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By Jinjirrie, on January 10th, 2009% In a convincing wrapup of events leading to the holocaust being perpetrated on the essentially defenceless people of Gaza, John Pilger refers to the Dagan Plan.
Behind this sordid game is the “Dagan Plan,” named after General Meir Dagan, who served with Sharon in his bloody invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Now head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence organization, Dagan is the author of a “solution” that has seen the imprisonment of Palestinians behind a ghetto wall snaking across the West Bank and in Gaza, effectively a concentration camp. The establishment of a quisling government in Ramallah under Mohammed Abbas is Dagan’s achievement, together with a hasbara (propaganda) campaign relayed through a mostly supine, if intimidated western media, notably in America, that says Hamas is a terrorist organization devoted to Israel’s destruction and to “blame” for the massacres and siege of its own people over two generations, long before its creation. “We have never had it so good,” said the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Gideon Meir in 2006. “The hasbara effort is a well-oiled machine.” In fact, Hamas’s real threat is its example as the Arab world’s only democratically elected government, drawing its popularity from its resistance to the Palestinians’ oppressor and tormentor. This was demonstrated when Hamas foiled a CIA coup in 2007, an event ordained in the western media as “Hamas’s seizure of power.” Likewise, Hamas is never described as a government, let alone democratic. Neither is its proposal of a ten-year truce as a historic recognition of the “reality” of Israel and support for a two-state solution with just one condition: that the Israelis obey international law and end their illegal occupation beyond the 1967 borders. As every annual vote in the UN General Assembly demonstrates, 99 per cent of humanity concurs. On 4 January, the president of the General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto, described the Israeli attack on Gaza as a “monstrosity.”
When the monstrosity is done and the people of Gaza are even more stricken, the Dagan Plan foresees what Sharon called a “1948-style solution” – the destruction of all Palestinian leadership and authority followed by mass expulsions into smaller and smaller “cantonments” and perhaps finally into Jordan. This demolition of institutional and educational life in Gaza is designed to produce, wrote Karma Nabulsi, a Palestinian exile in Britain, “a Hobbesian vision of an anarchic society: truncated, violent, powerless, destroyed, cowed … Look to the Iraq of today: that is what [Sharon] had in store for us, and he has nearly achieved it.”
Although the UN has passed Resolution 1860 calling for a cease fire, Israel is continuing its strikes against anything that moves or doesn’t move in the beleaguered Gaza Strip.
This is unacceptable. The US may already been dragged into being accomplice to war crimes on the eve of Obama’s inauguration – is this Bush’s last petulant tantrum too?
Francis A. Boyle An Israeli War Crimes Tribunal – An Israeli War Crimes Tribunal (ICTI) May be the Only Deterrent to a Global War
Not that again – still at least some folks are waking up to the Machiavellian possibilities neocons may be hoping to ignite in these last desperate days of Straussian ponderosity.
Ari Shavit writes in Haaretz of that perennial classic, the White Man’s Burden
George E. Bisharat Israel Is Committing War Crimes – Hamas’s violations are no justification for Israel’s actions.
Pentagon denies arms shipment to Israel linked with Gaza fighting – interesting because the first time we looked the story said US was sending 3000 tons of ammo on a merchant ship.
In fact, here it is sitting on Reuters UK. So who’s the anonymous informant, and which story is true? ??
U.S. seeks ship to move arms to Israel
Fri Jan 9, 2009 11:42pm GMT
By Stefano Ambrogi
LONDON (Reuters) – The U.S. is seeking to hire a merchant ship to deliver hundreds of tons of arms to Israel from Greece later this month, tender documents seen by Reuters show.
The U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command (MSC) said the ship was to carry 325 standard 20-foot containers of what is listed as “ammunition” on two separate journeys from the Greek port of Astakos to the Israeli port of Ashdod in mid-to-late January.
A “hazardous material” designation on the manifest mentions explosive substances and detonators, but no other details were given.
“Shipping 3,000-odd tons of ammunition in one go is a lot,” one broker said, on condition of anonymity.
“This (kind of request) is pretty rare and we haven’t seen much of it quoted in the market over the years,” he added.
The U.S. Defense Department, contacted by Reuters on Friday in Washington, had no immediate comment.
