The good news for Israel is that the FAA and their European counterparts lifted the ban on air travel to Tel Aviv. The bad news is that there has been no cessation of rocket fire.
Brazil and Ecuador have recalled their ambassadors from Israel, condemning disproportionate violence in the Gaza Strip. The Foreign Press Association has lodged a complaint against Israeli intimidation of reporters. I guess the BBC doesn’t like it’s correspondents to be attacked and called “son of a whore.”
Meanwhile, according to Palestinian sources, Israel managed to blow up a school, killing 15 and wounding another hundred people. No doubt, they will justify this by saying that U.N.-run schools are really just arms depots.
Of course, things could be worse. Israel could actually listen to people like Middle East scholar Dr. Mordechai Kedar of Bar-Ilan University.
718 Palestinians dead in Israeli Occupied Territory
32 Israeli Soldiers Dead In Gaza
The United Nations yesterday opened international inquiry into human rights violations and crimes that may have been committed by Israel during its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
“Israel ambassador Eviator Manor, in remarks before the UN vote, told the forum: “Why does this Council believe that naming and shaming Israel will get it anywhere?”
“Throughout the entire escalation of events, Israel has always acted with maximum restraint, fully committed to international law in general and the laws of armed conflict.”
http://www.dawn.com/news/1121098/un-rights-council-launches-probe-into-israeli-violations-in-gaza?ut
m_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dawn-news+%28Dawn+News%29
Too bad American history can’t provide an alternative model.
Since the wall, since Likud and the hardliners, Israel has every year, every month, criminally occupied more stolen land, chopped down more Palestinian olive, lemon, and orange trees, built higher and higher walls, put up more and more and more checkpoints, and basically removed the human dignity from all of those who are not Jews within Israel.
It is not working. An apartheit state is not long-term viable. And this current catastrophe is nothing more than another clear indication of failure.
Yes, it’s that simple. And Obama, Schumer, the twin Clintons, Kerry, to name a few, refuse to address these facts. They refuse to say publically what is supposed to happen to the Palestinians. They refuse to admit their complicity in all this. They refuse to be honest. It’s that simple: it comes down to honesty. And real estate, I suppose, and money, power, possesions, lives… Simon Peres just told us that Israel is an exemplary state. You just got to guffaw. I want my property back!
There is a cartoon video:
http://mic.com/articles/93554/one-animated-video-perfectly-explains-the-complicated-history-of-israe
l-and-palestine
In the video, it basically recounts the history of middle east from paleolithic to modern times, as one group after another indicates that the land now occupied by Israel is theirs because god gave it to them. Either god is confused, changes her mind frequently, or is constantly misunderstood by people with a vested interest in misunderstanding.
Simple, yes . However America still has our First Nation reservations too.
Power structures remain invested in people management- obvious and subtle.
What a ridiculous and simple-minded comparison. Honestly, it’s pathetic to even say. If there is someone on a reservation, they can leave any time. And many do. This is not the case in Israel.
Try to avoid preposterous and erroneous comparisons.
One other comment – in Sioux City, IA, there is Ho Chunk Center. This is a huge office building purchased by the Ho-Chunk Nation, which runs casinos in WI (and maybe elsewhere). A lot of tribal entities have learned to do very well in our country. A lot have not.
Dataguy
Think history… No, it was really not always possible to leave reservations. You should understand that successful “assimilation” into a different culture is defined by the oppressive culture.
In 1830 an American Congress authorized an American President, Andrew Jackson, to remove five First Nations from their homeland to federal lands west of the Mississippi.
As he announced the Removal Act the irony informs us now.
“…And is it supposed that the wandering savage has a stronger attachment to his home than the settled, civilized Christian? Is it more afflicting to him to leave the graves of his fathers than it is to our brothers and children?”
Preposterous comparison? Only if you won’t think. Remember as in Israel today, there were many American citizens who opposed the Indian Removal Act.
That’s simply ridiculous. I work with a lot of indians, and they all left the reservation but go back frequently. My group works with a lot of folks in the Dakota/Lakota/Nakota nations, and they live on the reservations, but huge numbers do not.
So, no, I don’t agree.
First, you are speaking in the present…decades, decades, decades and decades after the US established new “territories” for the northern and southern First Nations to “occupy”.
Second, hey, I want the land your house is on – move. But I’ll tell you where.
I live in the present. You apparently do not. Those who live in the past frequently find the present confusing. That’s because things that are true today may or may not have been true in the past.
And, hey, I will be happy to give you my house, in exchange for something of equal value, like money. Make me an offer…
The People in Gaza are living in the present that is similar to the period of Native American disinheritance. But the Palestinians are in the present living an unfree life and too many are dying. Do they have decades and decades of a future to bring them to happy reservation life?
Or do you think they should fast forward to build a casino?
I could name some other peoples who have been disinherited, I bet you work with some of them too. But, hey, that’s history.
As to you last retort: your answer is revealing.
I did not offer to buy. I said take your land… and where you had go.
Israel’s long-term strategy of committing genocide just slowly enough to not upset its R̶o̶m̶a̶n̶ US patrician state continues.
yes
It is apparently unclear whether the explosions at the school were caused by an Israeli strike or by “errant Palestinian munitions”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/world/middleeast/despite-talk-of-a-cease-fire-no-lull-in-gaza-figh
ting.html?&target=comments&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LedeSumLargeM
edia&modref=HPCommentsRefer&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=lede-package&WT.nav=
lede-package#commentsContainer
It’d be strange for a Hamas bottle rocket to hit a UN compound when Israel tends to hit UN compounds, especially when large numbers of civilians are in them.
But I guess stranger things have happened.
BREAKING NEWS: UN staff killed in attack on UN-run school in Gaza: Ban Ki-moon
Both nations are morally bankrupt. The U.S. has their school of the Americas with training in death squads and torture. This has been known especially after the investigation and report by the Church Commission.
After 9/11 devastation Ariel Sharon and George Bush joined forces to pronounce an all-out War On Terror (WOT)TM. This was not just on the enemy that attacked New York, Pennsylvania and Washington but included Fatah, Hamas and Hezbollah. The neocons created their war of civilizations and we stood by and let it happen. See all the Islamophobes funded and supported by the terror state Israel and its minions.
I wasn’t surprised that the U.N. school with civilians was targeted. This happens in every battle Israel engages with its neighbors, so it’s planned and not by accident. It’s part of political and military strategy.
[Read on in my new diary …]
From Gideon Levy’s new article, ‘Images from Gaza should trouble every Israeli’ (but don’t)
○ Israelis Celebrating on Graves of 92 Victims of Terror [July 1946]
○ Lavon Affair: One of Israel’s more famous False Flags [1954]
○ Lavon Affair: How a false-flag operation led to war and the Israeli bomb
○ Ariel Sharon, Phalange militia and the massacre at Sabra and Shatila refugee camp, South Lebanon [Sept. 1982]
○ Qana Massacre: IDF fired artillery shells at a United Nations compound where 800 Lebanese had sought refuge [April 1996]
○ What the Winograd Report Doesn’t Say [July 2006]
○ Famous Author Excoriates Israel translation by Sirocco
○ Israeli air strike at the Lebanese village of Qana killed 28 civilians [July 2006]
○ Operation Cast Lead – Rules of Engagement, A Legal Justification [Dec./Jan 2009]
Kahan inquiry into IDF role Ariel Sharon and Raful Eitan in Sabra + Shatila killings