DebateGate

http://gulfnews.com/news/region/palestinian-territories/from-tear-gas-to-bullets-gunshots-shattered-call-to-prayer-1.636578

Rings true because he admits that there was resistance, albeit with improvised weapons.  (The metal rods were railing parts.)  Also admits that some Israeli soldiers were captured and beaten at one point.  (As MJ Blumenthal points out in his article, Israeli complaints about their soldiers being beaten are akin to a car-jacker complaining that the motorist beat him with a tire-iron kept under the driver's seat in the course of the car-jacking.)  If the guy was making propaganda, why mention the soldier being captured and beaten?  Unlike the Israeli story (which has already been found using fake photos!) this account has the ring of truth to it.

Lift the Siege of Gaza

Posted By Patrick J. Buchanan On June 3, 2010 @ 11:00 pm In Uncategorized | No Comments

In June 1948, our wartime ally imposed a blockade on Berlin, cutting off and condemning to death or Stalinist domination 2 million Germans, most of whom, not long before, had cheered Adolf Hitler.

Harry Truman responded with the Berlin airlift, in perhaps the most magnanimous act of the Cold War.

For nine months, U.S. pilots flew into Tempelhof, carrying everything from candy to coal, saving a city and earning the eternal gratitude of the people of Berlin, and admiration everywhere that moral courage is admired.

That was an America that lived its values.

And today, President Obama should end his and his country’s shameful silence over the inhumane blockade of Gaza that is denying 1.5 million beleaguered people the basic necessities of a decent life.

Time to start acting like America again.

That bloody debacle in the Eastern Mediterranean last Sunday was an inevitable result of Israel doing what it always seems to do: going beyond what is essential to her security, to impose collective punishment upon any and all it regards as hostile to Israel.

Israel claims, and film confirms, that its commandos rappelling down onto the Turkish ship were attacked with sticks and metal rods. One was tossed off a deck, another tossed overboard into a lifeboat.

But that 2 a.m. boarding of an unarmed ship with an unarmed crew, carrying no munitions or weapons, 65 miles at sea, was an act of piracy. What the Israeli commandos got is what any armed hijacker should expect who tries to steal a car from a driver who keeps a tire iron under the front seat.

And the response of these highly trained naval commandos to the resistance they encountered? They shot and killed nine passengers, and wounded many more.

But we have a blockade of Gaza, say the Israelis, and this flotilla was a provocation. Indeed, it was. And Selma was a provocation. The marchers at Edmund Pettus Bridge were disobeying orders of the governor of Alabama and state police not to march.

Yet, today, liberal Democrats who regard Martin Luther King as a moral hero for championing nonviolent civil disobedience to protest injustice are cheering not the unarmed passengers trying to break the Gaza blockade, but the Israelis enforcing the blockade.

Where were these fellows when "Bull" Connor really needed them?

Comes the retort: Israel is a friend and ally, and we stand with our friends.

But is not Turkey a friend and ally of 50 years, whose soldiers died alongside ours in Korea and who accepted Jupiter missiles targeted on Russia, even before the Cuban missile crisis? Was it not Turkey whose citizens were wounded and killed in the bloody debacle?

Why are we not at least even-handed between our friends?

On the trip to Israel where he was blindsided by news that Israel would build 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, Joe Biden told Shimon Peres, "There is absolutely no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security."

And that is the problem.

America is a superpower with interests in an Arab world of 300 million and an Islamic world of 1.5 billion — interests Israel treats with indifference if not contempt when it comes to doing what she regards as necessary for her security.

While Israel had a right to build a wall to protect her people from terror attack, did she have a right to build it on Palestinian land?

While Israel had a right to go after Hezbollah when her soldiers were shot on the border and several kidnapped, did Israel have a right to conduct a five-week bombing campaign that smashed Lebanon, killing hundreds of civilians and creating upward of a million refugees?

While Israel had a right to go into Gaza to stop the firing of crude rockets on Sderot, did she have a right to smash utilities and public buildings and kill 1,400 people, most of them civilians?

Is whatever Israel decides to do in the name of her security fine with us, because there is "absolutely no space" between our interests and hers, our values and Israel’s values?

Even with Winston Churchill’s Britain, there was "space" between us on strategic goals and national policies.

Israel has a right to secure Gaza to deny Hamas access to weapons, especially rockets that could reach Israel. But that does not justify denying 1.5 million people what they need to live in decency.

According to The Washington Post, "80 percent of the population (of Gaza) depends on charity. Hospitals, schools, electricity systems and sewage treatment facilities are all in deep disrepair."

With our silence, we support this. And we wonder why they hate us.

Obama should tell the Israelis that Joe got it wrong. There is space between us. The Gaza siege must end. And America will herself be sending aid, but will also support Israel’s right to inspect trucks and ships to see to it no weapons get through to Gaza.

Let’s start behaving like who we once were.

COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM

<<Many specialised treatments, such as for complex heart surgery and certain types of cancer, are not available in Gaza and patients are referred for treatment to hospitals outside the territory. But many patients have had their applications for exit permits denied or delayed by Israeli authorities and have missed their appointments. Some have died while waiting for referral, the World Health Organisation said in a January statement.

<<. . . Other health problems include malnutrition, wasting and underweight children and anemia.

