Israel to Bomb Seat of Christianity

"Why "Bibi" The Co-Butcher Of New York Is Licking His Murderous Chops

When the nineteen infamous hijackers were planning their murderous enterprise on 9/11 they were being observed. Observed and perhaps assisted by an army of Mossad spies dispatched by none other than Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Apartheid Israel at the time. The job would be finished however by war criminal Ariel (Jews control the United States) Sharon his co-butcher. You can find a copy of a report prepared by our Drug Enforcement Agency about Netanyahu,s spies leaked to the press but largely ignored by it here (exhibit A).

Now Netanyahu's neo-nazi party, Likud, is vying for power once again in the upcoming Apartheid Israeli elections and Bibi has held an early lead in the polls. He has no doubt been licking his murderous chops in anticipation of once again becoming Israel's Murderer in Chief. In an effort to make up some ground however his chief rivals in Kadima launched the recent assault on Gaza. You may have been under the impression that this assault had something to do with Hamas launching rockets into their old neighborhoods in Israel. In fact, this murderous assault had been planned long before those rockets started falling. The truth is that Kadima was trying to rehabilitate its own murderous image among the Apartheid Israeli public. They needed a victory before the elections, so of course their spokesmen began to spread the word that Hamas had been well armed by Iran and actually presented a threat to Apartheid Israeli security. Of course like all words coming from the mouths of Israeli spokesmen, we now know this was complete fabrication. The Gazans as it turns out were for the most part unarmed and defenseless and as we know were slaughtered. It is unlikely however that this slaughter has done much to influence the average Zion fascist voter in Israel. Most understood that this was a feeble attempt by Kadima to remove the memories of defeat by Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon in the Summer of 2006. They knew it had nothing to do with security and that it was politically motivated. All of that murdering for nothing.

It is now likely that Bibi the Butcher of New York will once again become Apartheid Israel's Murderer in Chief. He has also made some new friends as Likud's chairman. Friends like Moshe Feiglin, the number one fan of fascist Zionist pioneer, Zeev Jabotinsky. Also a big fan of Adolf Hitler. In a 1995 interview with Haaretz, Feiglin shared his thoughts on Hitler and his policies.

From The Middle East Times:

"Hitler was an unparalleled military genius. Nazism promoted Germany from a low to a fantastic physical and ideological status. The ragged, trashy youth body turned into a neat and orderly part of society and Germany received an exemplary regime, a proper justice system and public order. Hitler savored good music. He would paint. This was no bunch of thugs. They merely used thugs and homosexuals," said Feiglin. Feiglin also gave his candid opinion on the Palestinians, whom he said didn't really exist. "There is no Palestinian nation. There is only an Arab-speaking public which has suddenly identified itself as a people, a negative of the Zionist movement, parasites. "The fact that they hadn't done so earlier only serves to prove how inferior they are. The Africans have no nations either. Only Zulus, Tutsis," he added.

Wow, some people actually believe this guy could get elected. It seems insofar as Israel is concerned, we may be moving from one set of crazy fascist f_cks to another crazier set of fascist f_cks. Why would the United States want to support either? Both of these parties presided over Apartheid Israel during the planning and execution of 9/11. If these people are responsible for the murder of 3,000 Americans as I am sure they are, we should not providing them bombs on skids and in supply planes, we should be dropping them from B-2's on Tel Aviv. In any case it's time to remove this Zion fascist albatross from our necks.

With comment:

Greg Bacon said...

The CIA financed, MOSSAD run aL Qaeda is reportedly planning an attack on a Christian Church in Israel. Right.

Having trouble pulling off another bogus 9/11 in America boys? Pulling off a "false-flag" in your backyard would be soooo much easier, right?

Don't forget to leave some documents on those "aL Qaeda" types you gun down that say "Death to Israel, Death to America!"

And show that they were financed by Iran.

Make it violent and bloody, to get Americans attention, since so many of them are worried not about that SLC, but whether or not they'll have a job and a home by the end of the year.
Both lost due to other Tribe members playing fast and loose on Wall Street.

BTW, where in the hell did all of that stolen Wall Street loot get off to? It sure as hell didn't disappear, or get burned in some kind of holocaust, that is forbidden by Israel's head rabbi, to treat money that way.

MEANWHILE, al-KI-duh is regrouping. They have to carry out some attacks or they will lose credibility with their funding agencies, man. You know, the "agency" (wink wink).
“These people will carry out painful attacks. They have announced that they will and they must carry them out or they will lose credibility with their funding agencies. They might carry out assassinations against foreigners and key security officials as well as oil installations,” said Mr al Bahri, who was imprisoned after the USS Cole attack in Aden in 2000 and was released after renouncing violence.

Well, actually, Netanyahu says that the "Islamic" "terrorists" will go straight for the Christian world's jugular: Jesus' burial site. Netanyahu, who claims he had predicted [helped plan] an Islamic extremists attack on the World Trade Center six years before the actual attack, said terrorists will target Church of the Holy Sepulchre also known as the Church of the Resurrection - Christianity's holiest site.

The church located in Jerusalem (al-Quds) -- which according to the New Testament is the site of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus -- attracts tens of thousands of pilgrims every year and is considered a spiritual focal point.

"Radical Islam is willing [at least the ones on our payroll] and [we] will want [them] to attack the symbolic heart of the Christian religion," said the former Israeli prime minister. [Because you Christians and Muslims must kill each other off now. We will help you get started. xo-bibi.]

"This will incur a chain reaction [You know, like nuclear fusion?] we can't even envision. [Well, we can, but that would ruin the fun. So we can't.] We will witness an escalation of religious conflict above and beyond the regional conflict we have now," Daily Telegraph quoted him as saying. [Rubbing his hands together maniacally...]

The Right-wing Likud leader said he had warned in a 1995 book -- six years before the September 11 attacks -- that "Islamist terrorists" would detonate a nuclear device in the World Trade Centre in New York. [And miraculously, it happened. That Bibi, he is such a star.]

http://twelfthbough.blogspot.com/

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And more commentary:

"I predict an "Al Qaeda" attack on Spain.... Oh yes, I can just hear "The Toilet" cranking up a big one for Spain!" -- Wake the Flock Up

FYI, readers: On the day of the 9-11 attacks, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked what the attacks would mean for US-Israeli relations. His quick reply was:

"It's very good…….Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy (for Israel)."

"Netanyahu says 9/11 terror attacks good for Israel"

"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor."

And CUI BONO?

So WHEN is the ISRAELI FALSE-FLAG that is going to be pinned on Iran, 'eh?

U.S. Planning Attack on Iran

Whenever Israel gives the word....

"Mullen: Using force against Iran still an option

Jan. 27, 2009

Hilary Leila Krieger
The Jerusalem Post

American military force against Iran remains an option, though it would be a "last resort," US Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in response to a question from The Jerusalem Post Tuesday.

Mullen emphasized, however, the importance he placed on engagement with the Islamic Republic, particularly when it came to Afghanistan, at the same time that he called for stricter UN resolutions to block Iran's weapons smuggling abilities.

In a rare press conference with the foreign media Tuesday, he alluded to a recent US interception of a ship sailing under a Cypriot flag with weapons that America believed had come from Iran and were heading toward Syria, "where we think they will get in the next day or so."

That was because, while American forces could board the ship, they could not seize the weapons under current international law, Mullen said. The situation, he said, spoke to "the need to have stronger resolutions, particularly in a case like this, where Iran has clearly violated a United Nations Security Council resolution," a reference to previous restrictions on Iranian weapons transfers.

