Look at the schedule here:
http://peaceoftheaction.org/housing-trans/

If you can’t make it, please donate whatever you can to help us with expenses for the 13 day protest.
http://peaceoftheaction.org/give/

also NEW “End The Fed” protest on July 3rd

SIZZLIN’ SUMMER – JULY PROTEST SCHEDULE
(Washington, DC – July 4th through July 17th, 2010)

JUST ADDED: July 3th (Saturday): END THE FED! DC Federal Reserve Building
http://www.infowars.com/we-are-change-plans-end-the-fed-protest-on-independence-day/

INDEPENDENCE FROM OIL DAY!!!
DOWNLOAD EVENT FLYER

No more wars for oil and natural resources! No more polluting our sea, air and landfills! BOYCOTT BP!!!

July 4th (Sunday):
– meet in Lafayette Park (North Side of White House) at 1pm
– group to flyer, bullhorn in Lafayette Park and in front of the White House until dark
– evening to post protest pics, videos and articles to Internet

NO ILLEGAL/IMMORAL DRONES!!!
DOWNLOAD EVENT FLYER

For this week, Peace of the Action will primarily be targeting the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle display (educating the public about the horrific toll UAVs take) and drone manufacturers and lobbyists. (The Free Gaza/Free Palestine action has been inserted into this week because of the recent announcement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House.)

July 5th (Monday):
– meet in Lafayette Park (North Side of White House) at 9am
– group to protest at White House against coming pre-emptive American/Israeli attack on Iran
– evening to post protest pics, videos and articles to Internet

July 6th (Tuesday):
– meet in Lafayette Park (North Side of White House) at 9am
– group to move together to (TBA) location for FREE PALESTINE! protest until 3pm
– evening to post protest pics, videos and articles to Internet
DOWNLOAD EVENT FLYER

July 7th (Wednesday):
– meet in Lafayette Park (North Side of White House) at 9am
– group to move together to Congress and protest until 3pm
– evening to post protest pics, videos and articles to Internet

July 8th (Thursday):
– meet in Lafayette Park (North Side of White House) at 9am
– group to move together to General Atomics and protest until 3pm
– evening to post protest pics, videos and articles to Internet

July 9th (Friday):
– meet in Lafayette Park (North Side of White House) at 9am
– group to move together to Smithsonian Air & Space Museum and protest until 3pm
– possible special action TBA
– evening to post protest pics, videos and articles to Internet

WEEKEND:

July 10th (Saturday):
– ONE DC Block Party “ONE RIGHT TO LAND” (optional)
CLICK FOR EVENT INFORMATION PAGE

July 11th (Sunday):
– Day off! Rest and relaxation.

COUNTER-RECRUITMENT:
DOWNLOAD EVENT FLYER

For this week, we will be targeting recruiting centers and defense contractors and lobbyists—and we will do some special “lobbying” of our own on Capitol Hill. (The POTA DC Trial has been inserted into this week because of the recent scheduling by the court.)

July 12th (Monday):
– Peace of the Action DC Trial
– evening to post protest pics, videos and articles to Internet

July 13th (Tuesday):
– Peace of the Action DC Trial
– evening to post protest pics, videos and articles to Internet

or (trial may be one day or two. so we have two options this day.)

– meet in Lafayette Park at 9am
– group to move together to Military Recruiting Station (TBA) and protest until 3pm
– evening to post protest pics, videos and articles to Internet

July 14th (Wednesday):
– meet in Lafayette Park (North Side of White House) at 9am
– group to move together to Military Recruiting Station (TBA) and protest until 3pm
– evening to post protest pics, videos and articles to Internet

July 15th (Thursday):
– meet in Lafayette Park (North Side of White House) at 9am
– group to move together to War Profiteer (TBA) and protest until 3pm
– evening to post protest pics, videos and articles to Internet

July 16th (Friday):
– meet in Lafayette Park (North Side of White House) at 9am
– group to flyer, bullhorn in LaFayette Park and in front of the White House
– evening to post protest pics, videos and articles to Internet

WEEKEND:

July 17th (Saturday):
– POTA Retreat (location TBA 2pm to 5pm)

This will be an intense think tank session on the future of Peace of the Action and the future of anti-war protests in the U.S. With small numbers, where should our limited resources be focused? We have to dream up an entire movement based on very low numbers and very limited funds—bring your creative solutions and a positive attitude that a better world is possible!

– POTA Dinner/Rally (possible picnic Lafayette Park)

July 18th (Sunday):
– depart DC

(DAILY SCHEDULES OPEN TO CHANGE. STAY TUNED THROUGHOUT EVENT WEEKS FOR UPDATES.)

——————————————————————————————————————-

IMPORTANT INFO FOR SUMMER POTA

HOUSING (FLOOR SPACE & SHOWERS) WILL ONCE AGAIN BE PROVIDED AT ST. STEPHEN’S CHURCH (WIRELESS INTERNET IS AVAILABLE AT THE CHURCH)
1525 NEWTON ST, NW
(CORNER OF 16TH AND NEWTON)

BREAKFAST AND LUNCH ARE UP TO THE PARTICIPANT AND POTA WILL PROVIDE DINNER EACH NIGHT AT THE CHURCH (from FOOD NOT BOMBS!).

TRANSPORTATION TO THE PARK AND TO EVENTS IS UP TO EACH PARTICIPANT. BUSES AND/OR METRO (RAIL) STOPS ARE LOCATED CLOSE BY. WE WILL BE TRAVELING TO EVENTS AS A GROUP AND THE EVENTS SHOULD NOT BE TOO FAR FROM LAFAYETTE PARK.

POTA BELIEVES THAT CIVIL RESISTANCE IS THE CORE OF TRUE CHANGE, BUT ONLY IF THE NUMBERS ARE SUFFICIENT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. SO, SINCE OUR NUMBERS ARE SMALL, CIVIL RESISTANCE WILL MORE THAN LIKELY NOT BE A PART OF SUMMER POTA—EDUCATION AND MOVEMENT BUILDING WILL BE OUR MAIN FOCUS.

LAFAYETTE PARK WILL BE OUR MAIN CONVERGENCE SPACE FOR THE TWO WEEKS

EVENINGS WILL BE RESERVED FOR THE POTA CORE TEAM TO BLOG AND POST VIDEO AND DO OTHER ADMINISTRATIVE TASKS—IF YOU ARE A VIDEOGRAPHER OR BLOGGER, WE COULD USE YOUR HELP—USING ONLINE TOOLS WILL BE THE KEY TO MOVEMENT BUILDING

DRINK LOTS OF WATER—JULY IN DC IS HOT, HOT, HOT!

Israel’s conduct “constitutes an act of belligerence against Turkey, which at one time Israel considered an important ally,” the Ohio Democrat wrote in a letter to US President Barack Obama on Friday.

“It also undermines United States troops’ efforts in Iraq, since your administration’s efforts to achieve stability in the region and to withdraw troops from Iraq have depended upon Turkey’s cooperation through use of its air bases,” the congressman added.

Kucinich also said that the attack on the Freedom Flotilla should have consequences for the aggressors and urged Obama to call Israel to “an accounting for planning and carrying out the attack.”

“If our nation fails to act in any substantive way, the United States licenses the violence and we are complicit in it and our own citizens will be forced to pay the consequences,” Kucinich wrote.

Kucinich also called for an independent investigation into the incident.

The Israeli military attacked the Freedom Flotilla in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea early on May 31, killing at least 19 people on board the six ships, including eight Turkish citizens, and injuring about 50 others.

Israel also arrested nearly 700 activists from 42 countries on board the Freedom Flotilla, which was attempting to break the siege of Gaza in order to deliver 10,000 tons of humanitarian assistance to the long-suffering people of the territory.

DK calls for independent probe of Israeli raid

WASHINGTON — A US lawmaker called Friday for an independent probe into Israel’s deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship and called for Washington to impose diplomatic and financial “consequences” on its ally.

“The US can begin by calling for an independent international inquiry of the Mavi Marmara incident. The integrity of such inquiry necessitates that it not be led by the nation whose conduct is under scrutiny,” Representative Dennis Kucinich said in a draft letter to President Barack Obama.

The message, which Kucinich was circulating to colleagues for their signature before sending it to the White House, urges Obama to “call Israel to an accounting for its conduct in planning and executing” the raid.

“The attack on the Mavi Marmara requires consequences” for Israel’s government, the Democrat said. “Those consequences must be dealt by the United States. They must be diplomatic and they must be financial.”

Israel has defended both its right to carry out the Monday raid and its punishing blockade of Gaza, which is ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas. The group is blacklisted in Washington as a terrorist group.

Kucinich, who earlier this year introduced legislation calling for a full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, also called for Washington to “begin to redefining its relationship” with Israel.

“No one questions the right of Israel to defend its border, but that defense does not extend to shooting innocent civilians anywhere in the world, anytime it pleases,” said the lawmaker.

Kucinich called the raid “an act of belligerence against Turkey” and warned it “undermines” US efforts in Iraq, which rely on Turkey granting access to key air bases on its soil.

The Ohio lawmaker noted that said Washington views Israel as “our most important ally in the region, whose survival is a primary concern” but that the Jewish state had failed to uphold its end of the bargain.

“Israel owes the United States more than reckless, pre-meditated violence waged against innocent people,” he charged.

A spokesman for Kucinich said that, with the US Congress in recess this week, he would not be releasing how many lawmakers had signed on to the tough message, an unusually sharp criticism of Israel at a time when other lawmakers have pledged to stand by the US ally.

Turkey’s ambassador to Washington, Namik Tan, expressed disappointment Friday that the United States had thus far failed to condemn Israel outright over the raid, which left nine pro-Palestinian activists dead.

“There is no word of condemnation at any level,” he said, insisting “the US should have been the first party to condemn.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JoGwq9k5lw

Casualty figures are still arriving in the wake of Israel’s Sunday night-Monday morning commando attack on an unarmed flotilla trying to bring relief supplies to the 1.5 million Palestinians crowded into Gaza. Already, at least nine civilian passengers are reported killed, and dozens wounded.

Seldom has an act of aggression been so well advertised in advance. Israel had made clear that it would use force to prevent the ships from reaching Gaza and heard no stern protest from President Obama, who apparently could not overcome his fear of Israel’s legendary political clout.

Earlier this year, Obama did criticize Israel’s continued settlement of Palestinian areas and Netanyahu’s resistance to holding meaningful peace talks, but the president has failed to follow up his words with firm action or resolve. Netanyahu concluded that Israel could do what it wished, including dropping commandos from helicopters onto crowded ships and, after alleging a clash with civilians, ordering the use of lethal force.

Then, Netanyahu could expect that America’s Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) – with leading figures like Wolf Blitzer, who built his journalistic career by working for the Jerusalem Post – would finesse the murderous assault into something reasonable and possibly even tilted sympathetically toward the Israeli troops.

Early on, CNN began repeating the Israeli “explanation” for its attack on the high seas, parroting the Jerusalem Post, which reported that “militants were killed” after they set upon Israeli naval commandos who boarded one of the six ships Monday morning at two o’clock.

The commandos “were met with strong resistance from men armed with bladed weapons and the situation degenerated into a massacre when one of them grabbed the weapon of a soldier and opened fire,” said the Jerusalem Post, quoting Israeli military sources.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that the relief convoy organizers had a “radical Islamic anti-Western orientation,” and that Israeli “naval forces were attacked with metal clubs and knives, as well as live fire,” though there were no reports of Israeli deaths. The IDF statement continued, “The demonstrators had clearly prepared their weapons in advance for this specific purpose,” adding that the Navy then used riot dispersal methods, which include live fire, according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA).

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak blamed the organizers of the convoy for the violent outcome, and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told a news conference why that was so: “The organizers’ intent was violent, their method was violent, and unfortunately, the results were violent.”

So, you see, the Israeli military resorted to violence only in self-defense. Right.

Quiet Conversation

On Monday, President Obama spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone about the incident. Afterward, the White House said Obama had expressed “deep regret” over the deaths, but declined further comment, citing “the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances” as quickly as possible.

Don’t hold your breath, though, waiting for the timid Obama or his Likud-leaning advisers – much less the FCM – to question the Israeli version.

We are likely to get an “explanation” worthy of the late Alexander Haig as to why the slaughter may well have been “justified.” Haig’s death in February brought to mind comments he made about a brutal incident on the night of Dec. 2, 1980, shortly after Ronald Reagan’s election victory.

In rightist-ruled El Salvador, government security forces stopped four American churchwomen in their mini-van and were ordered to kill them. The soldiers first raped the women and then executed them with high-powered rifles. Reagan’s foreign policy team decided to treat the rape-murder as a public relations problem, best handled by shifting blame onto the victims. And so, the women were deemed not nuns, but “political activists.” (Today, “militants”–whatever that means–is often the label of choice.)

After becoming Reagan’s first secretary of state, Haig told Congress that “the nuns may have run through a roadblock or may have accidentally been perceived to have been doing so, and there may have been an exchange of fire.”

In just a few weeks, the American women had gone from being innocent victims to “political activists” to armed insurgents – although knowledgeable U.S. government officials conceded there was no evidence to support Haig’s shootout speculation. As an intelligence analyst at the time, I knew of Haig’s inclination to make up stuff.

Watch for something similar to happen with respect to the “militants” or “activists” who were killed or wounded in the incident off Gaza. I avoid tuning in to the FCM anymore (it’s just too much for my Irish temper), but I’m told that Israel-friendly pundits are already spinning faster than the famous centrifuges in Iran.

