Showing posts with label apartheid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apartheid. Show all posts

September 14, 2014

Rare - Mandela on Palestine [YouTube - 12mins]







Rare Video [1990]: Mandela Speaking on Palestine; live-audience Town Hall in New York, with Ted Koppel 


     
 A little support goes a long way at The McLoughlin Post




September 01, 2014

Caller - does #Israel not have right to defend itself - Mike Malloy explodes [6mins]



The Mike Malloy Show - YouTube
August 12, 2014

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A little love to The McLoughlin Post

         

The latest book by Owen Jones:
'The Establishment: And how they get away with it'; [2014]

August 31, 2014

#Israel - WaPo whitewashes plan to steal 1000 acres of #Palestinian land - August 31 2014

by Diane V. McLoughlin

Comment posted at 8:43 PM, August 31st, 2014.

One has to wonder, exactly when will the WaPo editorial board quit giving solace to Israel's criminal regime and start telling it like it is? The title of this piece, 'Israel proposes taking more West Bank land for Jewish settlers' [William Booth and Ruth Eglash; Washington Post; August 31, 2014] soft-peddles the horror.

A more accurate title and lead would read something like this:

'In a stunning act of betrayal within mere days of a ceasefire agreement, in a move reminiscent of Fascism's darkest days, Israel's hard-right leadership proposes stealing a whopping 1,000 acres of Palestinian land to further displace the native population. The long-term aim is clearly meant to replace the indigenous Palestinian people with Jewish European squatters.  This will only further cement the current apartheid system, frustrating the efforts of moderates on both sides working for human rights, security and peace'.
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Reading Room:

The Establishment
And how they get away with it
New: September 4 2014
By Owen Jones

'A biting critique of the British Establishment and a passionate plea for democracy from the author of the acclaimed "Chavs". Jones is a prominent political voice in the UK as a weekly columnist for the "Guardian" and having appeared on "Question Time" and "Newsnight".'


 



August 21, 2014

Response to Fatalist Gerald Caplan on Peace in #Israel - #Palestine - 21082014

by Diane McLoughlin, August 21, 2014

The best aspect of Gerry Caplan's analysis of the Israel-Palestine conflict is his frank acknowledgement of the oppression and ethnic cleansing that Israel continues to perpetrate against the suffering Palestinian people. It is vitally important to share here that Israel's latest assault on Gaza is an act of genocide - not self-defense!

The worst aspect of Gerry Caplan's analysis is his sorrowful shrug that the situation in Israel-Palestine is intractable and that nothing can be done about it. While it may be a tough nut to crack, wherever there is oppression and injustice we should not back away from our moral and ethical duty to denounce it while encouraging healing and repair of relations between parties. It is a gentle irony that Mr. Caplan himself does not shy away from the ethical duty to speak, and it seems obvious that he cares.

So there is what-is on the one hand, while what-should-be stands separate and apart on the other. There is in an immense space in-between that is open to creative and determined and intelligent and dedicated and good people who set themselves to the challenge of changing the parameters of conflict. Such effort is not futile in the furtherance of justice, peace and global stability, even though you will almost certainly not know how your efforts assisted in tipping the scales.

Some of the ways to apply nonviolent pressure to help bring about peaceful change:

Boycott


As with South African Apartheid, ways to encourage Israeli political direction to change include boycotting Israeli goods, divesting from one's investment portfolios of Israeli companies, and to demand ones' own countries sever political ties with Israel - Boycott, Divest, Sanctions - BDS for short.

Examples:

BDSmovement.net - lots of resources at this website.

- The 'Long live Palestine boycott Israel' buycott app' was begun in April. Once Israel launched its latest military assault on Gaza beginning in July, the numbers of new buycott users exploded. [over 390,000 users and counting.]

  The buycott campaign organizers explain that the boycott,

'will continue until Israel complies with the precepts of international law by

    1. Ending its occupation of Palestine and dismantling the Wall.


    2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel          to full equality.

   3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to               return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.'


Cut military and intelligence ties


Let it be known to your government that you believe it would be the right thing to do to cut all military cooperative ties with Israel - no more donations of bullets, bombs, software or intelligence.

