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Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

Gaza Voices, American Silence

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/gaza-voices-american-silence/

In addition to that story, which I urge you to read if you haven't already, I've just read reports that the U.S. has bombed a university in Gaza, that Pelosi (and of course Obama) are standing firm for Israel, and that the U.S. has vetoed another U.N. resolution against Israel.

My response was to send a small PayPal donation to:

http://www.freegaza.org/

I got this reply:

Dear Mark,

Thank you for your donation of $20.00 to help Free Gaza.

Since we first broke the siege in August, our boats have sailed five times to Gaza, carrying doctors, teachers, journalists, human rights watchers, food and medical equipment & supplies.

We have three sailings planned for January, but the events of the past few hours have mobilized us to organize an emergency delegation which will leave Cyprus tomorrow, carrying medical personnel and equipment, medication and other supplies to help in the current crisis. Our colleagues on the ground in Gaza tell us there is no electricity, hospitals are filled beyond capacity, and the civilian population of Gaza City is living a nightmare of violence and fear directed at them by Israel's military machine.

All of us who work to prepare and send the DIGNITY to Gaza are volunteers, and the only people who receive any compensation are the captain and the first mate, who work for very little. They and the rest of us are seasoned supporters of the Palestinian cause, and most of us have been imprisoned and/or deported by Israel previously.

Our voyages so far have been successful in reuniting several families, in bringing out Palestinians in need of medical treatment, and a few dozen students who had been accepted at European and North American universities but prevented by Israel from leaving Gaza.

We will continue to sail our little peace boat to Gaza so long as we have good friends like you to support our efforts. We could never have come so far without friends like you. With your help we believe we can truly help the people of Gaza stay alive until they become free.

In Peace and Solidarity,

Mary for Free Gaza

So I sent another small donation and Mary sent another thank-you. I responded with a note explaining who I am, why I care, and apologizing that I can't send more.

Mary wrote back:

Dearest Mark,

Thanks for the lovely comments. I too am a senior citizen, on limited income, so what I try to give to the Palestinians is my time and effort. I was proud to be on the first boat, the FREE GAZA, in August, and I am delighted to be making my third trip to Cyprus to organize sending more boats. What amazes me most of all is the many young people who are eager to risk their safety, their lives and their future to jump aboard these boats, while constantly being threatened with violence by the Israeli Navy.

These brave youngsters are my inspiration and my hope for the future of Gaza and Palestine, though I will not myself live to see peace, I fear.

Best regards,
Mary

I asked for and was given her permission to repost her emails. We may none of us live to see peace, but every penny we send shows that we care.

Paulmb · Guest

You would have thought that after two thousand one hundred and nine years they would have relised that nobody is getting anywhere on either side with violence.The leaders of Israel know that by retaliating with military agression they are increasing the dangers and decreasing the safety towards their own people.Since the late 1940´s Israel has highly trained and qualified special elite"ninja soldiers"who can "sneak in and out and take out"just about anybody so with all things considered this cant be about "smoking"the Hamma out.That they dont feel able to drop scatter bombs next is surprising considering the weak and lack of International condemtion of Israels military strikes into Gaza.

At Care2 News in response to the very first News Bulletin about these latest attacks in Gaza I asked where the difference is between executing civilians with a fireing squad or dropping bombs on them and interestingly untill now no one has responded to that. Exclamation

Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

Of course they can't respond, Paul.

They are waiting for "real change," which means adding new genocides (Iran, Pakistan) to the current and past genocides. And they know it. They knew it when they voted for it.

Take a peek at the first story in the "next up" section (the title will be changed when I decide I have enough news to post or there is something I think needs posting immediately), and you'll see the sort of people you're dealing with. There are a few exceptions, and for the most part we know who they are, but just as the experiment continues to show, seventy to eighty percent are either authoritarians or authoritarian followers, which means fascists.

In other words, shooting innocent civilians with a firing squad, dropping bombs on them, torturing them, or whatever, is perfectly fine with them if somebody in authority says that it is. That's why they so desperately need to have somebody in authority.

Sickening, isn't it? Smilie_PDT

Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

Gaza video:

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=DSzn7XLLM7c

Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

This email just arrived from another site where I made a small donation for Gaza. Their online donations are processed through Network for Good:

What Have We Done For Gaza Today?

