After yesterday's vote, I am totally disgusted and feeling utterly powerless that I live in a country where one country's horrendous actions are applauded by our government. And, it's not just wrong; it's stupid! It just offers more ammunition for the U.S. haters.




Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=14027

Hamas Has Already Won the PR War - Con Coughlin, Daily Telegraph

The Gaza Blame Game - Rosa Brooks, Los Angeles Times

An Unnecessary War - Jimmy Carter, Washington Post
Israel and West Will Pay for Bloodbath - Seumas Milne, The Guardian

Gaza and the Limits of Intervention - Andrew Bacevich, Boston Globe
The UN Must Govern Gaza - Walid Phares, Middle East Times

Hardliners Calling Shots in Gaza - Matthew Levitt, Washington Institute

The World Won't Act So Israel Does - Daniel Finkelstein, The Times

• Israel Warns Gazans of Escalation
• Israel, Hamas Reject Truce
• Obama to Talk to Hamas?
• Anger Grows in Arab Street
• The Surrender Lobby

Why Israel Is United
- Carlo Strenger, The Guardian

January 10, 2009

A Plan for Gaza: Demilitarization and Internationalization

By Walid Phares


As the UN Security Council was voting for Resolution 1860 calling for a cease fire in Gaza, for the stopping of the flow of weapons to Hamas and for the withdrawal of Israeli forces, I had sent a memo to the members of the Council advising for a more comprehensive plan based on Chapter 7. In 2004, I wrote an identical memo also remitted to the UN Security Council calling for Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. The memo was part of an NGO process leading eventually to the issuing of UNSCR 1559 in September of that year. The memo sent this week is not part of a formal NGO process but is signed by the secretariat of a newly formed Trans Atlantic Legislative Group (US and European legislators) and published in several outlets. It was remitted to several missions including the US, France, UK, Russia, the European Union, the Arab League, the Palestinian and Israeli delegations.

The central idea is to have the UN seizing the actual control of the Gaza strip but only under Chapter 7, that is with the massive deployment of a multinational force, the disarming of Hamas and other militias, and the rehabilitation of a reformed Palestinian Authority. Evidently my memo-article received different types of reactions. The Hamas and "Iranian axis" players definitively rejects the idea of any UN sponsored security measures in Gaza. They feel this will take away the only card they have: military pressure on Israel. But many on the other side are skeptical about any UN role. However diplomats are now discussing what seems to be some forms of international role and PA presence. The Cairo discussions are going in that direction. I am projecting that unless a wider conflict smashes all initiatives, the diplomatic resolution cannot evolve outside an international security system in Gaza.

I made several of these remarks on BBC TV and Radio, al Hurra TV, France 24, and I summarized the Ten Points Plan in a You Tube Posting. (Link at the end of the article).


Read More »


The Ten Points Plan

It may be too early to discuss both a comprehensive solution for the future of a Palestinian state and to anticipate an end to the global War on Terror at the same time but here goes. In any discussion of peace in the Middle East it’s important to remember the intentions of the Iranian and Syrian regimes and their proxy, Hezbollah when we think about saving the civilian population of Gaza from war, shielding the Israeli populations from rockets and avoiding an escalation of violence that could engulf the entire region. The Iranian and Syrian regimes and their ally Hezbollah will always oppose the peace process and try to sink it.

So is there a plan to bring peace to the southern shores of the Levant? In an interview with Al Jazeera, Israeli President Shimon Peres said his country will stop military operations when the strikes by Hamas and its allies will come to an end. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said his Palestinian Authority (PA) is ready to assume responsibility for the sake of his people. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan’s King Abdullah said their governments are ready to solve the crisis in Gaza if the PA is part of it. The United States, the European Union and the United Nations all affirmed that everything has to be done to end the war in Gaza. Excellent.

If all the players listed above are ready to stop the violence, end the war and save Palestinian and Israeli civilians from bloodshed, then the plan seems to be clear: demilitarization and internationalization of Gaza.

Establishing a fully-fledged U.N. sponsored and managed security system in the enclave has precedents across the planet: Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, and to some extent in Lebanon and possibly in the near future, Darfur.

When an area slips under the control of a militia which is not bound by a peace treaty, or operating under international law, and when a population comes under fire from any party because of the military actions of such a militia, and until a recognizable and recognized sovereign state becomes responsible for such an enclave, the U.N. Security Council must step in and apply Chapter 7 of the charter, that is to bring peace to civilian populations.

In this case, the United Nations has a duty to seize Gaza and manage its peace until an internationally recognized and responsible Palestinian state rises again in that province. How will this be accomplished?

1. The Security Council meets and declares Gaza as an area under U.N. emergency management and vote, under Chapter 7, for a strong multinational force (MNF) to enter the enclave in coordination with Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

2. The MNF should not include forces whose governments are in a state of war with Israel or with the Palestinian Authority and must have diplomatic relations with both, for the purpose of peace building.

3. The MNF proceeds with the disarming of Hamas and all other militias first. Gaza should be demilitarized fully. Israeli forces would withdraw to the lines of demarcation fully.

4. The MNF would reestablish police centers and remit them to a reformed and transparent PA.

5. The MNF would protect the civilian population, in coordination with the PA units.

6. The Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference would provide all needed expenses for the MNF and the PA security forces. A consortium of oil producing governments from the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) would grant Gaza’s U.N. sponsored local administration $10 billion or so to end the economic crisis, fund new schools, hospitals and basic infrastructure.

7. The Arab League would commit to grant Gaza residents visas to visit all Arab countries and work permits if they wish so.