Ban public and private donations that further injustice


Render it illegal for private individuals to donate funds to Israeli institutions that further the aims of stealing Palestinian land.

Ban private business from profiting from oppression


Render it illegal for any company to collude with Israel to extract Palestinian-owned natural resources. In the mix is the recent discovery  that Gaza owns a vast wealth of natural gas off-shore.

Ban citizens from enlisting in foreign militaries which enforce oppression


Render it illegal for citizens to serve in Israel's military.

Ban politicians from accepting gifts including trips


Render it illegal, if it isn't already, for politicians to accept Israel-funded trips. By all means, politicians ought to travel to Israel to witness what's going on. But only if the investigation includes fact-finding in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza, meeting with Palestinian authorities, as well.

Conclusion


Mr. Caplan's argument is an important one, in that he may have helped to finally open political debate in Canada on Israel that for too long has been censored and suppressed.

Reponse to, 'No matter what leaders do, there won't be peace in the Middle East'; Gerald Caplan, African scholar, former NDP national director and regular panelist on CBC’s Power and Politics; The Globe and Mail; August 15, 2014.

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August 05, 2014

The Coin of #Israel - by Diane V. McLoughlin - August 3 2014

by Diane V. McLoughlin, August 3, 2014



Journalist Sima Kadmon, of ynetnews.com, approvingly reports of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to pull back the military operation in Gaza. [''Netanyahu's Brave Decision'; August 3, 2014]


Operation Protective Edge, is Israel's third bombing campaign of Gaza in the short space of five years. The others are Operation Cast Lead [2008]; and Operation Pillar of Cloud [2012].  


Gaza is a small, long, narrow strip of land that is walled in on three sides: The Mediterranean Sea, guarded by the Israeli navy; it borders Egypt on one short end; and Israel's high cement walls, armed guard towers and coil upon coil of barbed wire close off the rest - an impoverished, oppressed, walled ghetto. 


The 1.8 million men, women and children living in Gaza, are refugees from Israel who were forced from their homeland from places like Sderot, Israel, in 1948. The refugees in many instances retain the keys to the doors of their rightful homes.  And they have a right, morally as well as in law, to go home. Because they are of the 'wrong' ethnicity, Israel is doing everything in its power to prevent their return.  


During 'Operation Cast Lead', Israel and Hamas each accused the other of committing war crimes. Findings were detailed in the United Nations' document the, Goldstone Report, produced after six independent, esteemed judges were tasked with conducting a fact-finding mission to investigate - including, note allegations typically made by Israel of Hamas, that the Israeli military had used Palestinians as human shields.  Of Israel's well-oiled propaganda machine, volumes will no doubt be written.


Recall, too, that one of the six jurists, Richard Goldstone, felt the need to try to backpedal somewhat in his own opinion regarding who did what to whom in a Washington Post Op Ed, after the local South African Jewish community caused him to fear for the safety and well-being of his family.


 Netanyahu is willing, according to Ms. Kadmon, to accept going back to what Israeli politicians like to call, 'quiet for quiet'; Israel maintaining the siege of Gaza, the people of Gaza refraining from resisting the siege or any other funny business like tunneling in Kentucky Fried Chicken or trying to export flowers or other farm produce to foreign markets, or get university-bound scholarship students off to school. 


It is apropos to point out here that Palestinian political leaders are, as I write, in Cairo, Egypt, availing all parties of the opportunity to hammer out terms for a ceasefire along with the broad outlines of a peace agreement. Israel refused to attend.  


It is an instructive exercise comparing what it is that Israel chooses to do, what Israel chooses not to do, and Israel's expressions of intent. 


The hasbara (Israeli for propaganda) 'quiet for quiet' is genius in the psychology of deflecting concern.


It is not 'quiet' for the people of Gaza to be forced to continue under the crushing eight-year military blockade which has destroyed the local economy and has been compared as being worse than the Great Depression for the abject poverty and want. 