The MSC transports amour and military supplies for the U.S. armed forces aboard its own fleet, but regularly hires merchant ships if logistics so require.
The request for the ship was made on December 31, with the first leg of the charter to arrive no later than January 25 and the second at the end of the month.
The tender for the vessel follows the hiring of a commercial ship to carry a much larger consignment of ordnance in December from the United States to Israel ahead of air strikes in the Gaza Strip.
A German shipping firm which won that tender confirmed the order when contacted by Reuters but declined to comment further.
CHARTERS “RARE”
Shipping brokers in London who have specialized in moving arms for the British and U.S. military in the past said such ship charters to Israel were rare.
Israel is one of America’s closest allies and both nations regularly sell arms to each other.
A senior military analyst in London who declined to be named said that, because of the timing, the shipments could be “irregular” and linked to the Gaza offensive.
The ship hired by the MSC in December was for a much larger cargo of arms, tender documents showed.
That stipulated a ship to be chartered for 42 days capable of carrying 989 standard 20-foot containers from Sunny Point, North Carolina to Ashdod.
The tender document said the vessel had to be capable of “carrying 5.8 million pounds (2.6 million kg) of net explosive weight,” which specialist brokers said was a very large quantity.
The ship was requested early last month to load on December 15.
In September, the U.S. Congress approved the sale of 1,000 bunker-buster missiles to Israel. The GPS-guided GBU-39 is said to be one of the most accurate bombs in the world.
The Jerusalem Post, citing defense officials, reported last week that a first shipment of the missiles had arrived in early December and they were used in penetrating Hamas’s underground rocket launcher sites.
(Reporting by Stefano Ambrogi; editing by Michael Roddy)
UPDATE ON SHIP
Greek bloggers used Twitter to pressure the Greek government to halt the arms transfer.
Delivery of the munitions was suspended, just as the Greek government was coming under fire from opposition parties, and Amnesty International was calling for an arms embargo.
At first, official sources contested the story from the international news agency Reuters on January 9. But it was picked up by Twitter users and investigated after Indy.gr – an offshoot of the Indymedia Athens group – provided a translation of the article in Greek.
ADDENDA
From Enduring America 9/1/09:
1:10 p.m. Here’s one for the Israel Info Guys in Tel Aviv and New York.
You know the “human shields” line that Hamas hides behind civilians, especially women and children, to conduct their nefarious activities? Well, a released Gazan detainee has offered an inconvenient twist — at least for Israel:
In the first day (of the ground offensive) special forces stormed Beit Lahiya. Maybe a thousand soldiers landed on rooftops then began arresting people….They used us as human shields in military positions they established inside Gaza Strip before they drove us to a prison in Beersheba. They made us sleep on gravel, or on the sand. They stripped us of our clothes.
And here’s a little footnote: “They used a bulldozer to pile up the bodies of the dead.”
Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim – How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
@AJGaza: UN says more than 15,000 people are now internally displaced after fleeing their homes in an attempt to avoid the fighting in #Gaza
By Jinjirrie, on January 7th, 2009% Israel crossed the line.
@KABOBFest A UN school in #gaza where people were taking shelter was just tank-shelled by Israel, killing 40 people there. http://tinyurl.com/777edx
@AJGaza US state department says it wants an “immediate” ceasefire in #Gaza, that is “durable, sustainable and not time limited”.
@tweetsfromgaza Israeli tanks fire on 2nd UN school killing and injuring dozens of refugees with nowhere else to go. #Gaza
RT: @syrianews: UN says it “gave the exact GPS co-ordinates” of the location of the UN school which Israel CHOSE to bomb
From the Guardian:
The UN, which said the school was clearly marked, said it was “strongly protesting these killings to the Israeli authorities and is calling for an immediate and impartial investigation”.
“Where it is found that international humanitarian law has been violated, those responsible must be held to account. Under international law, installations such as schools, health centres and UN facilities should be protected from attack. Well before the current fighting, the UN had given to the Israeli authorities the GPS co-ordinates of all its installations in Gaza, including Asma elementary school.”
Just prior to the announcement of the UN school massacre, the Israeli Consulate tweeted:
@IsraelConsulate New Post: How to End the Battle Successfully http://is.gd/eGKS #AskIsrael #Israel #Gaza
Bret Stephens writes in today’s Wall Street Journal on ways that Israel can achieve its military aims without imposing unnecessary hardship on the residents of Gaza.