8. Israel commits to allow Gaza workers to travel to the West Bank and vice versa.

9. The final security and economic arrangements would be integrated in the final status negotiations between the PA and Israel.


10. The PA and Israel would resume their direct negotiations for a peace settlement.

This 10-point plan can, first and foremost, bring peace and security to the Palestinian population in Gaza, the Israeli civilians in the surrounding areas, and also engage the responsibility of the United Nations, the European Union, the Arab League and the OIC in peace making.

Evidently, such a plan will never see the light of day as long as any party to the conflict thinks they can only count on a military solution — and particularly as long as Hamas is instructed by Tehran and Damascus to sink the peace process. Sadly as long as democracy is not on the rise in Iran and Syria we cannot predict the end of the War on Terror.

*****

Dr. Walid Phares is the coordinator of the Trans-Atlantic Legislative Group on Counter-Terrorism based in Washington D.C. and Brussels and the director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies as well as a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy.

Link

The You Tube Summary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnsU-4RKUEE

« Close It

January 10, 2009 09:25 AM Link

As UN-PC as it is, Beamer, you are not alone in those feelings ...

And it is not really our government ....

It is the government of the political parties that we are stuck with ....

It does not represent us ....

It represents what it is paid to represent ....

Which takes us back to your original statement above here ....

And so ...

Uri Avnery
10.1.09

How Many Divisions?

NEARLY SEVENTY YEARS ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called "the Red Army" held the millions of the town's inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.



Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.



This is the description that would now appear in the history books – if the Germans had won the war.



Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of Gaza as "hostages" and exploit the women and children as "human shields", they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured.





IN THIS WAR, as in any modern war, propaganda plays a major role. The disparity between the forces, between the Israeli army - with its airplanes, gunships, drones, warships, artillery and tanks - and the few thousand lightly armed Hamas fighters, is one to a thousand, perhaps one to a million. In the political arena the gap between them is even wider. But in the propaganda war, the gap is almost infinite.



Almost all the Western media initially repeated the official Israeli propaganda line. They almost entirely ignored the Palestinian side of the story, not to mention the daily demonstrations of the Israeli peace camp. The rationale of the Israeli government ("The state must defend its citizens against the Qassam rockets") has been accepted as the whole truth. The view from the other side, that the Qassams are a retaliation for the siege that starves the one and a half million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, was not mentioned at all.



Only when the horrible scenes from Gaza started to appear on Western TV screens, did world public opinion gradually begin to change.



True, Western and Israeli TV channels showed only a tiny fraction of the dreadful events that appear 24 hours every day on Aljazeera's Arabic channel, but one picture of a dead baby in the arms of its terrified father is more powerful than a thousand elegantly constructed sentences from the Israeli army spokesman. And that is what is decisive, in the end.



War – every war – is the realm of lies. Whether called propaganda or psychological warfare, everybody accepts that it is right to lie for one's country. Anyone who speaks the truth runs the risk of being branded a traitor.

The trouble is that propaganda is most convincing for the propagandist himself. And after you convince yourself that a lie is the truth and falsification reality, you can no longer make rational decisions.

An example of this process surrounds the most shocking atrocity of this war so far: the shelling of the UN Fakhura school in Jabaliya refugee camp.

Immediately after the incident became known throughout the world, the army "revealed" that Hamas fighters had been firing mortars from near the school entrance. As proof they released an aerial photo which indeed showed the school and the mortar. But within a short time the official army liar had to admit that the photo was more than a year old. In brief: a falsification.

Later the official liar claimed that "our soldiers were shot at from inside the school". Barely a day passed before the army had to admit to UN personnel that that was a lie, too. Nobody had shot from inside the school, no Hamas fighters were inside the school, which was full of terrified refugees.

But the admission made hardly any difference anymore. By that time, the Israeli public was completely convinced that "they shot from inside the school", and TV announcers stated this as a simple fact.

So it went with the other atrocities. Every baby metamorphosed, in the act of dying, into a Hamas terrorist. Every bombed mosque instantly became a Hamas base, every apartment building an arms cache, every school a terror command post, every civilian government building a "symbol of Hamas rule". Thus the Israeli army retained its purity as the "most moral army in the world".

THE TRUTH is that the atrocities are a direct result of the war plan. This reflects the personality of Ehud Barak – a man whose way of thinking and actions are clear evidence of what is called "moral insanity", a sociopathic disorder.

The real aim (apart from gaining seats in the coming elections) is to terminate the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the imagination of the planners, Hamas is an invader which has gained control of a foreign country. The reality is, of course, entirely different.

The Hamas movement won the majority of the votes in the eminently democratic elections that took place in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. It won because the Palestinians had come to the conclusion that Fatah's peaceful approach had gained precisely nothing from Israel - neither a freeze of the settlements, nor release of the prisoners, nor any significant steps toward ending the occupation and creating the Palestinian state. Hamas is deeply rooted in the population – not only as a resistance movement fighting the foreign occupier, like the Irgun and the Stern Group in the past – but also as a political and religious body that provides social, educational and medical services.

From the point of view of the population, the Hamas fighters are not a foreign body, but the sons of every family in the Strip and the other Palestinian regions. They do not "hide behind the population", the population views them as their only defenders.

Therefore, the whole operation is based on erroneous assumptions. Turning life into living hell does not cause the population to rise up against Hamas, but on the contrary, it unites behind Hamas and reinforces its determination not to surrender. The population of Leningrad did not rise up against Stalin, any more than the Londoners rose up against Churchill.

He who gives the order for such a war with such methods in a densely populated area knows that it will cause dreadful slaughter of civilians. Apparently that did not touch him. Or he believed that "they will change their ways" and "it will sear their consciousness", so that in future they will not dare to resist Israel.

