for the event. There's even a version in Arabic. The event is being organized by the in-formation "Direct Action Front for Palestine." I'm almost paralyzed with rage at the brutality of Israel's action; I'm really glad to be a part of an action here in New York.

Palestine Postage Stamp Conflict Escalates

Commemorative block just issued by Palestine Authority reads "State of Palestine."

I've written before about the postage stamps of Palestine. The competing Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza have both now been issuing stamps for years based on the Oslo Accords, which created the Palestinian Authority and provided for certain advances in Palestinian civil government despite overall Israeli occupation. 

The stamps issued in Gaza by the Hamas-controlled wing of the PA have been overwhelmingly "militant" in theme and completely untolerated by Israeli authorities. The stamps issued by the Fatah-controlled West Bank wing, however, have generally followed a condition dictated by Israel to be on "peaceful" subjects, and to not explicitly challenge Israeli authority or be overly suggestive of an independent Palestinian entity. Thus, Israeli authorities have confiscated, delayed, suppressed, or complained about certain stamp issues, or ultimately refused to transmit mail bearing stamps it deems offensive or improper. Palestine Authority stamps are generally used on mail from the West Bank to the rest of the world with no problem, since the Fatah government generally pursues a policy of nonconfrontation.

While several sets of stamps have been issued by the West Bank Palestinian Authority this year with the usual pacific subject matter (animals of Palestine, and firefighters, for example) and the standard "Palestinian Authority" inscription, Palestinian postal authorities have surprised the world with an unannounced commemorative block just issued, inscribed "State of Palestine." A revision of a similar, football ("soccer") themed block issued last year, the block marks the recognition by the world Football authority, FIFA, of "the Palestinian national home ground." While this FIFA decision was back in 2008, the willingness of the PA to use "State of Palestine" on the stamp comes in recognition of the "State of Palestine" by a vote at the United Nations last year. Several world bodies and various countries have now recognized the State of Palestine. 

The block, shown above, shows a waving Palestinian flag, a cheering crowd and a soccer ball.

It's not yet known how Israel will react to this postal challenge to Israeli control. According to my sources, some Palestine Authority mail is now routed from the West Bank through Jordan, so Israel may be impotent to do more than verbally challenge the "State of Palestine" inscription. Interestingly, the currency of this issue is switched from "fils" to "mils," switching in effect from Jordanian currency to a virtual Palestinian one.

First Day Cover recently issued in Gaza

Definitely not meeting with Israeli approval, is the most recent stamp issue of the Gaza government. Released in June, a set of stamps and a block mark the "Battle of Shale Stones," or the Israeli assault on Gaza last year. The elaborate block shows the face of Ahmed Jabari, the Hamas military commander assassinated by Israel at the start of their attack. The block is an elaborate montage of explosions, fighters, a waving Palestinian flag, a map of Palestine and a missile bearing Palestinian colors launching out of Gaza. Also featured at the top of the block are the flags of Qatar and Turkey, two regional powers that have been supporters of the Hamas government.

Click on the images to see them in their full colorful glory.

More information on the stamps of Palestine can be found at the comprehensive Zobbel site, "An Introduction to the Philately of Palestine." Thanks to Palestinian stamp dealer Arabian Stamps for images (See Arabian Stamps at Ebay or Delcampe). Another good source of info on recent Palestinian stamps is an English philatelist, Magan Stamps.

Defend Palestine! Stop the Israeli Attack on Gaza!

Omar Jihad Mashrawi holding his one-year-old son, who died from his injuries following an Israeli air strike.

With the full assent of the just re-elected Obama administration, today the Israeli government carried out a series of attacks on Gaza, including the targeted assassination of Ahmed Jabari, the military leader of Hamas, the organization that rules Gaza.

أحمد الجعبري "خالدٌ فينا" -
Ahmed Jabari " You're eternal to us," graphic from the PFLP

The Israeli attacks, which have already taken the lives of a number of Palestinian children, have been widespread in besieged Gaza, and an incursion of ground troops has already been threatened by the Israeli government. Below, blogger and activist Abu Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada exposes the Israeli lie machine's usual dissembling inventions over who started shooting first. Making its point of view clear, the Obama administration issued a disgusting statement: "We strongly condemn the barrage of rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel, and we regret the death and injury of innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians caused by the ensuing violence. There is no justification for the violence that Hamas and other terrorist organizations are employing against the people of Israel." Yes that's right, the US is condemning Hamas for being attacked.