…
Achieving this aim would not require Israel to take over large swaths of Gaza, but it would require an extended policy of smaller-scale counterterrorism operations, along the lines of the successful West Bank operations.
We shall have to wait and see which post conflict model is adopted, and how free an arm the US gives Israel to complete its balancing act, and whether international monitors will be involved as previously mentioned by Israel.
Khalid Mish’al, head of Hamas Political Bureau says in the Guardian:
“What is being visited on Gaza today was visited on Yasser Arafat before. When he refused to bow to Israel’s dictates, he was imprisoned in his Ramallah headquarters, surrounded by tanks for two years. When this failed to break his resolve, he was murdered by poisoning.
Gaza enters 2009 just as it did 2008: under Israeli fire. Between January and February of last year 140 Gazans died in air strikes. And just before it embarked on its failed military assault on Lebanon in July 2006, Israel rained thousands of shells on Gaza, killing 240. From Deir Yassin in 1948 to Gaza today, the list of Israel’s crimes is long. The justifications change, but the reality is the same: colonial occupation, oppression, and never-ending injustice. If this is the “free world” whose “values” Israel is defending, as its foreign minister Tzipi Livni alleges, then we want nothing to do with it.
Israel’s leaders remain in the grip of confusion, unable to set clear goals for the attacks – from ousting the legitimately elected Hamas government and destroying its infrastructure, to stopping the rockets. As they fail to break Gaza’s resistance the benchmark has been lowered. Now they speak of weakening Hamas and limiting the resistance. But they will achieve neither. Gaza’s people are more united than ever, determined not to be terrorised into submission. Our fighters, armed with the justice of their cause, have already caused many casualties among the occupation army and will fight on to defend their land and people. Nothing can defeat our will to be free.
Once again, Washington and Europe have opted to aid and abet the jailer, occupier and aggressor, and to condemn its victims. We hoped Barack Obama would break with George Bush’s disastrous legacy but his start is not encouraging. While he swiftly moved to denounce the Mumbai attacks, he remains tongue-tied after 10 days of slaughter in Gaza. But my people are not alone. Millions of freedom-loving men and women stand by its struggle for justice and liberation – witness daily protests against Israeli aggression, not only in the Arab and Islamic region, but worldwide.
Israel will no doubt wreak untold destruction, death and suffering in Gaza. But it will meet the same fate in Gaza as it did in Lebanon. We will not be broken by siege and bombardment, and will never surrender to occupation.”
By Jinjirrie, on January 5th, 2009% Bt’Selem
Defence for Children International Children killed as a result of Israel military and settlers 2000 – 2008
In addition, from the UN 4/1/09:
As of this evening, the MoH reports casualty figures since the beginning of the Israeli military operation on 27 December of 491 dead and approximately 2,400 injured, out of which figures, at least 20 percent of the fatalities and 40 percent of the injuries are women and children.
List of UN releases relevant to Palestine
Excellent chronology of the occupation by Israel and resistance to it.
As the occupying power, under the Geneva Conventions Israel has the responsibility for caring for the occupied. Despite its claims of having left Gaza in 2005, Israel still occupies it under international law.
UN Office for the Coordindation of Humanitarian Affairs latest updates.
By Jinjirrie, on January 5th, 2009% The latest information on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza can be downloaded from the UN Office of Coordination of Human Afairs.
The situation is extremely bleak – Israel, with the unrelenting support of its accomplice, the US Bush administration, continues to violate human rights and Geneva Conventions. A hospital ambulance has been shelled and food distribution has been stopped except in southern Gaza. Hospital generators are about to collapse.
Some quotes from the 4th January report:
“Israeli forces are now deployed in several areas of the Gaza Strip with clashes taking place between Israeli forces and militants. Damage and destruction of roads, infrastructure and buildings has been reported, including to a large gas storage facility. The military incursion compounds the humanitarian crisis following more than a week of shelling and an 18-month long blockade of the territory. There is an increased threat to civilians due to combat in densely populated urban areas. Hospitals continue to be overstretched because of the large number of casualties that have accumulated since the beginning of Israeli attacks, and ambulances and medical personnel face dificulties in accessing casualties. Electricity and telecommunications are down over much of the Strip.
