The Palestine thread

[muppet]

Can anyone make sense of this? Particularly if you are a US taxpayer?

Retweeted by mark little
Tom Gara ‏@tomgara  1h
US is biggest UNRWA donor. In Gaza, US weapons are used to destroy US funded infrastructure, in Iraq, US weapons used to destroy US weapons.

[SLIGONIAN]

http://www.independent.ie/style/celebrity/celebrity-news/penelope-cruz-and-javier-bardem-face-fury-of-hollywood-following-genocide-letter-condemning-israel-30497285.html

[Arthur_Friend]

http://www.independent.ie/style/celebrity/celebrity-news/penelope-cruz-and-javier-bardem-face-fury-of-hollywood-following-genocide-letter-condemning-israel-30497285.html

Being labelled as Anti-Semetic I see. No surprise there. These people have no shame.

[Eamonnca1]

Why British people are protesting about Gaza, not Iraq

We have a deep movement in solidarity with Palestinians and our government is complicit in Israel's oppression of them

Lindsey German
theguardian.com, Monday 11 August 2014 12.45 EDT


The hundreds of thousands who have taken to the streets of Britain over the past month in support of and solidarity with the people of Gaza have seen their protests denounced by neocons and rightwingers because they aren't about some other group of people, somewhere else.

The "why don't they march against something else" crowd accuse us of silence on those atrocities. There are certainly many terrible humanitarian disasters in the world, most recently that of the Yazidis in Iraq, about which we must all feel anguish. Our argument is that our government and the US's past intervention have not helped the people of the Middle East, but made things worse. The point of a mass demonstration is to put pressure on our government and to alter public opinion in this country. They have had an impact. Public opinion remains strongly anti-intervention and anti-war, and last year, mobilised public opinion was instrumental in stopping David Cameron's attempt to bomb Syria.

Last Saturday's demonstration was the biggest ever pro-Palestine protest at 150,000. There have been thousands of smaller actions around the country. There is widespread outrage at Israel's brutal assault on Gaza and a determination to end the siege which is causing such misery to Gazans.

Why do people feel strongly enough to take to the streets over Gaza but not over other issues? Partly because there is a deep and longstanding movement in solidarity with the Palestinians that encompasses trade unions, community groups, faith groups and activists. But it is also partly because our government is seen as complicit in Israel's oppression of Palestinians. We provide arms, we trade with Israel and we defend the actions of the government there, just as we did in 2008-09 and 2012 when Gaza was bombed.

Our former prime minister and absurdly named envoy for peace in the Middle East, Tony Blair, supports Israel's foreign policy. David Cameron, according to Sayeeda Warsi, instructed his ministers not to say Israel's bombing might be disproportionate, and blames the conflict on Hamas although it long predates Hamas's existence. While sanctions are applied to Russia over the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 disaster, no sanctions are imposed on Israel.

Contrast this with Cameron's support for intervention elsewhere and look at the consequences of those interventions. Libya, hailed as a huge success by Cameron three years ago, is now so riven by war that embassies have closed and British nationals evacuated by the Royal Navy. The arming of the Syrian rebels by western and Middle East powers, especially Turkey and Saudi Arabia, has produced blowback on a spectacular scale as Islamic State (Isis) sets up its bloody caliphate across hundreds of miles of Iraq and Syria, with disastrous consequences.

The terrible plight of the Yazidis, trapped by Isis and fearing a terrible fate if captured, is heart-rending but will not be helped by further military intervention in Iraq. The occupation of Iraq broke the infrastructure of Iraqi society. Sectarian tensions were encouraged and exacerbated by the occupying forces, and some of those now supporting Isis formed the opposition to this occupation.

Many people know that UK government foreign policy, far from solving problems, causes more humanitarian disaster. In a democracy, anyone is of course entitled to demonstrate over a range of issues. So maybe those Tory bloggers, shock jocks and neocons who are such warriors on social media should head down to Hyde Park and see how many they get around them for more military intervention.

[give her dixie]

Palestinians in Gaza send a message of thanks to the people in Tyrone and Derry who recently donated to Yousef Al-Helou during his recent speaking tour in both counties.

They also highlight the devastation of their homes and neighbourhood in Gaza. The money raised was immediatly put to work just days after it was donated, and it went to providing medicine, food and water to those most in need right now.

To each and every person who donated, on behalf of Yousef and myself, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you. You lit up the faces of Palestinians in Gaza, and they are so very thankful for you genorsity and solidarity.