It is a farce to propose that Israel will construct for itself a secure quiet by continuing to oppress the Palestinians in Gaza; the occupied West Bank; East Jerusalem; Israel; or the Palestinian refugees scattered in other countries denied the right to come home - we can dispense with that canard. 


Pro-Israel people - and I have no doubt that they have big hearts and they are convinced that Israel is the underdog and that they are fighting Nazis, and that they are defending vulnerable Jewish lives - argue that Hamas is bent on Israel's destruction. 


But the truth of the matter is that Hamas was voted to power as a reaction to discrimination, racism, and violence directed toward the Palestinian people for 65 years. 


Palestinian leadership in the occupied West Bank have achieved nothing in their peaceful negotiations with Israel other than relentless efforts by settlers to take their land and drive them out.


Muslims do not hate Jews. Jews and Muslims have been neighbors living peacefully side by side with each other in Palestine for millennia before the events of 1948 when Zionist terrorists forced 750,000 Palestinians to run for their lives.  


The Likud is the current political party in power in Israel. The Likud Charter explicitly claims ownership of all Palestinian land.  Any discussion of who is responsible for what without forthright acknowledgement of this fly in the soup is not contributing to an honest discussion that might lead to constructive proposals. It will ultimately lead to a thin broth of no substance as far as any hope for peace is concerned.


Israel has, in this latest ethnic cleansing exercise in Gaza, bombed thousands of family homes; bombed six United Nations-run children's schools where newly homeless families were sheltered who were ordered to shelter in the UN schools by Israel after Israel bombed their homes. 


Israel has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians depopulating a vast swath of Gaza estimated in geographic area to be approximately 44% of the entire Gaza Strip. In short, Israel has been forcing families out in the elements while destroying absolutely everything


As of this writing, almost two million people have no drinking water due to Israel's deliberate targeting of the civilian infrastructure - a war crime. If humanitarian efforts are not able to respond with all haste, the scenario will elevate to status of crime against humanity. 


In times of conflict, governments are not always forthcoming with the full truth. Israel is no exception.    


That Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldier Hadar Goldin was ever kidnapped?  This particular fiction was used to provide diplomatic cover when breaking the first ceasefire agreement within just a few short hours of its implementation. 


While having freshly riled the citizenry over the missing soldier, Israel then continued massacreing people in Gaza. Hadar Goldin, via uncensored reports in the West, was more likely killed by his own under something called the Hannibal Directive, to prevent his capture by the enemy. 


*The New York Times has disclosed that they complied with an IDF military censor directive to get clearance on their reporting of the Goldin incident.


Israel admitted, only after bombing another hospital, more family homes, snipers picking-off civilians ordered to move, an emergency appeal sent out that the medical authorities were overrun and bodies littered the streets - that Hadar Goldin was not kidnapped, after all. 


It should be noted that soldiers are taken prisoner, they are not kidnapped, in conflict. This, too, is meant to mislead and arouse sympathy, inflame public opinion and suppress questions. 


Goldin, a British citizen, was a willing party to waging war on a captive civilian population, shooting at people who are entitled under international law to shoot back in self-defense.


*A direct quote from the New York Times:


'International journalists must agree in writing to the censorship system in order to work in Israel.'


Israel's violence against Gaza is wanton. It is a country at imminent risk of degenerating into a racist, moral morass. [1]


Rising to the top politically, are those who, like Israeli Knesset Deputy Speaker Moshe Feiglin, openly avow genocide of the Palestinian people because they want more land for Jews.


In the streets below, armed Jewish gangs roam the streets at night seeking Arab-Israeli citizens to beat to a pulp. A slightly-built sixteen year-old, named, Mohammad abu Khdeir, was recently kidnapped, beaten with a tire iron, had gasoline forced down his throat and they burned him alive. 


Supporters of this most recent atrocity in Gaza, with whole Palestinian neighborhoods being bombed out of existance, argue that Hamas kidnapped three Jewish teens and murdered them in the West Bank. First, they believe, wrongly, that this would ever justify such a massively violent response which is nonsense.  Second, with speed of light acceptance that everything Israel tells them is Gospel Truth, that Hamas had anything to do with it. After Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, the quiet admission that, no, it appears it was not Hamas, passes by largely unnoticed.