He described Iran as "unhelpful in many, many ways, in many, many areas, and so I wouldn't be overly optimistic at this point" when it comes to engagement....

When asked by the Post about the potential for military action and whether the US had changed its stance with the new leadership coming into office, Mullen replied, "I don't think the new administration has taken any options off the table, including military force."

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The FBI's False-Flag Fear Factory

Just in case USrael is having any false-flag delusions of grandeur.

On to you this time.

"The Fear Factory; The FBI now has more than 100 task forces devoted exclusively to fighting terrorism. But is the government manufacturing ghosts?

by GUY LAWSON

Feb 07, 2008

So, what you wanna do?" the friend asked. "A target?" the wanna-be jihadi replied. "I want some type of city-hall-type stuff, federal courthouses."

It was late November 2006, and twenty-two-year-old Derrick Shareef and his friend Jameel were hanging out in Rockford, Illinois, dreaming about staging a terrorist attack on America. The two men weren't sure what kind of assault they could pull off. All Shareef knew was that he wanted to cause major damage, to wreak vengeance on the country he held responsible for oppressing Muslims worldwide. "Smoke a judge," Shareef said. Maybe firebomb a government building.

But while Shareef harbored violent fantasies, he was hardly a serious threat as a jihadi. An American-born convert to Islam, he had no military training and no weapons. He had less than $100 in the bank. He worked in a dead-end job as a clerk in a video-game store. He didn't own a car. So dire were his circumstances, Shareef had no place to live. Then one day, Jameel, a fellow Muslim, had shown up at EB Games and offered him shelter. Within hours of meeting his new brother, Shareef had moved in with Jameel and his three wives and nine children. Living together, the pair fantasized about targets in Rockford, a Midwestern city of 150,000, with a minuscule Muslim population and the lone claim to fame of being the hometown of Cheap Trick.

The fact that Shareef was a loser with no means of living out his imagination didn't stop his friend from encouraging his delusions of grandeur. On the contrary, Jameel continually pushed Shareef to escalate his plans....

*******************

For all his bluster, Shareef was, by any objective measure, a pathetic and hapless jihadist — one of a new breed of domestic terrorists the federal government has paraded before the media since 9/11. The FBI, in a sense, elevated Shareef, working to transform him from a boastful store clerk into a suicidal mall-bomber. Like many other alleged extremists who have been targeted by the authorities, Shareef didn't know that his brand-new friend —the eager co-conspirator drawing him ever further into a terror plot —was actually an informant for the FBI.

As Shareef cursed America and Jews, he was under almost constant surveillance by the Joint Terrorism Task Force for the Northern District of Illinois. Since 9/11, the number of such outfits across the country has tripled. With more than 2,000 FBI agents now assigned to 102 task forces, the JTTFs have effectively become a vast, quasi-secret arm of the federal government, granted sweeping new powers that outstrip those of any other law-enforcement agency. The JTTFs consist not only of local police, FBI special agents and federal investigators from Immigration and the IRS, but covert operatives from the CIA. The task forces have thus effectively destroyed the "wall" that historically existed between law enforcement and intelligence-gathering. Under the Bush administration, the JTTFs have been turned into a domestic spy agency, like Britain's MI5 —one with the powers of arrest.

The expenditure of such massive resources to find would-be terrorists inevitably requires results. Plots must be uncovered. Sleeper cells must be infiltrated. Another attack must be prevented —or, at least, be seen to be prevented. But in backwaters like Rockford, the JTTFs don't have much to do. To find threats to thwart, the task forces have increasingly taken to using paid informants to cajole and inveigle targets like Shareef into pursuing their harebrained schemes. In the affidavit sworn by an FBI special agent in support of Shareef's indictment, the co-conspirator who called himself Jameel is known only as "CS" (Cooperating Source). In fact, CS was William Chrisman, a former crack dealer with a conviction for attempted robbery who was paid $8,500 by the JTTF and dispatched specifically to set up Shareef. Like other informants in terrorism cases, Chrisman had been "tasked" by federal agents to indulge and escalate Shareef's fantasies — while carefully ensuring that Shareef incriminated himself....

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Musing About Mitchell's Mission

And surprise, surprise. I think we've found another 9/11 Truther:

"It may well be proven eventually that Israel stood behind the 9/11 events. Yes, I don’t possess irrefutable evidence proving this point right now, but the cunning Zionist serpent is too demonic, too nefarious and too sly to be given the benefit of the doubt."

Yeah, and if you investigate 9/11 (and consider the long list of Israeli-sponsored false-flag operations) you will find it was a CIA/Mossad operation with dual Israeli nationals in the executive as the conduits and Dick Cheney as the fulcrum on that fateful day. And CUI BONO?

This author also has the most sage advice boiled down into the simplest statement:

"America needs to realize that unless Israel is reined in, America itself will go down."

Yup. And if Israel stands alone, she will take the world down with her.

"AND NOW THE MITCHELL FANTASY

by Khalid Amayreh

It is really difficult to take seriously those who think that the new American envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, has a real chance of getting Israel, the Nazi-like entity, to end its occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, and therefore achieve a just and lasting peace in this tortured part of the world.

True, Mitchell succeeded in resolving the 800-year-old conflict in Northern Ireland. However, with Israel in tight control of the American Congress, media and public discourse, it is unlikely that Mitchell will be able to do much in terms of pressuring the apartheid state to take a strategic decision to end its 40-year-old colonialist occupation of Palestinian territories.

The factors militating against Mitchell’s mission are numerous and overwhelming.

First, Mitchell should be honest enough to realize that Israel has effectively killed any realistic prospects of creating a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank. The building of hundreds of Jewish-only colonies throughout the occupied territories has simply left no room for establishing such a state.

This is of course unless a quisling Palestinian leadership will be cajoled or coerced into accepting a “state” made up of disconnected Bantustans and townships under tight Israeli control.

Needless to say, such a scandalous sell-out of Palestinian rights would be strongly and violently rejected by a vast majority of Palestinians, and whatever Palestinian “Judenrat” acceding to such deal would be mercilessly crushed and its members killed like stray dogs in the streets of the West Bank.

Traitors who trade the national patrimony of their people for money, investment and preferential treatment by America and Israel can’t really hope for a better treatment from their people. This is how traitors are treated everywhere.

Moreover, it should be amply clear by now that no Israeli government would be able, even if willing, to dismantle the hundreds of settlements built on occupied Arab land since 1967.

The Israeli society and political environment are simply too jingoistic to allow any Israeli government to undo the “gains” of the Six-day war.

There are those who may argue that the settlers and their supporters can be overruled by a majority of Israelis who want peace. Well, this is not an accurate appraisal of reality. The settlers and their supporters represent a real majority within the Israeli society and especially within the Israeli army, as the upcoming Israeli elections will undoubtedly show.

This is the reason why successive Israeli governments consistently refrained from dismantling even a single settlement, including those created brazenly illegally, even according to the lopsided Israeli law itself. (All settlements are illegal according to international law as elucidated a few years ago by the International Court of Justice in the Hague).

Israeli leaders know deep in their heart that dismantling settlements and removing settlers could lead to a Jewish civil war. Olmert, whose election platform a few years ago was based on a promise to remove settlements east of the “Separation Wall,” eventually cringed before the settlers and didn’t dare to remove a single outpost.

Hence, it is inconceivable that in the absence of a truly massive political and psychological earthquake hitting the collective Israeli psyche, no Israeli government would be able to embark on the unthinkable task of dismantling the settlements and withdrawing to the armistice lines of the 4^th of June, 1967.