A top priority for the planners was the need to minimize casualties among the soldiers, knowing that the mood of a large part of the pro-war public would change if reports of such casualties came in. That is what happened in Lebanon Wars I and II.

This consideration played an especially important role because the entire war is a part of the election campaign. Ehud Barak, who gained in the polls in the first days of the war, knew that his ratings would collapse if pictures of dead soldiers filled the TV screens.

Therefore, a new doctrine was applied: to avoid losses among our soldiers by the total destruction of everything in their path. The planners were not only ready to kill 80 Palestinians to save one Israeli soldier, as has happened, but also 800. The avoidance of casualties on our side is the overriding commandment, which is causing record numbers of civilian casualties on the other side.

That means the conscious choice of an especially cruel kind of warfare – and that has been its Achilles heel.

A person without imagination, like Barak (his election slogan: "Not a Nice Guy, but a Leader") cannot imagine how decent people around the world react to actions like the killing of whole extended families, the destruction of houses over the heads of their inhabitants, the rows of boys and girls in white shrouds ready for burial, the reports about people bleeding to death over days because ambulances are not allowed to reach them, the killing of doctors and medics on their way to save lives, the killing of UN drivers bringing in food. The pictures of the hospitals, with the dead, the dying and the injured lying together on the floor for lack of space, have shocked the world. No argument has any force next to an image of a wounded little girl lying on the floor, twisting with pain and crying out: "Mama! Mama!"

The planners thought that they could stop the world from seeing these images by forcibly preventing press coverage. The Israeli journalists, to their shame, agreed to be satisfied with the reports and photos provided by the Army Spokesman, as if they were authentic news, while they themselves remained miles away from the events. Foreign journalists were not allowed in either, until they protested and were taken for quick tours in selected and supervised groups. But in a modern war, such a sterile manufactured view cannot completely exclude all others – the cameras are inside the strip, in the middle of the hell, and cannot be controlled. Aljazeera broadcasts the pictures around the clock and reaches every home.

THE BATTLE for the TV screen is one of the decisive battles of the war.

Hundreds of millions of Arabs from Mauritania to Iraq, more than a billion Muslims from Nigeria to Indonesia see the pictures and are horrified. This has a strong impact on the war. Many of the viewers see the rulers of Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority as collaborators with Israel in carrying out these atrocities against their Palestinian brothers.

The security services of the Arab regimes are registering a dangerous ferment among the peoples. Hosny Mubarak, the most exposed Arab leader because of his closing of the Rafah crossing in the face of terrified refugees, started to pressure the decision-makers in Washington, who until that time had blocked all calls for a cease-fire. These began to understand the menace to vital American interests in the Arab world and suddenly changed their attitude – causing consternation among the complacent Israeli diplomats.

People with moral insanity cannot really understand the motives of normal people and must guess their reactions. "How many divisions has the Pope?" Stalin sneered. "How many divisions have people of conscience?" Ehud Barak may well be asking.

As it turns out, they do have some. Not numerous. Not very quick to react. Not very strong and organized. But at a certain moment, when the atrocities overflow and masses of protesters come together, that can decide a war.


THE FAILURE to grasp the nature of Hamas has caused a failure to grasp the predictable results. Not only is Israel unable to win the war, Hamas cannot lose it.

Even if the Israeli army were to succeed in killing every Hamas fighter to the last man, even then Hamas would win. The Hamas fighters would be seen as the paragons of the Arab nation, the heroes of the Palestinian people, models for emulation by every youngster in the Arab world. The West Bank would fall into the hands of Hamas like a ripe fruit, Fatah would drown in a sea of contempt, the Arab regimes would be threatened with collapse.

If the war ends with Hamas still standing, bloodied but unvanquished, in face of the mighty Israeli military machine, it will look like a fantastic victory, a victory of mind over matter.

What will be seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a blood-stained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for our long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet.

In the end, this war is a crime against ourselves too, a crime against the State of Israel.

From pp.232,233 of War Comes to Long An - Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province by Jeffrey Race .....

The internal inconsistencies of the VIOLENCE PROGRAM (United States Military Violence Program for South Viet Nam as outlined to the United States Senate Appropriations Committee in early 1968 by Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson) in Long An were exemplified by the knotty issue of civilian casualties inflicted by conventional operations in populated areas.

The STRATEGY OF VIOLENCE described by General Johnson (the attrition of main-force units through the use of large-scale operations and massive firepower) was based on the assumption of conventional warfare concerning geographically distinct bases of supply, ACCORDING TO WHICH CIVILIAN CASUALTIES ARE OF NEGLIGIBLE OPERATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE.

NON-COMBATANT CASUALTIES INFLICTED IN FRIENDLY AREAS BY FRIENDLY FORCES ARE REGRETTABLE BUT WILL BE BORNE BY THE POPULATION AS THE PRICE OF REMOVING THE ENEMY, WHILE NON-COMBATANT CASUALTIES INFLICTED IN ENEMY AREAS , OWING TO THE PRE-DETERMINED HOSTILITY OF THE ENEMY POPULATION, ARE OF NO IMPORTANCE AND MAY ACTUALLY BE DESIRABLE AS A MEANS OF BRINGING PRESSURE TO BEAR ON THE ENEMY LEADERSHIP.

Long An, however, fell into neither of these conventional war categories.

It could not be considered by the Saigon government as friendly territory whose population would tolerate sacrifices as the cost of removing the "INVADER", FOR THE "INVADER" WAS A PART OF THE SOCIETY ITSELF.

IT WAS JUST THIS ERRONEOUS ASSUMPTION THAT LED TO THE DISASTER OF THE STRATEGIC HAMLET PROGRAM IN LONG AN.

