I'm not jewish, but my step father and his family are - and they are MY family too, so my remarks are not antisemitic. I have watched with horror the ghettoizing of Gaza and Palestine over the years. Lately it has seemed to me to be without a doubt very similar to what the Germans did to jews before and during WWII. I just read "The Zoo Keepers Wife" a non fiction book about a Polish family of zoo keepers who helped hide jews during the war. It goes further than that, it describes both the large and the small mean and petty things Germans did to make the lives of jews in the WArsaw ghetto unbearable. What Israel is doing in Gaza seems very much the same sort of thing. How can Isrealis not see that??? And how can we sit back and keep silent? Have we and they (the Israelis) learned nothing in the past 60 years? It would seem so.

I pray that Obama will understand that this is insanity and move to stop it.

I mean, how alarming this is would depend on whether you read "practical steps" as sinister or not. Hard for me to imagine what they can do "practically" at any level, but this has the potential to widen, certainly:

Grand Ayatollah Sistani's Fatwa on Gaza

Here is a translation of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani's fatwa or legal ruling issued on Sunday concerning the Israeli attacks on Gaza. Arabic text courtesy of Sawt al-Iraq. Sistani is the spiritual leader not only of Iraqi Shiites but of many other Shiites in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Lebanon and India. He is explicit in asking his followers to take practical steps to stop the Israeli attacks. Note that the Neoconservatives argued for putting the Shiites in control of Iraq on the grounds that, as a religious minority themselves, they would be more sympathetic to Israel, and as Shiites would have less empathy with Sunni and Christian Palestinians.

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

The beloved Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip have, since noon yesterday, been subjected to a vicious attack and to continual strikes that have resulted so far in hundreds of victims being martyred or wounded.

This assault comes after a suffocating blockade to which this oppressed people has been subjected for several months. It had resulted in the creation of harsh humanitarian conditions as a result of lack of food, medicine, fuel and other necessities of daily life for the citizens.

Expressions of condemnation and disapproval of what is being done to our Palestinian brethren in Gaza, and solidarity with them, that are limited solely to words and phrases mean nothing before the immensity of this horrific tragedy to which they are being subjected.

The Arab and Muslim worlds are called upon, more than at any past time, to take practical steps in order to stop this continual aggression and to break this cruel blockade that has been imposed on that proud people.

We ask God, the Exalted, the All-Powerful to take the hands of all and lead them to that wherein lies goodness and righteousness. Verily, he is the All-Hearing, the Gracious.

The Office of Sayyid Sistani.

28/12/2008

29 Dhi al-Hijjah 1429

The link for this entry is http://hellotxt.com/l/9bjR - at sig

I can see you talk your talk

Just as you walk your little walk

This I can see.

That is unless,

You're just neo-conning me.

See this is actually not bad. And it's easier to decipher than bop's stuff often is. It's at the end of the day when this blog is slow and i'm not pressed for time. I rarely have time to comment here myself anymore, but I still like to read as many of the comments as I can for the actual P'sOV. I have never really been bothered by scrolling past you and bop when i'm in a hurry. I'ts been far more tedious to have to scroll through some of the ego battles that some here can't seem to avoid. You and bops stuff is easy to spot and zip past, but those others you have to read a ways into before you realize you're wasting your time. Lately though, you guys have been posting so much that it actually has gotten to be a bit of a chore to deal with. When Glenn asked you so specifically today to keep to just one post per page, and even that incredibly reasonable request was ignored, you lost me. Did you think it was an unreasonable request?

Gaza: The Logic of Colonial Power,

by Nir Rosen, Published on Monday, December 29, 2008 by The Guardian/UK (see sig)

As so often, the term 'terrorism' has proved a rhetorical smokescreen under cover of which the strong crush the weak

I have spent most of the Bush administration's tenure reporting from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia and other conflicts.

[…]

Attacking civilians is the last, most desperate and basic method of resistance when confronting overwhelming odds and imminent eradication. The Palestinians do not attack Israeli civilians with the expectation that they will destroy Israel. The land of Palestine is being stolen day after day; the Palestinian people is being eradicated day after day. As a result, they respond in whatever way they can to apply pressure on Israel. Colonial powers use civilians strategically, settling them to claim land and dispossess the native population, be they Indians in North America or Palestinians in what is now Israel and the Occupied Territories. When the native population sees that there is an irreversible dynamic that is taking away their land and identity with the support of an overwhelming power, then they are forced to resort to whatever methods of resistance they can.

I could argue that all Americans are benefiting from their country's exploits without having to pay the price, and that, in today's world, the imperial machine is not merely the military but a military-civilian network. And I could also say that Americans elected the Bush administration twice and elected representatives who did nothing to stop the war, and the American people themselves did nothing. From the perspective of an American, or an Israeli, or other powerful aggressors, if you are strong, everything you do is justifiable, and nothing the weak do is legitimate. It's merely a question of what side you choose: the side of the strong or the side of the weak.

Israel and its allies in the west and in Arab regimes such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have managed to corrupt the PLO leadership, to suborn them with the promise of power at the expense of liberty for their people, creating a first - a liberation movement that collaborated with the occupier. Israeli elections are coming up and, as usual, these elections are accompanied by war to bolster the candidates. You cannot be prime minister of Israel without enough Arab blood on your hands. An Israeli general has threatened to set Gaza back decades, just as they threatened to set Lebanon back decades in 2006. As if strangling Gaza and denying its people fuel, power or food had not set it back decades already.

The democratically elected Hamas government was targeted for destruction from the day it won the elections in 2006. The world told the Palestinians that they cannot have democracy, as if the goal was to radicalise them further and as if that would not have a consequence. Israel claims it is targeting Hamas's military forces. This is not true. It is targeting Palestinian police forces and killing them, including some such as the chief of police, Tawfiq Jaber, who was actually a former Fatah official who stayed on in his post after Hamas took control of Gaza. What will happen to a society with no security forces? What do the Israelis expect to happen when forces more radical than Hamas gain power?

A Zionist Israel is not a viable long-term project and Israeli settlements, land expropriation and separation barriers have long since made a two state solution impossible. There can be only one state in historic Palestine. In coming decades, Israelis will be confronted with two options. Will they peacefully transition towards an equal society, where Palestinians are given the same rights, à la post-apartheid South Africa? Or will they continue to view democracy as a threat? If so, one of the peoples will be forced to leave. Colonialism has only worked when most of the natives have been exterminated. But often, as in occupied Algeria, it is the settlers who flee. Eventually, the Palestinians will not be willing to compromise and seek one state for both people. Does the world want to further radicalise them?

Do not be deceived: the persistence of the Palestine problem is the main motive for every anti-American militant in the Arab world and beyond. But now the Bush administration has added Iraq and Afghanistan as additional grievances. America has lost its influence on the Arab masses, even if it can still apply pressure on Arab regimes. But reformists and elites in the Arab world want nothing to do with America.

A failed American administration departs, the promise of a Palestinian state a lie, as more Palestinians are murdered. A new president comes to power, but the people of the Middle East have too much bitter experience of US administrations to have any hope for change. President-elect Obama, Vice President-elect Biden and incoming secretary of state Hillary Clinton have not demonstrated that their view of the Middle East is at all different from previous administrations. As the world prepares to celebrate a new year, how long before it is once again made to feel the pain of those whose oppression it either ignores or supports?

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/29-7