Needless to say, such an “earthquake” can only be triggered by the United States, Israel’s guardian-ally. However, for such an earthquake to occur in Israel, a stronger political earthquake would have to occur in Washington D.C. first.

I am talking about a mental and political transformation, a real revolution that would free the American political class from the stranglehold of American Zionism, the demonic ghoul now gripping America by the throat.

This takes us to another question. Is America capable of extricating herself from this Zionist grip? Can America say “No” to the Israeli bully and act on it? Can America outsmart and outmaneuver the tyrannical Zionist clique enslaving America now?

I am raising these questions because all the old tools of trying to resolve the conflict in Palestine have been tried ad nauseam and proven ineffective and bankrupt.

This necessarily requires new “unorthodox” and “un-classical” tools that would convince Israel that “enough is enough” and that America wouldn’t continue to play the role of powerful whore in the service of Zionist supremacy in the Middle East.

But in order to reach such a realization, America would have to think honestly and do a lot of soul-searching. America would have to confront itself with the naked facts about the Nazi-like monster known as Israel. America would have to face the fact that the huge crisis now haunting the American economy is attributed first and foremost to Israel. More to the point, America needs to realize that unless Israel is reined in, America itself will go down. Isn’t America already going down, at least in part because it allowed a tiny criminal entity 10,000 miles away to dictate American policy and behavior toward the rest of the world.

After all, it was Israel that by way of deception got the unmissed ignoramus of the White House, George Bush, to invade, occupy and destroy two sovereign Muslim nations and murder or cause the death of over a million human beings.

It was Israel that envisaged the so-called “war on terror.” And it may well be proven eventually that Israel stood behind the 9/11 events. Yes, I don’t possess irrefutable evidence proving this point right now, but the cunning Zionist serpent is too demonic, too nefarious and too sly to be given the benefit of the doubt.

Hence, I would like to give the following advice to Mr. Mitchell.

Don’t be naïve, Israel and its leaders will try to dilute your mission by eviscerating it of substance. They will seek to overwhelm you with mountains of red-herring tactics. They will raise all sorts of issues, real and imagined to confuse you. They will shamelessly raise the issue of terror, ignoring the cardinal fact that Israel herself is the most satanic embodiment of terror in this world. They will speak about “anti-Semitism,” overlooking the obvious fact that Israel’s Nazi behaviors, e.g. the recent genocidal blitzkrieg in Gaza, are the premier generator of anti-Semitism around the world.

They will confront you with an avalanche of distractions to divert attention from the real core issue, their enduring Nazi-like occupation of Palestinian land and their unmitigated oppression of the Palestinian people.

If you are brave and honest, confront them, let them frown in your face, let them get angry. But don’t cower, or cave in to their bullying tactics, even if they threaten to mobilize Congress against you and your boss in Washington.

They might hint to you that the Jews control America and could therefore get the President to fire you. Don’t be impressed by this. Report it directly to Mr. Obama.

You are likely to be affronted soon by a man named Benyamin Netanyahu, who is likely to become Israel’s next Prime Minister.

This man is a pathological liar, a professional propagandist who thinks that effective hasbara (propaganda) is the solution for all problems. Diversionary tactics and verbal prevarication are his policy and sheer mendacity is his modus operandi. So, don’t be deceived by his false magic.

Finally, I would like to say the following:

Be honest and frank with your boss in Washington. Tell him that Israel doesn’t want peace and is not seeking true peace partners among Palestinians.

A country that has built and continues to build settlements on stolen land obviously doesn’t want peace. Moreover, a country that bullies peace partners, e.g. the Palestinian Authority, to act and behave very much like the “Jewish councils” in Nazi-occupied Europe did, doesn’t seek genuine peace partners, but genuine quislings and bona fide collaborators.

Also, tell Mr. Obama that Israel and her leaders don’t really take America seriously. I give you one little example. In eight years of Bush’s misrule, and despite incessant and occasionally aggressive demands from Washington to remove roadblocks from the West Bank to enhance Palestinian mobility and help revive the region’s moribund economy, Israel actually increased rather than decreased the number of these evil checkpoints and roadblocks…and they did it under America’s nose.

(Didn’t Olmert boast recently about ordering President Bush to instruct Condoleezza Rice to abstain from voting in favor of a UNSC resolution calling for ceasefire in the Gaza Strip?)

Remember these barriers are erected in the heart of Palestinian population centers, not along side the Green Line, e.g. between Israel proper and the West Bank. They are meant primarily to torment and savage the Palestinian people.

This was done while Israeli leaders and officials were having chummy chats with Rice who visited Occupied Jerusalem and Ramalla 24 times. And the result of all her visits was a great fat zero. Well, Mr. Mitchell, try to learn from Rice’s monumental failure…don’t repeat it, even if you have to quit.

Good luck Mr. Mitchell.

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Also see: Mitchell Misses His Mark

Every Family Has a Story

"Every family has a story, here are some of them

Eva Bartlett writing from the occupied Gaza Strip
Live from Palestine, 30 January 2009

One family's story

Destruction in Izbet Abed Rabu.

There are many stories. Each account -- each murdered individual, each wounded person, each burned-out and broken house, each shattered window, trashed kitchen, strewn item of clothing, bedroom turned upside down, bullet and shelling hole in walls, offensive Israeli army graffiti -- is important.

I start to tell the stories of Ezbet Abbed Rabu, eastern Jabaliya, where homes off the main north south road, Salah al-Din, were penetrated by bullets, bombs and/or soldiers. If they weren't destroyed, they were occupied or shot up. Or occupied and then destroyed. The army was creative in their destruction, in their defacing of property, in their insults. Creative in the ways they could shit in rooms and save their shit for cupboards and unexpected places. Actually, their creativity wasn't so broad. The rest was routine: ransack the house from top to bottom. Turn over or break every clothing cupboard, kitchen shelf, television, computer, window pane and water tank.

The first house I visited was that of my dear friends, who we'd stayed with in the evenings before the land invasion began, with whom we had huddled in their basement as the random crashes of missiles pulverized around the neighborhood. I worried non-stop about the father. After seeing he was still alive, I'd done the tour, from the bottom up. The safe-haven ground floor room was the least affected: disheveled, piles of earth at bases of windows where it had rushed in with a later bombing which caved the hillside behind, mattresses turned over and items strewn. This room was the cleanest, least damaged.

Upstairs to the first level apartment, complete disarray. Feces on the floor. Broken everything. Opened cans of Israeli army provisions. Bullet holes in walls. Stench.

To the second floor, next two apartments, all of the extended sons and wives and children's rooms. More disarray, greater stench. This was the soldiers' main base, as can be ascertained, from the boxes of food -- prepackaged meals, noodles, tins of chocolate and plastic-wrapped sandwiches -- and the clothing left behind by the occupiers. A pair of soldier's trousers in the bathtub, soiled with shit.

F. tells me: "The smell was terrible. The food was everywhere. Very disgusting smell. They put shit in the sinks, shit everywhere. Our clothes were everywhere. The last time they invaded [March 2008], it was easy. They broke everything and we fixed it. But this time, they put shit everywhere: in cupboards, on beds -- my bed is full of shit."

She is strong and has handled the invasions before, but the desecration of her house has got her down.

"A minute ago, Sabreen opened her clothing cupboard: there was a bowl of shit in it! They used our clothes for the toilet. They broke the door of the bathroom and brought it into our room. I don't know why."