From pp.243,244 of War Comes to Long An - Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province by Jeffrey Race .....

Vietnamese Colonel Nguyen Be, Commandant in 1968 of the South Viet Nam National Training Center at Vung Tau and former Vietminh (Resistance to French OCCUPATION of Viet Nam after WWII) Battalion Commander on why the VIOLENCE PROGRAM outlined to the United States Senate Appropriations Committee in early 1968 by Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson was RIFE with INTERNAL INCONSISTENCIES and was therefore doomed to failure, regardless of the numbers of troops that America put into the field in South Viet Nam ....

BECAUSE IT DISREGARDED THE LIVES OF THE VIETNAMESE PEOPLE ....

Naturally, in the development of military doctrine we must wait several generations for change.

The reason for this is that the military experts - THE GENERALS AND THE ENTIRE OFFICERS CORPS - have studied and developed their understanding according to PRE-ESTABLISHED DOCTRINES WHICH HAVE BROUGHT THEM HONORS AND PRIDE.

HOW CAN THEY ABANDON A SYSTEM OF THOUGHT WHICH THEY HAVE BELIEVED AND DO NOW BELIEVE IS RIGHT AND EFFECTIVE, IN ORDER TO ADOPT A NEW SYSTEM OF THOUGHT?

Moreover, each succeeding generation gropes in the path of the experience of history, studies according to the experience of its predecessors, and is bound within the thought of those who previously gained victories and accomplishments.

HOW, THEREFORE, CAN THEY VISUALIZE THE STRANGE HORIZONS OF NEW SYSTEMS OF MILITARY THOUGHT?

When a military expert looks at a limited war, HE IS USUALLY SCORNFUL OF THE RUDIMENTARY WEAPONS AND MILITARY TACTICS OF THE ENEMY, AND THINKS INSTEAD OF SUCH PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS AS TROOP TRAINING, EMPLOYMENT OF MODERN WEAPONS, AND NUMERICAL SUPERIORITY TO DEFEAT THE ENEMY AND TO CRUSH THE LIMITED WAR IMMEDIATELY.

BUT SUCH MILITARY EXPERTS ARE WRONG.

They are wrong first because they do not understand the essential nature of these limited wars.

MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE SUCH LIMITED WARS BEAR THE DISTINGUISHING FEATURES OF STRUGGLE RATHER THAN WAR.

THUS, THE MORE THE PEOPLE ARE OPPRESSED, THE MORE IT FEEDS THE FLAME OF THE STRUGGLE SPIRIT, AND THE FLAME RISES EVER HIGHER UNTIL THE COMBINATION OF IMPROVED TECHNIQUES, MORE WEAPONS, AND THE FIRES OF THE STRUGGLE SPIRIT ITSELF ENABLE THE PEOPLE TO MOUNT A GENERAL COUNTEROFFENSIVE.

ONLY THEN IS THE CYCLE BROKEN.

IMHO, our government has always blindly supported Israel's actions without question. The 'unconditional support' premise cannot apply to political entities.

Supporting Israel's over-the-top response to Hamas' rockets is very David and Goliath.....and David doesn't have a chance. Hamas may as well be catapulting peanuts compared to Israel's fire power.

Our government needs to muster the courage to say it is wrong.....just all wrong.....

My concern is the disregard for civilian casualties. The actual military response is not a problem with me. If you come at me with a knife, I'll respond with a gun.

Knifes don't misfire, Frenchy ....

But ya gotta get close to use it...And I've never had a misfire with a revolver!

Well ....

Hmmmmm ....

Yes, there is that aspect of it ....

And so ...

That, too, is the major part of US 'unconditional support' which troubles me the most.

COMMON GROUND, canjcat ....

I watched that same **** happen in Viet Nam, and we got to do a lot of dying for it in our turn ....

And in the end, we lost because of it ....

And so ...

A ray of hope from the third link...

That should really be BUSH-LEAGUE DOCTRINE of trying to isolate Hamas ...

"Vatican cardinal calls Gaza 'big concentration camp'"

by SOLARLIFE | January 8, 2009 at 05:16 am

Pope Benedict's point man for justice and peace issues on Wednesday issued the Vatican's toughest criticism of Israel since the latest Mideast crisis began, calling Gaza a "big concentration camp".

Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace, made his comments in an interview in the Italian online newspaper Il Sussidiario.net.

"Defenceless populations are always the ones who pay."

"Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp", Martino, whose informal title is Vatican "justice minister", was quoted as saying.

Pope Benedict has made several general appeals for an end to the violence in Gaza but has not openly criticised Israel.

The pope is due to visit Holy Land sites in Jordan, Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank in May.

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/vatican-car...centration-camp

"Israel Outraged as Vatican Calls Gaza a ‘Big Concentration Camp’ - Foreign Ministry Says Cardinal's Comments 'Based on Hamas Propaganda'"

Posted January 7, 2009

Echoing Pope Benedict XVI’s repeated calls to end the ongoing bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, Vatican Justice and Peace Minister Cardinal Renato Martino urged both the Israeli government and Hamas to show more willingness toward peace talks and for the world to help them come an agreement that would end the ongoing Israeli invasion.

He also expressed concerns about the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, saying “let’s look at the conditions in Gaza: these increasingly resemble a big concentration camp.”

Israel, as has been so often the case as the international community condemns the situation in Gaza, is outraged.

The Foreign Ministry accused the Cardinal of making comments “based on Hamas propaganda” and likewise slammed him for “ignoring its numerous crimes,” even though he explicitly called for both sides to end their attacks.