Uncle Remus’ Wisdom

“He Don’t Say Nothin’,” as Uncle Remus put it, with improper grammar but with an accurate understanding that by not saying anything you can often convey a powerful or dangerous message.

As a presidential candidate, Obama was careful to say nothing about the brutal Israeli blockade against the 1.5 million people in Gaza, about to enter its fourth year. As president-elect, he stayed mum as the Israelis attacked densely populated Gaza, killing some 1,400 Gazans.

As president, he has backed down at every significant moment when Netanyahu thumbed his nose at Obama or at Vice President Joe Biden.

Obama knew about the “Freedom Flotilla” and its plan to bring supplies to Gaza. And he had to be aware of Israel’s threats to attack the relief ships. But, like Uncle Remus’ Br’er Fox, Obama “don’t say nothin.’”

Quite the contrary, Obama’s pro-Zionist White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who recently vacationed in Israel and met with Netanyahu last Wednesday, extended an invitation for a working visit at the White House. Netanyahu was to visit Obama on Tuesday after a four-day visit to Canada.

On Monday morning, Netanyahu canceled out of a gala dinner to be held in his honor in Ottawa and nixed the visit to Washington. He said he hoped that both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Obama “understand that Israel has a great security problem.”

Getting Away With Murder

The fatal incident off the Gaza coast was not the first time Israel had used lethal force against a nearly defenseless ship at sea. The attack on the “Freedom Flotilla” was reminiscent of the attack on the USS Liberty during Israel’s Six-Day War against three of its Arab neighbors.

The war started on June 5, 1967, when Israel carried out an unprovoked blitzkrieg attack. What is my source for “unprovoked?” Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who 15 years later admitted publicly:

“In June 1967, we had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that [Egyptian President] Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.”

Three days into the war, Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats turned their firepower on the intelligence-collection ship USS Liberty in international waters after the Israelis had identified it as a U.S. Navy ship.

The Israelis later insisted that the strafing and torpedo attacks were accidents in the fog of war. However, U.S. intelligence intercepted Israeli conversations at the time showing the attacks were deliberate, and their nature and persistence showed clear intent to sink the Liberty and leave no survivors.

Israeli commandos clad in black were about to land from helicopters and finish off what remained of the Liberty crew when Seaman Terry Halbardier (later awarded the Silver Star) slid over the Liberty’s napalm-greased deck to jury-rig an antenna and get an SOS off to the Sixth Fleet.

Israeli forces intercepted the SOS and quickly broke off the attack. But 34 of theLiberty crew were killed and over 170 wounded.

To avoid exacerbating relations with Israel, the U.S. Navy was ordered to cover up the deliberate nature of the attack, and the surviving crew was threatened with imprisonment if they so much as told their wives. When some of the crew later called for an independent investigation, they were hit with charges of anti-Semitism.

One of the surviving crew of the USS Liberty, decorated Navy veteran Joe Meadors, was with the “Freedom Flotilla” when it was attacked on Sunday night. Meadors is past president of the USS Liberty Veterans Association. The State Department tells us that Joe Meadors survived this latest Israeli attack. At last word, he sits in an Israeli jail.

Rachel Corrie

Another American was murdered in cold blood on March 16, 2003. Twenty-three year-old Rachel Corrie, a volunteer serving in Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement was run over by an Israeli army bulldozer after a prolonged face-off in full view of several of her volunteer colleagues. Rachel had been trying to prevent the bulldozing of a Palestinian home where she had been staying.

The message the Israelis wanted to convey in killing Rachel Corrie was that international volunteers would no longer be exempt from the brutal treatment accorded young Israeli volunteers who tried to stand up, as Rachel did, for decent treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.

The FCM’s excitement over President George W. Bush’s eagerly anticipated “shock-and-awe” bombing of Iraq three days later pushed what limited coverage there was about Rachel’s murder to the back pages. The Israelis claimed the killing was an inadvertent mistake, like the shoot-up of the Liberty. The courageous Rachel was very much with the Freedom Flotilla in spirit. And a certain poetic justice is to be found in that one of the ships in the convoy bore the name “Rachel Corrie.”

Israel cannot hide behind “inadvertence” this time, although its spin-masters are already doing their best to smear the civilians on the ships with buzzwords, calling them “militants” and “terrorists” who “ambushed” and tried to “lynch” the Israeli commandos.

These P.R. tactics may work with the American FCM and neocons in Washington – and by extension the TV-watchers in the United States – but patience with Israel in the international community is wearing paper-thin.

Some Care About the Scandal of Gaza

Much of the world’s impatience has to do with Gaza, including the Israeli attack from Dec. 17, 2008, to Jan. 18, 2009, as well as the three-year blockade that began when Hamas won Palestinian elections and became the governing party in Gaza.

Israel and the U.S. government deem Hamas to be a terrorist organization, though some other countries regard it more as a resistance movement fighting against Israeli occupation.

Regardless of how one feels about Hamas, Israel’s harsh blockade of Gaza and last year’s military assault have inflicted a humanitarian disaster on the Palestinian people.

Has Netanyahu Gone Too Far?

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has reacted strongly to the Israeli attack on the relief ships, the largest of which sailed from Turkey. According to one report, Turkey has served warning that Turkish navy ships will escort future relief convoys to Gaza.

Erdogan has had it with Israeli mistreatment of Muslims in his eastern Mediterranean neighborhood. On Jan. 29, 2009, at the economic summit in Davos, he leveled harsh criticism to Israeli President Shimon Peres’  face, labeling Gaza “an open-air prison.”

Erdogan angrily cited “the sixth commandment – thou shalt not kill,” adding, “We are talking about killing” in Gaza. Erdogan’s one-and-a-half-minute tirade was capturedon camera by the BBC.

Five days before Erdogan’s outburst, the Brazilian government also condemned Israel’s bombing of Gaza and its effect on the civilian population as a “disproportionate response.”

It seems to have been the atrocity in Gaza – plus a common determination to prevent war from spreading to Iran – that galvanized the successful joint effort by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to defy Israel. They persuaded Iran to agree to transfer half of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey for further processing, rendering it unusable for a nuclear weapon.

“Defy Israel?” you ask. Confused? If the Israeli leaders truly believe that low-enriched uranium comprises an essential part of an “existential threat” to Israel from eventual nuclear weapons in Iran, would they not be delighted at Iran’s agreement to send half of that uranium out of the country? Good question.

Truth be told, Israel cares a lot less about Iran’s uranium that it does about forcing “regime change” in Tehran. Netanyahu does not want any agreement with Iran; he wants sanctions against Iran, and eventually a military conflict, with the U.S. jumping in to help finish Iran off.

And this twin wish is shared by American neocons who remain influential in the Obama administration and in the FCM.

The pro-Israeli hardliners are the ones running U.S. policy on the Middle East, not Obama, who seems only nominally in charge. Unusually clear proof of this came when the Brazilians released a letter revealing that Obama had personally encouraged the Brazilian and Turkish leaders to pursue the kind of deal they were able to work out with the Iranians.

Small wonder, then, that the leaders of Brazil and Turkey were taken aback when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other administration spokespeople trashed the tripartite Iran-Turkey-Brazil deal and pressed ahead with a new round of sanctions.

And the president? Did he step up and acknowledge that he had encouraged Brazil and Turkey to seek the uranium deal? Well, he don’t say nothin’.

Israeli Influence

While Americans continue to be starved of real information from the FCM, better informed people around the world have come to view with disdain the degree to which Washington dogs are wagged by Israeli tails.

When I suggested five years ago before a Capitol Hill hearing chaired by Rep. John Conyers that Israel was right up there, together with oil and military bases, as comprising the real rationale for war on Iraq, I, too, was called anti-Semitic. But the evidence has always been as clear as it is abundant.

An inadvertent remark by a major player on Iraq, former British Prime Minister Blair, has provided insight – straight from the horse’s ass, I mean, mouth.

In early February 2010, the British press revealed that Blair, testifying to the Iraq war commission in the U.K., offered the following account of his discussions with Bush in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. (That’s when Bush said war was the only way to deal with Saddam Hussein, and Blair acquiesced.) But Blair’s remarks revealed that Israeli concerns were a major part of the equation and that Israeli officials were involved in the discussions. Thus, Blair:

“As I recall that discussion, it was less to do with specifics about what we were going to do on Iraq or, indeed, the Middle East, because the Israel issue was a big, big issue at the time. I think, in fact, I remember, actually, there may have been conversations that we had even with Israelis, the two of us, whilst we were there. So that was a major part of all this.”

It is a safe bet that Hillary Clinton’s Likud-friendly lieutenants and their new junior partners in London are busy conferring with Tel Aviv right now about how to handle the P.R. challenge caused by the upstart leaders of Turkey and Brazil with the temerity to work out a deal with Tehran. (Never mind that Obama personally asked them to do it.)

How does one make into a bad thing Iran’s agreement to ship half its uranium out of the country, even if additional steps might still be needed to assure the world that Iran is telling the truth when it says it isn’t building a nuclear bomb?

More and more people around the globe are seeing Obama as subservient to the Likud Lobby, perhaps not as enthusiastically as Bush was, but still unwilling to put action behind his occasional words of dissatisfaction. Important players in the Middle East, as well as increasingly assertive countries like Turkey and Brazil, conclude that the policies and behavior of Tel Aviv and Washington are virtually identical.

And then there is the $3 billion or so that the United States gives Israel each year that enables the Israelis to arm themselves to the teeth. It is understandable, then, that many will blame Washington for what happened in the dark of night, on the eve of Memorial Day, on the high seas.

Hard Lessons

The likely results are three-fold:

1. On Memorial Day next year, there may well be hundreds more “fallen heroes” to honor, killed by Muslim and other “militants” who make no distinction between what the U.S. has done in Iraq and Afghanistan and what Israel does in Gaza and the occupied West Bank – and add Lebanon and Syria, for good measure.

As Gen. David Petraeus pointed out earlier this year, the unresolved Arab-Israeli “conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel” and thus puts U.S. troops at greater risk.

“Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the [region] and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world,” Petraeus said. “Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support.”

2. The linking of U.S. support with Israeli actions increases the incentive of terrorists to ply their dark arts in the United States.

While it is difficult to find a measure of objectivity in official U.S. government documents on this topic, every so often there is a slip between cup and lip. There was such a slip on Sept. 23, 2004, for example, when the Pentagon-sponsored U.S. Defense Science Board issued a formal report concluding:

“Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights.”

You will not be surprised to find out that the board’s report was generally suppressed in the FCM, as were the following, more specific, examples:

“By his own account, KSM’s [9/11 “mastermind” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's] animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experience there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.” (9/11 Commission Report, July 22, 2004, page 147)

And what motivated Dr. Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, the 32-year-old Jordanian physician of Palestinian origin, who on Dec. 30, 2009, detonated a suicide bomb at a CIA site in eastern Afghanistan, killing seven American CIA operatives? According to his brother, al-Balawi “changed” during the three-week-long Israeli offensive in Gaza, which killed some 1,400 Gazans.

When al-Balawi volunteered to treat injured Palestinians in Gaza, he was arrested by Jordanian authorities, his brother said. It was after that arrest that al-Balawi allowed himself to be “recruited” to spy on al-Qaeda for the CIA. Quickly, it became payback time for Americans and Jordanians whom he associated with Israel.

Christmas underpants bomber Abdulmutallab, also is reported to have been particularly outraged by Israel’s slaughter of Gazans at the turn of 2008-09 and Washington’s defense of Israel’s action.

That Israeli actions in Gaza acted as catalysts to al-Balawi’s and Abdulmutallab’s determination to exact revenge on the U.S. is hardly surprising – the more so in view of Washington’s efforts to suppress the findings of the UN-commissioned Gaza investigation by Justice Richard Goldstone. His report concluded that:

“The blockade policies implemented by Israel against the Gaza Strip, in particular the closure of or restrictions imposed on border crossings in the immediate period before the military operations, subjected the local population to extreme hardship and deprivations that amounted to a violation of Israel’s obligations as an Occupying Power under the Fourth Geneva Convention. …

“Israel has essentially violated its obligation to allow free passage of all consignments of medical and hospital objects, food, and clothing that were needed to meet the urgent humanitarian needs of the civilian population. …

“The Mission concludes that the conditions resulting from deliberate actions of the Israeli forces and the declared policies of the Government with regard to the Gaza Strip before, during, and after the military operation cumulatively indicate the intention to inflict collective punishment on the people of the Gaza Strip.

“The Mission, therefore, finds a violation of the provisions of Articles 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

3. Attacking Iran.

It is no secret that this goal enjoys high priority on Netanyahu’s agenda. It could be stopped in its tracks by a public warning from President Obama. But all signs point to his bending to neocon advice to shy away from a showdown and, rather, leave everything, including another war of aggression, “on the table.”

The fact that world leaders consider Netanyahu a clear and present danger to peace in the region is shown by the way the leaders of Turkey and Brazil moved at an accelerated pace to bend the Iranians to the kind of deal that Obama personally had advocated, before being overruled by Hillary Clinton and others in his misguided Team of Rivals.

The urgency of the Turkey-Brazil initiative came through in the words of Brazilian President Lula da Silva, who could hardly have been more explicit:

“We can’t allow to happen in Iran what happened in Iraq. Before any sanctions, we must undertake all possible efforts to try and build peace in the Middle East.”

