June 30, 2006
ISRAEL'S APPALLING BOMBING IN GAZA:
STARVING IN THE DARK
By Virginia Tilley
On the excuse of rescuing one kidnapped soldier, Israeli is now bombing
the Gaza Strip and is poised to re-invade. It has also arrested a third
of the Palestinian parliament, wrecking even its fragile illusion of
capacity and reducing the already-empty vessel of the Palestinian
Authority into broken shards.
In the shambles, Palestinians may be observing one bitter pill of
compensation: vicious angling by Fatah to reclaim control of
Palestinian national politics and its rivalry with Hamas are now
rendered obsolete. Even the dogged international community cannot
maintain its dogged pretense that the PA is actually capable of any
governance at all. The demise of the disastrous Oslo model, Israel's
device to ensure its final dismemberment of Palestinian land and its
fatal cooptation of the Palestinian national movement, may finally be
at hand. Perhaps Palestinian unity again has a chance.
But no one knows what will replace the PA. It is therefore not
surprising that this transformed diplomatic landscape is absorbing the
principal attention of an anxious international community.
Nevertheless, politics should not be the greatest international
concern. For over in Gaza, one appalling act must now eclipse all
thoughts of "road maps" or "mutual gestures": on Wednesday, Israeli war
planes repeatedly bombed and utterly demolished Gaza's only power
plant. About 700,000 of Gaza's 1.3 million people now have no
electricity, and word is that power cannot be restored for six months.
It is not the immediate human conditions created by this strike that
are monumental. Those conditions are, of course, bad enough. No lights,
no refrigerators, no fans through the suffocating Gaza summer heat. No
going outside for air, due to ongoing bombing and Israel's impending
military assault. In the hot darkness, massive explosions shake the
cities, close and far, while repeated sonic booms are doubtless
wreaking the havoc they have wrought before: smashing windows, sending
children screaming into the arms of terrified adults, old people
collapsing with heart failure, pregnant women collapsing with
spontaneous abortions. Mass terror, despair, desperate hoarding of food
and water. And no radios, television, cell phones, or laptops (for the
few who have them), and so no way to get news of how long this
nightmare might go on.
But this time, the situation is worse than that. As food in the
refrigerators spoils, the only remaining food is grains. Most people
cook with gas, but with the borders sealed, soon there will be no gas.
When family-kitchen propane tanks run out, there will be no cooking. No
cooked lentils or beans, no humus, no bread the staples Palestinian
foods, the only food for the poor. (And there is no firewood or coal in
dry, overcrowded Gaza.)
And yet, even all this misery is overshadowed by a grimmer fact: no
water. Gaza's public water supply is pumped by electricity. The taps,
too, are dry. No sewage system. And again, word is that the electricity
is out for at least six months.
The Gaza aquifer is already contaminated with sea water and sewage, due
to over-pumping (partly by those now-abandoned Israeli settlements) and
the grossly inadequate sewage system. To be drinkable, well water is
purified through machinery run by electricity. Otherwise, the brackish
water must at least be boiled before it can be consumed, but this
requires electricity or gas. And people will soon have neither.
Drinking unpurified water means sickness, even cholera. If cholera
breaks out, it will spread like wildfire in a population so densely
packed and lacking fuel or water for sanitation. And the hospitals and
clinics aren't functioning, either, because there is no electricity.
Finally, people can't leave. None of the neighboring countries have
resources to absorb a million desperate and impoverished refugees:
logistically and politically, the flood would entirely destabilize
Egypt, for example. But Palestinians in Gaza can't seek sanctuary with
their relatives in the West Bank, either, because they can't get out of
Gaza to get there. They can't even go over the border into Egypt and
around through Jordan, because Israel will no longer allow people with
Gaza identification cards to enter the West Bank. In any case, a cordon
of Palestinian police are blocking people from trying to scramble over
the Egyptian border--and war refugees have tried, through a hole blown
open by militants, clutching packages and children.
In short, over a million civilians are now trapped, hunkered in their
homes listening to Israeli shells, while facing the awful prospect,
within days or weeks, of having to give toxic water to their children
that may consign them to quick but agonizing deaths.
One woman near the Rafah border, taking care of her nephews, spoke to
BBC: "If I am frightened in front of them I think they will die of
fear." If the international community does nothing, her children may
soon die anyway.
The astonishing scale of this humanitarian situation is indeed matched
only by the deafening drizzle of international reaction. "Of course it
is understandable that [the Israelis] would want to go after those who
kidnapped their soldier," says Kofi Anan (while the Palestinian
population cowers in the dark listening to thundering explosions
demolish their society), "but it has to be done in such a way that
civilian populations are not made to suffer." Even as Israel bombs
smash Gaza's roadways, the G-8 stands up on its hind-legs to intone,
"We call on Israel to exercise utmost restraint in the current crisis."
How about the Russians, now angling for position in the new "Great
Game" of the Middle East? "The right and duty of the government of
Israel to defend the lives and security of its citizens are beyond
doubt," says Russia's foreign ministry, as though poor Corporal Shalit
warrants any of this mayhem, "But this should not be done at the cost
of many lives and the lives of many Palestinian civilians, by massive
military strikes with heavy consequences for the civilian population."
And what says noble Europe, proud font of human rights conventions,
architects of the misión civilizatrice? "The EU remains deeply
concerned," mumbles the mighty defenders of humanitarian law, "about
the worsening security and humanitarian developments." Seemingly soggy
phrases like "deeply concerned" are diplomatic code for "We are
seriously unhappy." But under these circumstances, "remains deeply
concerned" suggests that this staggering crime is just one more
sobering moment in the failed "road map."
