BS: Its about time!

Subject: BS: Its about time!
From: dianavan
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 11:00 PM

If apartheid can be dismantled, so too can the Zionist government of Israel.

"A massive worldwide campaign is urgently needed now. This campaign must protest escalating Israeli reprisals against civilians and Israel's many other violations of international law. It must call for the immediate withdrawal of all Israeli soldiers and settlers from Palestine. It must call for an end to US government and corporate support for Israeli aggression. It must call for a truly democratic Israeli government where all ten million people living under its rule have equal rights and where discrimination based on religious identity is abolished. It must politically challenge every aspect of Israeli policy. As with the South Africa campaign of the 1980s and 1990s, teach-ins, rallies, and demonstrations as well as sanctions, boycotts, and divestment are needed now to prevent Israel's intentional humanitarian disaster from proceeding and to demand a fundamental change in the Israeli government."

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m26234&l=i&size=1&hd=0

Subject: RE: BS: Its about time!
From: dianavan
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 07:40 PM

Why do the mainstream media ignore the ongoing assault in Gaza?

Why do they make no mention of Israel's campaign called 'summer rain'?

How can the international community ignore the people of Gaza while lamenting the destruction of Lebanon?

Subject: RE: BS: Its about time!
From: dianavan
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 07:41 PM

Here's a link to an account of the ongoing cruelty in Gaza.

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m26038&l=i&size=1&hd=0

Subject: RE: BS: Its about time!
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 08:11 PM

Why did you not put this in an already existing thread on the same subject?

Subject: RE: BS: Its about time!
From: bobad
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 08:19 PM

Hamas figure slams Gaza 'anarchy'

The Gaza Strip is in the grip of anarchy and Palestinians must stop blaming Israel for all their problems, a senior Hamas figure has said.

Ghazi Hamad, chief spokesman for the Hamas government, said the hope that followed Israel's pull-out last year had been replaced with "a nightmare".

Gaza is at the mercy of thugs, he said, and pleaded for an end to deadly clan rivalries. "Let Gaza breathe," he said.

Such frank self-criticism is rare among Palestinian leaders, analysts say.

Mr Hamad's comments came in an article, which was published in Palestinian newspapers on Monday.

He said they were his own views and did not represent the position of his government.

"I am not interested in discussing the ugliness and brutality of the occupation because it is not a secret. Instead, I prefer self-criticism and self evaluation," Mr Hamad wrote.

Overwhelming problems

He said life in Gaza City now involved "unimaginable chaos, careless policemen, young men carrying guns and strutting with pride, and families receiving condolences for their dead in the middle of the street."

And he was also critical of militants who fire crudely-made rockets into Israel, saying ordinary Palestinians paid a high price when Israel responded militarily to such attacks.

Mr Hamad said Gazans should stop laying the blame for their mistakes at the door of the Israeli occupation.

"Our extreme joy at their departure made us forget the most important question: What is our next step?" he went on.

Hamas swept to power in elections in January and promised to bring law and order to the Gaza Strip.

Mr Hamad's remarks would seem to be an admission that it has completely failed to do so, the BBC's Alan Johnston in the West Bank says.

But he adds that the best government in the world would have struggled to cope with Gaza's overwhelming social and economic problems.

Hamas has also been paralysed by the crushing Western and Israeli economic boycott imposed because it has refused to renounce violence and accept Israel's right to exist.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/5293854.stm

Published: 2006/08/28 23:27:36 GMT

Subject: RE: BS: Its about time!
From: artbrooks
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 08:50 PM

It is impossible to "dismantle the Zionist government of Israel". "Zionist" is one of those words like "liberal;" that is, it has been redefined into a meaning that those who believe in it don't recognize. Zionism means nothing more, or less, than the concept that the Jewish people have a right to a physical homeland, and is therefore integral to the existance of the nation of Israel. Oppression of the Muslem and Arab population of Israel itself, and that of the currently and formerly occupied territories (to the extent that it exists, and there are many different opinions on this) is not part of Zionism, nor is expropriation of occupied and unoccupied land belonging to (or squatted upon) by Muslem, Christian, Druz or Jewish Arabs. This (an official Israeli site) explains Zionism as most Jews understand it.

Subject: RE: BS: Its about time!
From: Peace
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 10:54 PM

Don't muddy the issue with facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Its about time!
From: dianavan
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 01:50 PM

kat - I made a separate thread about Gaza because the other threads are about Iraq and Lebanon. Gaza seems to have fallen off the map. While attention is focussed elsewhere, Israel continues their assault on the people of Gaza.

Art - Thats a good link. Thanks for the info.

If a separate homeland is O.K. for Jews, why not separate homelands for every other religious or cultural group? Can Native Americans use Israel as a precedence?

Subject: RE: BS: Its about time!
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 02:03 PM

That's a piss-poor analogy opening the way for the counter if the Israeli settlers are to be forced off the Golan heights then when are the European settlers going to hand back North America.

You win or lose both ways.

Subject: RE: BS: Its about time!
From: artbrooks
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 02:04 PM

And Gaza continues its attack on Israel. This is not a one-sided conflict, and cannot end until all of the parties are interested in stopping it. Israel's responses to provocations are excessive by most definitions, but who is taking the initiative to stop the provocations?