Attacks apparently continued overnight; I'm writing this night-time on Wednesday before dawn in Palestine. Decent human beings everywhere must stand up for the right of the Palestinian people to live their lives free from Israeli terror and occupation. There's a protest now scheduled for New York City on Thursday afternoon.

New Stamps from Gaza Challenge the Blockade

Late last year I wrote about the decision of the Palestinian government in Gaza to issue postage stamps that challenged existing postal agreements between the Palestinian Authority and the State of Israel. The PA has been allowed to issue its own stamps since the 1990s, however Israel reserves the right to veto the design or subject of these stamps; Now for another year the Hamas-led wing of the PA in Gaza has refused to play by these rules.

Three new sets of stamps were just issued in Gaza: a series marking the anniversary of the Nakba, or catastrophe, the expulsion of Palestinians from Palestine at the time of the establishment of Israel; the "Freedom Fleet's Martyrs," the eight Turkish and Turkish-American activists killed last year aboard the Mavi Marmara when Israeli pirates attacked the Gaza-bound freedom flotilla; and, not shown, "Year of Youth 2011."



It's not clear that these stamps will serve anything more than a propaganda purpose given the Israeli blockade and its harsh Apartheid-style rules governing internal Palestinian Authority matters, but the designs sure are compelling.

(Photos courtesy of Magan Stamps. Click on the images to see them a little larger.)

Cancel Your Concerts! Shades of "Ain't Gonna Play Sun City"

Gaza Island from Albino Squirrel Channel on Vimeo.

Back in the era of apartheid South Africa, Sun City was a internationally-renowned concert venue in the white-minority-ruled country. It was set up in one of the hopelessly corrupt fake-independent Bantustans to lure international tourists. Eventually, boycotting the hypnotic lure of Sun City was a badge of honor for socially conscious musicians. Refusing offers to play for the profit of racists became an important part of the movement to isolate the apartheid regime economically and culturally. The video above is an amazing (and fun!) part of the campaign to extend that movement to the BDS (Boycott-Divestments-Sanctions) campaign against the Israeli apartheid state.

The video calls on artists like Paul Simon, Moby, Kiri Te Kanawa, Duran Duran and others to cancel their plans to play in venues in Israel. It also builds support for the upcoming Freedom Flotilla 2 to break the Israeli blockade against Gaza: author Alice Walker, who will be on the flotilla, calls the blockade runners "the freedom riders of our time." Intentionally ironically, the American vessel in this flotilla has been christened "The Audacity of Hope." Israel has already announced its plans to commit piracy and terrorism against the flotilla. It warned — hilariously? tragically? — that anyone who defends themselves against boarding by Israeli pirates will be seen as an "attacker" and dealt with accordingly.

The musicians who boycotted Sun City are remembered as heroes who did the right thing. It will be the same with today's musicians who are confronted with a choice: money or morality. This film clip is the work of Canadian filmmaker John Greyson. Major props to him for making such a clever and accessible vehicle communicating the importance of the BDS campaign.

BDS is not just for famous people: it's something everybody can participate in by boycotting consumer products — such as Sabra (& Shattila) hummus — with ties to the Israeli state and forces of repression.

Self-Defense Only for Bullies

"I condemn in the strongest possible terms the bombing in Jerusalem today, as well as the rockets and mortars fired from Gaza in recent days. Together with the American people, I offer my deepest condolences for those injured or killed. There is never any possible justification for terrorism. The United States calls on the groups responsible to end these attacks at once and we underscore that Israel, like all nations, has a right to self-defense. We also express our deepest condolences for the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza yesterday. We stress the importance of calm and urge all parties to do everything in their power to prevent further violence and civilian casualties." President Obama, in a statement today

What's wrong with this statement?

Let me say first off that terrorism is a terrible thing. But let me also say that it is not just the so-far unannounced perpetrators of this bombing who are guilty of terrorism. I think it is unlikely that either of the main Palestinian players (Hamas or Fatah) will be shown to be behind this bombing. But what IS known is the identity of those who just killed four boys in Gaza who were in the street playing soccer: the IDF and the government of Israel. These boys were sacrificed so that Israel could kill some alleged Hamas militants nearby (guilty of what crime according to what jury?). The Israeli government "apologized" of course. Now my mother always taught me that part of an apology is a commitment never to make the same mistake again, which clearly the Israelis have no intention of doing, so you may toss that insulting apology straight into the trash where it belongs.