Diplomatic bubbles of unreality in the Middle East are the norm rather
than the exception, but at some point the international community must
face the very unwelcome fact that it needs to change gear. A country
that claims kinship among the western democracies of Europe is behaving
like a murderous rogue regime, using any excuse to reduce over a
million people to utter human misery and even mass death. Plastering
Corporal Shalit's face over this policy is no more convincing that
South African newspapers emblazoning the picture of one poor murdered
white doctor over their coverage of the 1976 Soweto uprising.
Israel has done many things argued to be war crimes: mass house
demolitions, closing whole cities for weeks, indefinite "preventative"
detentions, massive land confiscation, the razing of thousands of
square miles of Palestinian olive groves and agriculture, systematic
physical and mental torture of prisoners, extrajudicial killings,
aerial bombardment of civilian areas, collective punishment of every
description in defiance of the Geneva Conventions--not to mention the
general humiliation and ruin of the indigenous people under its
military control. But destroying the only power source for a trapped
and defenseless civilian population is an unprecedented step toward
barbarity. It reeks, ironically, of the Warsaw Ghetto. As we flutter
our hands about tectonic political change, we must take pause: in the
eyes of history, what is happening in Gaza may come to eclipse them
all.
Dr. Virginia Tilley is a professor of political science, currently
working in South Africa. She can be reached at ***@hws.edu.
Courtesy Cross-post by Hal Womack 3-dan
===================================================
Post by Hal Womack 3-danhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2251217,00.html
Times Online June 30, 2006
US TROOPS 'RAPED MOTHER AND KILLED FAMILY IN IRAQ'
By Times Online and agencies
The American army in Iraq suffered a fresh blow to its image today as
it emerged that five soldiers were being investigated for allegedly
raping a woman and then murdering her and three members of her family.
The soldiers are accused of burning their alleged victim's body,
according to sources quoted by the AP news agency.
Major General James Thurman, commander of coalition troops in Baghdad,
has ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged killing of the
family of four in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, in March.
"The entire investigation will encompass everything that could have
happened that evening. We're not releasing any specifics of an
ongoing investigation," said military spokesman Major Todd Breasseale.
"There is no indication what led soldiers to this home. The
investigation just cracked open. We're just beginning to dig into the
details."
A US official close to the investigation said that at least one of the
soldiers, all assigned to the 502nd Infantry Regiment, has admitted his
role in the attack and been arrested.
It is believed that one of the soldiers has already been discharged and
returned to the United States. The others have had their weapons taken
away and are confined to Forward Operating Base Mahmoudiyah south of
Baghdad.
Two soldiers from the same regiment were killed this month when they
were kidnapped at a checkpoint near Youssifiyah.
The official said the killings appear to be unrelated to the
kidnappings. He said those involved were all below the rank of
sergeant.
He said senior officers were aware of the family's death but believed
it was due to sectarian violence, common in the religiously mixed town.
The killings appeared to have been a "crime of opportunity," the
official said. The soldiers had not been attacked by insurgents but had
noticed the woman on previous patrols.
Meanwhile, the US Army has reported the deaths of four personnel in the
past 24 hours.
A Marine was killed in fighting in the Anbar provice, west of Baghdad
today, and three American soldiers died in combat yesterday. One was
shot in Mosul, a second killed by a roadside bomb near Balad, 50 miles
north of Baghdad, and the third killed by a bomb on foot patrol south
of the capital.
The deaths raised to at least 2,533 members of the US military who have
died since the Iraq war started in March 2003.
========================================
Post by Hal Womack 3-dan5th of JULY
Bring the Troops Home Fast - House Warming Party for Senator Dianne
Feinstein Wed, Jul 5, 2006 5:15 pm Lyon & Vallejo Streets
San Francisco
Join CODEPINK in a house warming party for Senator Diane Feinstein.
Senator Diane Feinstein recently voted against John Kerry's amendment
calling for the troops to come home. Let's make sure she doesn't
disappoint her constituents again. Gather with us, as we encourage her
to co-sponsor the Harkin Bill (S. CON. RES 93) - no permanent military
presence or military bases in Iraq; no attempt to control the flow of
Iraqi oil; and Armed Forces should be redeployed from Iraq as soon as
practicable after the completion of Iraq's constitution-making process
or December 31, 2006.
5:15pm - Vigil
6:30pm - Last Hurrah! Party's Over!
7:00pm - Press Conference & Rally
Camp DiFi - 24 hour hunger strike
(Bring your sleeping bags & tents)
July 6th - 12th, 2006
8am-8pm - Rolling Fast
Senator Diane Feinstein's Office
July 12, 2006
Culmination Ceremony
Time TBA
CODEPINK Women for Peace
www.troopshomefast.org
==========================================
Courtesy Cross-post by Hal Womack 3-dan
Along with Barbara Boxer, Tom Lantos, Nancy Pelosi, the Bushes, the
Clintons & other leading members of the Jew Gang -- Dianne Feinstein
belongs in prison for conspiracy to wage an aggressive war in which her
Kabal in the last decade and a half have murdered an expertly estimated
2,000,000 [two million] civilians in Iraq alone, plus thousands more in
Afghanistan, Palestine, Colombia and about a hundred in Texas.
Inspired by Medea Benjamin's politically fashionable creation, will we
guys ever get around to forming "Deep Blue: Men Volunteers For the Sex
War"?
For normal ( aka "straight" & "gentile" ) law*-enforcers only as voting
members. (* That kozmic L. which serves justice only.) Honoring the
rainbow revolutionary tradition of Tom Paine, Abraham Lincoln, Karl
Marx, John Brown, W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, Diego Rivera, Mao
Zedong, Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh and Timothy Leary? (To name only 11
heroes.)