Amnesty calls on US to suspend arms sales to Israel

"Detailed evidence has emerged of Israel's extensive use of US-made weaponry during its war in Gaza last month, including white phosphorus artillery shells, 500lb bombs and Hellfire missiles.

In a report released today, Amnesty International listed the weapons used and called for an immediate arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. It called on the US president, Barack Obama, to suspend military aid to Israel" Guardian

The recent attack on the Catholic Church

I meant to get this done last night. I wanted to comment a little on this recent thing with the Bishop and the Pope and the Vatican , which I think has been conspicuous as perhaps of one of the more wanton attempts to attack the Catholic Church I've seen the media come up with.

There are sensitive topics buried in this for sure, but frankly it's also the height of vulgarity for the media as a whole, for Jewish groups, commentators and non-Jewish sympathisers, along with the likes of Angela Merkel to try to grandstand by creating a campaign out of the views of one man, against the recent backdrop of the horrors in Gaza at the hands of Israel, and the overall situation there for some time.

I think it's very conspicuous.

From the BBC, to the New York Times to the Times of London, what we have witnessed is nothing short of just another concerted vicious campaign of egregious drivel dressed up in the usual secular probity to needlessly whip up controversy using some guy nobody had even heard of, almost certainly set up to have exactly this effect, to preemptively attack the Church to make sure it doesn't step too out of line, and in particular to provide another wonderful distraction to the recent gutting of Gaza.

Of course this is all the while propagandizing the usual message to the hapless proles that the Church is secretly wicked, backward, and so on, and must demonstrate its commitment to all things we the media tell it are 'worthy' including its own castration.

Well that's what psychotic drivel is. While we understand people wanting to do what may seem like the right thing, I think it's incorrect to frame these issues around some bottomless pit of endless interfaith 'placation', and I'm kind of lost as to how the role of the Church is supposed to be demonstrated first and foremost as whatever the media tells it it should be.

It should just be itself.

And this all too familiar picture of having to pay sufficient reverence to the crimes of the Holocaust, is one that's become way outside of just basic decency, sympathy, understanding and good will. And it's not just the Holocaust, the structure of this is used over and over again.

I'm sorry to say, at least in what I've seen plucked out and presented by the media which I have no doubt could well be flawed, I can't help but be somewhat inquisitive with some of the things said or at least how their are framed, such as the Pope apparently having to express his "indisputable solidarity with Jews".

I'm no theologian but surely the Church has a indisputable solidarity to all mankind.

And why seriously was German Chancellor Angela Merkel telling the Pope what to do ? What serious explanation is there for this ? Enough of this crap already. This is silly. This is just not healthy.

Excuse my language, but Angela Merkel looks like a real f*cking joke. Even more of a f*cking joke and ridiculous puppet than she did, and that's truly saying something.

And really I find this use of the Holocaust to attack things that are inherently good, absolutely vile actually. It gets to a point of sickly awfulness.

You see there is a bottom rung of reality, and if we can't even meet that rung, what's the point ?

Now the Bishop has been sacked from his post, much to the delight of the global media establishment, despite him being almost irrelevant in this, just another ticked box on the list of things to quote Reuters of how the Pope has 'angered Jews'.

There's no polite way of saying this, but I suspect the Catholic Church should be 'angering Jews'. Not as a mission, but simply as part of its business of believing something different.

Look at the words 'ultra-traditionalist' in the BBC's version, as if that's something despicable.

Well you know what, I think that's a wonderful thing to be an' ultra-traditionalist'.

And that's after the Vatican demanded the Bishop recants, presumably after being told what to do by Angela Merkel.

So much for the Vatican secretly running the world.

And I'm going to say something else shocking now. Devastating though the crimes of WWII were, the world doesn't revolve around the Holocaust and being seen to pay it sufficient reverence in the form of tokens of appeasement and the whole thing played out like some ridiculous childish spectacle in the media.

This ghoulish fascination, this sickly surveillance to see who dares put a foot out of line, or can be coerced or provoked to put a foot out of line on the Holocaust and how that can be seized upon to attack institutions, has got to stop.