Green Light?

Netanyahu listens only to Washington, when he listens at all. Following the bloody attack on the Freedom Flotilla, I imagine he will now get at most a mealy-mouthed “please-don’t-do-this-again” from the White House, together with acquiescence in an Al-Haig-type made-up excuse about an “exchange” of fire.

If that proves to be the case, Netanyahu is altogether likely to consider that Israel has a green light to provoke hostilities with Iran, with the full expectation that the United States will jump right in to help the non-ally ally finish the job.

Non-ally ally? Sorry, despite what you hear from Obama, Congress, and the whole Washington establishment, Israel is not an ally of the United States. Webster’s (and international law) define ally as “a state associated with another by treaty.”

There is no mutual defense treaty between the U.S. and Israel. (Washington has broached the idea to Israel from time to time, but Israel has said no thanks. Treaties, you see, require internationally recognized borders, and – for obvious reasons – Israeli leaders avoid that subject like the plague.)

NATO member Turkey, on the other hand, is a U.S. ally. This could make things very awkward if Turkey sends its warships to accompany the next convoy trying to lift the siege of Gaza. It is possible that Washington may have to choose between a real ally and a synthetic one, if shots are fired.

Israel’s Attack Illegal; What Now?

Craig Murray, a former British ambassador and Foreign Office specialist on maritime law (and VIPS member), has just weighed in with a helpful description of two clear legal possibilities, which take into account both international law and the Law of the Sea:

“Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf of the government of Israel in killing the activists in international waters. The applicable law is that of the flag state of the ship on which the incident occurred.

“In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish territory. So in this case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey, and the attack by Israeli commandos falls under international jurisdiction as a war crime.

“Possibility two is that, if the killings were not military actions authorized by Israel, they were then acts of murder and fall under Turkish jurisdiction. If Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under Turkish law. It is for Turkey, not Israel, to carry out any inquiry or investigation and to initiate any prosecutions. Israel would be obliged by law to hand over indicted personnel for prosecution.”

Stay tuned.

Read more by Ray McGovern

• Memo to Congressman David Obey – May 27th, 2010
• Dirty Linen Gets Intel Chief Fired – May 21st, 2010
• US, Israel Challenged on Iran – May 19th, 2010
• Loose Lips on Iran Can Sink America – May 5th, 2010
• Iran a Threat? I Mean, Really? – April 26th, 2010

The defiant and paranoid spirit emanating from the likes of Binyamin Netanyahu is poisoning the internal public discourse. Photograph: Bernat Armangue/AP

A few months ago I was handed a leaflet from the group that organised the humanitarian aid flotilla to Gaza. I entertained the idea of joining it as a journalist because I believed the presence of journalists and of Israelis would make its journey safer. I gave up the idea because the pressing chores of life were more demanding and also – I wonder if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for this sentiment – I was somewhat horrified by the idea of spending a lot of time on a ship with a bunch of Kumbaya-singing hippies.

I did not think the IDF would attack the ships. I thought Israel was too clever, too PR aware, to jeopardise the lives of foreign nationals for the whole world to see. I didn’t for a moment foresee anything resembling the murderous carnage the world witnessed on Monday morning. Little did I know.

I must have forgotten that even though Likud and Labour governments might be prone to identical behaviour when it comes to land grabbing, settlement building and Palestinian human rights oppression, there is still a great difference in their levels of stupidity, and their disregard of international public opinion. The one good thing about traditional Labour governments is that, on occasion, a raised cautioning finger from the US administration or an international outcry might make them stop and think for a minute.

What harm would have come to Israel if it had let the protesters embark in Gaza and deliver their goods? The world media generally yawns at such initiatives, and all the activists could have rationally hoped for would have been a photo op in an obscure back page of a number of broadsheets. Israel could have come out of it looking majestically generous.

But Israel has moved into a new stage in the last few months. The defiant and paranoid spirit emanating from Binyamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman and their opportunistic and violent Labour ally, Ehud Barak, is poisoning the internal public discourse. Ministers and members of parliament are openly inciting against Palestinian citizens of Israel and their political representatives in the most racist manner, and against leftwing activists – Jewish as well as Arab. The talk about “traitors”, “backstabbers”, “snitches” and “fifth column” are increasingly reminiscent of the Weimar republic.

It is not just Hamas and Hezbollah, or even the whole of the Palestinian people that seems to be the enemy, it is everybody: from “hypocritical and Muslim-infested” Europe to the soapy liberals among the Israelis, from the journalists to the lawyers. Journalist Anat Kam is facing trial on spying allegations for leaking military documents when serving as a soldier, and journalist Uri Blau has gone into exile in London under intimidating threats of facing similar charges for publishing them.

Ameer Makhoul and Dr Omar Saeed (human right activists and Israeli citizens) were arrested in the middle of the night at their homes some two weeks ago, and were unlawfully prevented from conferring with their lawyers for 12 days. Now they are facing trial on extremely controversial spying allegations. In this atmosphere, no wonder the government now starts killing European human rights activists and protesters in an act of terrorist piracy.

The international peace movement has shown that it consists of much more that “Kumbaya-singing hippies”. It showed immense courage and solidarity with Gaza’s people, and paid an incredibly heavy price in the lives of heroic activists. They have followed the footsteps of Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall, in sacrificing their lives while exposing the evils of the Israeli occupation forces.

Any decent Israeli citizen is faced with very clear choices today. The first is to support the government and the army, to pretend to buy into their stories about “gunfire coming from the ship”. The second is to align ourselves with the people who died on board the Gaza flotilla, and to back their struggle for a better future in Israel in Palestine.

The Israeli government proves day after day that when you start robbing human rights off someone, you end up robbing them off everyone. The savage attack in the Mediterranean should be a wake-up call for every Israeli. If we do not speak up now, nobody will be left when the Netanyahu-Lieberman-Barak thugs come for us.

The ship, named after 23-year-old U.S. peace activist Rachel Corrie — who was crushed to death in 2003 by an American-built bulldozer operated by the Israeli army — has been pleading with the international community to pressure Israel into leaving them alone.

The Irish government, for its part, has threatened Israel with “the most serious consequences” if any Irish national, captured or currently aborad an aid vessel, is harmed.

“If any harm comes to any of our citizens, it will have the most serious consequences,” Taoiseach Brian Cowen said, according to The Irish Times.

“Taoiseach” is the position bestowed upon the individual who leads Ireland’s government.

The MV Rachel Corrie is reportedly due to arrive in Gaza tomorrow, according to the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Irish officials have demanded Israel let the boat pass unimpeded. Ireland has long opposed Israel’s military blockade of Palestine.

“The government has formally requested the Israeli government to allow the Irish-owned ship to be allowed to complete its journey unimpeded and discharge its humanitarian cargo in Gaza,” Cowen said.

“The Rachel Corrie is carrying medical equipment, wheelchairs, school supplies and cement, a material Israel has banned in Hamas-ruled Gaza, organizers said,” the Seattle Post-Globe reported.

Five Irish activists and five Malaysian activists were said to be aboard.

“In the names of our friends, we are more determined than ever to continue into Gaza with our humanitarian cargo and our support for the blockaded and suffering people of Gaza,” read a message sent on behalf of the activists, published by Global Research. “We expect Israel to respond to the international condemnation of its violence by not impeding by any means the safe passage of the Rachel Corrie. We appeal to the international community and United Nations to continue to demand Israel our safe passage into Gaza.”

Activist group Jewish Voice for Peace declared in an e-mail to supporters, “We still don’t know the names of those who were killed or injured, or where they are from. And we don’t know the whereabouts or well-being of more than 400 activists still being held by Israel.” The group demanded Israel release the activists without condition or charge.

The activists’ call echoed another from NATO, which demanded the prisoners’ freedom and pressed the need for a “prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation” into the events.

In response to the activist killings, Egypt announced it would open a portion of border crossing into Palestine to allow in future shipments of humanitarian supplies. Turkey, reportedly the country of origin for some of the May 31st raid’s victims, pledged it would send a military escort with future Gaza aid boats.

Israel claims the killings were the result of a “provocation” by activists who attacked the soldiers as they landed. However, journalists who were on board the vessel during the raidreported civilian casualties first, before they confirmed soldiers had landed, indicating that Israeli forces began their bombardment before boarding the ship.

By Tuesday, the United States had not condemned Israel for taking action against a ship in international waters, instead calling for an investigation to learn the facts of what happened. Instead, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stuck to the language of a UN Security Council statement issued late Sunday on the Israeli assault on a convoy headed to Gaza.

The statement condemns “those acts which resulted in the loss of at least ten civilians and many wounded,” but did not specifically say whether the Israeli raid or actions of pro-Palestinians supporters caused the violence.

“Let me simply restate what the international community and the United States supported early this morning at the UN Security Council through a presidential statement,” Gibbs said.

“The Security Council statement that I read calls for an investigation that is prompt, impartial, credible and transparent, conforming to international standards, of exactly what happened,” Gibbs said. “And we’re obviously supportive of that.”

Israeli spokesman Mark Regev said he was confident that the aid workers opened fire first on the commandos. But the aid workers have noted that all the ships were searched at port by both the Turkish and the Cyprus governments and no weapons were found. Video of the siege shows some of the passengers armed with marbles and slingshots.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given his full support to the operation but has cut short a trip to Canada and canceled completely the meeting that was to take place on Tuesday with President Obama at the White House. Last June, Obama sent a note to the Israeli government officially protesting the blockade and demanding that the border crossings into Gaza be opened to facilitate reconstruction. The U.S. demanded that the Israelis allow more food and medicine into the territory, that cash transfers to banks in the Gaza Strip be permitted, and that construction materials such as cement and iron be allowed in.

. Read The Daily Beast’s complete coverage of the crisis in Israel.The names of the dead are not yet known, but passengers aboard the ships included retired U.S. diplomats Amb. Edward Peck and Col. Ann Wright, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, and former U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Denis Halliday, as well as humanitarian aid and human-rights workers, several MPs from Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, Malaysia, and Palestinian members of the Knesset.

This is not the first attempt by the group, known collectively as the , to break through Israel’s blockade. In the summer of 2008, the organization set sail from Cyprus on two small wooden fishing boats carrying 44 activists from 17 different countries. That mission successfully docked at Gaza–the first international ships to do so since 1957. Bolstered by their initial success, leaders of the Free Gaza Movement organized four more successful trips in 2008, transporting tons of aid and dozens of United Nations workers, international activists, and members of European parliaments to the Gaza Strip.

But circumstances changed after the devastating war in December of 2008 between Israel and Hamas (Operation Cast Lead, as the Israelis called it). When the Free Gaza Movement organized an emergency delegation to deliver three tons of medical supplies and a handful of doctors and surgeons to Gaza, they were intercepted by the Israeli Navy, which rammed their ship, almost sinking it. In January 2009, the group bought another ship and once again set sail to Gaza. Once again they were turned back by the Israeli navy. Last June, the organization tried a third time to break through the blockade, this time taking with them Nobel Peace Prize winner Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. The Israeli navy boarded that ship, confiscated the materials on board, arrested the passengers, including Maguire and McKinney, and detained them in an Israeli prison for a week. Although the ship was never returned, the Israeli government claimed to have delivered the medical supplies on board to Gaza, though all the other material, including the food, toys, and reconstruction material were seized and, presumably, destroyed.

The Israeli government has instructed the Free Gaza Movement to try to deliver its supplies through official channels. But considering that those channels are strictly controlled by the government itself, it is difficult to take the suggestion seriously. If such “official channels” were actually effective in delivering aid to the Gazans, then there would not be the massive starvation and malnutrition that we are seeing today in Gaza.

Then again, according to the Israeli government, everything is just fine in Gaza. No need to worry. Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak has made the extraordinary claim that there is absolutely no shortage in humanitarian aid to the Gazans and that food and supplies are regularly and freely transferred to the area.

That will come as a surprise not only to the hundreds of thousands of starving Gazans living on piles of rubble that used to be their homes, but to just about every single human-rights and international aid organization in the world, including the United Nations, all of which have repeatedly reported that the blockade is causing extreme hardship, severe malnutrition in children, and increased poverty in Gaza. The World Health Organization recently passed a resolution demanding that Israel end the blockade, claiming that it has caused a devastating shortage of medicines in the Gaza Strip. (Predictably, the United States opposed the WHO resolution, saying that it “stirred up tensions.” Heaven forbid!)

Amnesty International has written numerous reports about how the blockade has destroyed the livelihoods of Gaza’s farmers and fishermen and limited access to medical care. The U.N.’s Association for International Development Agencies has documented the disastrous impact of the blockade on Gaza’s health services. According to one report, long delays for those seeking medical treatment in Israel caused the deaths of 28 people last year alone. The Vatican has called Gaza “one big concentration camp.” The U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated that the blockade has imposed “unacceptable hardships” on innocent civilians while “empowering extremists.” Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who has called the blockade a “crime and an atrocity,” echoed Ban’s statement. “I think politically speaking [the blockade] has worked even to strengthen the popularity of Hamas and to the detriment of the popularity of Fatah,” Carter said.

Confronted with these statements and statistics, the response of the Israeli government has been as predictable as it is absurd. After all, all of these international aid and human-rights organizations are against Israel, didn’t you know? Amnesty International is “borderline anti-Semitic,” as Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League has declared. Human Rights Watch has an “anti-Israel bias,” according to AIPAC. And please don’t get Israeli politicians started on the United Nations! Whatever criticisms these organizations have against Israel are obviously biased and need not be taken seriously.

