Lest we forget

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Gaza truce broken as Israeli raid kills six Hamas gunmen
A four-month ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza was in jeopardy today after Israeli troops killed six Hamas gunmen in a raid into the territory.Hamas responded by firing a wave of rockets into southern Israel, although no one was injured. The violence represented the most serious break in a ceasefire agreed in mid-June, yet both sides suggested they wanted to return to atmosphere of calm.

The Myth of Israeli Retaliation

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By Dan Freeman-Maloy
The farce of "Palestinian provocation/Israeli retaliation" presently frames not only mainstream news coverage, but also the official diplomatic statements emanating from the United States, the UK, France, Germany, Australia and Canada. Such historical amnesia cannot possibly be genuine.

Under these circumstances, it is worth recalling some very basic information about Gaza and the timeline of the conflict surrounding it...READ THE REST

Holocaust

By Dr Dahlia Wasfi
..Qassam rockets fired from Gaza as retaliation for Israeli F-16 airstrikes are the equivalent of the Molotov cocktails used by the resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943. Like the small arms of the Polish Jews, they are no match for the sophisticated weaponry of the invading army. This is why the death toll is so high for the people on the ground in Gaza, and minimal for Israelis. The mainstream media is depicting this as an "all-out war," as it depicts the illegal occupation of Iraq. But in both cases, you have a starving, essentially unarmed people being assaulted with F-15s/F-16s, cruise missiles, depleted uranium, cluster bombs, tanks, and artillery. This is not war; this is mass murder; this is genocide. And it is American military, financial, and political support that makes this bloodletting possible....

Unbiased BBC?

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I'm not the only one dismayed by the poor reporting from the BBC of the attack on Gaza. In this piece William Bowles analyses the coverage

William Bowles: No place to run, no place to hide
So much has been written about the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip and by people with a far greater understanding of the reality of it than I, nevertheless I feel impelled to put pen to paper not only about our collective indifference to the wholesale slaughter being carried out in the name of the ‘chosen people’ but to the media’s ‘coverage’ that has been nothing short of scandalous and especially the BBC’s.
Read the whole thing then read his later piece: Agent of a Foreign Power
And just in case we still don’t get it, that it’s those damn Palestinians, the BBC continues:

“At the same time, Hamas is continuing to fire rockets into Israel, including some of its newer longer-range ones based on the old Soviet Grad, also known as the Katyusha. Such a rocket represents a significantly greater threat to Israel and Beersheba was hit (a school, though empty) on Wednesday morning.”

But no mention of the F-16s, Apache helicopter gunships, ‘bunker buster’ bombs, missiles and warships, not even in passing. Yet the BBC feels we need a detailed description of the range of the Palestinian’s home-made weapons and the fact that one actually hit something, an (empty) school.

The Israeli intention is clear and the BBC has delivered the message for them, the Palestinian people are to be slaughtered into submission to the Zionist/Fascist state. Nothing short of complete surrender to the Israeli state’s demands. And it’s our taxes that are funding BIBC (the British/Israeli Broadcasting Corp) as it peddles the Imperial line.

A "hellhouse"

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Private firm may track all email and calls
"The tendency of the state to seek ever more powers of surveillance over its citizens may be driven by protective zeal. But the notion of total security is a paranoid fantasy which would destroy everything that makes living worthwhile. We must avoid surrendering our freedom as autonomous human beings to such an ugly future. We should make judgments that are compatible with our status as free people."

Sir Ken Macdonald, former director of public prosecutions

Why I hate 'intellectuals'

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So Nir and yet so far
An American journal once asked me to contribute an essay to a discussion on whether terrorism or attacks against civilians could ever be justified. My answer was that an American journal should not be asking whether attacks on civilians can ever be justified. This is a question for the weak, for the Native Americans in the past, for the Jews in Nazi Germany, for the Palestinians today, to ask themselves.
Nir Rosen
The war-mongering (or is it ex-war-mongering, now that he's decided to no longer support the Iraq debacle) Marxist who likes to get his head up the arses of his neo-con chums gets worked up because Nir Rosen seems to 'justify' the killing of civilians which, of course we all know is 'terrorism'.

Geras himself would never justify the killing of civilians* even if it meant ridding the world of a nasty dictator, right? Oh, no, that's wrong.  It WAS all justified in Iraq, wasn't it? Until, that is, it looked like the deaths from the 'liberation' were about to dwarf the deaths that the nasty dictator was guilty of. At that point, Geras quietly sneaked off and concentrated on his fucking Mamas and Papas collection or another tedious  circle-jerk blog profile, until we'd all but forgotten that he was ever an enthusiastic supporter of Bush and his blood-thirsty old cronies and their destruction of Iraq

Read Geras and then read Rosen and ask yourself, if there was one space left on the lifeboat which one would you drag to safety?

*Get out of jail free card:  But the point is that the terrorists are intending to target civilians whereas the righteous just kill them by chance as a consequence of raining thousands of tons of ordnance on them. Quite different, don't ya see?

For more Gaza links see Shell Israel