Food in #Gaza - The reality of slow starvation - August 26 2014

August 26, 2014 - by Diane V. McLoughlin

Mainstream media outlets are reporting that all parties to the current assault on Gaza have agreed today to ceasefire proposals brought forward by Egypt.  The blockade will be eased at the crossings controlled by Egypt and Israel to allow humanitarian goods in to Gaza.

All issues are to be put off for one month at which time negotiations on peace proposals are to begin.

I will tell you that I had difficulty locating on the internet the actual terms and proposals from Egypt.  At time of writing I have been unsuccessful in locating any copies of the text of the ceasefire agreement.*

*Update: Here is a summary of the proposals: 'What's in the Gaza peace deal?'; Al Quds English; August 27, 2014. 

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is on record stating that Israel will not participate in these planned negotiations unless there is a "total end to terror attacks".  As Israel is notorious for provoking a response and then blaming the other side, anything can happen between now and then.

On August 24 2014, Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs boasted that they permitted 118 truckloads of humanitarian goods into Gaza that day.

Minimum daily truck traffic of food and other necessities was pegged at 500 back in 2009.  Obviously this number would have increased during the intervening years leading up to 2014's so-called Operation Protective Edge [some idea of potential logistical issues, here, although the statistics at link are outdated.]

Estimates are that it might take as long as 20 years for Gaza to rebuild what Israel destroyed.

East Al Shaaf, Gaza - Operation Protective Edge - via Palestinianism

           

Israel and Egypt better calculate into their truce negotiations a month hence that they may need to multiply by a factor of 20 that 118 figure so helpfully supplied - 2,000 or more trucks per day. But who knows? Maybe it's 4,000 trucks per day. The numbers of trucks that will need to pass through the eyes of needles they control into Gaza, while some in Israel will no doubt continue to attempt fomenting discord means the situation will continue to be frought with issues.

Israeli Deputy Minister of Defense, Danny Alon's suggestion on maintaining 'quiet' in Gaza  - prevent transfer of food and water; August 20, 2014 - Twitter

Who will personally take ownership of the task of seeing to it that the people of Gaza will have food to eat, safe water to drink, medicine and medical supplies for the sick and injured along with vital building supplies to repair hospitals, roads, schools and homes?

Israel and Egypt have caused, through their seven year long siege, followed by so-called 'Operation 'Protective Edge', conditions in which the people of Gaza have no reserves left with which to survive.

This August 26, 2014, Facebook post, a picture of Gaza resident Mohammed Baroud's empty fridge, illustates the point, well enough:

Food in Gaza - the reality of slow starvation - by Mohammed Baroud; August 26, 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.

__________________

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.

___________________

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;

link - Israel to speed up settlement construction in Jerusalem, West Bank - CNN.com

Link:  http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/01/world/meast/israel-settlements/

Hate Speech Laws to Shield Israel from Accountability?

Hate Speech Laws to Shield Israel from Accountability?

by Diane V. McLoughlin, November 8, 2010

main website: mcloughlinpost.com

An international conference on anti-Semitism (the Inter-parliamentary Coalition Combating Anti-Semitism - ICCA) is taking place November 7 - 9th, 2010, in Ottawa, Canada. An *'Ottawa Protocol' is to be declared on the last day of the conference. One hundred parliamentarians from 45 countries are reportedly being hosted by the coalition's Canadian counterpart, the CPCCA (Canadian Parliamentary Coalition Combating Anti-Semitism.)

I have had difficulty ascertaining whether or not the conference is open to the media. There is a rumor going around that it is a closed event. I have been assured that the conference is closed to me, however, according to Fleishman-Hillard, a private public relations firm hired to vet enquiries regarding this publicly-funded event. Clues as to why the committee chose Fleishman-Hillard can be found on the PR firm's website:

'Fleishman-Hillard’s Ottawa office is a leader in helping Canadian and international companies shape the national agenda. We help influence public policy...and...fundamentally change public attitudes...[we] help clients influence what Canadians are thinking and talking about...We bring together all aspects of government relations, regulatory affairs, strategic communications, issues management and research services to help public, private and not-for-profit clients influence the audiences that matter to them most.' (1)

The Canadian government is providing almost $500,000 dollars to finance this event (1a), with the apparent aim of fundamentally altering law on an international scale. It appears to be all of a piece that the CPCCA would hide behind a PR firm, seeing as they actively excluded participation of such groups as Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East in CPCCA hearings; they have so far chosen not to release the CPCCA's final report, as well.