He said the Cardinal’s comments would not “bring the people closer to truth and peace.”

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/01/07/israel-...or-peace-talks/

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE

"Cardinal angers Israel with Gaza remarks"

By Rachel Donadio

Published: January 8, 2009

ROME: Tensions rose between the Vatican and Israel on Thursday as Israel condemned a high-ranking Vatican official for comparing the Gaza Strip to "a concentration camp."

"Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp," Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Council for Justice and Peace, said in an interview published Wednesday in an online publication.

He defended his comments in the newspaper La Repubblica on Thursday.

While noting that Hamas rockets into Israel were "certainly not sugared almonds," he called the situation in Gaza "horrific" and said conditions there went "against human dignity."

Israel harshly condemned the cardinal's use of World War II imagery.

"We are astounded that a spiritual dignitary would have such words, that are so far removed from truth and dignity," said Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry.

Palmor added that it was "shocking to hear the vocabulary of Hamas propaganda coming from a member of the church."

But he denied that it would cause a diplomatic crisis.

It "doesn't change the nature of relations between Israel and the Holy See," Palmor said.

The Vatican sought to downplay the cardinal's remarks.

The Vatican spokesman, Reverend Federico Lombardi, called Martino's choice of words "inopportune" and said they created "irritation and confusion" more than illumination.

While calling the cardinal "an authoritative person," Lombardi added that "the more authoritative voice and line would be that of the pope."

The cardinal's remarks overshadowed an important discourse that Pope Benedict XVI delivered Thursday, in which he called for a cease-fire in Gaza and decried "a renewed outbreak of violence provoking immense damage and suffering for the civilian population."

"Once again I would repeat that military options are no solution and that violence, wherever it comes from and whatever form it takes, must be firmly condemned," he told diplomats accredited to the Vatican.

In unusually direct remarks, the pope looked ahead to "crucial elections" coming up in the Middle East and called for dialogue between Israel and Syria, the "strengthening of institutions" in Lebanon and a "negotiated solution" to "the controversy surrounding" Iran's nuclear program.

http://iht.com/articles/2009/01/08/mideast/vatican.php

Beamer, you crack me up!

Before the Jewish people had their own country, it was said that they ran the governments, banks, and caused all the plagues, floods and general disasters.

This was said in Germany, this was said in Russia, this was said in some measure all over the Ottoman Empire and this was even said about the Chinese Jewish community in Shanhai.

So, this is what happens when you go give Jewish people a nation, these people, they get to be called Zionists now, instead of Jews. These "Zionist" people wanted to go back to where they came from and build a nation where they wouldn't be attacked all the time. But, their enemies declared war immediately and then these Jewish Zionists started to have to develop a way to protect themselves.

It was even more surprising that they survived the immediate wars, living in tents and fighting with old French and Russian weapons, and went on to make a great nation, with democratic values and freedoms. This did not please the surrounding countries (how can you justify stoning, amputations and eye removal as punishment for woman who stray, men who steal a loaf of bread, or for anytong who does something the Emir or Pasha doesn't like if you have this great, rich, democratic neighbor setting such a bad example?)

There were also other problems....Namely, there were these people there, in their new nation, that wanted to stay on the land that had been given to these Jewish people. They didn't understand the concept of "deeds"...And who could blame them...Private property is pretty rare in lands where everything belongs to the Emir, Pasha or some absent landlord in Damascus. Private property may be a completely foolish idea in fact!

So, then there were more wars.

Now, these Zionists are also called Israelis, and 1 out of 5 of them are Arabs and about 50% of them are first generation Jews from Arab nations....And many others are from Russia, where Jews are about as popular as flies.

So, they're kinda stuck there. They must survive so they figure out that if they make themselves indispensable to the USA and other super-powers, then this superpower might have a stake in seeing to it that they survive.

Smart thinking.

They call upon their relatives and friends in the US to help, and lo and behold they do.

The Israelis and the Americans become friends.

The wars don't stop though, no matter what they do....Because of three major factors.

The OTHER superpower keeps funding the Arabs and giving them weapons, the Arab rulers want to use Israel as a reason for their people's misery and arms manufacturers must have wars or there will be no ongoing market for their products. What better group of people to get all stirred up than hot-headed middle easterners? Especially, since the other hot-headed people in South and Central America have decided they are tired of fighting and the five never-ending wars amonst the African regimes are only able to afford small arms?

So, in reality, there is no Israeli Occupied anything..

The Occupation is by
Bechtel
Du Pont
Dow
Haliburton
Monsanto
Novartis
Boeing

Call them what you will, they change their names, they buy each other out, up and down, but they ultimately have a vested interest in THEMSELVES and they are what actually?

They aren't Jews, Zionists, Americans, Israelis, Arabs, Africans, or even PEOPLE!

This is probably what they told Obama on his initial "briefing"..."Guess what, now that you're president, we thought we should let you know, that you're not really in charge...In fact, no government is in charge anywhere anymore. We are in charge, if you forget it, there is always the Kennedy option"

That's the occupation we all ought to be opposing.

I don't know much, but if the choice was demanded....
I'd back-up to those skinny, Israeli grunts. Masada.
Die for something. The last wish of a grunt. Powder Blue.

I wouldn't die for Israel.

We live in America. We don't live in Israel. I wouldn't kill innocents like Israel is doing.

The people of Israel should rise up and say NO.

Israel is provoking any future reaction.

What are they thinking?

Gaza is a concentration camp.

things are topsy turvy screwy

I'll fight for a black man in a white mob,
white man in a black mob and an Israeli
in a Palestinian mob. I can't help it.
It's genetic programing. F*ck it.

