Heroism

07Jan09

The woman in the video is the incredible Huweida Arraf, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement.

——–

Round-up

If you haven’t read them already, I highly recommend you check out Avi Shlaim and Sara Roy and Augustus Richard Norton.

Marc Lynch writes that al-Qaeda and other salafist-jihadist groups will benefit enormously from Israel’s assault on Gaza. The head of MI5 agrees (via David).

Amira Hass has a powerful column in today’s Ha’aretz:

“What luck my parents are dead. Back in 1982 they could not stand the noise of the Israeli jet fighters flying over the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. The shriek of a plane horrified them in their house in Tel Aviv. We don’t have to see it to know, they said…

Even before the language laundromat developed to its current sophistication, my parents were nauseated by phrases like the “the war for peace in the Galilee” or “disturbances of public order” when the public order was the occupation and the disturbance was resistance to it. When order is preventing the Palestinians from having what the Jews have a right to and demand. What luck that they are not alive to hear Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni explaining that we have nothing against the Palestinian people, and the cabinet secretary explaining that there is no humanitarian crisis and this is just Hamas propaganda. To recognize lies, they did not need to know the names of the people who had not had running water for five days or more. Forget the bombardments, forget the electricity, food, even sleep. But no water? Because of the bombardments by sea, land and air, people cannot even go out to get drinking water from the city faucets. And when someone does have running water at home, it’s undrinkable.

Because of my parents’ history they knew what it meant to close people behind barbed-wire fences in a small area. A year, five years, 10 years. From 1991. How lucky it is that they are not alive to see how how these incarcerated people are bombarded with all the glorious military technology of Israel and the United States.”

See also this excellent analysis in the Huffington Post, which shows that Israel broke the most recent ceasefire while Hamas adhered to it and uses B’Tselem data to demonstrate that, since the outbreak of the Second Intifada (and, we might add, long before, e.g. the 1982 invasion of Lebanon), “it is overwhelmingly Israel that kills first after a pause in the conflict”:

“a systematic pattern does exist: it is overwhelmingly Israel, not Palestine, that kills first following a lull. Indeed, it is virtually always Israel that kills first after a lull lasting more than a week.”

Finally, props to Rick Sanchez who managed bypass the CNN filters and show that it was Israel that broke the truce:

For the latest on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including the imminent sewage catastrophe, see my (updated) post below. The Palestine Monitor summarises:

“For the 12th consecutive day, Israel continued its attacks on the Gaza Strip. By air, by land and by sea the Gazans are attacked and besieged.

At least 660 people have been reportedly killed (including more than 215 children and 89 women), and more than 2,750 have sustained heavy injuries (including more than 650 children and 270 women). At least 17 families were reportedly struck, killing fathers, mothers and children.

The number is expected to rise within the upcoming days as attacks continue- both from the air, the sea and the land.

There are 220 dead since the ground invasion began. Within the past 24 hours, at least 80 Palestinians were killed.

Despite the Israeli recurrent discourse, facts are clear and Israel’s war has mainly been conducted against civilians: Universities, shopping markets, schools, Mosques and private houses have been struck.” [my emph.]

Filed under: Israeli / Palestinian, Videos   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: Activism, al Qaeda, Cast Lead, Gaza, Hamas, Huweida Arraf, sewage