The goal of stamping out the embers of anti-Semitism - racist hatred of Jews - is noble. But why is the scope of discussion not broader, to reject racism and discrimination in all forms? For the fact of the matter is that
there are racist pinheads in every society, including amongst Jews themselves.

For instance, rabbis of a prominent religious school in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur, published a 230-page book earlier this year entitled, 'The King's Torah' (Torat Hamelech)
which in part details under which conditions it is permissible to kill non-Jews, including babies.

According to these teachers, it is permissible to kill babies if it prevents them from growing up to be enemies. (1b)

The only time a human being could argue in defense of killing another groups' babies is when he believes his group is more worthy of life itself. These are teachers that shape the minds of the next generation, as they contemplate life while residing on ethnically-cleansed Palestinian land.

(art by Latuff)

The ramifications of what may be the ICCA's true goal are profound, to whit: To silence criticism of
the State of Israel. I am deeply concerned that the ICCA and CPCCA intend to use the fight against racism as a shield to cover for it. To do so would cause Israel to be more vulnerable to attack by those it oppresses, not less so, by tightening the screws on non-violent resistance rather than concentrating on which choices might lead to a just peace.

The number-one declaration coming out of last year's ICCA conference (1c), is as follows (emphasis added):

'We today in London resolve that; challenging antisemitism Parliamentarians shall expose, challenge, and isolate political actors who engage in hate against Jews and target the State of Israel as a Jewish collectivity'.

Democratic societies believe it is imperative that people be free to say things that are unpopular or offensive to some, in order that we might maximize our opportunity to be acquainted with the unfettered truth.

When speech is free, what is true has the opportunity to shine bright against what ought to be exposed, challenged and isolated: falsehood. Messing with this fundamental law is a dangerously foolish gambit.

The ICCA, chaired by Canada's former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, calls criticism of Israel the 'new anti-Semitism'. One might note that one of the six identified on the ICCA's steering committee, Mr. Yuli Edelstein, happens also to be chief of public affairs for Israel, aka director of 'hasbara' (propaganda.) Edelstein is a Jewish settler on illegally occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank. He, quite understandably under the circumstances, does not believe that 'settlements' - read colonization and ethnic cleansing - is any impediment to achieving peace with the Palestinian people. (1d)

If the drivers behind the ICCA-CPCCA initiative get their way, perhaps in future one could be fined or jailed for pointing out that the State of Israel is rife with discriminatory attitudes against its minority. Israel is, after all, a pluralistic society; over 20% of Israel's citizens are Arab.

Of course, it is also true that there are those within Israel, such as Israel's own foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who propose a solution to this thorny problem: A 'transfer' of Israel's Arab-Israeli citizens, in order to achieve maximum purity of the Jewish 'collectivity'. (2a; 2b).

At the beginning of the 21st century, aren't we bigger than this?

Apparently not. Israel's far-right coalition government has passed legislation this year that would require all future non-Jewish applicants applying for Israeli citizenship to swear an oath of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish democratic state.

Ironically, as ultra-Orthodox Jewry reject nationalism, they themselves will be exempt from having to swear
this oath. (3a) (3b) (3c)

The fact is that there are many Jews both within Israel and without, including Canadian Jews, who vociferously object to the odious and malevolent mistreatment of the Palestinian people.

Regarding peace in the Middle East, my own view is that so much Palestinian land has been stolen and overrun by Jewish fanatics that the two-state solution has been rendered moot. (4) According to Jewish historian Ilan Pappe, the U.S. government thought so too, all the way back to 1948. (5; pg. 123.)