At some point it gets ridiculous and I think many good people out there who would normally be horrified and hungry for knowledge at many of the things that went on during World War II are now after being bombarded with this stream of nonsense, starting to say the Holocaust seems to be code for something else, and is that something else something I should care about ?

And the world is sick of these whining pages of drivel in the Times dedicated to demonstrating why some part of the Church is not sufficiently apologetic, acquiescent and philo-semitic enough.

The world is sick of hearing how 'good' 'Christians' worshiping at the fount of The War on Terror, Israel's sickening barbarism against Palestians and the moral, legislative and administritive deconstruction of their own societies and are 'real Christians', 'progressive Christians', 'moderate Christians'.

Frankly fuck off.

The problem for the media is (and I hate to be so sweeping but that's how it is) it's dug itself into a hole over this and tried to run with it in a million different sub-directions, tripping over itself to try to escalate the issue into some trend of not exactly 'pro Jewish' sentiment. Apparently the Vatican's has no other duties or concerns but to agree.

Personally I think the Vatican should be pro-Christian and pro-mankind, and the Pope should follow his own position, quoted in the Guardian back in August 2005 when :

"...Israel criticised Pope Benedict for not mentioning attacks on Israelis in a condemnation of terrorism. The Vatican responded with a terse statement asking Israel not to tell the Pope what to say"

But then again all of this whole sordid affair in the media shows how reasonable, and humble and gracious the Pope is, and frankly how unreasonable, vicious, hate-filled, nasty and childish and psychotic his enemies in the media and this particular campaign against him and the Catholic Church has been.

Stop Press: Catholic Church are behind the world's villainy!

It's struck me a number of times over the last year or so that there are a lot of basically good people out there who have acquired a kind of instinctive or reflex-like apathy, distrust or even repulsion toward religion but in particular Christianity, which, astonishingly is the main villain.

In America this is much worse where there appears to be a chunk of U.S society that has learned absolutely nothing from the last eight years and associates Christianity with Bush, and believes, amazingly, that Bush is the grand poobah mastermind behind the Iraq War and that the War in Iraq is some kind of Christian mission for Bush and Cheney.

I know it's amazing, and it's also the seeds of something potentially quite dangerous.

When you first see this it's so astonishing, it's so like a kind of 'backwardation' of thought, so tremendously saddening that's it's difficult to know exactly how to broach the topic, other than that you're dealing with some sometimes quite damaged and vulnerable people who want to believe something that suits them, and you when gently try to explain to them what's wrong, you can be met with a lot of anger, until reality starts to break through. And we're going to be talking more about that in detail soon.

And actually there are some interesting polls on this kind of thing, cited on a dreadful and almost otherwise worthless, but extremely revealing page on Wikipedia:

"David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Institute, and Gabe Lyons of the Fermi Project published a study of attitudes of 16-29 year old Americans towards Christianity. They found that about 38% of all those who did not regularly attend church had negative impressions of Christianity, and especially evangelical Christianity, associating it with conservative political activism, hypocrisy, anti-homosexuality, and judgmentalism.[5] About 17% had "very bad" perceptions of Christianity" (my emphasis -j)

Yeah we are gonna talk about this more directly at some point. Actually the Wikipedia article does a lot of the work for us.

And bringing this up to date there is little question that this height of irony, of letting 'Christianity' take the blame for the Iraq War has been allowed to fester in the minds of some vulnerable folks and go uncorrected in the dwindling months of the Bush presidency, if not outright brewed.

Christian fundamentalists/Christian Zionists in America are one thing, but the Catholic Church is also conspicuously regularly a subject of scorn, mistrust, ridicule, or spurious and inapplicable or juvenile moralising or even theorized as as some shadowy hand shaping events.

Most people have their own reasons about how they view religion that are personal to them, they may have had a religious upbringing, not all of them are exactly 'enamored' with every single experience of it, it's a mixed bag as it would be for everybody whatever the culture.

Others simply don't care for religion and so on. But then that brings up the question if they don't like religion and are not involved in it, where does the particular culture of dislike and scorn come from ?

