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The Reality of Gaza January 20, 2009

Posted by Garibaldy in Palestine, Uncategorized.
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What can you say?

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1. John Palmer - January 20, 2009

What to say?: an immediate resolution should be put to the United Nations to authorise the establishment of a special form of the International Criminal Court (as was done for Darfur) to receive the dossiers – already prepared by several hundred different human rights and humanitarian organisation – which present prima facie evidence for serious war crimes committed in Gaza by Israeli forces. The ICC should demand the attendance of those Israeli leaders responsible to answer these charges. The court should have the power to impose the necessary criminal sentences on those found guilty.

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2. WorldbyStorm - January 20, 2009

Absolutely.These are acts which simply can’t be stood over by a democratic nation or more so by the international community.

On a side issue I was reading Harry’s Place amongst other places today and the sheer sense of detachment from reality about this issue is very dispiriting.

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3. ejh - January 20, 2009

I recommend you avoid reading Harry’s Place. There is only so much human stupidity that we can stand. Talk to the cat instead, it will do you good.

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4. PamDirac - January 20, 2009

You have to watch a lot of American television news coverage of the conflict to become truly — well, dispirited isn’t the word.

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5. goodhardrant - January 20, 2009

Watching Al Jazeera over the past few weeks has been appalling: really gruelling – some days I must admit I have actually avoided it. I used to think the BBC international new was pretty hardhitting, but the coverage from within Gaza and Palestine made it look like playtime.

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6. WorldbyStorm - January 21, 2009

The Washington editor of Al Jazeera was on the Daily Show yesterday and had some interesting words about what is carried by them… and what isn’t by the US networks…

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7. skidmarx - January 21, 2009

I saw the Daily Show and thought relatively little was said, Jon Stewart making out that the difference was that the US won’t show gore except on CSI, no mention of their institutionalised bias in favour of Israel, and suggesting that al-Jazeera couldn’t reflect the Israeli side because it would alienate the audience. None of it quite lies when taken out of context.

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8. ejh - January 21, 2009

This is good.

The Israeli army is to investigate claims it used white phosphorus illegally during its three-week offensive in Gaza.

What in God’s name does this mean? I mean how can somebody investigate whether they’ve done something or not? What’s the idea, that somebody in the army secretly had white phosphorus but the army itself didn’t know about it? Or they knew they had it, but somebody tok it our of the warehouse without telling anybody? Or they did it in their sleep? Or what?

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9. ejh - January 21, 2009

“ejh is to investigate claims that he posted on the Cedar Lounge Revolution website”

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10. soubresauts - January 21, 2009

On Dec 30th, three days after the incredibly vicious beginning of the Israeli assault on Gaza, I noticed, with a shock, that Mary Dejevsky in The Independent wrote: “Once again, the Palestinians of Gaza have worn their victimhood as a badge of honour.”

However, I was heartened to read what some of the Jewish people were saying:

Ronit Lentin, in the Irish Times letters page:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2009/0108/1230936761264.html

Naomi Klein:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/10/naomi-klein-boycott-israel

Avi Shlaim:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

And most recently, Noam Chomsky, at great length:
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20316

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11. CL - January 22, 2009

Be interesting to see how George Mitchell fares as special envoy. Perhaps his Lebanese, Arabic-speaking background will help.

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12. BK - January 22, 2009

my attempt:

Gaza Outshines the American Inaugural

Mop up the blood, clear the rubble
Gather your tattered lives and mourn your loved ones
now crushed and mangled,
pummelled into the memory-dust of the earth they
held to so tenaciously,
with love undimmed, loyalty unbroken.
Bury your children, Palestine.
Sort the dead from the living, if you can.
Find a way through this heavy grief
meticulously planned, an exhilarating slaughter
dry-run at Fallujah
hatched with precision in Tel Aviv and Washington,
abetted in Cairo and Riyadh, Amman and Damascus,
and among the jackals who manage the civilized west.
This is their democracy, their gift to the world,
Illuminated in white phosphorus and dropped from on high
Bunker busters and hunger together,
whether you fucking want them or not.

Clear the rubble, Palestine.
You are our bright light of hope
in a world brought low by complicity in this immense crime.
We the survivors
turned inside out, sickened and numbed by shock and awe;
we mourn with you, outraged.
We must ensure that it is seared into their consciousness*
that you, we are an undefeated people.
Every cowboy, white or black, star of david, cross or crescent moon
must be left in no doubt
that the Indians and their brothers and sisters the world round
will not step back.
Che lives, and all the free women and men of this, our common world,
must be prepared to avenge the crime of Gaza.

Mop up the blood, Palestine.
Let them have their glimmering day.
Gleam and bunting in abundance
An army of shining white teeth, botox and manicure to feed us pomp and lies
and distract us from our common humanity.
“Brought to you by murdering bastards”
Pimp My Ride, Shock and Awe, tits and ass, Abu Ghraib, the wonders of the Market.
Confetti and rhetoric to mute the obscenity and hide the squalor
Katrina Katrina Katrina
A muzzled black man as their guest of honour,
slandering our slain drum major for justice, rubbing shoulders with his executioners,
offering platitudes and hopelessness to the oh-so-very-hopeful.

The change we can believe in
Rises from the rubble in Gaza.
You are our bright light of hope
Shining out through the darkness
Cutting through the cheap gleam and tattered bunting
With the glow of common humanity, unadorned,
hungry and in rags, but forever off its knees.

Offered in solidarity to the people of Gaza by Brian Kelly
on the occasion of Barrack Obama’s Inaugural
20 January 2009

*General Moshe Ya’alon, former chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Force, in 2002: We must “sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people.”

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13. CL - January 22, 2009

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/22/mitchell.profile/?iref=mpstoryview#cnnSTCVideo
Mitchell’s remarks on appointment. 800 years of ‘British’ control of Ireland?

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