<<The lack of building materials is affecting essential health facilities: the new surgical wing in Gaza's main Shifa hospital has remained unfinished since 2006. Hospitals and primary care facilities, damaged during operation 'Cast Lead', have not been rebuilt because construction materials are not allowed into Gaza.

Thomson Reuters Foundation, Alert Net
http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/55076/2010/05/1-141115-1.htm


United Nations
<<On January 24, 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council released a statement calling for Israel to lift its siege on the Gaza Strip, allow the continued supply of food, fuel, and medicine, and reopen border crossings.[59] According to the Jerusalem Post, this was the 15th time in less than two years the council condemned Israel for its human rights record regarding the Palestinian territories.[60] The proceedings were boycotted by Israel and the United States.

<<On December 15, 2008, following a statement in which he described the embargo on Gaza a crime against humanity, United Nations Special Rapporteur Richard A. Falk was prevented from entering the Palestinian territories by Israeli authorities and expelled from the region.[61] The Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Itzhak Levanon[62] said that the mandate of the Special Rapporteur was "hopelessly unbalanced," "redundant at best and malicious at worst." [63]

<<In August 2009, U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay criticised Israel for the blockade in a 34-page report, calling it a violation of the rules of war.[64]

<<In March 2010, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon stated that the blockade of Gaza is causing "unacceptable suffering" and that families were living in "unacceptable, unsustainable conditions".[65]

<<A UN Fact Finding mission lead by South African Judge Richard Goldstone suggested that the blockade was a war crime and possibly a crime against humanity:
"Israeli acts that deprive Palestinians in the Gaza Strip of their means of subsistence, employment, housing and water, that deny their freedom of movement and their right to leave and enter their own country, that limit their rights to access a court of law and an effective remedy, could lead a competent court to find that the crime of persecution, a crime against humanity, has been committed."[7] The Goldstone report recommended that the matter be referred to the International Criminal Court if the situation has not improved in six months.

<<In May 2010, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated that the formal economy in Gaza has collapsed since the imposition of the blockade.[66]>>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932010_blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip#United_Nations

Just watched Phil Gordon, Mayor of Phoenix, on CNN this morning.  His city is on track to losing $90 million over the next five years in convention and hospitality business, and he's still considering a personal lawsuit against the state government for its new, racist "immigration" law.  (City council wouldn't back the suit.)  He has some big losses already to cope with in terms of canceled reservations and conventions.  And that's just one city in the state.  Interestingly enough, he's received numerous death threats from all over the nation for his opposition to the new law.  I think, in the end, if anything defeats the racist state legislature, it'll be the power of the purse.  The boycott seems to be working, even at its current unofficial level

The spill could have been prevented had the rig been equipped with a remote acoustic switch acting as a back-up to the failed dead-man switch.  According to the Wall Street Journal, such acoustic back-ups are required by law in Norway and Brazil, Norway having mandated them on all deepwater rigs since 1993

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423504575212031417936798.html

According to CNN morning news today, U.S. oil companies have lobbied against the back-up acoustic switch and other government-imposed safety regulations since they were first proposed.

Whoever still believes that industry doesn't need more government regulation after this latest disaster really needs to see a shrink.

Is this for real?  Anybody ever hear of a car bomb that leaves a tell-tale plume of smoke before it goes off?  Fortunately, as in the case of the Detroit airport "bomber," the whole thing was foiled by "alert bystanders" without a scratch on anyone.  I'm as sensitive as the next guy to threats on Times Square - - anyone visiting NYC who wants to buy cheap theatre tickets has to stand in line there, a sitting duck for any "terrorist" bomb, but really - - a car bomb that warns before detonating?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/antonio-villaraigosa/boycott-arizona_b_557812.html

It'll work because it worked when Arizona was boycotted for refusing to back Martin Luther King Day.  What a bunch of bigoted racist ass-holes.  Naturally they're too fucking dumb to know how this thing is going to backfire on them, but they'll find out soon enough.

http://www.counterpunch.org/shor04272010.html

Good article on Special Forces death squads tasked with the murders of Afghan resistance figures, including women and children, in their homes.  Not only on what damage these psychos are capable of doing once they return to the U.S., but just focusing on the simple moral wrongness of what they do every day in Afghanistan.  In some ways it's a cop-out to argue on how they impact on "innocent" American civilians after completion of their tour of duty, because that somehow implies that what they do is OK as long as it's not done on American soil.

The point is also made how "support the troops" propaganda at sporting events and MSM spectaculars, and the portrayal of these monsters as good, homespun, friendly, "all-American" kids that any parent would be proud of are all part of a sophisticated campaign to whitewash the litany of crimes going down daily in all conflict zones where Americans are active.  Of course the "support the troops" campaign goes on in tandem with the "demonize the Taliban" stuff.

This is why Wikileaks is so important.  Showing these ass-holes laughing and joking as they blow away totally innocent civilians in massacres later billed as "battles" by the lying whores of the Pentagon has an important counterbalancing function to all the Pentagon/MSM propaganda and basically tells any American who sees the stuff what a crock a shit they are being fed by their own government and military.  It's extremely important to keep these Wikileaks videos in the forefront of the public's consciousness at all times, because the barrage of propaganda from the Dark Side is non-stop.