The biggest question I have about this statement is why Obama offers only an afterthought of condolences to the civilian victims of an Israeli attack? Because the part of this statement I find most disturbingly hypocritical is the part where he says "Israel, like all nations, has a right to self-defense." Because in his eminent reasonableness what he's actually saying is that the Israeli nation has rights, but the Palestinian one does not. Considering that one of these two nations is locked behind a barbed-wire barricade of blockade, that pretty much means you can toss Obama's professed commitment to Palestinian statehood into the trash with the Israeli apologies.

It's clear that tensions between the Israeli government and the Palestinians in Gaza are rising dangerously, similarly to the period before Israel's assault on Gaza two years ago. But what's not clear from reading most American media, is that what Hamas is doing is not acting like terrorists but acting like, wait for it, a nation that, like all nations, has the right to self-defense. The American media from rightwing to liberal shares the same narrative: Israel is responding to Hamas lobbing missiles at civilians in Israel. But I challenge anyone to read an independent source of Middle East news like Mondoweiss and not see that the actions of Hamas are clearly a response to Israeli aggression.

Israel can kidnap, imprison, assassinate, harass, evict, and blockade whoever it wants with complete U.S.-backed (and paid for) impunity. The recent US vote vetoing a UN resolution against stealing more Palestinian land shows that there are zero repercussions for Israel's aggressive policies. When the Palestinians respond, they are accused of being violent, of being terrorists. In fact Hamas has honored a ceasefire with Israel; and it has clearly announced measured retaliation and response to actual Israeli attack. As I've maintained elsewhere, I'm not a big fan of any kinds of military response. But to condemn the defensive actions of the Palestinians out of proportion to the aggressive actions of Israel is obscene. As obscene as thinking it will be okay to kill children playing games if you apologize afterwards.

And speaking of obscene, what kind of nerve does it take to say that nations have the right to defend themselves at the very moment you are ordering your war machine to rain death from the skies over the sovereign nation of Libya? What kind of obscene is it to urge "all parties" restraint and calm when you are giving one of the parties cut-rate cluster bombs, white phosophorus, and depleted uranium munitions? You can't say your intentions are peaceful when clearly in reality they are not.

I believe what the beautiful poster above says: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." But by what right does someone not willing to turn his own cheek ask another to turn theirs? The power of Obama's words is wearing very very thin.

Graphic from "Social Design Notes"

Gaza, Two Years Ago

Two years ago Israel was attacking the tiny crowded Palestinian enclave of Gaza in its obscenely named "Operation Cast Lead." Hundreds and hundreds of civilians were murdered by the Israelis, including many many children.

Following is a blogpost from Rawan Yaghi, a 17-year-old who lives and blogs in Gaza. Her blog "I Am" is a truly remarkable testament of the human spirit. Here are her words about experiencing the Israeli attack:

FROM BENEATH
I didn't even know if my eyes were open. After a big mess everything seemed so calm I could sense the dust covering my face, the only part I could feel. I could feel my breath hitting one of the bricks of my room's floor. Air found its way through everything surrounding my body. Silence was all I could hear. My arms trapped somewhere under the wooden edges of my bed, my toes, my legs, my hair, they all were jailed and penalized not to move. I was afraid. I waited and waited trying to recall all the joyful events in my life, as my mother once advised me to do so when I'm afraid, though they were few: My elder brother's big wedding, my grandmother coming from Hajj and bringing me a doll singing, the last Eid when I got my biggest Edeyya ever, my mother bringing us home a new baby after me _I wonder if that was a happy event for me, but I could certainly see the joy my parents had looking at that little thing. My breath firmly came back to my face touching it as to comfort me and tell me that everything will be ok. A minute later I started crying, though. And only then I realized that my eyes were closed, for I could feel my wet eyelashes. It did not matter; opening them and closing them were thoroughly the same. I cried so much that my tears mixed with the dust on my face felt like mud at the edges of my face. I must have been bleeding, since a killing pain started growing in my chest with the growing of my weeping. I tried to move in order to stop the pain. Only one muscle, I found out that something very sharp, extremely strong, calmly was standing through my skin. I stopped crying. I waited. I bled.

(Photo from AP/NYT; many more voices remembering the Israeli attack on Gaza two years ago can be found at Mondoweiss, where I first read the above piece.)

Stamps from the Land of Dignity

I've shown many postage stamps in my Anti-Americana series: these tiny works of art serve an expressive and propagandistic purpose, a direct communication from the issuing nation not only to its own citizens but to the peoples of the world. There's an interesting story in this regard just now coming out of Palestine.