The door lies sideways on the floor of her bedroom, which itself looks like a tornado has taken apart. "They took out my lingerie and left it lying everywhere," she goes on, listing the personal grievances which are more hurtful than the financial wreckage.

As F. continues to clear the soldiers' mess, she talks about her family's state of mind. "Abed [her young nephew] is very afraid, he wants to leave because of the zenana," referring the drones which fly overhead despite the ostensible ceasefire unilaterally declared by Israel on 18 January and violated by Israel since then.

Where a mosque once stood.

Land torn up by tank treads.

"A professional army"

When I visited two days later, the house much tidier but still soured with the clinging stench of the soldiers' presence. "We've cleaned as much as we can, but it's so difficult. We still don't have running water, we have to fill jugs from the town water supply." From walking the sandy track, I know how hard it is even empty-handed on foot, let alone laden with heavy jugs or trying to navigate any sort of wagon to carry large amounts of water. The track had been more of a proper dirt road before it, and the land around, was torn up by Israeli tanks and bulldozers.

From the kitchen balcony I look out and see razed land below, bombed houses, the jumeiza tree beyond, burned but somehow still standing amidst the ruins. The cement water tank that had survived previous raids and that was there last month was finally gone, destroyed by aerial bombing.

From the living room window we look out on the hilltop area behind which F. had already explained had hosted invading Israeli troops in the past. This time tanks not only amassed but created a massive earthen arena in which Israeli soldiers brought detained Palestinians. One neighbor, F. tells me, was taken there. He, 59, and his son, 19, were led there at gunpoint and stripped to their underclothes. The occupying soldiers surrounded them in tanks, in a circle. "We hadn't done anything wrong," they told F. later. They were detained in Israel for three days in solitary confinement, blindfolded, handcuffed, intermittently interrogated, beaten and interrogated again, asked "Do you have tunnels at your home? Where are the fighters? Where are the rockets? Do you know anything about Hamas? We will destroy your house if you know anything."

F.'s sister, A, describes their 17 days at the Foka school, after evacuating their al-Tatra home. The schools which were to be a safe-haven (but were in reality not, as seen with al-Fakhoura and the other UN schools that were bombed and hit with what is almost certainly white phosphorous) were no YMCA, not even with the most basic of amenities, certainly not warmth, hot drinks, restful nights.

"We couldn't sleep at all at night, we were very frightened. There was no security. Where could we go? We had no where to go. We were 35 people in one small classroom. There weren't any mattresses, no covers. It was cold, very cold, at night. No electricity. No water. The few bathrooms in the school had to serve hundreds of us; they were overcrowded, filthy. Our relatives were able to get us blankets after the first four days, then it was better. But we didn't have enough to eat, only a little bread, not enough for a family, and canned meat."

The usual perspective and gratitude for surviving overrides what is her right to be indignant, depressed, to cry and lament their suffering.

"Thank God we have a room in our house. Many people's houses were completely destroyed," she says of her own seriously-damaged house. The soldiers who ransacked, destroyed their clothes and shelled the home also stole a computer and 2,000 JD," she tells me. Why would she lie? I know the family to be honest, not deceitful. They have no reason to fabricate the thievery. And theirs is not an isolated case.

Amnesty International sent a fact-finding team to Gaza following the Israeli attacks. Chris Cobb-Smith, also a military expert and an officer in the British army for almost 20 years, said "Gazans have had their houses looted, vandalized and desecrated. As well, the Israeli soldiers have left behind not only mounds of litter and excrement but ammunition and other military equipment. It's not the behavior one would expect from a professional army."

And that was just one family's story.

A life interrupted.

Salvaging belongings.

Psychological terror

Two of her boys worked to pull pieces of clothing, books and anything reachable from under the toppled cupboard. Every item is sacred. The mother led me through her house, pointing out the many violations against their existence, every graffitied wall, each shattered window, glass and plate, slit flour bags -- when the wheat is so precious -- and the same revolting array of soldiers' left-overs: spoiled packaged food, feces everywhere but the toilet, clothes used as toilet paper. The same stench.

"They broke everything, broke our lives. That was the boys room." We continue through the wreckage. "Look, look here. See that?! Look at this!" This is to be the refrain as we step over destroyed belongings into destroyed rooms.

It isn't only the destruction, defiling, vandalizing, waste. It's also the interruption of life, a life already interrupted by the siege. She held out school books, torn, ruined, and asked how her children were supposed to study when they have no books, no power, had to flee their home, are living in constant fear of another bombardment of missiles (from the world's fourth most powerful amilitary).

Graffiti left by Israeli soldiers reads: "Until now/ A crawling saboteur (terrorist)/ 3 in the junction/ 2 in the plantation/ A suicide-old man/ [illegible]/ An innocent."

Some of the graffiti reads:

"We don't hate Arabs, but will kill every Hamas," and "IDF [Israeli army] was here! We know you are here. We won't kill you, you will live in fear and run all your lives!"

For surviving members in families like hers, this psychological terror is real. For those who have been killed already, the "we won't kill you," is a lie. Ask the surviving fathers, mothers, siblings and children.

From the rooftop, we see neighboring houses inflicted with the wrath of the Israeli military machine. And great swathes of land that once held homes and trees, now naked, stubbled with pillar fragments at painful angles, rubble, stumps and tank tracks.

"Here, here, come look over here, over here."

"That was all our land: clementines, lemons, olives ..."

"That's my brother's house over there, its all broken ..."

The drones were still overhead, the words too urgent, too many, too fast, too dizzying.

Down to ground zero and on to more newly wrecked houses and lives. Past a water pump which served at least 10 houses in the area, hit by missiles, ruined.

Passing more shells of houses, I meet Yasser Abu Ali, co-owner of a paint and tools supply shop bombed to the ground by two F-16 missiles. Seventeen people were immediately dependent on the revenue from the business, not accounting for indirect dependents (suppliers, buyers). As Abu Ali tells of his and his brothers' $200,000 loss, it is revealed that he is a cousin of Dr. Izz al-Din Abu al-Eish, the doctor whose three daughters and niece were killed by Israeli shelling on his house in Jabaliya. Everyone has their own story, and stories overlap, tragedies overlap and compound.

Samir Abed Rabu's damaged home.

At Samir Abed Rabu's, the tour begins the same as the others: everything is broken and upside down, there are Israeli soldiers' leavings (food, playing cards, feces) and graffiti: "Join the Israeli army today!" and other slogans from the patriotic invading and occupying forces.

The house is more holes than walls, from multiple tank shells to automatic gunfire shots from the tanks. Seeing so many intentionally and deviously-ruined houses dulls the concept of damage. But strangely some things stand out as odd or notable amidst the wholescale destruction. Entrails of ceilings and support beams hang in threads. A chair sits gutted.

And there are the sniper holes. I look out the hole facing Salah al-Din street, at the Dawwar Zimmo crossroads, and I realize that it was from one of these very holes that the emergency medical worker Hassan would have been shot, thankfully not killed (unlike the 13 other emergency medical workers). Thankfully we also weren't shot dead. These sniper holes litter house walls in homes all over Jabaliya, al-Tatra, al-Zeitou -- all over Gaza.

The baby's bedroom was not spared from the attacks. A wall of cheerful cartoons and cute baby posters contrasts the ugliness of the gaping shelling wounds, a reminder that nothing is sacred to an army that will shoot children point-blank.

The rotting donkey out back explains the stink, a stench different than that of the army's usual odor.