As to why continue the blockade in Gaza? Well that’s an easy question for the Israeli government to answer. “Hamas, which rules Gaza, is a terror organization supported by Iran,” said Defense Minister Barak. “It smuggles weapons and rockets with the sole purpose of harming Israelis, as it has done many times in the past.”

OK, fine. Hamas is bad. We get it. But what about the rest of the 1.5 million men, women, and children living in what has become the most densely packed region on earth? How can the cutting off of food, medical supplies, gas, and electricity to the entire population of Gaza be understood in any other way except as an act of collective punishment?

Despite the unprecedented humanitarian crisis facing Gazans, Israel’s blockade has gotten very little international attention. Despite a promise by the international community to pledge over $4 billion of aid to help rebuild Gaza in 2009, almost none of that money has reached Gazans. Most Americans, it seems, could not care less about what is taking place in Gaza. Ask the average pundit on TV about it and the response will inevitably be, “Hamas.”

End of conversation.

And yet, do we not all have a moral obligation to put politics aside and stand up for the suffering of our fellow human beings no matter where they are? Are we not obligated to work toward overturning the profoundly immoral policies that have made the situation in Gaza intolerable for its inhabitants? And if the world’s governments are not willing to take action to address this unprecedented crisis, then does it not fall on the citizens of the world to do something about it?

“When the tsunami hit Indonesia, the world came together to provide aid for those affected,” said Ramzi Kysia, a volunteer who has been with the Free Gaza Movement since 2006. “When the earthquake hit Haiti, again, the world came together to help those who were suffering. And yet what we have in Gaza is a man-made disaster, a man-made humanitarian crisis. But it is every bit as bad as any natural disaster.”

Responsibility Is With Hamas For Attack On Gaza Flotilla! Yochanan Plesener

EXCERPT:
“First, absent any intention by the flotilla to attack Israel, or any suspicion of piracy, it was unlawful for Israel to forcibly board foreign merchant vessels in international waters.

Secondly, such action amounted to an unlawful interference in the enforcement jurisdiction of the “flag-States” (countries of registration) of those vessels, such as Turkey.

Thirdly, it violated the fundamental principle of freedom of navigation on the high seas, codified in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982.

Fourthly, under international human rights law, the apprehension and detention of those on board the vessels likely amounts to arbitrary, unlawful detention, contrary to article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, since there is lawful basis for detention.

Fifthly, if Israeli forces killed people, they may not only have infringed the human right to life, but they may also have committed serious international crimes. Under article 3 of the Rome Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation of 1988, it is an international crime for any person to seize or exercise control over a ship by force, and also a crime to injure or kill any person in the process.

Ironically, that treaty was adopted after Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, in 1985, in which a Jewish American was killed.

In such cases, any claim of self-defence by Israeli forces is irrelevant. The treaty necessarily adopts a strict approach. One cannot attack a ship and then claim self-defence if the people on board resist the unlawful use of violence.

Legally speaking, government military forces rappelling onto a ship to illegally capture it are treated no differently than other criminals. The right of self-defence in such situations rests with the passengers on board: a person is legally entitled to resist one’s own unlawful capture, abduction and detention.”

Associate Professor Ben Saul is Co-Director of the Sydney Centre for International Law at The University of Sydney, a barrister, and a leading international authority on terrorism in international law. Dr Saul teaches the law of armed conflict and has been involved in such cases in The Hague, the Israeli Supreme Court, and in the Balibo coronial inquest.

YouTube – Flotilla Massacre: Cynthia McKinney interviewed on CBC’s Connect with Mark Kelley.

Arabs & Muslims Called On To Rise Up In Front Of Israeli Embassies

Thousands In The Street In Istanbul Turkey After Israel Attacks Gaza Flotilla

“This news underlines the need to lift the restrictions on access to Gaza, in line with UNSCR 1860. The closure is unacceptable and counter-productive. There can be no better response from the international community to this tragedy than to achieve urgently a durable resolution to the Gaza crisis.I call on the Government of Israel to open the crossings to allow unfettered access for aid to Gaza, and address the serious concerns about the deterioration in the humanitarian and economic situation and about the effect on a generation of young Palestinians.”

http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=News&id=22300485

But as I told this afternoon’s tremendous spontaneous demonstration on Whitehall, fine words are not enough and we must now see the kind of sanctions regime we saw against apartheid South Africa.

A word on the legal position, which is very plain. To attack a foreign flagged vessel in international waters is illegal. It is not piracy, as the Israeli vessels carried a military commission. It is rather an act of illegal warfare.

Because the incident took place on the high seas does not mean however that international law is the only applicable law. The Law of the Sea is quite plain that, when an incident takes place
on a ship on the high seas (outside anybody’s territorial waters) the applicable law is that of the flag state of the ship on which the incident occurred. In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish territory.

There are therefore two clear legal possibilities.

Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf of the government of Israel in killing the activists on the ships. In that case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey, and the act falls under international jurisdiction as a war crime.

Possibility two is that, if the killings were not authorised Israeli military action, they were acts of murder under Turkish jurisdiction. If Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, then it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under Turkish law.

In brief, if Israel and Turkey are not at war, then it is Turkish law which is applicable to what happened on the ship. It is for Turkey, not Israel, to carry out any inquiry or investigation into events and to initiate any prosecutions. Israel is obliged to hand over indicted personnel for prosecution.

Craig Murray is a former British Ambassador. He is also a former Head of the Maritime Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He negotiated the UK’s current maritime boundaries with Ireland, Denmark (Faeroes), Belgium and France, and boundaries of the Channel Islands, Turks and Caicos and British Virgin Islands. He was alternate Head of the UK Delegation to the UN Preparatory Commission on the Law of the Sea. He was Head of the FCO Section of the Embargo Surveillance Centre, enforcing sanctions on Iraq, and directly responsible for clearance of Royal Navy boarding operations in the Persian Gulf.

Reviews of Craig Murray’s War on Terror Memoir, “Murder in Samarkand” – published in the US as “Dirty Diplomacy”:

“It really is a magnificent achievement” – Noam Chomsky
“A fearless book by a fearless man. Craig Murray tells the truth whether the “authorities” like it or not. I salute a man of integrity” – Harold Pinter

JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Israeli army released footage on Monday of the resistance put up by pro-Palestinian activists as commandos stormed an aid ship headed to Gaza in an operation that has sparked a diplomatic furor.

Video images showed troops rappelling down to the deck of one of the vessels in the aid flotilla and coming under repeated attack by a group of people waving poles and chairs.

As a black-clad figure climbs down a rope from a chopper, someone on deck lobs a projectile at him and a group of baton-wielding passengers converge on him as he drops to the ground in chaotic scenes in which it appears that the passengers had the upper hand.

In the black-and-white footage, which appears to have been shot from a nearby vessel, at least six passengers can be seen on the deck of the vessel, repeatedly raising their sticks and forcefully hitting something or someone out of shot on the ground.

As the scenes of violence unfold, soldiers watching the operation from the nearby ship can be heard speaking in Hebrew. “They’re really beating them badly,” one says.

Among the crowd of at least 20 or so passengers milling around on the deck, at least two can be seen pushing one of the Israeli commandos over the railing onto a lower deck, pulling some kind of kit off his back as he falls.

“Wow, they’ve thrown a fighter over the edge,” another voice says. “They’ve just shoved him over.”

Another demonstrator can be seen waving a white chair over his head in the melee, which also shows one commando pointing what appears to be a paint-ball gun at the passengers.

Israel has come under furious attack from countries across the globe in the wake of the attack which left at least nine protesters dead, most of them reportedly Turkish.

Much of the criticism has focused on Israel’s use of live ammunition against the pro-Palestinian activists who were in international waters as they sought to run the blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza since the Islamist Hamas movement seized control [was democratically elected by the people of Palestine to protect them from the israelis] of the territory in 2007.

The following two videos were posted by IDF at Youtube:

The following video is from AFP:

Israeli forces assert they came under attack by the pro-Palestine civilian group, and video released by the IDF appears to show one soldier being tossed overboard amid a scuffle with unidentified individuals wielding melee weapons, like clubs and chairs.

However, in raw video captured by an Al Jazeera producer and published to YouTube late Monday, two journalists provide a play-by-play of the harrowing event as pops and cracks echo in the background. Even before the Israeli forces were aboard, one says, they were pelting the boat with tear gas and stun grenades, injuring numerous people.

Then he confirms the first death, saying the individual was killed by “munitions,” but not specifying whether it was a bullet or something else. Then he confirms that Israeli forces were boarding the ship.

Another of the reporters featured in the video works for the Iranian network Press TV. “We are being hit by tear gas, stun grenades, we have navy ships on either side, helicopters overhead,” he said. “We are being attacked from every single side. This is in international waters, not Israeli waters, not in the 68-mile exclusion zone. We are being attacked in international waters completely illegally.”

“The organizers are telling me now, they are raising a white flag — they are raising a white flag to the Israeli army,” the Al Jazeera reporter said. “This is after one person has been killed; a civilian has been killed by munition. That number could be more … Despite the white flag being raised, despite the white flag being raised, the Israeli army is still shooting, still firing live munitions.”

Early reports put the number of victims between nine and 19, with dozens injured. (Update: Figures from major wire services put the number at 10, but it may yet change.) The actual number has not yet been confirmed, as the IDF took all the Gaza aid flotilla participants into custody. Numerous victims were reported to be from Turkey. Palestinian leadership called the incident a “war crime.” Israeli ally Turkey also pledged their regional neighbor will “face the consequences” for the killings and reportedly planned to send military escort with a future Gaza aid flotilla.

“At least four Israeli soldiers were wounded in the operation, some from gunfire, according to the military,” The New York Times added.

“Our soldiers had to defend themselves, to defend their lives,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly said. Other Israeli officials have called the charity organization responsible a group of “extremist supporters of terror.” The IDF also alleged that weapons were found on board and that activists opened fire first, calling the the resulting violence a result of “provocation.”

However, if these reporters’ immediate accounting of the events proves accurate, the truth of Israel’s claim that they opened fire in self defense would seem to be in doubt.

Portions of the raw video were featured by Al Jazeera and AFP, although the beginning segment and the most clear allegations that Israel opened fire before boarding were not included in their entirety.

This video was published to YouTube by user WilliamTomg on May 31, 2010.

The action sparked protests around the world within hours.

In Turkey crowds took to the streets in several cities to vent fury after the storming of a Turkish passenger boat in the flotilla that left at least nine dead, most of them believed to be Turkish nationals.

“Damn Israel!”, “A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, revenge, revenge!” yelled protesters in Istanbul where about 10,000 people converged on the central Taksim square after marching from the Israeli consulate.

“Turkish soldiers to Gaza,” shouted some, as others torched Israeli flags.

“I call on the government to expel the Israeli consul… And if necessary, we are ready for war,” Seref Mangal, 40, told AFP. A banner carried by the crowd read: “Close down the Zionist embassy.”

In the capital Ankara about 1,000 people gathered outside the residence of Israeli ambassador Gabby Levy and shouted “Damn the Zionist murderers!” and “Israel will drown in the blood of the martyrs!”.

They threw eggs and plastic bottles into the garden of the residency. Reports said demonstrations were held in dozens of cities across the country.

In London more than 1,000 people — some of whom had friends on the ships carrying aid to blockaded Gaza — protested outside the residence of British Prime Minister David Cameron and the Israeli embassy.

Chanting “Free Palestine” and brandishing the Palestinian flag and banners condemning Israeli “war crimes”, activists blocked a major route through the capital. Hundreds of police stood guard outside the embassy.

“We have close friends on the boat on which people were killed and we are here waiting for news,” said Kate Hudson, the chairwoman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

In Paris about 500 people joined a noisy protest near the Israeli embassy, waving Palestinian flags and shouting “Palestine will survive, Palestine will conquer”.

Scuffles broke out when a dozen rival protestors waving Israeli flags approached, prompting police to fire tear gas, but calm was soon restored. Another 1,300 people rallied in the city of Lille.

Greek police used tear gas to force back around 1,500 protesters outside the Israeli embassy in Athens, while another 2,000 people rallied in the northern city of Thessaloniki.

In Lebanon thousands of Palestinian refugees and activists waving Palestinian flags and banners marched in the country’s 12 refugee camps.

“Where is the international community? Where are human rights?” they chanted in the Al-Bass camp in the southern coastal city of Tyre.

In Beirut hundreds gathered in the city centre called on Israeli embassies in the Arab world to be shut down and for Israeli ambassadors to be expelled.

At a demonstration of about 3,000 people at the Beddawi camp in the northern city of Tripoli, anger also turned on Israel’s traditional ally, the United States.

“God is great and America is the greatest evil,” they chanted. “Give us weapons, give us weapons and send us on to Gaza.”

There were even demonstrations inside Israel, where hundreds of protestors flooded the streets of the northern Arab city of Nazareth as Israeli police raised the level of alert across the country and deployed reinforcements.

More than 2,000 people in Amman protested what Jordan’s Information Minister Nabil Sharif dubbed a “heinous crime”.

Demonstrators included Islamist opposition leaders and carried banners that read “We Will not Surrender” and “Break Gaza Blockade.” They also demanded that Jordan shut down the Jewish state’s embassy and expel the Israeli ambassador.

In Iran’s capital Tehran, dozens of people pelted stones at the UN office chanting: “This savage regime of Israel must be wiped out.”