With the establishment of the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority on the Occupied West Bank and in Gaza following the Oslo Peace Accords, Israel granted the PA limited control of its own postal services including the right to issue its own stamps. Even though international authorities like the Universal Postal Union don't usually recognize the authority of states that are not fully independent, an exception was made and the new stamps of the Palestinian Authority were to be recognized as valid on international mails. Given the complex political and diplomatic situation between the Palestinian Authority, the Arab states and Israel this has not always been smooth going, but it's all legit in theory.

Israel placed several demands on the Palestinians: the subject matter of the stamps had to be "peaceful," and Israel reserved the right to reject stamps--and the mail bearing them--whose designs were deemed controversial. The Palestinian Authority began issuing stamps in 1994. The first batch of stamps were denominated in "mils," the currency of the pre-Israel Palestine mandate. Israel objected, and the Palestinians had to recalibrate the stamps in Jordanian currency.

Then the Palestinians issued a set of stamps picturing the original stamps issued by the Palestine Mandate back in the 1930s. Again Israel objected. So the Palestinian Authority played by the rules and stuck to extremely "safe" subjects: the flora and fauna of the region, Christmas holidays (think Bethlehem, in Palestine), international sporting events, and the like. As relations between the PA and Israel worsened, and then when the Hamas movement won legislative elections in Gaza, normal things like issuing stamps fell to the wayside. In 2009 the Palestine Authority tried to issue stamps to honor the central role of Jerusalem/Al Quds in Arab culture (part of an international series by many Arab countries), and Israel suppressed the effort, seizing the printed stamps before they could be released.

Now, nearly two years after Israel's brutal attack on Gaza, the so-called "Operation Cast Lead," the Hamas-run Gaza wing of the Palestinian Authority has found its own voice. Several sets of stamps have been issued this year with designs and themes that most definitely would not meet the approval of Israel censors. Hamas basically issued a big "fuck you" to the rules about content, which probably means mail using these stamps won't make it through Israeli controls. One senses the "fuck you" is also aimed at the Al-Fatah wing of the Palestine Authority, which, according to Wikileaks anyway, seems to have given tacit assent to the Israeli attack on Hamas and Gaza's civilians.

One of the sets is shown above. The stamps read, "Gaza, Land of Dignity," and the special commemorative envelope bearing them honors "Our People's Steadfastness against The Siege." Others released at the same time mark the "Significance of Al-Aqsa and Al-Quds in Muslims' Hearts," "Palestinian National Unity," and the "Resistance Victory Against Aggression on Gaza," this one showing two small children embracing amidst the ruins of the Israeli attack.


I think this kind of postal or philatelic resistance is inspiring. Despite the attempts of the Israeli state and the western powers to subdue the Palestinian people through fake peace talks and negotiations for an apartheid-style Bantustan micro-state, the Palestinians are going ahead and acting like a nation.

The Gaza massacre a year later

Required reading from the Lenin's Tomb blog in the UK, an evaluation of the Israeli attack on Gaza a year later: Operation Cast-Lead One Year On. Lenin's Tomb is the work of Richard Seymour, a member of the British Socialist Workers Party (no relation to the US one), and his analysis is sharper and more intelligent than anything passing for socialism on the US scene.

"The war on the population of Gaza is an attempt to break Palestinian resistance by means of destroying, in part, the aforementioned population."

Read the whole piece here.

Their morals and ours

From The Angry Arab News Service: Arabs will see this picture, and they will remember it. They will take note that when the Israeli terrorist army was butchering Palestinian women and children, Israeli "civilians" stood and watched cheeringly, while sipping their beverages. "A tower of white smoke rose from the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun after another Israeli bombardment Monday morning, and a half-dozen Israelis, perched on a dusty hilltop, gazed at the scene like armchair military strategists. Avi Pilchick took a long swig of Pepsi and propped a foot on the plastic patio chair he had carried up the hillside to watch the fighting. "They are doing good," Pilchick, 20, said of Israeli forces battling Palestinian militants in Gaza, "but they can do more.""

Oh yes. This is a closeup of what made them laugh. The heart numbs.

a voice of reason amidst the bloodbath?

Shockingly, the first acceptable article I've read in the MSM on the attack on Gaza is from Haaretz. By Gideon Levy.

"We've hit the Hamas military machine from the air" and now the ground invasion

Pictured above, the Hamas military machine.

I weep for the world. The Israelis are murdering butchers.