"In a corner a man stands with his seven year-old son in a cardboard box because the hospital ran out of sheets to cover the dead with. This is how he will carry him home and bury him." (Caption from a Ma’an News Agency photo, December 29.)

Dear Friends,

My colleagues and I at United Palestinian Appeal have had a simple, laser-printed sign tacked near our computer screens for the last 18 months. It reads: What have we done for Gaza today?

For most of the last year and a half, ever since Israel imposed a near-total blockade of Gaza, we could answer that question, however humbly, with news of another modest grant, funded entirely by the individual donations that sustain our work -- $30,000 to provide daily hot meals for a thousand malnourished kindergartners, $40,000 to purchase supplies for two mobile healthcare clinics, $50,000 to train 780 young men and women to administer first aid in Gaza’s refugee camps.

But on December 27, the question -- and our quest for answers -- became more urgent.

Just hours after the “shock and awe” that claimed more Palestinian lives in a single day than in the worst year of the first Intifada, we spoke with Dr. Hamdi, a volunteer emergency physician who saw some of the most gruesome effects of the day's aerial bombardment.

Dr. Hamdi detailed to us the unfolding human tragedy at Kamal Adwan Hospital. He told us there were shortages of virtually all emergency room stocks -- from gauze to syringes to antibiotics. He told us the dead were piled in the hallways because the morgue was filled to capacity. He told us the maimed and dying were wilting and bleeding in the halls, finding mercy only in prayer.

And as if that weren’t enough, Gaza’s people continue to want for food, medicine, even bandages to stop the bleeding.

Those who wield the obscene power to withhold these essentials, to deny hope -- that most basic of human needs -- to 1.5 million people, would have us believe that there is nothing we can do, that our outrage is no match against the willful violence of an occupying army.

They are wrong.

The situation is bleak, but we are not giving up. Though the UN itself is hard pressed to get anything into Gaza right now, there is much we can do to ensure that any available supplies make it to those most in need.

Today, we’re moving quickly to provide food to the patients, families, and healthcare workers trapped inside Gaza’s hospitals and clinics. We’re receiving reports that these facilities are being forced to ration meals to the sick, leaving little to sustain the hundreds more nurses and physicians who are working around the clock to try and save lives.

As I write this, volunteers with UPA’s first responder program in Gaza are assessing the need and looking for ways to procure additional food and water for Beit Hanoun Hospital and two pediatric clinics in hard-hit Jabaliya -- the largest refugee camp in the world. These facilities have 650 beds between them and employ some 700 staff, many of whom have been unable to establish contact with their families over the last three days.

With our partners on the ground in Gaza, we’re also looking at dozens of other ways to address the ongoing health and food crisis. For daily updates on what we’re doing and to make a contribution online, please visit our website at www.helpUPA.com.

With your help, we can overcome the injustices of occupation, no matter how insurmountable they may seem. Please take a stand today, and help us sustain the people of Gaza.

With hope,

Samer Badawi

P.S. -- If you’re in the DC area, please join us tomorrow for an emergency fundraiser at Busboys and Poets (14th and V Streets NW) from 6:00 - 8:00 PM. For details, please call UPA at 202-659-5007.

United Palestinian Appeal, Inc.
1330 New Hampshire Ave., NW #104
Washington, DC 20036, USA

T: 202.659.5007 F: 202-296-0224

www.helpupa.com

Established in 1978, United Palestinian Appeal was the first Palestinian-American charity to be registered with the United States Agency for International Development. We are members of the Independent Charities of America, participate in the Combined Federal Campaign, and have been named one of America's top charities by Charity Navigator, the leading online guide to smart giving.

Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

Many thanks to Paul for passing this along:

Israeli Weapons Bear an Embarrassing Label: Made in USA

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0323-05.htm

Published on Saturday, March 23, 2002 in the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Israeli Weapons Bear an Embarrassing Label: Made in USA
by Paul McGeough

British objections to the use of British-supplied weapons in Israel's latest military push against the Palestinians have focused new attention on the United States' reluctance to restrain Israel's use of the multi-billion-dollar, high-tech arms it sells to the Jewish state each year.