Food distributions have been suspended and all crossing points remain closed.”
This morning, an ambulance of Al Awda hospital in the north was shelled, seriously injuring 4 medical staff. Palestine Square in central Gaza City was also hit, reportedly killing 5 civilians and injuring another 40 persons. Prior to the ground incursion, 15 Palestinians were killed and more than 25 injured when the Israeli Air Force bombarded the Ibrahim Al Makadima Mosque in Beit Lahiya.
There is an almost total blackout in the governorates of Gaza, North Gaza, Middle Area, and Khan Yunis. Most of the telephone network (both land lines and cell phones) in Gaza is also not functioning since it
now depends on back-up generators with dwindling fuel stocks.
All of Gaza City hospitals have been without mains electricity for 48 consecutive hours, depending entirely on back-up generators. The hospitals warn that the generators are close to collapse. At the Shifa hospital, collapse would have immediate consequences for 70 intensive care unit (ICU) patients including 30 in the neonatal care who are connected to machines. ICUs throughout the Gaza Strip are overloaded. The
security situation is also preventing medical staff from reaching hospitals.Ambulances are experiencing dificulty in reaching the injured because of continuous ire. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society continues to work around the clock in order to assist the population. From Friday to Saturday midday, its ambulances transported 78 wounded to hospitals. Fifteen fatalities were also transported.
By Jinjirrie, on December 10th, 2008% Today is the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document which recognises humanity’s common interests and belongs to us all.
The Declaration represents a contract between governments and their peoples, who have a right to demand that this document be respected. Not all governments have become parties to all human rights treaties. All countries, however, have accepted the UDHR.
….
As the Declaration’s custodians and beneficiaries, all of us must reclaim the UDHR, make it our own. While we are entitled to our human rights, we should also respect the human rights of others and help make universal human rights a reality for all of us. In our efforts lies the power of the UHDR: it is a living document that will continue to inspire generations to come.
 One way you can show your support for the UDHR and spread awareness of human rights around the globe is to sign the petition to print the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in your passport .
Australians might contemplate in particular Article 14, so cruelly ignored by the xenophobic and human rights abusing Howard government.
1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
2. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
 Sadly, the right to seek asylum takes second place to border protection in the minds of many brainwashed Australians.
The sixth ‘people-smuggling’ vessel to reach Australian waters since September arrived on December 8.
Its 44 passengers brings the number of suspected asylum seekers arriving by boat over the past 10 weeks to nearly 120.
This is a VERY VERY SMALL number of people compared to the legal migrant intake instituted by the Rudd government this year.
The overall migration program will now be 190,300 for this year, and 133,500 of those places will be allocated to permanent skilled migrants.
Wrongful detention of legitimate asylum seekers committed by Howard’s cold-eyed goons is coming back to haunt us.
Immigration Department may be forced to compensate 191 of the 247 people investigated by the Ombudsman for wrongful detention.
The department has so far offered compensation in 40 of the cases and settlements have been reached in 17. In total, about $1.2million in compensation has been paid so far.
If Australia wishes to minimise people-smuggling within the character of the UDHR to which it is signatory, it needs to address human rights issues in asylum seekers’ countries of origin.
Increased border protection to prevent the entry of desperate asylum seekers fleeing human rights abuses is an ineffective bandaid solution, and as has been amply demonstrated during the Howard years with the Tampa and SievX affairs, can lead to shameful Australian human rights abuse with consequent blowback later on, including diminishment of Australia’s international stature and authority to speak out about human rights abuse elsewhere.
Article 19 of the UDHR is today’s recommended reading for Stephen Conroy and supporters of his web censorwall.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
On December 13, protests against Conroy’s proposed web filters will be held around Australia.
UPDATE
Father Frank Brennan is to head a Human Rights Consultative Panel to consider a wide range of human rights issues, including whether Australia should have a bill of rights. Brennan is a self-professed fence-sitter on whether we Australians would benefit from our individual rights being enshrined in a Bill or Charter of Rights.
Australia is the only democratic country in the world without formal human rights protections – join the Getup campaign to change this.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratic elected leader of Burma and Nobel Peace Price recipient, speaks about printing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in passports.
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