Leaving Samir Abed Rabu's ruins, I see a newly homeless family making tea over a fire, behind the rubble of their former home.

Saed Azzat Abed Rabu stands under a missile hole in his bedroom ceiling, explaining that on the first day of the land invasion, he and family had been in the house when a missile struck it. They frantically evacuated to a school and only learned of their house's post-occupation demise upon returning after the Israeli soldiers left.

It is like the others: ravaged, left with soldiers' waste and wine bottles -- Hebrew writing on the label (wine isn't available here anyway, so there's no question who drank the wine), rooftop water tank blown apart, and rooftop views affording more sights of neighborhood destruction and of the lemon trees that once stood near Saed Abed Rabu's home.

I left Abed Rabu that day, weaving among taxis, motorbikes, trucks and carts packed with belongings, people who had no home to stay in, who'd only come to retrieve what they could from their former lives. I'd seen more than I felt I could internalize or reproduce for others, but knew I'd go back for more stories because I knew there are more. More than I can possibly hear or pass on.

A house violated

Yousef Sharater and children in front of their damaged home.

Remarkably, the staircase in Yousef Shrater's bombed and burned house is still intact, as are the 14 people who make up the three families who were living in the house. Shrater, a father of four, walks over broken cement blocks and tangles of support rods and up stairs laden with more chunks of rubble, litter left by Israeli soldiers, and other remnants of a bombed, then occupied, house.

In the second story front room the original window is flanked by gaping holes ripped into the wall by the tank missiles that targeted his house. "They were over there," Shrater says, pointing just hundreds of meters away at Jabal Kashef, the hilltop overlooking the northern area of Ezbet Abed Rabu.

In the adjacent room, Shrater points further east to where more tanks had come from and stationed. "My wife, children and I were in this room when they began shelling. We ran to the back room for safety, hoping it would be some protection."

The back room is another haze of rubble and bits from explosions. The tanks had surrounded the entire Abed Rabu area and no sooner did the family take shelter in the back room when a new shell tore into the house, fired from tanks to the south of the house. "It hit only a meter away from the window," he points out, and leaning out the window and looking up, the hole left from the tank shell is just one meter above. "If it had come into the room, we'd be dead."

Shrater explains how the Israeli soldiers forcibly entered the house and ordered the family members out, separating men and women and locking them in a neighboring house with others from the area. His father and mother, living in a small shack nearby, were soon to join them. The soldiers then occupied the house for the duration of the land invasion, as Israeli soldiers did throughout the Abed Rabu area, as they did throughout all of Gaza. And as with other houses in occupied areas, residents who returned to houses still standing found a disaster of rubbish, vandalism, destruction, human waste and many stolen valuables, including mobile phones, gold jewelry, US dollars and Jordanian dinars (JD), and in some cases even furniture and televisions, used and discarded in the camps Israeli soldiers set up outside in occupied areas. Shrater says the soldiers stole about USD 1,000 and another 2,000 JD (approximately USD 828) in gold necklaces.

Yousef's father who suffers from asthma.

Back in the east-facing corner room, Shrater steps around a 1.5-meter-by-1.5-meter depression in the floor where tiles have been dug up and the sandy layer of foundation beneath was harvested. "They made sandbags by the window, to use as sniper positions." The bags are still there, stuffed with clothing and sand. "They used my kids' clothes for their sniper bags," Shrater complains. "The clothes they didn't put in sandbags they threw into the toilet," he adds.

The whole house has sniper positions. Sniper holes adorn each of the two west-facing rooms overlooking the Dawwar Zimmo crossroads, where bodies were later found shot dead and unreachable by family members or emergency medical teams (including the Red Crescent medics who were shot at, one hit in the thigh, when trying to reach a body on 7 January).

From the roof we see more clearly the surrounding area where tanks were positioned, the countless demolished and damaged houses and buildings, and bits of shrapnel from the tank missiles. Shrater's father, 70, is on the roof, and begins to tell of his experience of being abducted from his house and locked up with his wife and others for four days. "They came to our house there," pointing to the low-level home which housed him, his wife and their sheep and goats. "The Israeli soldiers came to our door, yelled at us to come out, and shot around our feet. My wife was terrified. They took all of our money, then handcuffed us. Before they blindfolded us, they let our goats and sheep out of their pens and shot them. They shot eight dead in front of us."

The elderly Shrater, who suffers from asthma, and his wife Miriam were then blindfolded and taken to another house where for the next four days Israeli soldiers denied him his inhaler and his wife her diabetes medications. Food and water were out of the question, and Yousef Shrater's father says their requests for such were met with soldiers' retorts of "No, no food. Give me Hamas, I'll give you food."

Mariam Shrater, still terrified from her four-day ordeal.

The older man leads us downstairs and behind Yousef Shrater's house to his small home where a still-terrified Miriam sits, eyes still wide with alarm. "We saw terrible things, terrible things. I saw dead bodies on the street," she says, rocking back and forth in agony. Hajj Shrater agrees: "In 63 years, I've never seen anything like this."The denied insulin and syringe lie ground into the earth near their door, along with various tablets. Twenty meters away, the remains of the animal feed shed razed in the rampage mingle with rocks and rubble.

The house between Yousef Shrater's and his parents has also been damaged. The asbestos roofing lies in hefty chunks on the floors of the bedrooms and kitchen, save for where it hangs precariously in the underlying waterproofing plastic sheeting, along with the heavy concrete blocks used to weigh the tiles down. The kitchen is black with soot from what must have been another white phosphorous fire, and empty shells lie in the burnt wreckage of the fire. Two metal doors from the factory across the street from Shrater's house, bombed by an F-16, are lying near the kitchen, having blasted clear across the street and over the roof of Shrater's house.

Mahmoud Shrater, Yousef's brother and also an inhabitant of the main house, is at the house, clearing some of the rubble, sifting. "We need tents to live here now," he says, standing in the shell of what was their home.

All images by Eva Bartlett.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who spent eight months in 2007 living in West Bank communities and four months in Cairo and at the Rafah crossing. She is currently based in the Gaza Strip after having arrived with the third Free Gaza Movement boat in November. She has been working with the International Solidarity Movement in Gaza, accompanying ambulances while witnessing and documenting the ongoing Israeli air strikes and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.

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How to Kill a Palestinian

"How to Kill a Palestinian

Dr. Elias Akleh

Commenting on the latest Israeli one-directional onslaught against the Palestinians of Gaza Strip, the Israeli 10th TV channel has disclosed that the Israeli genocidal forces had used half of its air force and had launched at least 2500 air raids against Gaza Strip. The television military correspondent stated that the Israeli warplanes had dropped more than a thousand tons of explosives, including white phosphorous and DIME (Dense Inert Metal Explosive) bombs, during three weeks on the virtually unarmed densely populated 360 square Kilometers Strip. He added that the shells fired by tanks, artillery, gunboats, and infantry were not included in those fired by the air force.

After a whole week of continuous air bombardments Israel sent in its elite foot soldiers; 30,000 of them, and called in 10,000 of its reservists. Armed with the latest weapons of mass murder, covered with an umbrella of free reigning air force, and accompanied with raining shells of heavy artilleries, they drove their tanks into the civilian towns murdering civilians and destroying every structure in their path.

Living outside of Gaza one cannot fully understand the barbarity of this genocide especially when the Western media had barely covered any of its atrocity. To gain a slight idea of its enormity one should remember that, during the 6-days war of 1967, this same Israeli army was distributed on four fronts; Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian, and Lebanese, and it was fighting regular armies. Now the whole brunt of this army is concentrated on a small strip against unarmed and untrained civilian population.