As I said at the outset this can be a challenging topic for people new to it, but broadly radical hostility towards Christian institutions has a long history and irrespective of whether or not you feel about religion, in the 20th and 21st centuries the media has done a very effective job of setting up attitudes towards the Church, that are often distorted, skewed, provocative or Orwellian (note NYT's use of lanaguage) are just out and out attempts to demonize it.

And it's doing it constantly. Constantly the Catholic Church is framed and attacked (as is this extreme psychotic example) as a stuffy old villain or inanely being told it ought to be struggling with some crisis that is the fault of its own moral retardation.

And it's not lot like this stuff has gone unnoticed or something:

"The archbishop of Westminster declared that he feared contemporary society is increasingly marked by "secular dogmatism or cynicism" toward Christians. He stated: "So when Christians stand by their beliefs, they are intolerant dogmatists. When they sin, they are hypocrites. When they take the side of the poor, they are soft-headed liberals. When they seek to defend the family, they are right-wing reactionaries."

And it's funny that a lot of folks proudly claim they are 'freethinkers', and 'unencumbered' of institutional brainwashing, some even declare how they don't trust the media when it comes to something that Bush said about Iraq, or if it comes to the economy or crime statistics or this or that.

But when it comes to this they trust the media, and they trust the media's motives ?

And I've just linked to two examples, but the easiest way is just to carry on taking a look, and this is not exhaustive, this is a very very clumsy and crude quick glimpse at this:

But we are going to go with something a little different before we get back onto the mainstream, and it's something that was quite influential on me and a brilliant piece of alternative radio. Some people may say well Mr Jultra you're undermining the obvious point that you're making by choosing something like this. Well let's see.

There is a very famous debate in alternative news circles from May 16, 2006 between a fellow called Eric Jon Phelps who believes that the Vatican and the Black Pope and the Jesuits are controlling the world and perhaps one of the most interesting and perhaps one of the best non-mainstream serious political researchers and writers in the America, also a world expert on the JFK Assassination that's Michael Collins Piper.

And I should point out Mike Piper is 'controversial' as it were, and you may even find the topic of the debate they agreed to puerile or vulgar, but whatever you come away with you will not come away thinking the Vatican is behind all the bad stuff in the world and you will come away thinking Phelps probably shouldn't have come to that debate, and should be taking some medication.

The debate is fascinating listening and I think as far as we are talking about it's pretty well summarized when Mike says:

"The Civiltà Cattolica* which is a Vatican approved newspaper even went so far as to suggest that a lot of the newspaper over-emphasis on some of these sex scandals in the Vatican and in the Catholic Church which are rightly being reported I might add, they said that the over-emphasis on that was because of the mass media being disturbed about the fact the Vatican did not support the war against Iraq" (4:00+)

(* And I think I've got the name of this right, someone correct me if I haven't)

Let's look at something else, something more up to date, and bear in mind the above as we do so.

In Sunday's Guardian/Observer the Pope is reported as bringing back some bishops, one of which who held some controversial views on the Holocaust. Doesn't have to be the Guardian, Fox News has the same slant, which is far more extreme, perhaps the most extreme is the New York Times, which is almost beside itself with glee.

Of course he's not being welcomed back because of that, the fact of which may as well be a side issue or non-existent wherever this story appears, however it contains a very sensitive topic so lets have a look at some of the rhetoric from The Guardian:

"Shimon Samuels, of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Paris, said he understood the German-born pope's desire for Christian unity but said Benedict could have excluded Williamson, whose return to the church will "cost" the Vatican politically."

and note this that's found it's way into the same article:

"Israeli officials recently protested when a senior cardinal said Israel's offensive in Gaza had turned it into a "big concentration camp"

A big concentration camp ? I think a lot of people would find that's a very polite and rather diplomatic understatement and it gives us a clue about what is being obscured here, after all it's not like the world doesn't understand the situation in Gaza, or that we need to look far for corroboration and we can just take out pick from anywhere. For example in 2006, special UN envoy John Dugard described the situation in Gaza as one where:

"Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into a prison for Palestinians
and have thrown away the key," adding that "in other countries this process might be described as ethnic cleansing" (ynet news)

More recently scholar and expert Norman Finkelstein, who last time I checked is not a Catholic described the situation in Gaza as a 'holocaust' and Israel a 'Satanic state' and goes on pithily:

" This state invaded in 1978, again in 1982, again in 1993, again in 1996, again in 2006, and 2008, and it always destroys, destroys and destroys. And then these satanic narcissistic people throw their hands up in the air and ask, “Why doesn’t anybody love us? Why don’t our neighbors want us to be here?” Why would they? "

So it's rather difficult to take that line of protestation by Israeli officials seriously when it comes to trying to aim it specifically at the Church.