They burnt the Israeli flag and tore up pictures of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In Pakistan politicians, lawmakers and journalists staged a peaceful protest in Islamabad, denouncing the killings and calling on the United Nations and the United States to intervene.

Hundreds of Bosnians marched through Sarajevo, brandishing Palestinian flags. “We wanted to raise our voice to denounce a new attempt at genocide in modern times,” one of the organisers, Edvin Cudic, told Srna news agency.

Around 200 people demonstrated outside the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva demanding an inquiry into the raid, while in the Netherlands 400 rallied outside the Israeli embassy in The Hague.

There were also protests in Egypt while in Kuwait activists were planning rallies.

After Israeli PM Netanyahu canceled a planned meeting with President Obama, the White House stressed the importance of “learning all the facts” before jumping to conclusions.

US citizen Emily Henochowicz was shot directly in the face with a tear gas canister as she non-violently demonstrated against the Flotilla massacre

UPDATE  June 1, 8:30PM (GMT+2): Emily is recovering at Hadassah Hospital after two surgeries Monday night. She lost her left eye, three metal plates were inserted into her head/face, and her jaw is wired shut. The bone surrounding her eye socket, cheekbone and jawbone are all fractured. Emily was standing peacefully during a demonstration at Qalandiya checkpoint Monday when Border Police fired a large number of tear gas canisters directly at the heads of Emily and another ISM activist.

May 31, 2010: An American solidarity activist was shot in the face with a tear gas canister during a demonstration in Qalandiya, today. Emily Henochowicz is currently in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem undergoing surgery to remove her left eye, following the demonstration that was held in protest to Israel’s murder of at least 10 civilians aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters this morning.

21-year old Emily Henochowicz was hit in the face with a tear gas projectile fired directly at her by an Israeli soldier during the demonstration at Qalandiya checkpoint today. Israeli occupation forces fired volleys of tear gas at unarmed Palestinian and international protesters, causing mass panic amongst the demonstrators and those queuing at the largest checkpoint separating the West Bank and Israel.

“They clearly saw us,” said Sören Johanssen, a Swedish ISM volunteer standing with Henochowicz. “They clearly saw that we were internationals and it really looked as though they were trying to hit us. They fired many canisters at us in rapid succession. One landed on either side of Emily, then the third one hit her in the face.”

Henochowicz is an art student at the prestigious Cooper Union, located in East Village, Manhattan.

The demonstration was one of many that took place across the West Bank today in outrage over the Israeli military’s attack on the Gaza freedom flotilla and blatant violation of international law. Demonstrations also took place in inside Israel, Gaza and Jerusalem, with clashes occurring in East Jerusalem and Palestinian shopkeepers in the occupied Old City closing their businesses for the day in protest.

Henochowicz lost her left eye after being shot directly in the face with a tear gas canister

Tear gas canisters are commonly used against demonstrators in the occupied West Bank. In May 2009, the Israeli State Attorney’s Office ordered Israeli Police to review its guidelines for dispersing demonstrators, following the death of a demonstrator, Bassem Abu Rahmah from Bil’in village, caused by a high velocity tear-gas projectile. Tear-gas canisters are meant to be used as a means of crowd dispersal, to be shot indirectly at demonstrators and from a distance. However, Israeli forces frequently shoot canisters directly at protesters and are not bound by a particular distance from which they can shoot.

Israeli occupation forces boarded the Mavi Marmara, one of six ships on the Freedom Flotilla at 5 a.m. this morning, opening fire on the hundreds of unarmed civilians aboard. No-one aboard the ships were carrying weapons of any kind, including for defense against a feared Israeli attack in international waters. At least 9 aid workers aboard the ship have been confirmed dead, with dozens more injured. The assault took place 70 miles off the Gaza coast in international waters, after the flotilla was surrounded by three Israeli warships. The Freedom Flotilla, carrying 700 human rights activists from over 40 countries and 10,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid, was headed for the besieged and impoverished Gaza Strip. The Israeli blockade on Gaza, combined with the illegal buffer zone, has put a stranglehold on the territory. 42% of Gazans are unemployed, and food insecurity hovers around 60% according to figures from the Palestine Centre for Human Rights.

The Mavi Marmara, carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid, was flying a white flag: a universal symbol of non-violence. It was also flying the Turkish flag, in international waters, giving it status as a sovereign extension of Turkey. Regardless, Israel attacked. For what does Israel fight? Its existence, or the continuance of a regime of collective punishment calculated to destroy the Palestinians? Or are these the same thing? Dead: 19. Injured: 60. Who gave the order? Will NATO react to an attack on one of its members?

Simple public murder

The right to exist cannot be asserted through murder. The very acceptance of Israel into the United Nations System was — in 1948 — conditioned on the former recognising the equal rights of Arabs, in particular the right of return of Palestinians. Not only has Israel prevented the return of refugees, it took over by force and occupied in 1967 the rest of historic Palestine. From founding until now we have witnessed an unending catalogue of Israeli atrocities. By these countless atrocities, Israel has forfeited any claim to legality — it is moreover a state that refuses to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or consider giving up its nuclear weapons.

Gaza is both the world’s largest open-air prison and the 21st century’s undeclared concentration camp. Everybody knows it. The UN knows it. The US president knows it. Tens of thousands of civil servants in countries across the world know it. The siege is a way of sealing the exits, and of slow killing. It is an atrocity on the same level as genocide. Here every man and woman has a moral duty: inaction is complicity and a betrayal of humanity. All legal rights are with those who attempt to end this situation by whatever means.

The Freedom Flotilla is such an attempt: it is a refusal of inhuman suffering. Its symbolism is more powerful than any navy. As such, it remains what it was as it embarked on its journey: a signal of the collapse of the blockade. Where earlier lone vessels tried to reach Gaza, now they go in groups. More will follow. When a thousand ships set sail, what would Israel do?

Israel on trial

Israel lost the battle for international public opinion a long time ago. None can forget the relentless strafing of a captive civilian population in Israel’s last war on Gaza. Who can Israel hope to persuade now?

—    We condemn the illegal, immoral and inhuman blockade on Gaza, and all who uphold it

—    We condemn Israel

—    We condemn Israel’s brutal attack on peace activists in international waters. We declare that 700 brave souls, from 50 nations, represent something real that Israeli propaganda cannot erase

—    We mourn the 19 murdered and express hope and solidarity with the 60 injured. We demand of Israel the release of all activists detained

—    We call on all international institutions — including the UN, the EU and human rights agencies and organisations — to declare themselves unequivocally on this latest Israeli atrocity and to work towards ending Israeli impunity

—    We demand an international tribunal to judge all Israeli crimes, past and present. We call on the UN General Assembly to request of the International Court of Justice an advisory opinion on the legality of Israel within the United Nations System given its systematic and gross disrespect of international law and moral authority

—    We support all efforts by all means to free the people of Gaza from their prison and their suffering, including sanctions and divestment against Israel, a general boycott, and the boycott — by workers federations — of all ships going to and from Israel

—    We call upon people everywhere to express their solidarity with the dead and injured, and with Palestinians under occupation, in local expressions of outrage wherever it is deemed useful.

We call on all associations, unions, parliaments, professionals and others to endorse this appeal and its demands. Please distribute and act upon it.

The BRussells Tribunal Committee

http://brusselstribunal.org

Please circulate this appeal widely and show your solidarity with the people of Gaza and the victims of Israeli killings by signing this appeal athttp://www.petitiononline.com/GazaSol/petition.html.

For information contact: info@brusselstribunal.org

JERUSALEM, May 31 (Xinhua) — Israeli forces on Monday attacked an international flotilla carrying aid to besieged Gaza, killing at least 10 people, an Israeli television reported.

A human rights organization Free Gaza Movement also said clashes happened between an international aid flotilla bound for Gaza and Israeli navy, causing several casualties.

Israeli commandos dropped from a helicopter onto the deck of a Turkish ship at about 4:30 a.m. and immediately opened fire on unarmed civilians.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman’s office cannot confirm the report at the press time.

Live image from the flotilla shows that Israeli soldiers from the helicopter and a number of speedboats boarded one of the ships at night. Activists wearing life vests were treating what appeared to be injuries for unknown reasons.

Israeli navy on Sunday night sighted the pro-Palestinian “Freedom Flotilla” bound for the Gaza Strip and ordered the convoy to dock at an Israeli harbor.

Troops boarded the flotilla and clashed with the activists after they ignored Israeli orders to turn back, Turkey’s NTV reported Monday.

The flotilla of six ships set sail from a port in Cyprus on Sunday and was expected to reach Gaza by Monday morning, Al-Jazeera reported.

The flotilla, originally made up of nine ships from Turkey, Britain, Ireland, Greece, Kuwait and Algeria, were carrying around 10,000 tons of aid including cement, water purification systems and wheelchairs. One of the ships had not arrived and two others had been damaged.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-05/31/c_13325000.htm

Israel Kills 10 On Humanitarian Mission Into Gaza!

Gaza TV News: Gaza TV’s phlog Flotilla has been attacked by Israeli forces. 3 dead, and 30 injured

http://www.ipadio.com/phlogs/Gaza_TVNews/2010/05/31/Gaza-TVs-phlog-3-Dead-30-Injured

(CNN) — Israeli soldiers boarded a Turkish boat carrying aid for the Palestinian territory of Gaza during a pre-dawn raid, the Free Gaza Movement said.

“At about 4:30 am, Israeli commandos dropped from helicopter onto deck of Turkish ship, immediately opened fire on unarmed civilians,” a post on the group’s Twitter page said.

Video aired on CNN sister network CNN Turk showed what appeared to be soldiers rappelling onto the deck of a ship.

Turkish media reported two dead and 50 injured in the alleged incident as a flotilla of six ships approached the Gaza coast.

“We did not attack any boat, we merely fulfill the Israeli government’s decision to prevent anyone from going into the Gaza strip without coordinating with Israel,” a statement from the Israeli military said. “The flotilla is a provocation made to de-legitimize Israel. Had they really wanted to deliver the cargo into Gaza they could have done so via Israel as it is done on a daily basis.”

The convoy of boats approached Gaza in defiance of an Israeli blockade and had been shadowed by three Israeli warships. Free Gaza had earlier reported that they had been contacted by the Israeli navy.

– “What’s it like, firing missiles at people you can’t see?

– Does that help, that you cannot see who you are killing?

– does it ease your conscience that you are not deliberately targeting civilians,” when, in fact, you are under Israel’s Dahiya Doctrine to use enough “disproportionate force (to inflict) damage and met(e) out punishment” against civilian infrastructure, “economic interests and the centers of civilian power,” willfully slaughtering noncombatant men, women and children;

– “How does this sit on your conscience?

– Do you sleep well at night or do you have nightmares of the women and children you killed in their homes, in their beds, in their kitchens and living rooms, in their schools and mosques?”

Do you really believe they threaten your security – farmers in their fields, mothers with their children, teachers in classrooms, imams in mosques, children at play, the elderly, frail or disabled?

Do you ever question what you’ve done and why? Have you no shame, no sense of decency, no idea of the difference between right and wrong? Will you follow orders blindly and do it again and again, mindless about crimes of war and against humanity you, your superiors, and government officials are accountable for under fundamental international law?

“Brave” Israeli airmen, soldiers, sailors, and other security force personnel have acted lawlessly for decades, including committing appalling human rights crimes – a snapshot of some victims follows.

Persecuting Mazin Qumsiyeh

Qumsiyeh teaches and does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities in the West Bank. Earlier he taught at Yale, Duke, and the University of Tennessee. Interested mainly in media activism and public education, he’s been a board, steering, and executive committee member of numerous activist organizations, and is President of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Apartheid Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour. His most recent book is titled, “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment.”

On the morning of May 6, Qumsiyeh and three others were arrested, handcuffed, and taken to an unknown destination. He explained what happened.

In Al-Wallaja, his “ten hour ordeal” began at 8:30AM. The village is near the Green line. Israel’s Separation Wall route will encircle it. It’s already lost much of its land. Residents fear losing the rest, so to prevent it they resist.

Israeli bulldozers have demolished numerous homes. Heroic villagers inspired others, “including Internationals and Israelis to join them in their popular resistance….Today’s started as we came through the woods and sat in front of the bulldozer.”

“As the soldiers gathered their forces around us, you could feel (them) preparing themselves for attack. We remained calm and peaceful. They dragged us one by one forcefully from the bulldozed lands. They picked the four of us for arrest for no obvious reason” – Qumsiyeh, two Palestinian brothers, and a Canadian activist.

They beat, clubbed, rifle-butted, and pepper-sprayed the two brothers. All four were then taken to a military checkpoint, told to sit and wait, then ordered “to sign a paper claiming….we were not beaten or mistreated.”

They refused, then taken to “the investigation offices near Qubbit Raheel (Rachel’s tomb), (and) locked up in a metal container.” Hours later, they were interrogated individually, asked, but refused, to sign other papers. Painfully handcuffed, they were returned to the container.

Next on to Talpiot police station to be fingerprinted and photographed. “It was now nearly 5:30 and we were starving….Finally they br(ought) us some bread, each a slice of cheese and a small packet of jam.” Together they were “dragged in front of a new investigator who asked us to sign a release form that says we are told to stay away from the wall….for 15 days and if we don’t we will (each) have to pay” about $1,200. They signed, were released, but not given their ID cards. Later they got them. “Life goes on in the land of Apartheid. Stay tuned.”

As coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Apartheid Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour, Qumsiyeh leads Palestinian grassroots resistance against “Israeli occupation and colonization” as well as “stopping and dismantling” what the International Court of Justice (ICJ) called illegal, ordering the Wall’s demolition and for Israel “to make reparation for all damage caused by the construction….including in and around East Jerusalem.”

As the “main national grassroots body mobilizing and organizing resistance against” the Wall, the Campaign “coordinates the work of 54 popular committees in communities” targeted for (or now being) destroyed by its construction.

Strategies against it include raising awareness internationally; national and community resistance; mobilizing solidarity among affected communities, the Arab world, civil society, and unions; calling for global boycott, divestment and sanctions; and enlisting international popular support for justice.

Attacking Disabled Palestinians in Gaza

Besides the occupation, siege, regular incursions, and overall reign of terror against 1.5 million people, Israel targets the disabled, explained by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) in a December 2009 report titled, “Israeli Attacks on Palestinian Disabled Persons in the Gaza Strip,” from September 1, 2003 – November 30 2009.

It covers willful assaults against disabled civilians, and others incapacitated by attacks. Of most concern was Operation Cast Lead’s 23-day assault from December 27, 2008 – January 18, 2009, inflicting massive numbers of deaths and injuries, as well as widespread destruction, mostly against civilians, their homes, mosques, businesses, factories, farms, schools, and hospitals – clear non-military targets. The siege’s effect on health, education, and other vital services was also addressed.

During the reporting period, 31 disabled Palestinians were killed, including four women, and six children. Another 600 sustained permanent disabilities, mostly physical. In addition, because of inadequate or unavailable food, medicines, medical equipment, fuel, clean water, sanitation, and the ability to leave or enter freely, the negative impact has been enormous.

“At the same time, foreign medical and technical personnel have not been able to enter (Gaza) to help the disabled and provide them with necessary medical and rehabilitation services.” As for the overall effect of the siege, the longer it continues the more harm it inflicts on those least able to cope. Precisely Israel’s strategic aim – to strangle and smother all Gazans, the elderly, infirm and disabled the most vulnerable.

Amnesty International (AI) on Israeli War Crimes

In its 2010 annual report, AI accused Western nations of shielding Israel from accountability during the Gaza war and for nearly three years of siege, depriving the population of vital essentials to survive and endure. At the same time, it praised the Goldstone Commission for heroically telling the truth.

In documenting Israeli crimes of war and against humanity, AI said:

“Among other things, (Israel) carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks against civilians, targeted and killed medical staff, used Palestinian civilians as ‘human shields,’ and indiscriminately (used) white phosphorous (and other illegal weapons) over densely populated residential areas.” As a result, the toll was devastating.

In response, the US State Department downplayed the accusations, saying it “supports the need for accountability for any violations that may have occurred in relation to the Gaza conflict by any party,” ignoring Israel’s premeditated aggression, willfully attacking civilians and committing horrendous war crimes.

AI also condemned America’s human rights abuses, saying:

“In the counter-terrorism context, accountability for past human rights violations by the USA remains largely absent, particularly in relation to the CIA programme (sic) of secret detention. In litigation, the US administration continues to block remedy for victims of such human rights violations. 181 detainees remain in Guantanamo despite President Obama’s commitment to close the detention facility by January 2010. A new Manual for Military Commissions released by the Pentagon in April confirmed that even if a detainee is (uncharged or) acquitted by a military commission, the US administration reserves the right to continue to hold them in indefinite detention.”

Obama Administration’s Brazen Lawlessness

The latest example comes from a just revealed September 2009 secret directive about expanded covert military activity in the Middle East, Central Asia, the Horn of Africa or anywhere in the world to counter alleged threats. In other words, the Obama administration reserves the right to send US forces anywhere clandestinely, with or without host nation approval, to “penetrate, disrupt, defeat or destroy” designated targets by state terrorism, war, or any other means on the pretext of defending national security – a justification only scoundrels would invoke.

Italian New Weapons Research Committee (NWRC) Accuses Israel of Contaminating Gaza Soil

In its May 11 press release, NWRC (a group of independent scientists and doctors) said Israel’s 2006 and 2009 bombings left a high concentration of toxic/carcinogenic metals residue in soil and human tissue, likely to cause tumors, fertility problems, and serious harm to newborns, including deformities and genetic mutations.

Of particular concern were “wounds provoked by weapons that did not leave fragments in the bodies of the victims, a peculiarity that was pointed out repeatedly by doctors in Gaza. This shows that experimental weapons, whose effects are still to be assessed, were used.”

Some elements found are carcinogenic, including mercury, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, nickel and uranium (from weapons with depleted uranium). Others are potentially carcinogenic, including cobalt and vanadium, and still more are fetotoxic (harmful to fetuses), including aluminum, copper, barium, lead, and manganese. All of them in high enough amounts produce genetic mutations as well as pathogenic effects on human respiratory organs, kidneys, skin, neurological development, and other bodily functions.

The combination of environmental contamination, direct wounds or inhilations, aggravated by dire living conditions, presents a serious risk to large numbers of people, worsened by repeated armed incursions. According to Paola Manduca, NWRC’s spokesperson:

“Our study indicates an anomalous presence of toxic elements in the soil (and human tissue). It is essential to intervene at once to limit the effects of the contamination on people, animals and cultivations.”

Thus far, Israeli-Western collaborators still prevent 1.5 million Gazans from getting the critical help they need, while Moshe Kantor, president the European Jewish Congress, equated NWRC’s research to “ancient blood libels against the Jewish people, when rumors were spread about Jews poisoning wells. Today we are seeing a recurrence of all the worst excesses of anti-Semitism and diatribes that we perhaps naively thought had remained in the Dark Ages.”

The pro-Israeli NGO Monitor’s Gerald Steinberg called the accusations “designed to stigmatize Israel and erase the context of mass terror, (similar to other) false or unverifiable claims.” These are typical responses from rogues and their defenders caught red-handed.

But clear evidence they deny can’t be hidden. Nor can the growing disenchantment of young American Jews, a phenomenon Steven Rosenthal discussed in his 2001 book “Irreconcilable Differences: The Waning of the American Jewish Love Affair with Israel,” citing policies that transformed the relationship from uncritical “Israelotry” to disapproval and distress. The 1982 Lebanon invasion, repressive occupation, Intifada, regular incursions, and greater concern about home-grown issues shattered American Jewish unanimity, diluting Israel’s next generation support.

On May 10, 2009, The Forward and Brandeis University Professor Jonathan D. Sarna asked why, noting “a critical difference between support for Israel in the past and today. For much of the 20th century, the Israel of American Jews – the Zion that they imagined in their minds, wrote about and worked to realize – was a mythical Zion, a utopian extension of the American dream.”

They imagined a “social commonwealth,” an “outpost of democracy, spreading America’s ideals eastward in a Jewish refuge where freedom, liberty and social justice would someday reign supreme.” Utopias, of course, are illusions, now dispelled to reveal “unlovliest warts.” Today, bloom is off the rose, unsurprising given convincing reasons to remove it.

A Final Comment

On May 26, Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire paid “Tribute to the People of Gaza,” saying:

“I never cease to be amazed at the power of the human spirit to survive….In a triumph of hope over adversity and tremendous suffering, love still abides….Gaza’s people have suffered an Israeli occupation for over 40 years,” enduring wars and current medieval-type siege.

Lives have been shattered, crops destroyed, soil poisoned, and sustainability comprised, so “Where is the hope? Where is the love in the midst of such suffering and injustice?” In the will to survive; in growing worldwide solidarity; in the “Freedom Flotilla” defying the blockade to deliver aid, Maguire on it, “inspired by the people of Gaza whose courage, love and joy in welcoming us, even in the midst of such suffering gives us all hope. They represent the best of humanity,” no amount of Israeli repression can extinguish, nor their redoubtable “nonviolent struggle for human dignity, and freedom.”

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Military authorities said that masked naval commandos would greet the eight ships deep out at sea, escort the vessels to port and give each of the activists a stark choice: leave the country or go to jail.

But the tough response threatened to backfire by breathing new life into the activists’ mission and drawing new attention to the oft-criticized blockade of Gaza.

“We know that we are sailing for a good cause,” said Dror Feiler, 68, an Israeli-born Swedish activist who was on board a cargo ship headed from Greece to Gaza. “If the Israelis want us to pay a price, we will pay a price, but we will come again and again.”

Some 750 activists, including a Nobel peace laureate and former U.S. congresswoman, have set sail for the Gaza coast in recent days, carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian supplies. They are expected to reach the Israeli coast on Saturday.

The volunteers say they are bringing desperately needed materials to the area, which has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt since Hamas militants violently took control in June 2007.

Israel, which considers Hamas a terrorist group, says the blockade is needed to prevent the Islamic militants from developing weapons. It has condemned the flotilla as a publicity stunt, insisting there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza and offering to deliver the aid through official channels.

“If they were really interested in the well-being of the people of Gaza, they would have accepted the offers of Egypt or Israel to transfer humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza,” said Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev. “Instead, they have chosen a cheap political stunt.”

In recent days, Israel’s navy chief, Vice Adm. Eliezer Marum, has overseen a series of drills simulating the boarding of ships and the transfer of passengers to shore, the military said. It said it would make every effort to avoid using force against the flotilla, but that naval commandos and attack dogs were prepared for a military confrontation if necessary.

“We have no intention of harming any one of these people, but with that said, we have a very clear mission to carry out. We will prevent them from entering the Gaza Strip,” Marum said. The military has said that those arrested would be deported.

In Ashdod, authorities showed off three large white tents, equipped with computers and medical supplies. Officials said the activists would be identified, then placed on buses going straight to Israel’s international airport for deportation. Those who refuse to go voluntarily will be taken to a nearby prison.

“We have to remember: These people are entering Israel illegally,” said Maya Kadosh, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.

Officials said the cargo would undergo a security check, and then be transferred to U.N. agencies for distribution in Gaza.

In a statement Thursday, the U.N. called on all sides to “act with a sense of care and responsibility and work for a satisfactory resolution,” while calling for an end to Israel’s blockade and expressing “concern at the insufficient flow of material through legitimate crossing points to meet basic needs, begin reconstruction and revive economic life.”

Israeli authorities have sharply rejected allegations that a humanitarian disaster is brewing in Gaza.

“There is no shortage of fuel, there is no shortage of medication, there is no shortage of any necessities in the Gaza Strip,” said military spokeswoman Avital Liebovitch.

Israeli officials have launched a public relations blitz ahead of the flotilla’s arrival, detailing the tons of supplies of food, medicine and other staples it allows into Gaza, and inviting reporters to view the transfer operations at the border. The official Government Press Office went so far as to release a sarcastically worded statement for the press encouraging journalists to visit one of Gaza’s few luxury restaurants.

Critics say such claims are misguided. They note the blockade has failed to dislodge Hamas, hurt Gaza’s weakest and fomented a bustling smuggling industry along the Egyptian border that has helped enrich Hamas and stocked store shelves with abundant but overpriced food and goods.

But it remains virtually impossible to repair damage to thousands of homes struck by a devastating Israeli offensive launched early last year to halt Hamas rocket fire.

Flotilla organizers say they have loaded the ships with some of the hardest items to procure, such as cement, lumber, and high-end medical equipment.

This is the ninth time that the Free Gaza Movement, the pro-Palestinian organization behind the effort, has sent a flotilla of supplies to Gaza. Israel permitted five deliveries to reach Gaza, but has not allowed any ships through since the military offensive that ended in January 2009.

Among the passengers are Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire, former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, a Holocaust survivor in her 80s, a retired U.S. army colonel and lawmakers from a dozen European countries.

In Gaza, Hamas officials were eagerly making last-minute preparations for the ships’ arrival. Officials said hotel rooms have been booked for all the activists, police and medical teams had conducted drills, and tiny boats were ready to unload the aid ships, which are too big to enter Gaza’s tiny port.

“We are hopeful these ships will reach the Gaza Strip. It’s a humanitarian mission that flouts the siege,” said Yousef Rizqa, deputy prime minister of the Hamas government.

The boats left ports in Britain, Greece, Ireland and Turkey yesterday. The so-calledFreedom Flotilla will assemble at Cyprus Friday and make the final one-day journey to Gaza collectively.

Israel has said it will not allow the aid convoy to reach Gaza.  It has imposed a blockade on Gaza after the Islamist militant group Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007.  The Israeli military has sought to prevent militants from receiving materials that can be used to attack Israel, and has stopped other vessels carrying aid to Palestinians in the past.

The Israeli Army calls the flotilla a provocation, orchestrated by Hamas under the guise of delivering humanitarian relief to residents of Gaza.  It says the humanitarian situation there is “good and stable.”

A spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces told VOA that any organization wanting to deliver supplies to Gaza is free to do so, but in coordination with the Israeli government. “Anything that could happen we’re ready for. That’s all I can tell you,” he said.

Israel says it has set up a detention center for the activists who attempt break the blockade.

Christopher Gunnes is a spokesman with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. He said that the situation on the ground in Gaza is dire.

“The idea that Gaza has everything that it needs is absurd. Basic things are getting in, yes,” he said.  “They’re getting in through the tunnels.”

“And that means that the number of those who can’t afford to feed their families – special hardship cases, we call them, has gone up in the last year alone from 100,000 to 300,000 because prices of goods coming through the tunnels are going up and up and up. There is undoubtedly a serious humanitarian crisis going on in Gaza and to say anything else is simply absurd,” he added.

Several hundred journalists and activists are reported to be on board the ships, including an aged Holocaust survivor and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Source: Voice of America News

The Infowars team have poured 18 months of blood sweat and tears into a film that represents a call to action for Infowarriors around the globe to use this tool as a means of unlocking millions more minds from the matrix.

The impact the film will achieve is solely in the hands of you, the audience, in making the movie go viral in the same way as Loose Change, the Obama Deception and Endgame achieved viral success, and in turn waking up millions more people to the New World Order system and enabling them to take the first steps in resisting their tyranny.

Film maker Jason Bermas has collected a truly monumental amount of video archive and document material to render completely obsolete claims that the agenda of today’s ruling elite is not the open move towards a global totalitarian world government which will be run to the detriment of the people in the self-interests of the tiny ruling class that sit atop the power pyramid.

Invisible Empire is all conspiracy and no theory – proving beyond doubt how the elite have openly conspired to insidiously rule the globe via the engines of the CFR, the United Nations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg group, which were born out of the historical Round Table groups first set up by Cecil Rhodes.

Invisible Empire will be more than just a film– it is the culmination of years of research by Jason Bermas into the inner-workings and most revealing public statements by the New World Order and the most trusted stewards of their dark vision. Invisible Empire promises to unveil the long-term agenda for world control, just as Fabled Enemies and Loose Change Final Cut forever stripped away the facade of the official story of 9/11 and exposed the dark truth that lies behind.

Invisible Empire: A New World Order Defined

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO24XmP1c5E

The only way to peace is through the people.

Camp OUT NOW is the boldest and bravest action ever envisioned by and for peace.

Camp OUT NOW’s stated objective is to: “Clog Washington, DC every week day through diffuse Civil Resistance (CR) actions to have the effect of tampering with ‘business as usual’ in the Capital of the United States of America.”

• Troops out of the Middle East, which includes drones, permanent bases, contractors and torture/detention facilities.
• Reparations for the peoples of these war torn regions and a fully funded VA system to reintegrate our soldiers healthfully into our society.

We need as many people as possible who realize that time is running short for us to truly affect change by commitment and dedication to humanity through the end to the US Empire (and its subsidiaries).

Beginning March 13th, we will erect a tent city on the grounds of the Washington Monument as a base camp for our actions, community gathering and activites.

Your commitment can range from the entire action: Until our demands are met; or any other chunk of time that you are available.

Acts of civil resistance will begin on Monday, March 22nd and we will end when the troops start to come home.

Individual commitment will entail an at least a once a week CR mission and support to the group at large through contributing to the running and infrastructure of our encampment and the care and feeding of activists.

Learn more on Cindy Sheehan’s Peace of the Action website

http://embedr.com/playlist/dennis-kucinich-forces-congress-to-debate-afghanistan-war

Original cosponsors of the Kucinich resolution include John Conyers, Jr. (D-Michigan); Ron Paul (R-Texas); José Serrano (D-New York); Bob Filner (D-California); Lynn Woolsey (D-California); Walter Jones, Jr. (R-North Carolina); Danny Davis (D-Illinois); Barbara Lee (D-California); Michael Capuano (D-Massachusetts); Raúl Grijalva (D-Arizona); Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin); Timothy Johnson (R-Illinois); Yvette Clarke (D-New York); Eric Massa (D-New York), Alan Grayson (D-Florida) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine).

The Pentagon doesn’t want Congress to debate Afghanistan. The Pentagon wants Congress to fork over $33 billion more to pay for the current military escalation, no questions asked, no restrictions imposed for a withdrawal timetable or an exit strategy.

Ideally, from the point of view of the Pentagon, Congress would fork over that money right away, before the coming Kandahar offensive that the $33 billion is supposed to pay for, because you can expect a lot of bad news out of Afghanistan in the form of deaths of American soldiers andAfghan civilians once the Kandahar offensive starts, and it would sure be awkward if all that bad news reached Washington while the $33 billion was hanging fire.

So it’s a great thing that Kucinich and his 16 allies are forcing Congress to debate the issue, and it would be even better if more Members of Congress would be urged by their constituents to support Kucinich’s resolution. That would be a signal to the House leadership that continuation of the open-ended war and occupation is controversial in the House, and the House leadership should not try to ram through $33 billion more for the war on a fast-track without ample opportunity for debate and amendment.

Every day the Afghanistan war continues is another day on which the United States government plays Russian roulette with the lives ofAmerican soldiers and Afghan civilians.

The British government has more urgency than the US government about ending the war – and is more supportive than the US of a political solution to end the conflict – because in Britain there is greater public outcry.

If there were greater public and Congressional outcry in the US, we could be more like Britain, and get our government on board the train to a political solution, instead of prolonging the war indefinitely.

The first step towards bringing our troops home is for members of Congress to hear from their constituents.

source: truthout

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is offering a resolution calling for a swift withdrawal from the war. His office confirmed the Ohio Democrat will introduce his resolution March 4 with the goal of setting up a three-hour debate and vote on March 10. The liberal lawmaker has been in talks with House Democratic leaders in recent weeks to schedule consideration of the resolution.

The measure has no chance of passing. But the vote will give the White House its first register of Congressional Democratic support for its plan to add 30,000 troops to the conflict ahead of a springtime debate on a supplemental spending request to fund it.

Source: Roll Call News

(February 25, 2010) – On Thursday, March 4, 2010 Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) will introduce his privileged resolution that will require House debate on continuing the war in Afghanistan.

It is expected that the resolution will be taken up for consideration on the following Wednesday, March 10, 2010 and that the debate will be subject to a rule providing for three hours of debate.

Source: Dennis Kucinich

Jillian C. York, The Electronic Intifada, 19 February 2010

There is considerable speculation following the removal of Lady Jenny Tonge on 14 February from her position as health critic for the Liberal Democratic Party in the UK’s House of Lords following her statement calling for an inquiry into claims that the Israeli military stole organs during its relief work in Haiti last month.

The question I pose is not whether Tonge was wrong in her claims to The Jewish Chronicle (which I would argue she was), but where the claims originated in the first place.

As mainstream publications such as CNN and the UK’s Telegraph publish analyses of the Tonge affair, they continue to falsely claim that the accusation which Tonge repeated, that of the Israeli military stealing Haitian organs, originated in Palestinian sources, when in fact their very origin was Israeli.

The mainstream corporate media’s story goes like this: The Jewish Chroniclerequested a statement from Tonge after the online publication The Palestine Telegraph, of which she is a patron, allegedly accused the Israeli military of stealing organs while conducting earthquake relief work in Haiti. On 11 February, Tonge responded to The Jewish Chronicle by commending the Israeli military’s work in the devastated country. She added that “To prevent allegations such as these — which have already been posted on YouTube — going any further, the IDF [Israeli army] and the Israeli Medical Association should establish an independent inquiry immediately to clear the names of the team in Haiti” (Simon Rocker and Martin Bright, “Tonge: Investigate IDF stealing organs in Haiti,” The Jewish Chronicle, 11 February 2010).

However, the Gaza-based Palestine Telegraph was not the first media source to publish such a statement. On 20 January, the Israeli news site YNet published a piece entitled, “‘Israelis Stealing Organs in Haiti,’” the title of which has since been changed (Yitzhak Benhorin, “Anti-Semitic video against Israel team in Haiti,” previously titled “‘Israelis Stealing Organs in Haiti‘”).

A screen shot of the original headline on YNet.

YNet plucked from obscurity a little-known YouTube video, in which a Seattle activist, who identifies as “T. West,” claims that those serving in the Israeli army are without consciences. In the video, West states that:

“We always have some [unscrupulous] in the crowd, and that includes the Israeli Defense Force … people have to be aware of personalities who are out for money … the IDF has participated in the past in stealing organ transplants of Palestinians and others. So, there is little monitoring in such a tragedy as this, so the Haitian people must watch out for their citizens as these international groups come in to assist medically and in other ways in Haiti.”

Nowhere in the video does West make a direct claim that the Israeli military is harvesting Haitian organs; rather, he invokes Jewish money stereotypes and references the charges made by Swedish journalist Donald Bostrom inAftonbladet last year that the Israeli military has stolen Palestinian organs (a claim to which Israel partially admitted last December in an Israeli television documentary, according to a report by Ian Black of the Guardian (“Doctor admits Israeli pathologists harvested organs without consent,” 21 December 2009).

YNet interviewed T. West for its piece, asking him specifically about the claim of harvesting organs in general. To this, the activist responded, “This is not the official policy of the Israeli military, but a few individuals did this,” again making no specific claim to the harvesting of Haitian organs.

Following the publication of the YNet article, Iran’s PressTV (“Israel harvesting organs in Haiti?” 20 January 2010), The Palestine Telegraph (article since removed), and a number of other sites parroted the claims to varying degrees of accuracy. The PressTV story directly references the YNet article.

Now, claims that never occurred, in a video that would have remained obscure were it not for an Israeli source, have spiraled out of control. Just like last year, when Bostrom’s Aftonbladet piece sparked a campaign within Israel that had the government demanding Sweden condemn the article and ordinary Israelis boycotting IKEA, this is a case of media irresponsibility resulting in real-world repercussions. In this instance, Jenny Tonge, an important ally to Palestinians, has lost credibility and her position, and for what? Careless repetition, at worst.

Of course, each of the media entities that repeated YNet’s claim are partly responsible and should be more cautious in their reporting and fact-checking. But one cannot compare The Palestine Telegraph, a small, independent and fairly new online media source to well-funded media like YNet (which is among Israel’s top 10 websites), nor to CNN, the UK’s Telegraph,The Jerusalem Post, and the AP, all of which have quickly pointed the finger at The Palestinian Telegraph and not YNet as the source of the claims. Responsibility falls squarely on YNet for catapulting the video of an unknown wannabe-pundit into notoriety.

Jillian C. York is a writer and free speech activist who frequently covers Palestinian blogs for Global Voices Online and blogs at jilliancyork.com.

CYNTHIA MCKINNEY FEBRUARY 6, 2010
NATO RALLY SPEECH; MUNICH, GERMANY

Thank you for allowing me to come from the United States and participate in this rally for peace.

My country has been hijacked by a criminal cabal intent on using the hard-earned dollars of the American people for war, occupation, and empire.

As a result, the national leadership of my country, both Democratic and Republican, became complicit in war crimes, torture, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace.

As a Member of Congress from the Democratic Party, I drafted Articles of Impeachment against George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice. Later, when Democrats voted to support more war rather than take care of the needs of the people, I declared my independence from them and all national leadership; the Green Party nominated me to run for President, which I did on a platform of truth, justice, peace, and dignity.

I watched as Candidate Barack Obama came here to Germany to speak. I saw tears on the faces of many in the crowd who believed that, finally, there was something worth believing in again. That America had turned a page from its evil playbook that had so outraged and disappointed the world. That good was finally about to triumph over evil.

I know that beleaguered people all over the world, victims of cruel and deadly military, economic, imperial policies finally could believe in hope and change. And America could be believed in again.

Everywhere I went all over the world there were pictures of Barack Obama, slogans “Yes, We Can,” and the words “Hope” and “Change” plastered everywhere.

And after eight years of George W. Bush, Barack Obama seemed to be the man the world was waiting for.

So when the Candidate became the President, we held our breath in anticipation.

That torture and rendition; spying on innocent, dissenting Americans; war and occupation; crimes against the U.S. Constitution and crimes against the peace would end and that the United States would finally join the community of nations.

Sadly, one year into the Presidency of Barack Obama, that is not the case.

On our front door step we have witnessed U.S. complicity in the overthrow of President Zalaya in Honduras and the hostile takeover of Haiti by 20,000 troops with guns sent in when the devastated people needed food, doctors, and heavy lifting equipment.

President Obama is expanding U.S. troop presence in Colombia, threatening the people’s gains in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

President Obama has drones killing innocent people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia. And Administration lawyers are trying to figure out how to legally kill U.S. citizens. You even have U.S. assassination teams on German soil!

Sadly, President Obama is guilty of every item I cited in my Articles of Impeachment against President Bush.

Both Tony Blair and President Obama justify war in Afghanistan by citing the tragedy of the September 11th attacks in New York and on the Pentagon. But my government has not told the truth about what really happened that day. Just like they lied to start a war against Iraq.

So what are we to do? Let us work together on behalf of truth, justice, peace, and dignity. I will struggle in the U.S. and I will struggle with you:

Not one more dime for war.

We can’t give in and we can’t give up. We must take our countries back.

CYNTHIA MCKINNEY 6 FEB INTERNATIONAL PEACE CONFERENCE SPEECH

The most recent official report on employment states that 85,000 U.S. jobs were lost in the month of December. Everything I have read indicates that things are going to get a lot worse in the United States before they get better.

Already, the United States has slipped to 7^th in the world’s best places to live, behind France, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, and New Zealand. The U.S. place in the world will slip more than that in the future if the brakes are not put on current trends.

The United States is rapidly becoming a country even more divided:

Over 31% of Puerto Ricans live in poverty, making them the poorest ethnic group in the U.S. Meanwhile the war on Latinos continues with police harassment, racial profiling, and deportations of the undocumented–for driving, if you can believe that.