Latest official count was 1350 murdered, 40% of them were children, and 5300 were injured; mutilated and amputated. It was reported that 80% of the injured were the victims of burning phosphorous bombs. More dead are being discovered under the rebels, and many seriously injured are expected later on to die.

Israeli tanks had left several city blocks completely destroyed without any homes or structure standing. The tanks shelled homes and apartment towers. Due to the small size of Gaza Strip Palestinians had to build vertically. Many apartment towers went up 15-20 stories high with each story containing 6-8 apartments. A total of 20,000 buildings were completely or partially burnt and damaged. The UN has reported that more than 50,000 Palestinians are left homeless and are now crowded into 50 emergency shelters. An estimated of 50,000 more are living with relatives and in tents they erected on the ruins of their homes.

The Israeli bombardment targeted everything in Gaza including government buildings, police headquarters, banks and business offices, the main university, 67 schools sheltering civilians, shopping centers and market places, factories, water, sewer, and electricity infrastructures, private homes and apartment towers and charity organizations. Farms, including their animals, were also targeted and hundreds of acres of crops and fruit groves were incinerated. Religious buildings, where civilians usually seek shelter, were specifically targeted. Israeli fighter planes had completely destroyed 41 mosques, and partially damaged 51 others. One church was also targeted. Even cemeteries were not spared; 5 of them were bombed.

Although the Israeli army was given the exact GPS co-ordinates of every UN structure, as asserted by Christopher Gunness, the UNRWA spokesman, Israeli F-16 planes had repeatedly dropped phosphorous bombed on UN schools knowing very well that hundreds of civilians had taken shelter there. At least 45 children and women were burnt and murdered there.

The UN headquarters in Gaza City was also hit with three, not just one, phosphorous bombs burning tons of humanitarian aid and food stuff. The fire kept on burning for three days. UN-flagged humanitarian convoy was also shelled killing one driver.

Medical centers and paramedics were not spared. The Red Crescent Al-Quds hospital in Tal el-Hawa neighborhood was hit by Israeli shells and caught on fire. Other two hospitals; Al-Wafa and Al-Fata hospitals, were also shelled, leading the World Health Organization to express its deep concern about the serious implications of such bombardments. 16 other smaller health clinics and 16 ambulances were also damaged. Medics were targeted and prevented from helping the injured. Ten of them, including two doctors, were murdered.

Media centers were particularly targeted. Local and international news reporters were prevented from entering Gaza. Those, who were able to enter, were directly targeted. The Al-Shuruq office tower housing several international and Arab media outlets was directly hit. Two cameramen working for Abu Dhabi TV were injured, while the offices of Reuters News Agency, Fox TV, Sky, and Al-Arabiya TV offices were damaged. Another raid had damaged the headquarter offices of Al-Resala newspaper.

Similar to all their previous wars the Israeli soldiers had committed massacres against Palestinian unarmed civilians. They have used internationally banned weapons such as phosphorous bombs, DIME, and depleted uranium, as reported by international physicians, eyewitnesses, and military experts. Israeli soldiers had mutilated the bodies of their victims to instill terror in the hearts of people hoping they will leave Gaza. Israeli soldiers herded many families in one building using them as human shield, and then later on bombed the building on top of them. They shot civilians, mainly children, directly and at point blank. The bodies of some children were found shot several times; as many as 18 bullets in the body of a 12 years old girl, and 12 bullets in the body of her 2 years old sister.

Israeli soldiers had wiped off whole Palestinian families. Al-Samuni family lost 11 members, Abu Aisha family lost 6, Batran family lost 6, al-Rayyan family lost 15 and al-Balousha family lost 5 sisters. Other families, too many to mention here, were either murdered or incinerated by the phosphorous bombs. The Israeli army has been carrying out a deliberate indiscriminate mass murder. During the first Intifada, 1987 – 1993, they murdered 1162 Palestinians. During the second Intifada, 2001- 2006, they murdered 5500 Palestinians. Now, in a short period of three weeks, they murdered 1350 Palestinians.

This onslaught is a holocaust since the many tons of phosphorous bombs, dropped on Gaza cities, had burnt civilians to the bones, burnt their homes and buildings, and burnt their fields and crops. This is the holocaust that the Israeli Deputy Defense Minister, Matan Vilnai, had threatened Palestinians with when he stated: “the more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah (holocaust) because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.”

One cannot help but wonder how could a group of people, who claim to be the victims of a holocaust, commit another holocaust against another nation. What is it that feeds, perpetuates and intensifies this Judaic genocidal spirit although all Arabs, including Palestinians, had offered these Zionist Jews many agreements of coexistence, peace and security? The answer comes through their media outlets, through the words of their scholarly educators, and through the teachings of their Rabbis.

“All of the Palestinians must be killed; men, women, infants, and even their beasts” cries the religious opinion of Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, the director of the long-established Tsomet Religious Institute. He wrote that Palestinians are like the nation of Amalekites, who attacked the Israelite tribes led by Moses on their way to Jerusalem. He stated that the Lord sent down in the Torah a ruling that allowed the Jews to kill the Amalekites, and that this ruling is known in Jewish jurisprudence.

The Torah states: “Annihilate the Amalekites from the beginning to the end. Kill them and wrest them from their possessions. Show them no mercy. Kill continuously, one after the other. Leave no child, plant, or tree. Kill their beasts, from camels to donkeys.” Rosen stated that Amalekites are not a particular race, but rather all those who hate and oppose the Jews; Christians and Muslims.

Many leading Israeli Rabbis support Rosen’s views. Israel’s former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu advocated carpet bombing of Gaza stating that “there is absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during massive military offensive on Gaza” (The Jerusalem Post, 30 May, 2007). His son Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu amplified his father’s genocidal call stating: “if they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand, then we must kill 10,000 and even a million”

Many Rabbis had argued that Palestinians in Gaza are not innocent civilians and that during war time it is not individuals but nations the Israelis are fighting. (It seems that Hitler had adopted this Telmudic teaching when he persecuted all European Jews)

Israeli educators, scholars, and politicians, openly, advocate the annihilation of all Palestinians. Dr. Nachum Rakover, a legal scholar, opined “They voted for killers and sent them to kill us. To call them (civilians) innocent is a tragic comedy… civilians are partners of the killers” Eli Yeshai, Israeli official in the Orthodox Shas party argued that “extermination of the enemy is sanctioned by the Torah” Many other politicians called for the need for “wiping off Gaza from the face of earth”, and “annihilating of every moving thing there.” The right-wing Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman proposed nuking Gaza following the US example when it dropped the atomic bomb on Japan during WWII.

This “ideology of annihilation” is by no means a minority opinion in Israel, but represents a mainstream in the Jews of Israel as well as Jews in the West (US). The popular attitude is “if it was right by God to order us to commit genocide during Biblical time, why can’t it be right to commit genocide now. Has God changed his mind?” Indeed Judaic god is a racist genocidal god.

Watch and listen here to an example of how Israeli Jews are brainwashed and indoctrinated into the ideology of annihilation by their rabbis and scholars through Israeli media. Watch Max Blumenthal’s videotape of a group of messianic Orthodox Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch exhibit this ideology in NYC in January 11, 2009.