Or try this for framing an issue also from the Guardian:

"The pope sparks controversy by defending heterosexuality!" Gosh what a monstrous thing to do. How evil and outrageous and wicked the Pope is I can't believe it. How dare heterosexuality be defended, it can't be right.

A few years ago such a headline would have been a spoof, and we'd all be laughing at it. Maybe we are supposed to be today ?

Or read some of the tone in this CNN obituary about Pope John Paul II, loaded with phrases like 'controversial', and 'moral opinions alienated many' (who? why ? Pope John Paul II was one of the popular Popes in modern times)

And this is not peculiarly about your view of religion. And it's not about trying to cover up where institutions have had people in them who have done immense wrong either. And if you want more conservative critique then here is an interview by Alex Jones with Hutton Gibson.

But there is no question media perpetuates an insidious culture of this which seems to be intended to become a cultural norm among the public, and certainly there is a chunk of the public that seems to go along with it, and yet declares they are enlightened in doing so, and it's little surprise because that's how it's sold to them.

And we could go on with examples all day long about this in the media. All of which seem to be designed to obscure and play down and attack the Church, its mission, its people, its works, its cultural influence and which politically has pitted it against the monstrous horrors of communism (CNN article again - don't be too happy with anti-communism), the atrocious crime of the Iraq War (take any pick), made Latin American Catholics the subjects of assassinations and attacks for delivering the liberation message of Christianity under a reign of state terror, received upon itself horrendous massacres and tortures of Catholics in Spain at the hands of communists, to something like today of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor fighting for all our basic freedoms (note the first comment on the article - is it a real person ?) and on and on and on.

No the Catholic Church are not a force for bad in the world. The Catholic Church are not 'bad' because they don't support abortion or homosexuality, because the media 'says' that's bad.

To put it simply the Catholic Church are rightly a hugely influential force for infinite good and reason and human dignity in the world and irrespective of individual faith, that's why they are demonized, marginalized and subject to ridiculous ongoing puerile critique in the media.

Falk: sealing Gaza: new sinister war crime

A couple of days old but still important (linked to from someone's blog somewhere sorry can't recall):

Israel's refusal to allow civilians any exit route from Gaza as its defence forces rained bombs down on schools and houses appears unprecedented in modern warfare, a United Nations investigator has said.

Richard Falk, the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, described the sealing off of the Gaza Strip in order to ensure that nobody could flee it as 'a distinct, new and sinister war crime.'

'For the first time in a military operation, the civilian population as a whole has been locked into a war zone,' he told a meeting of the European Parliament by telephone. 'No children, women, sick people or disabled people were allowed to leave. For the first time, the option of becoming a refugee has been withheld.'

Arguing that the conduct of the three-week offensive against Gaza could amount to a 'horrible abuse of Israel's role as the occupying power,' he noted that international law - particularly the 1949 Geneva convention - obliges the occupier to provide adequate food and medical facilities to the population it seeks to control. The 18-month blockade which preceded Operation Cast Lead was 'unlawful', he added.

Aged 78, Falk boasts a lengthy record as an academic, and as a campaigner for disarmament and human rights and on environmental issues. Yet his outspoken defence of Palestinian civilians has made him something of a persona non grata for the Israeli government. Last year it refused to allow him to enter the occupied territories, accusing him of an anti-Israel bias.

Read On

More on Gaza devastation

LA Times: "Reporting from Jerusalem -- Israel finished pulling its forces out of the Gaza Strip today, timing the withdrawal to President Obama's first full day in office."