A month before the three Jewish teens' murders, two Palestinian youths were shot and murdered by the IDF in cold blood [2], reported by CNN at the time. [2a] But you, and certainly Israeli citizens, most likely did not hear about that, either.


In the search for the three missing Jewish teens, Israel's occupying army tore the Palestinian West Bank apart. Blowing in doors of family homes in the middle of the night with explosives, destroying the furniture, stealing family possessions, scaring people, roughing up people, arresting hundreds without charge including many in Palestinian political leadership; wounding some; killing others. 


It is in the vicinity of this juncture in the unfolding of events that the Hamas rockets from Gaza, rockets described as primitive and small began to sail over, after an extended period of calm in which, calm or no calm - there has been no difference in behavior from Israel - the constant is the crushing military blockade.


Evidence for the extent to which Israeli passions are inflamed - by the ruling right-wing, and in some cases by religious extremists - we might need look no further than at a clip of joyous young people who sing, on the top of their lungs as raucous youths might at a football championship, that there is no school in Gaza tomorrow, because there are no children left. 


There are many other examples from which to choose, however, for the black mood and amorality of the current time, none of which bears little resemblance to anything to do with self-defense. Israel is a run-away train with conductors soused on dogma, and conceit, spouting KKK-type crap about cleansing the land of inferiors for Jews. [3] 


On background, Israel deliberately transplanted 600,000 Zionist Jews on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank, in a deliberate effort to create demographic facts on the ground.  Stealing Palestinian land has dramatically escalated in recent years.  


Russian Jew Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's minister of Foreign Affairs, himself a squatter on Palestinian land, continues to espouse a 'population transfer'. [4]


Prime Minister Netahyahu was caught, surreptitiously, on-camera [2001] talking to settlers, wherein he boasts that he single-handedly scuttled the last formal round of peace talks, at Oslo.  


An inclusive society constructed on a foundation of justice, equality and civil rights is the way forward toward security and peace.  The Jews who suffered so, under Nazi Germany's version of hell on earth would have fought for such a golden reality; for such a clear morally true vision of sanity. 


Netanyahu's camp - pushing for quiet occupation, apartheid, racism, ethnic cleansing and even genocide - might win; maybe they will win. But it will be a sorry day for progress, human rights and world peace if the Israel coin lands on its head.


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Statistics regarding destruction in Gaza from July 8, 2014 to August 3, 2014:  1,743 Palestinians killed [396 children; 230 women]; 9,100 injured [2,767 children; 1,814 women]; 10,080 houses targeted [1,556 totally destroyed; 8,424 partially]; 24 hospitals and medical clinics partially damaged; 167 schools targeted; 6 universities destroyed; 20 charities destroyed; 118 mosques shelled; total number of internally displaced [rendered homeless]: 450,000; 8 water pumping and sewage stations bombed - 700,000 people now without water. For a complete list, see, HERE and HERE


Statistics regarding Israel: 64 soldiers killed, 2 civilians and 1 non-citizen from Thailand killed; 1 serious, 21 moderately to lightly injured; one gas station hit; moderate damage to a few homes.

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Reading Room


[1] How Europe's Jews Lost Their Humanity in Gaza; Gilad Isaacs; August 1, 2014, +972 Magazine; [2] Letter from Ramallah; Ben Ehrenreich, The Los Angeles Review of Books, May 23, 2014;


[2a] Source: Israel suspends soldier after 2 Palestinians die in shooting; by Ivan Watson, Michael Schwartz and Kareem Khadder; CNN; May 29, 2014;



[3] Terrifying Tweets of pre-army Israeli teens (with images, tweets) by @davidsheen; July 10, 2014; 'Some of these calls for genocide were from young men, but a majority of them seemed to be authored by young women.'