The Israeli spokesman, Nachman Abramovic demonized Palestinian children stating “They may look young to you, but these people are terrorists at heart. Don’t look at their deceptively innocent faces, try to think of the demons inside each of them … I am absolutely certain these people would grow to be evil terrorists if we allowed them to grow… would you allow them to grow to kill your children or finish them off right now? … honost and moral people ought to differentiate between true humans and human animals. We do kill human animals and we do so unapologetically. Besides who in the West is in a position to lecture us on killing human animals. After all, whose hands are clean?”

Human animal mentioned by Abramovic refers to the Judaic religious belief that Jews are Gods chosen people; the elite and the pure-blooded, while all others (non-Jews, Goyims, gentiles) are animal souls incarnated into human bodies to serve the Jews. Killing a human animal is just a sport like hunting deer or birds.

Another Israeli spokeswoman, Tzipora Menache, stated that she was not worried about negative ramifications the Israeli onslaught on Gaza might have on the way the Obama administration would view Israel. She said “You know very well, and the stupid Americans know equally well, that we control their government, irrespective of who sits in the White House. You see, I know it and you know it that no American president can be in a position to challenge us even if we do the unthinkable. What can they (Americans) do to us? We control congress, we control the media, we control show biz, and we control everything in America. In America you can criticize God, but you can’t criticize Israel”

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By Dr. Elias Akleh

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Related:

"Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it."

Palestinian Chickens Are Terrorists

"Were chickens firing rockets?

Were chickens firing rockets?

SUFFERING LIKE GAZANS: www.gazatoday.blogspot.com

PUBLISHED IN THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10258.shtml

Photos ov ISRAELI MASSACRE AGAINST 30 THOUSANDS CHIKENS IN GAZA
http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb/ISRAELIMASSACREAGAINST30THOUSANDSCHIKENSINGAZA#

Israel's devastating war on Gaza claimed the lives of more than 1,335 persons and left at least 5,500 other wounded. In addition tens of thousands of utilities, houses, businesses, and factories were partially or totally destroyed. The war caused psychological damage for thousands of people especially children. I reported on the war daily and my focus was on the human toll. However, I recently came across a story that changed my focus completely a revealed to me the true nature of Israel's soldiers and their intent in invading Gaza.

Since the ceasefire was enacted, I have toured throughout Gaza to document some stories and accounts. Although I wrote many articles, I decided to focus on the untold stories of the war: the brutal massacre of thousands of chickens.

On 5 January, many Israeli tanks, troops and bulldozers advanced into the al-Zeitoun neighborhood south east of Gaza City. In this area, called al-Samouni, Israel killed 49 members of the Samouni family, after soldiers ordered them to gather into a single home, which was shelled several hours later.

A number of chicken farms are located only a few meters away from the Samouni house. These farms came under fire by Israeli forces and were totally bulldozed. Thousands of chickens were caught in their sheds, as the bulldozing destroyed their cages. Some died immediately, others slowly without food or water for four days.

Abu Ahmed al-Sawafari, an owner of a chicken farms owners, was sitting amidst the rubble of his destroyed farm. He explained that "I have been working on that profession for long years. I have been growing my business by all efforts. Israelis came then left causing an earthquake in the area. They have killed these chickens, they are equal to human souls. They were suffocated and died due to hunger. I wonder why the Israelis killed these chickens? Were they firing rockets into Israel?"

I continued touring farms in the area where the smell of death filled the air. Surviving chickens roamed around surrounded by thousands of their dead kin. It was an overwhelming scene leaving one to ask only: why?

If this question was directed to the Israeli army their response would be swift and predictable. They would likely contend that "rockets" were being fired from the farms, or that there were Palestinian resistance fighters in the area. However, unless the Israeli army is prepared to claim that these chickens were resistance fighters or were firing rockets nothing can explain why the self-proclaimed "world's most moral army" would engage in the wholesale slaughter of civilians and chickens alike.

Sameh A. Habeeb is a photojournalist, humanitarian and peace
activist based in Gaza, Palestine. He writes for several news websites on a freelance basis.

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Israel Razed Gazan Farms in Raids

Blasphemy!

"Al-Jazeera Video: Gaza farmers devastated by war - 29 Jan 09



"The scale of the damage caused by Israel's war on Gaza continues to emerge. Palestinian agriculture officials estimate the cost to the strip's farming sector will be more than 200 million dollars. Al Jazeera's Mike Kirsch reports from Gaza, where many farmers are devastated at having to start again from scratch."

--SOURCE--"

No doubt another purpose of the "war."

Israel Blocking Aid to Gaza

Gee, what a surprise. They've turned back all the aid ships, too.

"Gaza Aid Stuck at Sealed Crossings

Sitting in the cab of his truck under the hot sun, Sayed Sorour has come to the conclusion he and his truck load of aid to the besieged people in Gaza Strip are going no where for more days to come.

"I have been sitting here for three days, and before that I was in Arish for four days," the truck driver told the New York Times on Wednesday, January 28. Sorour, whose vehicle is hauling clothing and blankets, is among many truck drivers stuck at El-Auja crossing between Egypt and Israel.

The normally quiet commercial crossing has been turned into a parking lot of stalled, humanitarian aid, carrying loads of foodstuff and humanitarian aid to Gazans who survived an air, sea and ground Israeli offensive.

"The trucks get to Auja and they sit,” said Ahmed Oraby, head of the Red Crescent office in El Arish. "Many trucks that left are now coming back. They don’t take anything."

From the first hours of the Israeli onslaught, which killed more than 1,350 people, and wounded 5,450 others, thousands of tons of humanitarian aid were offered by Arab and Western countries and tens of relief organizations around the world.

Israel, however, has allowed very little aid into the strip, under persistent calls from aid and relief groups. In the Egypt's El-Arish city, there are even greater quantities of food, clothing and essential supplies sitting, waiting and baking in the sun.

"We have trucks we loaded up five days ago still sitting here, waiting," Hany Moustafa, who manages El-Arish stadium, said.... There are five crossings into Gaza - four from Israel and one from Egypt. However, none are open in a regular or consistent way.

Why

Just like the rest of truck drivers, Abdullah has been stuck in a line outside the stadium in El Arish for 24 hours. Abdullah, however, is not as lucky as his colleague Sorour whose tractor-trailer is filled with clothing and blankets.

"All our lunchmeat, it’s all going to go bad,” said Abdullah. "Nobody is telling us anything. Not Egypt. Not Israel. Nobody explains to us why we are stopping here," Sorour fumed.

Officials and volunteers in Egypt blame the Israelis, saying that even before the passage stalled Israel had allowed supplies to pass through for only 19 hours each week. Israeli officials said that Egypt had not done enough to coordinate the flood of aid coming to Gaza.

But relief officials affirm that the only victims in the situation are the Gazans who have been under a stifling Israeli blockade on the impoverished territory of 1.6 million since July 2007, following Hamas's seizure of power.

Food in Gaza is already scarce due to price increases and the lack of currency, and the destruction of farmland is exacerbating food shortages, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said on Tuesday that now after the Israeli offensive, far more than the usual movement of aid is needed urgently.

"We can't really perform that operation fully, none of the (UN) agencies will be able to do that, unless the crossing points are open on a sustained basis," Holmes told reporters at the United Nations. "Enough will always be allowed in for people to exist, but not enough for the conditions for people to live."

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"Blockade thwarts any postwar building boom in Gaza

GAZA, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Whole streets lie in ruins, many thousands of Palestinians are homeless after weeks of Israeli bombing and foreign aid cash is piling up. As a builder in the Gaza Strip, this should be Anwar al-Sahabani's big moment.