Approximately 166 legal cases winding their way through U.S. courts target Palestinians in the United States who were trying to help Palestine, and they are being prosecuted with new laws that would have been unthinkable a generation ago—like the Secret Evidence Act. My sister, Lynne Stewart, an activist lawyer of conscience, sits in a U.S. prison right now because she dared to represent a Muslim cleric who ran afoul of the U.S. What a message that sends to other lawyers committed to the notion that everyone at least deserves a fair trial.

According to United for a Fair Economy, whose work I adore, Black unemployment is now at 14.7 percent compared to 8.7 % for whites. And in 2007, for every dollar of white wealth, a black family had just one dime.

From the sub-prime banking scam alone, because of mortgage foreclosures, Blacks and Latinos are currently experiencing the greatest loss of wealth in recent U.S. history because 53% of blacks and 47% of Latinos were saddled with sub-prime mortgages, as compared to only 26% of whites. The greedy banking class were in a feeding frenzy, feeding on black and brown hopes to become a part of the American Dream.

According to a recent study, U.S. schools today are more segregated than in the 1950s. In our most diverse state, California, one-half of black and Asian students attend segregated schools, as do one fourth of Latino and Native American students.

And, young black girls are experiencing unwanted sterilizations and other complications because of forced vaccinations with an experimental drug in these schools.

In 1954, the Supreme Court found that segregation inherently meant “unequal.”

Correspondingly, schools in low-income areas are highly unequal with not even the slightest remediation of the root societal causes that strongly affect student performance.

This of course feeds quite nicely into the prison-industrial complex that is a nice money-maker for those with the disposable income to invest in the private prisons of the U.S., or are lucky enough to have a business that contracts with the prisons to employ U.S. inmates for pennies an hour.

Yes, the United States, imprisoning more people than any country on the planet, has become an incarceration nation, but only for certain people. Be suspected of being a Latino driving without a drivers license and you can get stopped and deported for having one tail light bulb that’s out; but Presidents George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama can order the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents all over the planet and they walk around free without the worry of even a citizen’s arrest, let alone a warrant from a real, legal Tribunal.

Incredibly, Whites whose fortunes were sinking in the pile of unkept political promises and debilitating U.S. national debt were proselytized to by special interest media that hatred of the “other” was OK. There was little national outrage when Pat Robertson said that Hugo Chavez should be assassinated and then, more recently, when this man of the cloth opined that Haitians suffered so much because they made a deal with the devil to throw off French slavery.

Incredibly, while a record number of Blacks are seeking emergency food assistance, and people of color are losing not only their homes, but their dreams too, FOX News and CNN propagandize that it is those “others,” those people of color who are responsible for the drowning of White America. And that includes President Obama who, one Southern Baptist preacher prayed to God should die. I wonder, who is his God?

True to fashion, the news that is watched by most people in the United States refuses to tell the people the truth of the conditions facing too many in our country and why.

However, according to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, certain Whites also constitute part of the problem: according to her they are environmentalists and white supremacists. Interestingly, hatred spewing from the likes of special interest television hosts seems OK as long as they buy into the Republican/Democrat political paradigm and stay there.

Napolitano’s enemies of the state, White supremacists and environmentalists, left that conformist paradigm over two generations ago. And I believe that any of us who leave that paradigm, and begin to think for ourselves and then act politically on our own independent, critical analysis can begin to put our country on the road to real independence from the special interests that have overtaken every aspect of our governmental, legal, and political apparatus, and like a parasite, has sapped the life from our body politic.

But leaving the acceptable political order puts us in the crosshairs of those whose position and power come from it.

And because the United States today is a rudderless, leaderless, divided society coming apart at the seams, now is the time more than ever that we need to employ what public schools in this country stopped supplying long ago: critical thinking about where we want to stand as a community of nations and where we in the United States want to stand as a country.

And this brings me to the real winners in the midst of this socio-economic collapse. Most people spend so much time looking at the losers in such a scenario, and we must care about the innocent victims that pay the ultimate price in the grand political power plays of our day. But, we must not neglect taking the time to study who it is that is actually sneaking off with the stolen merchandise.

There are real winners and they are the ones whom George Bush called his base: that is, the haves and the have mores.

President Obama has hastened approximately 23.7 trillion of our hard-earned dollars to them. Therefore, the real purpose of our political activity must be to thwart the wholesale theft of a nation under the guise of “Hope,” “Change,” and “Yes we Can.”

That is the only purpose our political activities must now be geared toward.

It means then, that, those of us who have stepped outside of the “acceptable” political paradigm must be willing to break bread with one another and find common ground on which we can operate. My experience has been that such interactions only enhance future opportunities for positive political interactions.

A careful read of the COINTELPRO papers will reveal that the biggest fear inside the government was that the interests of those who pulled the strings would get totally engulfed and swallowed up by Black people and White people coming together during that time, of the civil rights movement and beyond, and successfully pressing for a full justice agenda that encompassed both domestic AND foreign policies. If they were afraid of that then, I guarantee you they are still afraid of it, now.

Secondly, the leadership of this new movement cannot be the leadership that is responsible for the death of the truth, justice, and peace movements inside the United States.

Going to the same people who caused the problem by abandoning their publicly-stated convictions is not going to get us closer to the truth or peace.

This means that we might have to thin our ranks, but we will at least know that those deep in the trenches with us are not sleeping with the enemy.

Finally, we need a voting bloc that places peace and the budget priorities of peace and people’s needs above any other special interest. This voting bloc will not support any candidate running for office from The War Party. Because it should be crystal clear to everyone who cares about peace that we can’t get from here to where we want to be by doing what those who are responsible for this mess want us to do. We’ve got to do something different in order to take our country back and make our country better.

The fact is that unless we are willing to step outside of the box of political conformity, we will continue to get what we’ve always gotten.

Now, finally for the record, let me say that I left Congress, not because I wanted to, but because the special interests and the War Party wanted me out.

What could I have possibly done to raise their ire?

Well, for the twelve years that I was in Congress, I:

1. Filed articles of impeachment against George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleeza Rice;

2. Voted against every Pentagon appropriation, considering it immoral to spend so much money on war when millions of our children go to bed hungry every night;

3. Defied Congressional Democratic Party leaders, by holding a Congressional Hearing exploring the role of race and class in the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina and introduced legislation to punish law enforcement that prevented the mostly Black citizens fleeing the floodwaters from crossing over from New Orleans into its mostly White suburbs;

4. Wrote legislation to ban the importation of coltan from the Democratic Republic of Congo into the United States because of the horrific human rights abuses committed during its mining;

5. Was the first Member of Congress to ask the Bush Administration of the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States, what did it know and when did it know it; and I

6. Led the Congressional Black Caucus Task Force at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, defying President Bush’s boycott.

Currently, I am an endorser of the Brussels Tribunal that cooperated in the filing of a lawsuit in Spain against all the U.S. Presidents responsible for war crimes in Iraq.

I participate in the Malaysia Peace Organization’s efforts to criminalize war, establish a War Crimes Tribunal, and hold leaders accountable for their wars.

And in December of 2008, I tried to take humanitarian supplies to the people of Gaza after the start of Operation Cast Lead and the Israeli military rammed and destroyed our boat.

In June 2009, I tried to take crayons to the children of Gaza and the Israelis hijacked our boat, kidnapped us, took us to Israel, where I spent seven days in an Israeli prison.

I do with my body what I did with my Congressional office.

I left Washington because the pro-Israel Lobby was able to utilize all of its leverage inside both the Democratic and Republican parties target and oust me. They ousted me because I dared to believe that all human beings, including Palestinians, have human rights.

In 2007, at a peace rally in front of the Pentagon, I did what I am now asking one million U.S. voters to do: I declared my independence from a national leadership that had caused my country to become complicit in war crimes, torture, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace.

I joined the Green Party and in 2008, ran for President of the United States. I traveled the length and breadth of my country and now I travel the world carrying a message of truth, justice, peace, and dignity. I spent approximately 10 of the 12 months in 2009 outside of the country.

But, I’m being told now by my friends and supporters that it’s time to come back home. That the real heavy lifting is inside our country. That if we want life to be better for the people in the refugee camps all over the world, that we’ve got to change the policies coming out of Washington, D.C.

My very first campaign theme was “Warriors Don’t Wear Medals, They Wear Scars.” And I’ve borne my scars in public for all the world to see.

And honestly, sometimes, I wonder if it’s worth it. I take a look at where the world is and I say what could I possibly do to stop this.

And then, I think of the people of Gaza whom I saw after Israel’s Operation Cast Lead. I saw in Gaza, the indomitable spirit of humanity. Despite the pain, the murder, the killing, the destruction–I saw life. I experienced love.

But we don’t have to go to Gaza to gain inspiration to continue to struggle. If we just dare to look into the eyes of the homeless man looking for a warm bed, or the tired face of a mother on her way to work at 6:00 in the morning when it’s still dark, if we would just dare to love the nameless human beings whose lives turn on the policies that powerful politicians choose to support or ignore, I know we can become inspired. And in the process, spark some bit of hope in the desperate and the hopeless.

No one deserves to be hopeless.

So, I’ve come a long way to be with you. And I thank you for the invitation.

When we were organizing our “Emergency Anti-Afghanistan Escalation Rally” in front of the White House, one of my supporters reminded me of my own saying: “We must never give in when we are right.”

Peace is right and we must never give up.

Thank you so much for giving me this time to share with you this evening.

Source: Independent Political Report

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSsOW15-wWY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGD_BAj9_pQ

General Strike Begins In Greece
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOr-5sKnCDg

• Martin Chulov in Baghdad guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 January 2010 17.45 GMT

Pollution caused by the bombing of oil pipelines and the type of munitions used in two wars have led to health problems in Barsa, southern Iraq. Photograph: Dan Chung

More than 40 sites across Iraq are contaminated with high levels or radiation and dioxins, with three decades of war and neglect having left environmental ruin in large parts of the country, an official Iraqi study has found.

Areas in and near Iraq’s largest towns and cities, including Najaf, Basra and ­Falluja, account for around 25% of the contaminated sites, which appear to coincide with communities that have seen increased rates of cancer and birth defects over the past five years. The joint study by the environment, health and science ministries found that scrap metal yards in and around Baghdad and Basra contain high levels of ionising radiation, which is thought to be a legacy of depleted uranium used in munitions during the first Gulf war and since the 2003 invasion.

The environment minister, Narmin Othman, said high levels of dioxins on agricultural lands in southern Iraq, in particular, were increasingly thought to be a key factor in a general decline in the health of people living in the poorest parts of the country.

Toxic zones in Iraq”If we look at Basra, there are some heavily polluted areas there and there are many factors contributing to it,” ­she told the Guardian. “First, it has been a battlefield for two wars, the Gulf war and the Iran-Iraq war, where many kinds of bombs were used. Also, oil pipelines were bombed and most of the contamination settled in and around Basra.

“The soil has ended up in people’s lungs and has been on food that people have eaten. Dioxins have been very high in those areas. All of this has caused systemic problems on a very large scale for both ecology and overall health.”

Government study groups have recently focused on the war-ravaged city of ­Falluja, west of ­Baghdad, where the unstable security situation had kept scientists away ever since fierce fighting between militants and US forces in 2004.

“We have only found one area so far in Falluja,” Othman said. “But there are other areas that we will try to explore soon with international help.”

The Guardian reported in November claims by local doctors of a massive rise in birth defects in the city, particularly neural tube defects, which afflict the spinal cords and brains of newborns. “We are aware of the reports, but we must be cautious in reaching conclusions about causes,” Othman said. “The general health of the city is not good. There is no sewerage system there and there is a lot of stagnant household waste, creating sickness that is directly affecting genetics. We do know, however, that a lot of depleted uranium was used there.

“We have been regulating and monitoring this and we have been urgently trying to assemble a database. We have had co-operation from the United Nations environment programme and have given our reports in Geneva. We have studied 500 sites for chemicals and depleted uranium. Until now we have found 42 places that have been declared as [high risk] both from uranium and toxins.”

Ten of those areas have been classified by Iraq’s nuclear decommissioning body as having high levels of radiation. They include the sites of three former nuclear reactors at the Tuwaitha facility – once the pride of Saddam ­Hussein’s regime on the south-eastern outskirts of Baghdad – as well as former research centres around the capital that were either bombed or dismantled between the two Gulf wars.

The head of the decommissioning body, Adnan Jarjies, said that when inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived to “visit these sites, I tell them that even if we have all the best science in the world to help us, none of them could be considered to be clean before 2020.”

Bushra Ali Ahmed, director of the Radiation Protection Centre in Baghdad, said only 80% of Iraq had so far been surveyed. “We have focused so far on the sites that have been contaminated by the wars,” he said. “We have further plans to swab sites that have been destroyed by war.

“A big problem for us is when say a tank has been destroyed and then moved, we are finding a clear radiation trail. It takes a while to decontaminate these sites.”

Scrap sites remain a prime concern. Wastelands of rusting cars and war damage dot Baghdad and other cities between the capital and Basra, offering unchecked access to both children and scavengers.

Othman said Iraq’s environmental degradation is being intensified by an acute drought and water shortage across the country that has seen a 70% decrease in the volume of water flowing through the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

“We can no longer in good conscience call ourselves the land between the rivers,” she said. “A lot of the water we are getting has first been used by Turkey and Syria for power generation. When it reaches us it is poor quality. That water which is used for agriculture is often contaminated. We are in the midst of an unmatched environmental disaster.”

Source: -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/22/iraq-nuclear-contaminated-sites?CMP=AFCYAH