What would you die for?

I would not die for any nation committing war crimes which Israel is.
Backing someone or a nation committing war crimes means I would be committing war crimes

Just say no. If no one fights, no one dies.

If Israel is so above everything, then one would think they would have some standards and want to uphold them, if for nothing else, than to stay high and mighty.
What are they thinking? They are not solving anything.

I would like to think that no one had to die for any country, but if one has to die for a country, then let it be for a country that is trying its hardest to live by the ideals you hold to....die for what is "right", no matter the color, or the creed...Die for the freedom's that you value if you must die...but really....It's all a charade, because it's not about countries, it's about money and money's interests.

We're all just pawns in the hands of killing machines. It's misdirected anger towards each other when really, it should be directed toward them.

All three of these arguments are very compelling. HOWEVER........



HOWEVER, The second amendment should also protect the right not to bear arms. Imagine living in a community so violent that carrying a gun affords only a marginal degree of security, if any margin at all.

Apologies Heart for cutting the first part of your post. I feel a need to cut to the chase of your argument:


HOWEVER How do we dismantle this hegemony of corporate war profiteers without pulling the plug on our economy as we know it?




HOWEVER, like John Lennon's Imagine this argument is based upon a counterfactual premise: "If no one fights..." People are fighting and dieing. What can we do as citizens to bring an end to it----to make peace?

ISFU, thanks, THAT IS my real argument, and I haven't got a clue how to fix the problem, but wish someone did.

These are monsters unleashed and uncontrolled, and to the best of my knowledge, there isn't anyway to reign in their power.

First, people must know that these are the real occupiers. It would help if someone would inform our governments in such a way that they actually "get it". What will that take I wonder?

I just found this website posted by a retired psyops NCO on IDF psyops underway in Gaza:

IDF psyops in Gaza

Just say NO
Drop weapons
Don't fight

What can we do otherwise? Nothing. Because people have no power anywhere.

This is one big powerplay

War is over If we want it

Long as people have misguided notions like it's honorable and other fallacies like that, it will be impossible

Both Israeli candidates are attempting to be strong, so this war.occupation is to get Tzipi or Benji elected.
Where's the peace candidate?

those people ARE our government though.

Bush is them is Bush is them

How to have stopped it? Impeach Bush and repudiate the family and the ties to the family.

But nobody did.

It's as simple as believing 9-11 did NOT happen the way they said. If one can get past the mind games of being forcefed into an official story,
that any mental midget can not possibly rationalize as being possible (same as being brainwashed into thinking a singlebullettheory was real

If you just believe than anything is possible. Both ways.

Professionals all over need to keep people believing in official stories. It allows for the war machine to continue.

Here is the latest (January 9 2009) assessment of the fighting in Gaza from Anthony Cordesman of CSIS, probably the most respected US analyst of military matters in the Middle East: http://www.csis.org/index.php?option=com_c...iew&id=5188

The Israeli-Hamas War, and there is little else that it can be called, has now lasted two weeks. Israeli jets have flown some 800 strike sorties, and the IDF has pushed deep into Gaza. Israel also continues to report tactical gains. The IDF spokesman reported that the fighting on the war's 14th day continued the second phase of the ground operation throughout the strip, "with infantry, tank, engineering, artillery and intelligence forces operating in large numbers throughout the Gaza Strip, with the assistance of the Israel Air Force and Israel Navy." He [the IDF spokesman] summarized the result as follows:

"The Navy, Air Force and Artillery Corps continued to assist the ground forces throughout the Gaza Strip, striking Hamas targets, groups of gunmen and terrorists identified in rocket launching areas and located near the forces.

. . .The IAF attacked a number of targets, based on IDF and ISA intelligence, including the house of Yaser Natat, who was in charge of the rocket firing program in the Rafah area, and the house of Muhammad Sanuar, the commander of the Hamas "Han Yunes Brigade". In addition, the IAF struck approximately 60 targets throughout the Gaza Strip, including:

• A mosque used as a weapons storage facilities and as a meeting place for Hamas terror operatives
  
  
• A Hamas Police structure
  
  
• Fifteen tunnels used by Hamas terror operatives against IDF forces, some of which were located under houses
  
  
• Ten weapons storage facilities
  
  
• A number of armed gunmen
  
  
• Fifteen launching areas and underground launching pads used to fire mortar shells at IDF forces

. . . The Israeli Navy operated in front of Deir El Balah in the Central Gaza Strip, targeting Hamas rocket launching sites.

The IDF will continue to operate against the Hamas terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip according to its operational plans in order to reduce the rocket fire on the south of Israel."

No one should discount these continuing tactical gains, or ignore the fact that Hamas' rocket and mortar attacks continue to pose a threat. Nearly 600 rounds hit Israeli territory between December 7th and January 9th. It is also clear that there are no good ways to fight an enemy like Hamas that conducts attrition warfare while hiding behind its own women and children. A purely diplomatic response that does not improve Israel's security position or offer Palestinians hope for the future is equivalent to no response at all.

The fact remains, however, that the growing human tragedy in Gaza is steadily raising more serious questions as to whether the kind of tactical gains that Israel now reports are worth the suffering involved. As of the 14th day of the war, nearly 800 Palestinian have died and over 3,000 have been wounded. Fewer and fewer have been Hamas fighters, while more and more have been civilians.

These direct costs are also only part of the story. Gaza's economy had already collapsed long before the current fighting began and now has far greater problems. Its infrastructure is crippled in critical areas like power and water. This war has compounded the impact of a struggle that has gone on since 2000. It has reduced living standards in basic ways like food, education, as well as medical supplies and services. It has also left most Gazans without a productive form of employment. The current war has consequences more far-reaching than casualties. It involves a legacy of greatly increased suffering for the 1.5 million people who will survive this current conflict.

