Peace and Justice Post

Uruknet,

Khalid Amayreh, thepeoplesvoice.org

Occupied East Jerusalem, March 2, 2008 Zionist apologists and hasbara doctors have been trying of late to convince the European public opinion that opposition to Israels brutal treatment of the Palestinian people amounts, more or less, to a new form of anti-Semitism. This week, the Israeli foreign ministry, in cooperation with Zionist circles in North America, announced the creation of the so-called International Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism. Were witnessing a new, global, virulent and even lethal anti-Semitism without parallel or precedent since World War II, said Canadian MP Irwin Colter, one of the organizer. It is not only essential to sound the alarm, but its time to act. However, from reading in between the lines, it becomes amply clear that the real target these Zionist supremacists have in mind is not the morbid hatred of Jews for being Jews, otherwise known as anti-Semitism. It is rather the growing global awareness of and opposition to Israeli apartheid, criminality and genocidal policies being pursued in the occupied Palestinian territories. In fact, it is not anti-Jewish racism that these liars are really seeking to fight; it is rather anti-Palestinian Israeli racism that they are trying to defend and protect. Racists, after all, are qualified to combat racism as much as pyromaniacs are qualified to fight fires. Today, Israel, more than any other country on earth, is the number-1 generator, inducer and encourager of anti-Semitism. Continued . . .

uruknet.info, March 2, 2008
Khalid Amayreh in Occupied Jerusalem

A worldwide organization representing anti-Zionist Jews has strongly condemned the ongoing mass killing and maiming by the Israeli occupation army of hundreds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

In an “urgent statement” released Sunday, the Neturei Karta organization called on the world community to “stop the wild beast of the Zionist state from destroying the Palestinian people.”

“We Orthodox Jews condemn the murderous terrorism and gangsterism of the Zionist murder machine,” read the statement, reacting to the killing of as many as a hundred Palestinians, mostly innocent civilians, including some 20 children, during the past 72 hours.

The statement went only saying that “for sixty years the Zionist butchers have been expelling, occupying, ghettoizing, terrorizing and killing Palestinians who simply want their rights restored in their homeland of historic Palestine.

“We call on all peace-loving nations to take every measure to stop the madness unleashed by the Zionists and to restore the rights of the Palestinians, thereby ending all suffering and bloodshed of all people in historic Palestine.”

The statement affirmed that the Israeli state didn’t represent the Jewish people and religion.

“They may call themselves Jews, but they are not following the Jewish religion. They are barbarians and butchers. They defile and desecrate the holiness of our religion, of our Torah.”

The statement offered “deepest condolences and sympathy” to the entire Palestinian people who must constantly face the effects of Zionist terrorism.

Neturei Karta, which means “Guardians of the City,” is an international organization of Orthodox Jews dedicated to the propagation and clarification of Torah Judaism.

The organization is firmly opposed to Zionism on theological and moral basis. The organization often accuses Israel of generating anti-Semitism by acting and behaving in ways inconsistent with Jewish morality and ethics, including the Ten Commandments.

Ghassan Bannoura – IMEC News

Sunday March 02, 2008

Palestinian medical sources stated that 10 Palestinians were killed on Sunday due to ongoing Israeli army attacks of the Gaza strip, the number of Palestinian killed by the Israeli army in the Palestinian costal Region now totals 98.

Two Palestinian resistance fighters, from the Al Qassam brigades the armed wing of Hamas, were killed and another injured on Sunday at midday when Israeli jet fighters targeted a group of Palestinian fighters east of Jabaliya town in the northern part of Gaza.

Earlier in the day Ahamad Abu Wardah was killed when Israeli troops opened fire on his house in Jabalyia town. Medics said that Israeli troops shot Abu Wardah then prevented the ambulance from reaching him. Abu Wardah bled to death.

On Sunday morning medics found the bodies of Raja’ Attallah, 31 and her sister Ibtesam, 25. Their house is located in Jabalyia refugee camp and was bombed by Israeli jet fighters Saturday night. Their parents and two brothers were also killed in the Saturday’s attack.

Sunday morning, Khlaid Rayian, from the Al Qassam brigades, was pronounced dead from wounds incurred during Jabalyia clashes with invading Israeli troops.

Another two were also killed on Sunday morning. Thabet Dardonah, and Wesam Abed Raboh were shot by Israeli troops in Jabalyia and left to bleed to death, Medics said, they added that there was also a girl who shot and killed in her home in Jabalyia but once again ambulance crews were prevented from reaching her.

Including the ten killed on Sunday the death toll in Gaza since Wednesday totals 98 dead. On Saturday at dawn the Israeli army started a ground offensive targeting Jabalyia town and the nearby refugee camp. By Saturday night Israeli attack left 56 Palestinians killed, 36 of whom were civilians.

Today the Palestinian ministry of Health in Gaza announced that some hospitals in Gaza can not provide medical care because they have no electricity or medical supplies.

The Israeli army has kept Gaza under siege since June 2007, leaving Gaza suffering from severe shortages of medicine, food, electricity, and fuel supplies.

Aljazeera

Here is what they don’t show you on CNN and Fox news

Popular Committee Against Siege (PCAS)

March 1, 2008 Anna Goldman reports from the Gaza Strip PCAS: www.freegaza.ps/english Gaza strip, 1st, March, 2008, (PCAS)-  Since the early morning, the Israeli holocausts against Palestinians  have started. About 10 of freedom fighters died but the majority was 45 victims from civilians.   The holocaust which was declared by Matan Vilnai, Vice Israeli defence (War) minister, yesterday is being launched by today morning with confines. Diverse sorts of weapons, such as F16 and Apaches planes were used. In addition to using heavy guns, bombs, missiles and cluster bombs as well.  Attalla Family was exposed to a 1-ton-missle fired by F16. The missile destroyed their house which was of 2 floors resulted in killing 4 members including a child.  Around 30 air raids and 50 bombs and artillery shells fired towards the Palestinian civilians. The Jabalya camp which is the position of the military holocaust is densely populated. Around 1000 thousands live in about 1 killo meter. Thus a lot of innocent victims fall quickly. Continued . . .

People have got to know whether their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.
– Richard Nixon, Press Conference 11/11/1973

Herewith an introduction to Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, president of Kazakhstan.

Mr. Nazarbayev was elected president of Kazakhstan by the Supreme Soviet on April 24, 1990. On December 1, 1991, Kazakhstan being on the verge of independence, he was elected by Kazakh citizens with 95 percent of the vote and most recently was elected in 2005 with 91 percent of the vote. The 2005 election was only slightly marred by the observation of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), an organization he now chairs, that there were “numerous and persistent examples of intimidation by the authorities” and an “overall media bias in favor of the incumbent.” One month before the election Zamanbek Nurkadilov, an opposition leader, was said by authorities to have committed suicide. He did it by shooting himself once in the head and twice in the chest. Two months after the election, Altynbek Sarsenbayev, one of the opposition leaders was killed, reportedly by state security officials.

In May 2007, satisfied with the way he’d been performing, President Nazarbayev signed a constitutional amendment that permits him (and only him) to seek re-election indefinitely beginning in 2012 when his current term expires.

Mr. Nazarbayev presides over what has been called one of the most corrupt regimes in central Asia. He has closed newspapers, banned or refused to register opposition parties and permitted harassment of advocacy groups. Mike Marschall, the regional director of Transparency International, an anti-corruption organization said of the president: “You don’t have free elections, and the press is pretty much controlled by his family and a significant portion of assets in Kazakhstan are directly or indirectly controlled by his family.” Although Mr. Marschall went on to say that the president was making some step-by-step reforms, on the Transparency International Scale of corrupt countries, Kazakhstan is ranked 2.6, 1 being the most corrupt and 10 being least corrupt.

Continued . . .

• The Observer,
• Sunday March 2 2008

Three Palestinians were killed on Saturday and at least six children were wounded in an Israeli missile strike on a house in Gaza City. Photograph: Suhaib Salem/Reuters

Israel’s military killed at least 60 Palestinians yesterday – almost half of them civilians, including four children – in its most violent assault on the Gaza Strip since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power last June.

The latest deaths bring the number of Palestinians killed since a rocket fired from inside Gaza killed a 44-year-old Israeli in the town of Sderot last week to 80. Two Israeli soldiers also died in the fighting. Late last night, the office of the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, was attacked by an Israeli aircraft, which hit the building with three missiles. Although no casualties were reported, witnesses said the building was destroyed.

The latest bloodshed comes as an Observer investigation revealed how Israel is again deliberately obstructing the transfer of urgent medical cases for treatment outside Gaza, in the latest extension of its policy of collective punishment of Palestinians.

Continued . . .

The Reichstag fire helped transform Germany from a democracy to a dictatorship. What can we do to avoid a similar outcome?

By David T. Z. Mindich, AlterNet. Posted February 29, 2008.

On a cold January morning in 1933, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as chancellor of one of the world’s great democracies. While the world has duly noted its 75th anniversary last month, it is not the cold January morning but a hot February night that should command our greatest attention. It was 75 years ago this week that the parliament building, the Reichstag, was set ablaze. As the Reichstag burned, Hitler was busy converting the chancellorship into a dictatorship.

As we engage in the democratic process of picking a new president, a look back at Hitler’s dizzying rise is an instructive reminder of the fragility of democracy, then and now.

During the period of long simmering fears over an amorphous international threat — communism — German opposition forces were willing to give Hitler the chancellorship despite his capturing only a minority of votes during the recent election. But it was the Feb. 27 Reichstag fire, a fire that the Nazis accused a Dutch Communist of setting, that sent the country on a quick road to fascism. Within 60 days, Hitler had begun the process of arbitrary arrests, warrantless surveillance and searches, incarceration without charges, suspension of habeas corpus, the implementation of torture, the mustering of a private army, and was pushing through the passage of the “Enabling Act,” which gave Hitler and his henchmen the power to ignore the legislative branch and write laws themselves.

Continued . . .

Hijacker had post-9/11 flights scheduled, files say

Larisa Alexandrovna | Raw Story, Feb. 28, 2008

Newly-released records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request contradict the 9/11 Commission’s report on the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and raise fresh questions about the role of Saudi government officials in connection to the hijackers.

The nearly 300 pages of a Federal Bureau of Investigation timeline used by the 9/11 Commission as the basis for many of its findings were acquired through a FOIA request filed by Kevin Fenton, a 26 year old translator from the Czech Republic. The FBI released the 298-page “hijacker timeline” Feb. 4.

The FBI timeline reveals that alleged hijacker Hamza Al-Ghamdi, who was aboard the United Airlines flight which crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, had booked a future flight to San Francisco. He also had a ticket for a trip from Casablanca to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.

Though referenced repeatedly in the footnotes of the final 9/11 Commission report, the timeline has not previously been made available to the public.

The FBI timeline is dated Nov. 14, 2003 but appears to have been put together earlier (since the last date mentioned in the document is Oct. 22, 2001) and was provided to the 9/11 Commission during its 2003 investigation. The final Commission report cites the FBI timeline 52 times.

Continued . . .

Kuwait Times, March 1, 2008

JERUSALEM: A senior Israeli defence official said yesterday that Palestinians firing rockets from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip would bring upon themselves what he termed a “shoah”, the Hebrew word for holocaust or disaster. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the Palestinians faced “new Nazis”.

Israeli air strikes have killed at least 33 Gazans, including five children, in the past two days. The army, which carried out additional air strikes yesterday, said most of those killed were militants. Israeli leaders said cross-border rocket fire may leave them no choice but to launch a broader military offensive against Hamas, which seized Gaza in June after routing forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

One Israeli was killed in a rocket attack on Wednesday in the southern border town of Sderot. Hamas raised the stakes by using Soviet-designed Grad missiles, more powerful and accurate than improvised Gazan Qassams, to strike deep into the larger city of Ashkelon, home to 120,000 people. Visiting Ashkelon, Defence Minister Ehud Barak told Channel 10 television an Israeli response was “required” and that “Hamas bears responsibility for this deterioration and it will also bear the results”.

Continued . . .