The US is embarrassed by the high profile given to some of its machinery in the occupied territories - particularly its F-16 fighter jets, in missile strikes against police stations and other public buildings, and its Apache attack helicopters, in Israel's controversial campaign to assassinate Palestinian militants.

But the Administration has refused to go public with its growing unease over the use of US weaponry, in what the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, now calls an "all-out conventional war" on Palestinian civilians.

But last week Britain revealed that in 2000 it had extracted a written assurance from Israel that no military equipment originating from Britain would be used in the occupied territories. The revelation was sparked when a British diplomat stationed in the Middle East recognised an Israeli armoured personnel carrier as a modified Centurion tank, which Britain had supplied to Israel up until 1970.

Now Britain is demanding an explanation from the Israelis. Last year an unnamed US State Department spokesman told The Independent in London that at some point Washington would have to make a call on whether the Israelis were in breach of a stipulation in the Arms Export Control Act that weapons sold could be used only for "legitimate self-defence" - but yesterday a department spokeswoman would not tell the Herald if the issue had advanced.

Israel is one of the biggest buyers of US arms, and much of the trade is financed with the $US2 billion a year it gets from Washington in military aid. Its arsenal includes dozens of US helicopters (AH 64As, AH 1Fs, AH 1Gs); hundreds of tanks (M-60s) and armoured personnel carriers; and the biggest fleet of American fighter aircraft outside the US (F-15s, F-16s, F-4s and A-4s).

A US-based lobby group, the Palestinian Monitor, says the US should act against Israel because of its "consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognised human rights" and, in particular, killings carried out by its airborne assassination squads.

However, the argument that the US was refusing to put pressure on Israel over its treatment of Palestinians was laughed at by one of the US's top authorities on the Israeli military, Anthony Cordesman, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

Told by the Herald about the assurance won from Israel by the British, he said: "Someone has to be joking. This kind of contract clause is a joke in the weapons trade. If you think you can tightly control weapons after you have sold them, then you're living in fantasy land ...

"People in this trade make a lot of promises for face-saving purposes. There are provisions in international law on not using weapons on civilians, but defining civilians in a low-level war like this one can be an academic exercise."

But on the ground, the Israeli choice of US weapons does make a difference. After the Israelis launched a US-built TOW missile in a helicopter attack on a Gaza police station last year, a staff member who survived confronted an American visitor. "This is what your country is doing," he said, holding up a part of the missile carrying the words "made in the USA".

He reportedly went on: "We hate the Israelis for this ... but we hate America more."

Paul from Germany · Guest

Just watched the Gaza Youtube vid.Whether children as physical victims or childrens innocence misused and therefore made victims of brain washing its just simply diabolical and evil to involve them in any way what so ever when adults behave like cave men. Sad

dyfet · Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:36 pm Post subject: The American Indian Connection

I am of course also deeply concerned with what is happening in Gaza, and with the overall Palestinian struggle for basic recognition as human beings in their own land which I find similar to that of the American Indian on our own turtle island. Certainly the idea of herding people into unlivable concentration camp ghettos as part of the brutal process of colonization and rape of their lands, along with occasional murderous attacks on captive civilian populations, seems taken directly from the American Indian policy of the United States.

When faced with such brutality, we can do far more than sit back and passivily allow this to happen, simply because it may (not yet) be happening in our neighborhoods. I think freegaza.org had some ideas how people could help. I appreciate that you have chosen to respond by participating in protests, Mark. I think the only wrong response is to choose to do nothing and remain silent in the face of such evil.

Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

Thank you, David. I don't think it is possible for a Jew my age to look at Gaza and not be reminded of the Warsaw Ghetto.

The struggle, of course, is much larger, and it is definitely analogous with the reservations, perhaps even with the death camps which have been built here but not yet filled.

But history tells us that superior military force doesn't always win. There was Viet Nam and there will be Iraq and Afghanistan. I still believe that the sooner the world gets hip to our Ponzi schemes and stops accepting our funny money, the sooner there will be peace, not just in the Middle East, but in most of the world.

dyfet · Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 7:05 pm Post subject:

I found Russell Means very recent statement on this particularly moving:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3lB8akRO0E