[4] Plan to transfer Arab-Israelis to new Palestinian state seeks legal approval; Peter Beaumont; The Guardian; March 25, 2014;

July 27, 2014

How It Started - #OperationProtectiveEdge #Hamas #GazaUnderAttack #Israel - July 26 2014

Posted by Diane V. McLoughlin

An account from a young Palestinian man encapsulating the recent history of Israel - Palestine; how 'Operation Protective Edge' - Israel's most recent military assault on Gaza - began; and his experience of life under Israel's military occupation - as discovered in readers' comments on the Facebook page for Haaretz, a major news publication in Israel, on July 26, 2014:







                           Destruction in Gaza July 26, 2014 (Haaretz.com)



Bashar Ahmaro:



Hamas isn't and has never been the problem.  It's the consecutive Israeli 
governments, you wished for a more peaceful Palestinian government and
assumed things would be a lot better if it existed, the problem is that there 
is one!!! 

Hamas doesn't control all the Palestinian territories, 
Hamas only controls the Gaza strip, while the other main and bigger territory for
us is the West Bank, 
and its under the Palestinian Authority that is controlled predominantly by the 
Fatah faction. 

The government there has been so eager for a peaceful solution
 for the Palestinian people as the building of new
 illegal settlements on our lands and the
 killing of our people continued. Our President, Mahmoud Abbas, has expressed
thousands of times that he doesn't want to take the violence route, and he said
 that he prefers negotiations for a lasting and just peace. 

For 20 years he, and
 his Fatah faction have been negotiating for a Palestinian state that is only 22% of 
the old historical Palestine before Jewish people from around the world migrated 
and lived in these lands in the 40's; the Palestinian state would be established on 
the West Bank and Gaza.  

But what did Israel do since the Oslo Accords in 1993
 that preluded and made a foundation for peace between the two nations, which
 contained a mutual recognition between the PLO and Israel? 

There were only 
100,000 settlers living illegally in settlements in the West Bank; 20 years later the
 number has reach 600,000 new settlers through constant building of new illegal
 settlements. 

Israel didn't stop at that, it built a wall that runs through the middle
 of our Palestinian towns and villages which made it even seen from most houses
 in our towns like what I used to see from my school windows everyday, making
 me feel like am living in a prison while I was growing up, annexing another 10%
 of our lands in the West Bank, separating friends and families from each other
 and making our daily life - education; business; transportation - a
 nightmare. 

Israel kept killing Palestinian children on a rate of 1 Palestinian every
 3 days for 13 years, the last sequence of deaths happened in the previous 2 
months:

-In 15/5/2014, 2 Palestinian teenagers were killed by the Israeli army: Nadeem
 Nowara, 15 years old, and Mohammed abu Thaher, 16, in the West Bank -
 A MONTH  BEFORE THE THREE SETTLERS WENT MISSING 
[link: http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.598304. ].
This incident was
 even captured by the CNN reporters on the minute an Israeli soldier shot his rifle
 in the heart of one of the teenagers, this is the link for the CNN report if you
 would like to take a look at it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-
o29CJRZEf4... ;

-Plus the 5 killed in the manhunt for the three Israeli settlers - a 13 y/o child and
 a handicap among them [http://www.theguardian.com/.../palestinians-shot-
dead... ];

-Then Mohammed abu Khdeir that was burned alive by Israelis after the fate of 
the three settlers was revealed!  [http://www.theguardian.com/.../reported-
confessions... ]

Israelis had already killed 8 Palestinians before (which means Israel started)
 and after the death of the three settlers, and notice that all these killings took
 place in the WEST BANK where there is no Hamas and no rockets being fired at
 Israel nor any violent movements like Gaza!!


All this leads you to a conclusion that Israel is a brutal occupation, and has been
 making our lives miserable, through killing, torturing, and arresting our children,
 and illegal settlements and walls, ((((whether there is Hamas or not!))) Israel
 had the opportunity to make a long-lasting peace through 20 years but never 
chose to, it chose occupation and land grabbing!

After 60 years of occupation violence met violence, Hamas gained strength and
 decided to retaliate! It retaliated after the death of our two teens in Ramallah,
 Nadeem Nowara 15 , and Mohammed abu Thaher 16, a month before the three
 Israeli teens went missing ... that's how everything escalated, and that's why 
Hamas is firing "primitive homemade" rockets into Israel ...