Instead, though, he sits at home, angry and sad, not just at the wounds he suffered on the first day of bombardment, but with frustration at being denied the basic supplies he needs to start rebuilding. Israel will not let in cement, steel pipes and other materials it says its Hamas enemies might use to make war.

"The fighting stopped over a week ago but people are still sleeping in the open air," said Sahabani, whose firm employs up to 100 craftsmen and labourers when working at full capacity.

Please see: Homeless in Gaza

"We should have started reconstruction the day the war ended. But we have no supplies." His men, like him, sit idle, he said: "I am sad and angry and I feel a pain beyond words."

Along the 45 km (30-mile) strip of Mediterranean coastline, half-finished construction sites stand silent, and, amid the ruins left by this month's violence, families are building makeshift wood-and-plastic shelters to escape the cold....

******************
Peter Lerner, a Defence Ministry official dealing with trade for Gaza, said Israel was helping international aid agencies in their efforts to move in the food and other vital supplies for the 1.5 million Gazans, most of whom are refugees, from families that fled or were driven from what is now Israel in 1948.

Yeah, ISRAEL is a big fat help, uh-huh!

See: Photographing the Children of Gaza

How about those WAR CRIMES charges, 'eh?

But until Israel was satisfied that cement would not be used by Hamas for fortifications and that steel pipes would be used only for plumbing and not to build improvised rockets for firing at Israeli towns, the embargo on construction material remained:

"We are working together with the international community to assist those needs that are beyond the humanitarian issues, such as building and reconstruction," Lerner said. But he added: "We are not interested today in rebuilding Hamas, their bunkers. We are not interested in supplying them with pipes that will be used for rockets."

Translation: WE WILL MAKE PALESTINIANS SUFFER because ISRAEL TELLS US TO!

.... Even before losing some 5,000 homes this month and sustaining damage worth up to $2 billion by international estimates, Gaza was in dire need of a construction boom. At its present growth rate, the population is doubling with every generation, creating an acute shortage of schools and housing.

"It is just not acceptable in the 21st century that 1.5 million people are imprisoned like this," said Zaeem, dismissing Israel's security concerns about uses of cement as a "pretext".

U.N. officials have described Israel's blockade as illegal "collective punishment" of civilians....

A WAR CRIME!!!!

Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Israel's infrastructure minister, made clear this week, however, that the government, which faces an election battle against the right-wing opposition on Feb. 10, has no intention of opening up the crossings in a hurry....

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Related: Attacks by Israel still happening in Gaza

MIDEAST: Peace Recedes as Israeli Settlements Expand

21st-Century Crucifixion

"The Crucifixion of Bishop Williamson

As I observe the vilification of Bishop Williamson occurring in the Catholic blogosphere, I can’t help but recall the gospel account of the crucifixion of Christ Himself. For with the exception of the Blessed Mother and St. John, the rest of His apostles had abandoned Him, quaking in their boots “for fear of the Jews” (John 19:38).

Fast forward 20 centuries and something eerily similar seems to be happening again. Only this time, the person being abandoned and crucified is Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of St. Pius X. And what was his crime, pray tell? It seems His Excellency has a penchant for speaking the truth to power, something Our Lord Himself was not afraid to do, including the following flamer - right to the Pharisees’ faces (John 8:44):

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it.

Now that is politically incorrect! Good thing Jesus isn’t around in human form these days or He just might just find himself in a German prison, like Ernst Zundel or Germar Rudolf, or anyone else who dares to question the Holocaust™. Because I am convinced that if Jesus were still alive on this earth in human form, there would be no shortage of Christians dutifully denouncing Him as a threat to Jewish-Christian relations! It really has become that pathetic.

Bishop Williamson is personally responsible for the fact that I am no longer a sedevacantist and that I pray day and night for the conversion of the Jews. I no longer feel that same level of toxic bitterness coursing through my veins when I think of all that we (of the post-Conciliar generation) have suffered as a result of having been thrown under the bus by those who should have protected us. I see it all in spiritual terms now, and I realize that it is not for me to understand why things have gone so wrong in the Church, and, by default, in society. But it is my duty to be the best Catholic woman I can be, to try to be a light to others, and always to speak the truth in charity. Charity is just another word for love. Thank you, Your Excellency.

And this is the man they’re persecuting! A man who for the last 20 years has brought the Traditional Latin Mass to millions of the faithful, baptized their children, heard their confessions, and maintained tradition, while staying faithful to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. To those traditional Catholics who are now throwing Bishop Williamson under the bus, I say, shame, shame, shame! They would probably throw Christ Himself under the bus if He dared to question the Holocaust™. I don’t know definitively how many Jews died in concentration camps during World War II. But I do find it awfully suspicious that people are thrown in jail for questioning an historical event. (And even more disturbing that so many Americans don’t seem to have a problem with that, as we brag about our freedom of speech.) The Holocaust has become like a secular dogma that cannot be questioned on pain of imprisonment or shunning. But if six million Jews really were killed in concentration camps, you would think that professional investigations would be welcomed, using the latest forensic technology to verify the event. After all, I don’t know of any other group of genocide victims that refuses to allow investigations. But when even the Auschwitz museum has lowered the number of Jews killed there from 4 million to 1.5 million, and Red Cross records reveal far fewer than 1 million deaths, it does not bode well for the number six million. Unless there’s a new kind of math where six million minus any sum must always equal six million.

No one is denying that a significant number of Jews died in concentration camps under Hitler, who would not otherwise have died had they not been rounded up and placed in camps without due process of law. But there were many others who died in those camps besides Jews, and even many other Holocausts. Let’s start with the tens of millions of Christians killed in the Soviet Union under (mainly) Jewish Communists. It’s time for the truth to come out about all genocides. Let the healing begin.

By giving his honest opinion about an historical event, with no hatred in his heart, Bishop Williamson is now being shunned by the very people who should be standing beside him. But I’m convinced that many of these same turncoats wonder themselves why scientists are being thrown in jail for questioning the Holocaust, but they don’t have the ***** to say it out loud! If there’s any hope of restoring Christendom, it’s going to take men with courage and testosterone. Men like Bishop Williamson, who, despite his vow of celibacy, is more manly than the panty waists who can’t denounce him fast enough! These cowards are terrified that they won’t be able to get a rabbinic imprimatur for their next book, or God forbid, get their books published at all.

I understand what the trads are saying, that Bishop Williamson’s controversial opinions will somehow set back SSPX/Vatican relations in light of their recent rehabilitation. And I am grateful to the Holy Father for his kind gestures, namely, the lifting of the excommunications and the Motu Proprio allowing the Latin Mass. But the truth is that the SSPX should never have been excommunicated in the first place, unless all of our saints and ancestors should have been excommunicated as well. And my generation never should have been deprived of the Traditional Latin Mass in the first place, according to the infallible bull Quo Primum. So while it’s nice that they’ve (finally) acknowledged that the Latin Mass was never officially abrogated, that doesn’t do a whole lot of good for my generation whose birthright was officially stolen! How many lives and souls have been lost in the last 40 years as a result of this atrocity? Only the Good Lord knows, and we must trust in Him to enlighten the heart of Pope Benedict to turn back from this disastrous course (although I wouldn’t hold my breath). But it sure is nice to have a Catholic hero like Bishop Williamson who speaks the truth in charity, and who, history will show, was on the right side all along. As St. Paul once said (Gal. 4:16):

Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?

Apparently so, in the case of Bishop Williamson. But in the words of Our Blessed Savior (John 8:32):

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

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Pope Puckers Up For Zionist Ass-Kissing

You know what? Let's let the guy speak for himself: