Posts Tagged ‘Blockade
Israel´s Lies, London Review of Books special
WRITTEN BY Henry Siegman
Western governments and most of the Western media have accepted a number of Israeli claims justifying the military assault on Gaza: that Hamas consistently violated the six-month truce that Israel observed and then refused to extend it; that Israel therefore had no choice but to destroy Hamas’s capacity to launch missiles into Israeli towns; that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a global jihadi network; and that Israel has acted not only in its own defence but on behalf of an international struggle by Western democracies against this network.
I am not aware of a single major American newspaper, radio station or TV channel whose coverage of the assault on Gaza questions this version of events. Criticism of Israel’s actions, if any (and there has been none from the Bush administration), has focused instead on whether the IDF’s carnage is proportional to the threat it sought to counter, and whether it is taking adequate measures to prevent civilian casualties.
Name and Shame British Friends of Israel
By Redress Information & Analysis, 19 January 2009
Redress Information & Analysis names and shames members of Israel’s network of stooges in the British Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democratic parties; it calls on its readers to challenge these stooges and to help it expose apologists for Israeli murder by supplying it with verified information about other Friends of Israel.
In the 23 days of the Israeli war on Gaza that began on 27 December 2008, 1300 Palestinians have been killed by the Zionist war machine, including 417 children and 108 women, and a further 5320 have been injured. In the same period, 13 Israelis were killed. That is a ratio of 100:1, excluding the injured.
Rashid Khalidi – What you don´t know about Gaza
Nearly everything you´ve been led to believe about Gaza is wrong. Below are a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation, much of which has taken place in the press, about Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip.
THE GAZANS Most of the people living in Gaza are not there by choice. The majority of the 1.5 million people crammed into the roughly 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip belong to families that came from towns and villages outside Gaza like Ashkelon and Beersheba. They were driven to Gaza by the Israeli Army in 1948.
Dr. Eyad Al Serraj – An Earthquake on top of your head
A wounded girl is carried to hospital after Israel’s attack on Gaza Photograph: Majed Hamdan/AP
Dr Eyad Al Serraj, a practising psychologist in Gaza City, describes his family’s terror as the Israeli attack began
The bombing went on for about 10 minutes. It was like an earthquake on top of your head. The windows were shaking and squeaking. My 10-year-old was terrified, he was jumping from one place to another trying to hide. I held him tight to my chest and tried to give him some security and reassure him. My 12-year-old was panicking and began laughing hysterically, it’s not normal. I held her hand and calmed her and told her she would be safe. My wife was panicking. She was running around the apartment looking for somewhere to hide.
Reham Alhelsi – Real Events of the Year 2008
Events of the Year 2008, What the dpa and their ilk Chose to Ignore
(in the photo, Israelis destroy Palestinian Olive groves, ruining the landscape and the economy)
Last week, while checking the local newspaper, I came across a typical “Main Events of the Year Chronology”. Usually, I usually try to stay away from such listings, because from experience, I know that the only news events connected with Palestine to be mentioned will be portrayed from a Zionist point of view. My eyes went immediately to the source of this list, hoping that it’s a local or non-biased one. But I was much disappointed to see that it was a list prepared by the dpa (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, German News Agency). This “Main Events of the year Chronology” is typical of German, and has a strong western bias (when it comes to the Palestinian/Israeli issue) and is a hypocritical (when it comes to criticism of the violations of human rights around the world) media.
Assad urges EU to help lift Gaza blockade
DAMASCUS – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad held talks with two French envoys on Sunday and urged Paris and the European Union, currently headed by France, to work to lift the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Claude Gueant, secretary-general of the French presidency, and Jean-David Levitte, chief diplomatic advisor to President Nicolas Sarkozy, arrived in Damascus earlier in the day and discussed “Franco-Syrian cooperation and the situation in the Middle East,” said the official Syrian news agency SANA.
Libyan aid ship blocked from Gaza
Israeli boats have obstructed the path of a Libyan cargo ship en route to the Gaza Strip.
The ship was said to be carrying about 3,000 tonnes of goods for residents of the Strip in defiance of an Israeli sea and land blockade of the territory.
Monday’s scheduled docking was the first attempt by a foreign government to break the blockade.
“Navy ships approached the Libyan boat and ordered it on the radio to turn back, and so it did,” Yigal Palmor, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, said.