[macdanger2]

Fair play GHD, good work

[balladmaker]

'A Song of Liberty for Gaza' - The Wolfe Tones - Proceeds go to Trocaire's Gaza fund to aid those in need of emergency assistance:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/a-song-of-liberty-for-gaza/id909113349?i=909113357

[stew]

This is great however what about area's of the world suffering ssni molar pain that has no voice representing them? I find this sad, particularly Africa@ At what does the west give two Shiites?

[give her dixie]

Have a look at this video to see the brutal ugly face of Zionism. This is whats driving the Government, and what we see in Gaza

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=486950887994427

[Seamus]

Can anyone make sense of this? Particularly if you are a US taxpayer?

Retweeted by mark little
Tom Gara ‏@tomgara  1h
US is biggest UNRWA donor. In Gaza, US weapons are used to destroy US funded infrastructure, in Iraq, US weapons used to destroy US weapons.

The US funds both sides of almost every war. Example: ISIS trained and armed by the US. Their friends in Syria and their so called enemy in Iraq

[Jell 0 Biafra]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2723884/Disgust-Israeli-soldier-spotted-laughing-drinking-Jerusalem-bar-wearing-Deployed-Destroyed-Enjoyed-Gaza-2014T-shirt.html?ito=social-facebook

Nice.

[dowling]

Why is the Palestine situation the only conflict that has received so much support in the way of protests etc?  Why was there not the same level of protest and awareness against the other countless conflicts over the past few years?

Thought you might have been on shouting for a need for air strikes against Israel.

Obviously you weren't that serious.

[Eamonnca1]

I could have sworn the "what about all the non-Arab-Israeli conflicts and why aren't yiz kicking up a stink about them" question had been answered, but let me try to answer the whatabouters in the hope that they'll stop repeating the same damn question and a million variations thereon:

• Because on an emotional level, Irish people feel a strong sense of empathy with the Palestinians because of the similarity of their situation to Ireland's historical situation
• Because Israel is in violation of more UN resolutions than Saddam Hussein's Iraq ever was and has been getting away with it for a whole lot longer
• Because Israel is a terrorist apartheid state that has managed, through the most efficient propaganda system I have ever seen, to convince large swathes of the western public that it is a civilized, modern, democratic state that is only acting in self defence against unprovoked attacks
• Because Israel has managed to wipe from the western consciousness the existence of about a million Palestinians living in refugee camps since the ethnic cleansing job of 1967
• Because Israel has managed to repeat the mantra over and over again that it has a "right to exist" (which is code for justifying the ethnic cleansing on which the state is built) and has a "right to defend itself" (which is code for slaughtering scores of innocent Palestinians as collective punishment for the actions of a small group of militants).
  
• Because Israel, the aggressor in this case, is propped up by Western governments, particularly the USA, and by isolating Israel in the west we might actually stand a chance of doing something about them

If that answers your question, please stop repeating it like a broken record.

[seafoid]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/18/arab-israeli-wedding-protest-four-arrested

"Israeli police on Sunday blocked more than 200 far-right Israeli protesters from rushing guests at a wedding of a Jewish woman and Muslim man as they shouted "death to the Arabs" in a sign of tensions stoked by the Gaza war.

Several dozen police, including members of the force's elite units, formed human chains to keep the protesters from the wedding hall's gates and chased after many who defied them. Four protesters were arrested, and there were no injuries.

A lawyer for the couple, Maral Malka, 23, and Mahmoud Mansour, 26, both from the Jaffa section of Tel Aviv, had unsuccessfully sought a court order to ban the protest. He obtained backing for police to keep protesters 200 metres from the wedding hall in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion.

The protest highlighted a rise in tensions between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel in the past two months amid a monthlong Gaza war, the kidnap and slaying of three Israeli teens in June followed by a revenge choking and torching to death of a Palestinian teen in the Jerusalem area.

A group called Lehava, which organised the wedding demonstration, has harassed Jewish-Arab couples in the past, often citing religious grounds for their objections to intermarriage. But they have rarely protested at the site of a wedding."
Lehava spokesman and former lawmaker Michael Ben-Ari denounced Jews intermarrying with non-Jews of any denomination as "worse than what Hitler did", alluding to the murder of six million Jews across Europe in the second world war."


Some say love is worse than Hitler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR6okRuOLc8

[give her dixie]

The Israel Defense Forces demolished the homes of two suspects in June's kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens late Monday night, while additionally sealing off the residence of a third suspect.

After midnight, some 250 border policemen arrived at the area along with dozens of soldiers from the Engineering Corps in conjuction and soldiers of the Judaea and Samaria Divison to demolish the homes of Hussam Kawasama and Amer Abu Aisha, while sealing off the entrance to the cellar where Marwan Kawasama's resided. According to the Border Police spokesman, the mission took about six hours, and confrontations erupted at the site, which were all "dispersed promptly."

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.611046