"Palestinian sisters Dunia, 10, and Dana, 5, sort out their school books after finding them among the debris of their destroyed parents' home on Tuesday in the southern part of Gaza City"

BBC: (yesterday):



"Fresh images from the Gaza Strip are showing the massive scale of destruction of Israel's three-week bombardment and ground offensive, which ended on Saturday.



In Ezbat Abed Rabbu, part of Jabaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza, residents have been returning to find their entire neighbourhood reduced to rubble.



Palestinian families left destitute by the Israeli military campaign struggle to utilise some of what remains of their property, in this case a veranda which somehow escaped unscathed.



Dangers remain for Gazans - more than 36 hours after Israeli leaders declared a unilateral ceasefire, a suspected lump of Israeli-fired white phosphorus is ignited in a street in Beit Lahiya.



The UN has warned reconstruction in Gaza Strip will cost billions of dollars, with tens of thousands of people left homeless and hundreds of thousands with with no running water or electricity"

Gaza 'looks like earthquake zone'

BBC: "The worst-hit areas in the Gaza Strip after Israel's three-week offensive look as if they have been hit by a strong earthquake, aid agencies say.

Correspondents in Gaza City say entire neighbourhoods have been flattened and bodies are still being recovered.

The UN says it is still sheltering at least 35,000 Palestinians while 400,000 people are without running water."

More on White Phosphorus use on Palestinians

From a couple of days back which I should have linked to at the time. From our friends at Rick Writes who have a photo essay on this:

White Phosphorous use on Palestinians

London Times:

"Remnants of an Israeli white phosphorus shell, identified by the marking on the outer casing — M825A1 — have been found in the village of Sheikh Ajilin in western Gaza.

Witnesses in Gaza said that the shell was fired on January 9 and was taken indoors as evidence. They recalled seeing thick smoke and smelling a strong odour in keeping with the garlic-like smell associated with white phosphorus.

Hebrew writing on the shell casing reads “exploding smoke” — the term the Israeli army uses for white phosphorus. Doctors who examined the shell said that it appeared to include phosphorus residue.

Residents said that they suffered burns on their feet when they walked where the shelling had taken place.

A suspected phosphorus victim was taken from Gaza across the border into Egypt yesterday. Abdul Rahman Shaer, 16, was transferred to an Egyptian hospital from Rafah. He was suffering from severe chemical burns to his face and body. Paramedics from Gaza said that doctors at the hospital were sure the chemical agent was phosphorus.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) reiterated that they would not comment on specific weaponry being used in Gaza but added that any ammunition used by the IDF was “within the scope of international law”.

Venezuela cuts ties with Israel over Gaza attacks

Reuters: "Venezuela has cut ties with Israel in protest over its military offensive in the Gaza Strip, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

Last week President Hugo Chavez expelled Israel's ambassador from Venezuela over the attacks, which have sparked international condemnation.

"Venezuela ... has definitively decided to break diplomatic ties with the state of Israel given the inhumane persecution of the Palestinian people carried out by the authorities of Israel," said a statement read over state television.

Israel's 20-day offensive, launched to halt rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas Islamist militants, has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians. A Palestinian rights group said 670 of those killed were civilians. Thirteen Israelis have been killed -- three civilians hit by Hamas rocket fire and 10 soldiers.

Socialist Chavez is a harsh critic of both Israel and the United States and has called the Israeli offensive in Gaza a Palestinian "holocaust."

Bolivian President Evo Morales, a close Chavez ally, on Wednesday also cut ties with Israel to the protest the attacks.

An envoy from Israel, which is under increasing pressure to negotiate a cease-fire, is scheduled to meet Egyptian mediators in Cairo on Thursday.

Chavez in 2006 threatened to break ties with Israel over its five-week war in Lebanon in a diplomatic spat that led both countries to withdraw their envoys"

Israel faces calls for Gaza war crimes investigation

Guardian: "Israel is facing growing demands from senior United Nations officials and human rights groups for an international war crimes investigation in Gaza over allegations such as the "reckless and indiscriminate" shelling of residential areas and the use of Palestinian families as human shields by soldiers.