The population numbers, many may be surprised to learn, of Israeli Jews to Palestinians, are roughly equal: One group enjoys full legal rights and the vote, while the other does not. Within Israel, Arab-Israelis (also known as Israeli-Palestinians) are discriminated against throughout - jobs, education, housing, municipal services, health - you name it; in Gaza and the Occupied Territories, Palestinians have no rights, subsisting under brutal military occupation, or in squalid refugee camps in bordering states.

The Israeli-Palestinian problem emerged from the pogroms and centuries of horrific mistreatment of Jews in Europe and elsewhere - including, one notes, in Canada itself. The Palestinians have been defacto forced to pay for the crimes of others with their homes, land and lives.

By 1948, Jewish extremists instigated a deliberate military-precision ethnic cleansing program against a people who were inclined to peaceful coexistence with their Jewish neighbours. Methods included rounding up Palestinian males 13 years-old and up, to murder them in cold blood; biological warfare; creeping into villages in the dead of night to throw bombs in Palestinian homes as families slept; the genocide of entire villages; firing down upon stampeded Palestinians, leaving them as their only recourse to flee drowning, into the sea (ibid); that last is one of many ironies, as this is what Palestinians are accused of wanting to do to Israeli Jews.

In the end I think the biggest problem to overcome is Fear (combined with an historical sense of entitlement, and religious dogma).

A word about Gaza is in order. Palestinians in Gaza are scapegoated for the current impasse. Jews claim they 'gave up' land in Gaza; that from their 'sacrifice' all they got were rockets in return. This is a false representation of the facts.

The Palestinians in Gaza are refugees of the ethnic cleansing operations of 1948-49. The land modern-day Jews were dragged from in Gaza a few years ago for the most part did not belong to them. But the villages and homes in Israel belonging to Palestinians who languish in refugee camps in Gaza and Lebanon and Jordan have yet to be returned.

I personally would not argue with the theoretical position that painful concessions will have to be made on both sides to achieve peace. But peace cannot possibly be achieved without an honest accounting of who lost what; and that is not happening at all, so far as I can see.

I believe one bi-national state with equal rights for all is the peaceful and just solution moving forward. But I also believe that for some, on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, this is the most threatening thing to say of all. The one-state solution is, nevertheless, a view increasingly discussed. I have no dog in this hunt for a just peace other than compassion for those who suffer, along with a deep concern otherwise over the increasingly unstable state of global affairs. I am neither Jewish or Palestinian. I have been truly blessed in my friendships with both Jews and Palestinians; friendships which have deeply enriched my life.

If justice and peace can be equitably achieved in a two-state arrangement that both sides accept, then (an agnostic) hallelujah! But as it now stands, what those such as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu call a two-state solution, is one in which much of the best land stolen is never returned, in exchange for borders Israel continues to control with their miitary, barbed wire and watch towers.

Current negotiations themselves are entirely bogus, as the Palestinians are being illegally represented by a cabal whose electoral mandate was thin at best - if it ever existed at all - one which has long since expired.

If this intellectual envelope, 'the new anti-Semitism', is successfully pushed by the ICCA, then it begs the question, what might be the suggested remedy against those criticizing Israel's oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people? Mere vilification? Or arrest and imprisonment - for daring to criticize the odious, murderous and racist policies of a state.

In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined Jews proposing shutting up criticism of a state, after what Nazi Germany wrought against them.

Shut up criticism of one state and other states are sure to follow, too, demanding the same legalistic papering-over of their own racist or discriminatory crimes; a cultural imperative, they will argue, and thus, beyond anyone's reach in trying to advocate for equality and justice for the marginalized and oppressed.

For anyone with a lick of common sense, this is a a bad bargain being hammered out in bad faith in the backrooms and corridors of power.

In short, if I were deemed worthy to attend and participate at the ICCA conference, I would loudly and proudly stand to affirm:

Down with anti-Semitism. Up with freedom - to advocate for justice, and to criticize the politics of any state, including the current apartheid condition of Israel.