It is also far from clear that the tactical gains are worth the political and strategic cost to Israel. At least to date, the reporting from within Gaza indicates that each new Israeli air strike or advance on the ground has increased popular support for Hamas and anger against Israel in Gaza. The same is true in the West Bank and the Islamic world. Iran and Hezbollah are capitalizing on the conflict. Anti-American demonstrations over the fighting have taken place in areas as "remote" as Kabul. Even friends of Israel like Turkey see the war as unjust. The Egyptian government comes under greater pressure with every casualty. The US is seen as having done virtually nothing, focusing only on the threat from Hamas, and the President elect is getting as much blame as the President who still serves.

One strong warning of the level of anger in the region comes from Prince Turki al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia. Prince Turki has been the Saudi ambassador in both London and Washington. He has always been a leading voice of moderation. For years he has been a supporter of the Saudi peace process and an advocate of Jewish-Christian-Islamic dialog. Few Arab voices deserve more to be taken seriously, and Prince Turki described the conflict as follows in a speech at the opening of the 6th Gulf Forum on January 6th, "The Bush administration has left you (with) a disgusting legacy and a reckless position towards the massacres and bloodshed of innocents in Gaza…Enough is enough, today we are all Palestinians and we seek martyrdom for God and for Palestine, following those who died in Gaza." Neither Israel nor the US can gain from a war that produces this reaction from one of the wisest and most moderate voices in the Arab world.

This raises a question that every Israeli and its supporters now needs to ask. What is the strategic purpose behind the present fighting? After two weeks of combat Olmert, Livni, and Barak have still not said a word that indicates that Israel will gain strategic or grand strategic benefits, or tactical benefits much larger than the gains it made from selectively striking key Hamas facilities early in the war. In fact, their silence raises haunting questions about whether they will repeat the same massive failures made by Israel's top political leadership during the Israeli-Hezbollah War in 2006. Has Israel somehow blundered into a steadily escalating war without a clear strategic goal or at least one it can credibly achieve? Will Israel end in empowering an enemy in political terms that it defeated in tactical terms? Will Israel's actions seriously damage the US position in the region, any hope of peace, as well as moderate Arab regimes and voices in the process?

To blunt, the answer so far seems to be yes. To paraphrase a comment about the British government's management of the British Army in World War I, lions seem to be led by donkeys. If Israel has a credible ceasefire plan that could really secure Gaza, it is not apparent. If Israel has a plan that could credibly destroy and replace Hamas, it is not apparent. If Israel has any plan to help the Gazans and move them back towards peace, it is not apparent. If Israel has any plan to use US or other friendly influence productively, it not apparent.

As we have seen all too clearly from US mistakes, any leader can take a tough stand and claim that tactical gains are a meaningful victory. If this is all that Olmert, Livni, and Barak have for an answer, then they have disgraced themselves and damaged their country and their friends. If there is more, it is time to make such goals public and demonstrate how they can be achieved. The question is not whether the IDF learned the tactical lessons of the fighting in 2006. It is whether Israel's top political leadership has even minimal competence to lead them.

Why Gaza War Looks Set To Go On BBC News - Jan 10

As the Israeli raids on Gaza and Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel continue, BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen assesses why both Israel and Hamas seem likely to pursue the conflict.



After two weeks of war both sides have reasons to believe they can fight on.

Israel has suffered relatively light casualties, a fraction of the dead and wounded of Gaza. Even though many reserve units have now been mobilised, which means a large number of husbands and fathers are in uniform and potentially in the line of fire, public support for the war is holding steady.

The government has managed the war of Israeli expectations far more effectively than it did in Lebanon in 2006. Victory has been defined in less sweeping terms, so that it will be harder for anyone to accuse the government of failure. Even so, it has set objectives that need to be met if Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak are going to have any kind of political career when this is over.

Unlike Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is leaving office because of allegations of corruption, Mr Barak and Ms Livni face a general election on 10 February.

They have set two main objectives, neither of which has been achieved yet.

First, damage the Hamas military wing so badly that they will either be unable to launch rockets into Israel, or be so intimidated that they will not dare.

Israel's second demand is that the border between Gaza and Egypt is controlled so that Hamas will not be able to bring in weapons and money through tunnels.

Israel can feel the international pressure to stop. It has persuaded many of its allies that it has the right to defend itself, but it has not won the argument over the methods it is using. Israel's international image is taking a severe beating because it is killing so many civilians and so many children.

But with the United States abstaining in the ceasefire vote at the UN Security Council, Israel feels comfortable enough to dismiss the resolution because it says it is "not practical and will not be implemented by the Palestinian terror organisations".

Moment to fight

Hamas has reasons to fight on too. Like Israel, it has dismissed the ceasefire resolution. It has demanded a ceasefire that opens all Gaza's crossings to Egypt as well as Israel, and a halt to military action and complete pullout by the Israelis.

While it can fire rockets into Israel and mortars and rifles at Israeli troops, Hamas will not consider itself beaten. Hamas leaders in Gaza have gone underground. But based on the few messages that they have sent out from their hiding places, and statements from Hamas leaders in exile, it is possible to make some reasonable guesses about their thinking. They have an ideology of struggle, resistance and sacrifice. They could have extended the ceasefire with Israel but chose not to do so.

Hamas believed they would have to fight Israel at some time (the feeling was mutual) and it seems that they have decided that the moment has come.

Civilian deaths in Gaza are most likely seen not as reasons to stop but as a reason to go on. I can't say for sure, but if I was able to sit with Hamas leaders, as I have done quite a bit in the last year, I think this is how their logic would go.