With the death toll from the 17-day Israeli assault on Gaza climbing above 900, pressure is increasing for an independent inquiry into specific incidents, such as the shelling of a UN school turned refugee centre where about 40 people died, as well as the question of whether the military tactics used by Israel systematically breached humanitarian law.

The UN's senior human rights body approved a resolution yesterday condemning the Israeli offensive for "massive violations of human rights". A senior UN source said UN humanitarian agencies were compiling evidence of war crimes and passing it on to the "highest levels" to be used as seen fit.

Some human rights activists allege that the Israeli leadership gave an order to keep military casualties low no matter what cost to civilians. That strategy has directly contributed to one of the bloodiest Israeli assaults on the Palestinian territories, they say.

John Ging, head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza, said: "It's about accountability [over] the issue of the appropriateness of the force used, the proportionality of the force used and the whole issue of duty of care of civilians.

"We don't want to join any chorus of passing judgment but there should be an investigation of any and every incident where there are concerns there might have been violations in international law."

The Israeli military are accused of:

• Using powerful shells in civilian areas that the army knew would cause large numbers of innocent casualties.

• Using banned weapons such as phosphorus bombs.

• Holding Palestinian families as human shields.

• Attacking medical facilities, including the killing of 12 ambulance men in marked ambulances

• Killing large numbers of policeman who had no military role.

Israeli military actions prompted an unusual public rebuke from the International Red Cross after the army had moved a Palestinian family into a building and shelled it, killing 30. The surviving children clung to the bodies of their dead mothers for four days while the army blocked rescuers from reaching the wounded.

Human Rights Watch has called on the UN security council to set up a commission of inquiry into alleged war crimes.

Two leading Israeli human rights organisations have separately written to the country's attorney general demanding he investigate the allegations.

But critics remain sceptical that any such inquiry will take place given that Israel has previously blocked similar attempts with the backing of the US.

Amnesty International says the dropping of powerful shells on residential streets that send blast and shrapnel over a wide area constitutes "prima facie evidence of war crimes".

"There has been reckless and disproportionate and in some cases indiscriminate use of force," said Donatella Rovera, an Amnesty investigator in Israel. "There has been the use of weaponry that shouldn't be used in densely populated areas because it's known that it will cause civilian fatalities and casualties."

"They have extremely sophisticated missiles that can be guided to a moving car and they choose to use other weapons or decide to drop a bomb on a house knowing that there were women and children inside. These are very, very clear breaches of international law."

Israel's most prominent human rights organisation, B'Tselem, has written to the attorney general in Jerusalem, Meni Mazuz, to press him to investigate a number of suspected crimes including how the military selects its targets and the killing of scores of policemen at a passing out parade.

"Many of the targets seem not to have been legitimate military targets as specified by international humanitarian law," said Sarit Michaeli of B'Tselem.

Rovera has also collected evidence that the Israeli army holds Palestinian families prisoner in their own homes as human shields. "It's standard practice for Israeli soldiers to go into a house, lock up the family in a room on the ground floor and use the rest of the house as a military base, as a snipers' position. That is the absolute textbook case of human shields.

"It has been practised by the Israeli army for many years and they are doing it again in Gaza now," she said.

While there is growing agreement on the need for an international investigation, the form it would take is less clear-cut. The UN's human rights council has the authority to investigate allegations of war crimes but Israel has blocked its previous attempts to do so.

The UN security council could order an investigation, and even set up a war crimes tribunal, but that is likely to be vetoed by the US and probably Britain.

The international criminal court has no jurisdiction because Israel is not a signatory. The UN security council could refer the matter to the court but, again, is unlikely to."

Gaza

Well I'm truly ashamed to admit that I've not actually written anything myself about the catastrophe in Gaza, an absolutely terrifying, horrendous and vile campaign that seems to have been well summarized and obviously has rightly caused huge outrage and protest across the world, along with fresh impetus about how Israel's policies toward the Palestinians are tackled in the long term.

It goes without saying we simply can't do any kind of justice in words to the realities of this and people affected by it, but just seeing some of the harrowing images of death and suffering from this conflict have been just absolutely sickening and devastating to the say the least and a shameful, monstrous and horrifying blight on the conscience of the world.