_____________________________________________________________

References:

(1) Ottawa - Fleishman-Hillard Canada - website;
http://fleishman.ca/our-offices/ottawa/ ;

(1a) Article: Government of Canada supports international conference on anti-Semitism:
http://news.gc.ca/web/article-eng.do?m=/index&nid=553729 ;

(1b) 'Police release rabbi arrested for inciting to kill non-Jews'; Chaim Levinson; Haaretz; July 27, 2010;
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/police-release-rabbi-arrested-for-inciting-to-kill-non-jews-1.304261 ;

*(1c) ICCA, The London Declaration; Feb. 17, 2009;
http://www.antisem.org/london-declaration/ ;

*Article, 'For the record: the full text of the Ottawa Protocol';
Inside Politics Blog (CBC); Kady O'Malley; Nov. 10, 2010;
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/insidepolitics/2010/11/for-the-record-the-full-text-of-the-ottawa-protocol.html ;

(1d) Article: 'Israel struggles to combat image problem'; Jonathan Cook; Mar. 26, 2010; Middle East Online;
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=38083 ;

(2a) Interesting article discusses Lieberman's 'transfer' proposal, in the Philedelphia Jewish Voice, 'Population Transfer in Perspective'; 2006(?); Dr. Alex Grobman;
http://www.pjvoice.com/v18/18003transfer.aspx ;

(2b) Also on Lieberman, Washington Post: 'Israeli Foreign Minister Breaks with Netanyahu Over Peace Talks'; Checkpoint Washington; Colum Lynch; Sept. 28, 2010;
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkpoint-washington/2010/09/israeli_foreign_minister_break.html ;

(3a) ABC News, 'Israeli Cabinet Approves Loyalty Oath'; Simon McGregor-Wood; Oct. 11, 2010 ;
http://abcnews.go.com/International/israeli-cabinet-approves-loyalty-oath/story?id=11849413 ;

(3b) See, also, Haaretz, 'Cabinet approves loyalty oath, but only for non-Jewish citizens'; Jonathan Lis; Oct. 10, 2010;
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/cabinet-approves-loyalty-oath-but-only-for-non-jewish-new-citizens-1.318212 ;

(3c) See also, this cogent and intelligent discussion - Huffington Post's, 'Why This Zionist Opposes Israel's Loyalty Oath';Moriel Rothman; Oct. 21, 2010;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/moriel-rothman/why-this-zionist-opposes-_b_771439.html ;

(4) Americans for Peace Now, 'Facts on the Ground'; c. 2010; an interactive map of Jewish settlements
in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), otherwise referred to as the West Bank;
http://peacenow.org/map.php ;

(5) Book: 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'; Ilan Pappe; One World Publications Ltd.; 2006; 313 pgs.;

Website: Inter-Parliamentary Coalition Combatting Anti-Semitism (ICCA) ;
http://www.antisem.org/ ;

Canadian Parliamentary Coalition for Combatting Anti-Semitism (CPCCA)
http://www.cpcca.ca/home.htm ;

Copyright 2010, Diane V. McLoughlin
All Rights Reserved.

Young Jews Disrupt Netanyahu at Jewish General Assembly

Israeli PM Netanyahu: I "stopped" Oslo peace process - ENGLISH SUBTITLES

No-state Netanyahu

by Diane V. McLoughlin

Netanyahu was already scheduled to schmooze in Canada. Thus, this USA Today fluff about Netanyahu being invited by Rahm Emanuel to visit the White House, last minute as it were, appears to be a photo-op sop for something already long in the works. It should be clearly understood that Netanyahu is not a man of peace. He is a tribalist chieftain of an apartheid state. It is not necessarily so that the opinions of the father are always adopted whole-cloth by the son, but Emanuel's father is on record inferring that Arabs are lower lifeforms than himself - a representative sample of the attitude of Israel's extremist ruling faction, a faction that in recent days has been categorized by one human rights organization as being the most racist in the entire history of the State of Israel.