They might say that Israel has shown its real agenda towards Palestinians - not peace, but war and death. And they might go on to say that stopping now would betray the dead and encourage Israel to go in even harder.

Third phase

The template of the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah is in the minds of both sides.

Hamas would like to do the same as Hezbollah, and take on the most powerful army in the Middle East, punish it, and live to tell the tale. That is an experience Israel does not want to repeat. It wants its enemies to be nervous, very nervous, about what it might do.

If Israel is going to fight on, the next stage will be for it to deploy the reservists who have been mobilised and equipped in the last 10 days or so be sent into Gaza.

Committing the reserves means the operation moves into a third phase, seizing more ground in Gaza, following the first week of air strikes, and the ground offensive of the second week.

The war in Gaza is the latest instalment in a very long conflict. Foreign leaders and diplomats who are trying to create peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis should take a long perspective. After all, the Palestinians and the Israelis do.

The conflict has lasted the best part of a century, which suggests that this latest episode, bloody and brutal though it is, will not be decisive.

Maybe Israel's end all plan is - they want MORE fighting, so that nothing ever changes

What if Israel is playing a most dangerous game of psy-ops there is

They don't want peace and victory. They want war forever, to continue the neo-con Bush game well into the next decade and beyond

Peace doesn't do the military industry any good

So it's like Israel laying it right out there, so obvious nobody is picking it up.

NOT FOR STUPIDITY ....

NOT FOR GREED ...

NOT FOR A FOOL ....

Any fool can die for a cause, IH ....

I saw a ton of them do it in Viet Nam ....

And you know what?

It is a non-participatory act .....

All you got to do is be there ....

It requires nothing else of you ...

And so ...

CAN YOU IMAGINE LIVING IN A PLACE WHERE EVERY DAY, AND EVERY NIGHT, PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO KILL YOU BECAUSE YOUR GOVERNMENT IS OPPRESSING THEM, NIGHT AND DAY, WITH A GOVERNMENT-APPROVED "VIOLENCE PROGRAM", ACCORDING TO WHICH CIVILIAN CASUALTIES ARE OF NEGLIGIBLE OPERATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE?

CAN YOU IMAGINE LIVING IN A PLACE WHERE YOU HAVE TO LIVE UNDERGROUND IN A BUNKER BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO KILL YOU WITH ROCKETS AND MORTARS BECAUSE YOU ARE KILLING THEIR PEOPLE WITH INDISCRIMINANT ARTLLERY FIRE AND NAPALM AND 500-POUND BOMBS AND HELICOPTER ROCKET FIRE AND B-52 STRIKES?

CAN YOU JUST IMAGINE IT?

I CAN ....

BUT HEY, WHAT CAN I POSSIBLY KNOW ABOUT IT, AIN'T IT, IH?

AFTER ALL, I'M NOT AN ISRAELI ....

And so ...

.......WHILE NON-COMBATANT CASUALTIES INFLICTED IN ENEMY AREAS , OWING TO THE PRE-DETERMINED HOSTILITY OF THE ENEMY POPULATION, ARE OF NO IMPORTANCE AND MAY ACTUALLY BE DESIRABLE AS A MEANS OF BRINGING PRESSURE TO BEAR ON THE ENEMY LEADERSHIP .......

Counter-insurgency warfare seems to devolve into defending a country from its inhabitants.

Question: In Gaza, how can the IDF tell the difference between non-combatant casualties in friendly areas and in enemy areas?

Answer: They don't need to. All Gaza is an enemy area, because Hamas has declared themselves to be enemies of Israel. Inhabitants of Gaza elected Hamas leaders.

Thus is the logic of militarism. In Nam, just we just exchanged Hamas with the Viet Cong in this logic.

Very well said, IS4U ...

So kill them all and let God sort them out ...

And so ...

My solution to this problem is to take all the JEWS from Israel, and re-settle them in a 20-mile wide strip of land along the U.S.-Mexico border, from California to Texas ....

Give them San Diego on the Pacific, and Galveston on the Gulf Coast ...

So that entire strip of land would be theirs forever ....

Which is a real good deal for them, because it is a hell of a lot bigger chunk of land than what they have right now ...

And then make what is now Isreal into a piece of glass with nuclear weapons fired at once by all the nations that now possess them ...

Then the children over there will have nothing left to fight over ...

And we'll get some added border protection from the DIRE THREAT that Mexico presents to us, right now ...

Anyone trying to get into the U.S. across the porous border that exists now would have to infiltrate Israeli country first ....

And then they would still have 20 more miles to go to get to the US border ....

So it is a WIN-WIN, all around ....

The American people that are presently down there can then either be -re-settled somewhere else, like Georgia ....

Or they could stay and become Israelis ....

And so ...

livy- if you moved all 'them Jews down there, then of course, they will all migrate to New York and New Jersey, and we would have to take them all in
feed em, they would take our jobs, they would dive for the pennies on the ground

oye vey

I AM BEING FUNNY AND I AM JEWISH

something tells me I shouldn't have written that

It is the LAW OF WAR, IS4U ....

The ARCHAIC LAW OF WAR ....

The LAW OF WAR is total chaos ....

The LAW OF WAR supercedes all other laws, rules, regulations, what have you ....

The LAW OF WAR places no vlaue whatsoever on human life ....

To the contrary, it renders it valueless ....

So long as the USA adheres to the LAW OF WAR, there never can or will be any kind of peace on earth ....

And so ...

This beats the hell out of what the guy's on my gun forum proposed...Relocate them to Utah!