From what we've all been following in the news some of the tactics employed by Israel have been utterly obscene and outrageous crimes and what's so additionally scary is that from the last 8 years Israel and the US seem to have learned absolutely nothing.

Where is the process of persuasion here ?

It's getting more and more difficult to disagree with the wide body of opinion on different sides of the political spectrum that far far from 'maintaining its security', Israel itself is on the path to complete self destruction.

Maybe it's time to get those nuclear weapons of mass destruction out of Israel's hands.

Kucinich letter

via Prison Planet:

Raw Story
Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Responding to media reports that Israel had bombed a UN school serving as a refuge for Palestinian civilians, Congressman Dennis Kucinich is calling for a Congressional report on Israel’s possibly illegal misuse of US weapons.

His letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice follows.

Dear Dr. Rice:

I am writing concerning Israel’s military offensive against Gaza, which began on December 27th. I support Israel’s security and its right to exist in peace, without the fear of rocket attacks from Hamas. Moreover, I abhor the violence being visited upon the citizens of our firm ally. However, no nation is immune from the legal conditions placed on the receipt of U.S. military assistance.

I believe that with the current escalation of violence in Gaza, a legal threshold has been reached, warranting a Presidential examination and report to Congress. I hereby request an examination of Israel’s compliance with the provisions of the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (AECA).

While neither the AECA nor the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (FAA) define “internal security” and “legitimate self-defense,” I believe that Israel’s most recent attacks neither further internal security nor do they constitute “legitimate” acts of self-defense. They do, however, “increase the possibility of an outbreak or escalation of conflict,” because they are a vastly disproportionate response to the provocation, and because the Palestinian population is suffering from those military attacks in numbers far exceeding Israeli losses in life and property.

Israel’s current military campaign in Gaza has inflicted a significant toll on Palestinian civilians and society. Israel’s recent aerial and ground offensive against Gaza has killed nearly 600 and injured over 2,500. The Associated Press reported: “children are paying the price… The United Nations has said the death toll includes 34 children… But the broad range of Israel’s targets–police compounds, fire stations, homes of militants, Hamas-run mosques and university buildings–means most shelling is occurring in residential areas.”

The extensive destruction of such civilian institutions violates Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the wanton destruction of property and collective punishment of a civilian population. There have also been reports of bombings of United Nations (UN) schools, despite the fact that Israeli Defense Forces were allegedly given coordinates of the facilities prior to the current escalation in violence.

The blockade that Israel has imposed on Gaza since 2006 has further exacerbated the extent of collateral damage, as hospitals and morgues have been unable to cope with the magnitude of deaths and injuries as a result of the current escalation in violence and hospitals lack proper supplies needed to treat the injured.

I believe that Israel’s use of defense articles provided by the U.S in the current Gaza military attacks may constitute a violation of the AECA. At a minimum, the conflict is sufficient to warrant an immediate report to Congress as required by 22 U.S.C. §2753. Please contact my office by close of business on January 7, 2009 with the date the report will be submitted.

Sincerely,

Dennis J. Kucinich
Member of Congress

UN Probe in to Gazan School Massacres

Prison Planet: "The United Nations has called for a probe into the Israeli attacks that killed at least 45 civilians in UN-run schools in the Gaza Strip.

“These tragic incidents need to be investigated, and if international humanitarian law has been contravened, those responsible must be held accountable,” Max Gaylard, UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories said Tuesday.

On the eleventh day of an Israeli offensive against the strip, the Israeli army targeted three UN-run schools.

Palestinian medics said Tuesday that most of the victims were people who had been given shelter inside the schools, adding that several dozen individuals were also wounded in the strike.

“These deaths highlight the tragic reality of the situation in Gaza that for civilians, neither homes nor UN shelters are safe,” said Gaylard.

UN official added that there are no safe shelters for the 1.5 million civilian population of the coastal strip..."

UK Protests against Israeli offensive in Gaza

As covered by our friends at Rick Writes...

480 dead, 2300 wounded in Gaza

Guardian: "Israeli tanks and thousands of troops today pushed deep into the Gaza strip in a dramatic escalation of the conflict.