Through the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians by Israel, who have been squeezed into razor-wire enclosed ghettos surrounded by IDF armed guards, Israel herelf has seen to it that a two-state solution is a virtual impossibility. The violent, racist settlers, one might note, have the vote, while the oppressed Palestinians in their own lands in the West Bank do not. The situation is unsustainable. A one-state solution with equal rights for both Jews and Palestinians is the only viable solution left open. This intrinsically peaceful and democratic proposal is virulently attacked by those who support the racist status quo; those who propose a peaceful one-state solution are smeared with the tired charge of antisemitism - a spurious accusation made by those who would deflect calm political analysis of Israel's criminal behavior - at all costs.
-----------------------------------------------
Commenting on, 'Emanuel invites Netanyahu to the White House - The Oval: tracking the Obama Presidency'; Kathy Kiely; May 26, 2010, USA Today

Donkey to Shrek - or - Letter To Netanyahu on mass expulsions

To:  B. Netanyahu
       bnetanyahu@knesset.gov.il

From:  Diane V. McLoughlin, writer, peace activist
           main website: mcloughlinpost.com

Re:  The new IDF so-called infiltrator military order providing the IDF with vastly expanded powers to expel Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, or to jail them for up to seven years at the military occupation's whim.

Dear Mr. Netanyahu,

I am writing to share frankly my views regarding the amendment to the 'infiltrator' military order enabling vastly expanded powers to the Israeli Offensive Forces (IOF) to harass and oppress and harm the Palestinian people.

Is the Israeli leadership oblivious to the fact that the civilized world is aware? That it is now watching, waiting to see what the Knesset chooses to do?

This new law gives the IOF the power to expel tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, both in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem for want of pieces of paper referred to as either 'legal permits' or 'certificates' issued by either the West Bank military commander or the Interior Ministry.

The West Bank military commander has never issued such permits.  Palestinians who were born in the West Bank have no permits.  This law is a farce; a transparent charade.

If this order is not immediately reversed, if, instead, the IOF begins to expel Palestinians from their homeland, Israel will become a full-fledged pariah state.  At this point, even if the order is reversed I would argue that the chess pieces are not returned back to the square from which they came.  Not after America's recent awakening from Vice President Joseph Biden's visit to you.

It is clear that many of your compatriots are hermetically-sealed in a bubble of self-delusion. 

I may not be the best person to try to get through to honorable members of the Knesset. In fact I know I'm not. But somebody has got to try; the situation is too important to leave it to trust that somebody else will.

Israel is faced with four options:

One bi-national state with equal rights for all its citizens;

Two states bordered by pre-1967 boundaries, a shared Jerusalem, with no attempt at swaps of good land for bad thinking that anyone will be stupid enough to call that a bargain;

Repatriation of Gaza to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan;

Or, the continued oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians - the status quo.

Should Israel continue to choose the latter, Israel's reputation will be destroyed.

And no option will bring blessed calm and everlasting peace to Israel as long as
Palestinian-Israeli citizens within Israel proper are treated badly. 

Israel is now faced with the ultimate, most monumental and moral of decisions. That is how it feels; a moment upon which history will pivot.  The world collectively waits to exhale.

Should Israel opt to continue to occupy and live amongst the Palestinians on Palestinian lands while denying the Palestinians their civil rights; should Israel choose to implement this newest military abuse - intensifying the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank - Israel risks provoking a different antisemitism to arise, an antisemitism caused by the racist mistreatment of the Palestinians.  All of the backroom dealing in the West attempting to criminalize criticism of Israel will not be able to evade, head off or squelch this: odious cause = horrified effect.

Mr. Netanyahu, I have long wanted to ask you when is the last time you were able to look anyone straight in the eye?  Wouldn't you like to be able to, again?

In the children's movie 'Shrek', Shrek calls his friend, Donkey, a stupid, annoying beast of burden.  I feel like Donkey.  A beast of burden plodding along wanting you to have peace.

And like Shrek, the heroic ogre, you must have, like an onion, many layers of complexity about your character that most people who judge you from the outside might appreciate if they only knew. 

In my own defense I would permit Donkey to have the final word:  Only a true friend would be so truly honest.

Sincerely,

Diane V. McLoughlin