Soldiers reached as far as the Mediterranean coast, cutting Gaza in half and seizing control of large areas of the overcrowded territory.

Israel's ground operation, which had been widely anticipated, began on Saturday night, the eighth of the conflict, and is the biggest Israeli assault on Gaza since it withdrew its Jewish settlers in 2005.

Television footage showed troops wearing night vision goggles, their faces painted in camouflage, marching in single file across the border.

Thick clouds of smoke hovered over Gaza as the Israeli attack targeted the northern towns of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya, all of which have been scenes of frequent scenes of Israeli incursions over recent years.

Israeli troops were also seen in the southern Gaza strip, near the town of Rafah, along the Egyptian border.

The streets of Gaza City were deserted and the city was surrounded by Israeli forces to the north, east and south.

Naval ships in the Mediterranean continued to fire shells into Gaza, along with artillery rounds from the east and repeated air strikes across the length of the territory.

Tens of thousands of Israeli reservists were called up, a sign that the operation could yet deepen.

Palestinian hospital doctors said 23 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's ground offensive since midnight. They said three were Hamas fighters and the rest civilians.

Dr Said Judeh, of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, said eight people had been killed in an Israeli artillery strike. He said they were among a group of people trying to leave their homes to shelter in a nearby school.

Beit Lahiya is the scene of some of the heaviest fighting, and it was reported today that five members of the same family had been killed in two separate artillery strikes on their home there.

At least 30 Israeli troops were injured after the invasion began late on Saturday night, with two, a soldier and an officer, seriously hurt.

The Hamas al-Aqsa television channel today reported that Hamas fighters had captured two Israeli soldiers, but the Israeli army said it had no knowledge of any such incident and that previous Hamas reports of Israeli casualties had proved inaccurate.

The Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, said the Israelis were "peace seekers". "We are not war hungry, but we shall not, I repeat shall not, allow a situation where our towns, villages and civilians are constantly targeted by Hamas," he said. "It will not be easy or short, but we are determined.

Brigadier General Avi Benayahu, an Israeli military spokesman, said the military's goals in launching what it called "phase two" of its campaign in Gaza were "to deal a heavy blow to the Hamas terror organisation, to strengthen Israel's deterrence and to create a better security situation for those living around the Gaza Strip that will be maintained for the long term".

The decision to launch a ground offensive came after a late-night meeting between the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, Barak and the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, which lasted until 4am on Saturday.

A security cabinet meeting then approved the operation, although two ministers reportedly abstained.

The development followed another day of intense Israeli bombing in Gaza on Saturday. Among the targets destroyed was the American International School in northern Gaza, a private school which has been attacked by Palestinian militants in the past.

Another air strike destroyed a mosque in Beit Lahiya, killing around a dozen Palestinians.

The death toll in Gaza climbed to at least 480, with more than 2,300 wounded, according to Palestinian medical officials."

Richard Falk on Gaza Catastrophe

Some commentary from a couple of days ago by Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories via The Huffington Post:

"For eighteen months the entire 1.5 million people of Gaza experienced a punishing blockade imposed by Israel, and a variety of traumatizing challenges to the normalcy of daily life. A flicker of hope emerged some six months ago when an Egyptian arranged truce produced an effective ceasefire that cut Israeli casualties to zero despite the cross-border periodic firing of homemade rockets that fell harmlessly on nearby Israeli territory, and undoubtedly caused anxiety in the border town of Sderot. During the ceasefire the Hamas leadership in Gaza repeatedly offered to extend the truce, even proposing a ten-year period and claimed a receptivity to a political solution based on acceptance of Israel's 1967 borders. Israel ignored these diplomatic initiatives, and failed to carry out its side of the ceasefire agreement that involved some easing of the blockade that had been restricting the entry to Gaza of food, medicine, and fuel to a trickle..."

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Happy New Year

Happy New Year.

I know we haven't exactly been guns blazing for quite some time on here and sorry about the lapses, I was away again briefly over the New Year period. I can only defer to the excellent commentary This Old Brit has given on the horrendous stuff that's been going on in Gaza.

I hope this year we are going to do some pretty hard hitting essays on some different topics, and hopefully cover some slightly different areas than we did in the past.