Physicians for Human Rights Gaza Update – Another Seasonal Shame in the Holy Land.
Felicity Arbuthnot & Physicians for Human Rights
Another kind of Eid and Christmas. For those listed below and their families, in this Report by Physicians for Human Rights, they are not ticking off days of celebration, or to celebration, with gifts, the sharing of family meals and moments. They are ticking off every hour that those that they love cannot receive treatment, praying for their survival and knowing that short of a seasonal miracle, or the jack boot of Israel being lifted, their life expectancy is next to nil. This, as the West anticipates and celebrates, amounts to murder by default – and all who are silent and those who man the checkpoints of this siege of Palestinian nationals carry the same weight of guilt as their government…

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Tillawi On Scott Ritter’s Article On Israel
Beam Me Up Scotty, I’m a Palestinian!
Hesham Tillawi, PhD
…Let us consider for a moment what Mr. Ritter wrote in his latest article– “I have for some time now publicly articulated my sympathy and support for the state of Israel, even while criticizing those cases that I believed constituted poor judgment and bad policy.” Butt Kiss #1. Of course Scott could not start his article with anything less than this, a way of bowing down before America’s master before pointing out something that is painful yet true. He continues–”As a weapons inspector I made numerous visits to Israel for the purpose of coordinating with the Israeli intelligence community on matters pertaining to Iraqi WMD.” Yes, and that is exactly why Saddam did not want you back in Iraq Scott. You knew then how deep the Israelis were in the our government. Why are you waking up to this only now Scotty, to the fact that Israel is no good for the US? (…) “Witness the pro-Israel bias displayed when discussing the situation in southern Lebanon, the air strike in Syria, or the Iranian situation, and the retarding of any effort toward a responsible discussion of anything dealing with Israel becomes apparent.” My friend you forgot to mention the Palestinians. THE PALESTINIANS SCOTT, YOU FORGOT TO MENTION THEM. The Media has been wrong on the Palestinian issues too. They were able to make the victim look like the oppressor and the oppressor look like the victim. You yourself eluded to that. It’s been th! ere Scot t, and this is just another example of what I call ‘political prostitution.’….

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Authenticated Israeli Crime in Gaza: killing patients in cold blood
Sam Armanda Reports from Gaza Strip
For the past 6 months Israeli occupation committed illegal and savage massacres against Palestinians. The committed actions (massacres) are flagrant and obvious violations of human rights law, four Geneva conventions and other international human laws and charters. Infants, old men and old women have been killed in cold blood. Yet Israel and its occupation forces say, “we are defending ourselves and own country!” Therefore, we ask a question! Are old men, old women and infants holding guns? Are they firing rockets? Are they…. Are they and are they! Wonders will not end bye the end of these words. The more astonishing reality is the fact of those people in the following pictures. They are mostly patients with chronic diseases. They are being killed due to siege imposed on Gaza Strip. Israel is firing, shooting, and preventing them from having medicines and banning them from traveling abroad for medications…

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Sick Gazans beg for treatment on Israel’s doorstep
‘I have cancer. They know I have cancer. It is not a broken bone, it is a deadly disease,’ cries Mustafa.
Joseph Krauss
Mustafa Hillu writhes underneath blankets, the pain pulsing outward from the cancer in his right leg, and he cries out for someone to persuade Israel to let him in for treatment. If the 36-year-old father of five is not granted entry soon doctors will have to amputate his leg at the groin to prevent the cancer in his femur from spreading, according to his family and an Israeli rights group. “The security services said they would not let him pass for security reasons. But he can’t even walk. He has cancer… we have to carry him to the bathroom,” his brother Marwan says…”I have cancer. They know I have cancer. It is not a broken bone, it is a deadly disease,” Mustafa cries, reaching for more pills. He takes around 150 grams of morphine a day and tranquillizers so he can sleep at night. “Just let me in. Assign a security guard to me. Assign 10 security guards to me, just let me go and receive treatment and come back,” he says, tears trickling onto the pillow as his wide-eyed children look on aghast…

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Decline in Iraq news may have boosted U.S. opinion
David Morgan, Reuters
A recent decline in U.S. news coverage from Iraq coincides with improved public opinion about the war just as the 2008 presidential campaign heads to an early showdown, a study released on Wednesday said. The study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism said the volume of coverage from Iraq fell from 8 percent of all news stories in the first six months of 2007 to 5 percent between June and October due mainly to a decline in news accounts of daily attacks….

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War Is Over—Say the Pundits
But it’s media, not voters, who seem to have lost interest in Iraq
FAIR
To hear many in the mainstream media tell it, the Iraq War is of diminishing importance to American voters. But the evidence for such a shift in the electorate is thin at best—suggesting that journalists and pundits are really the ones who would rather not talk about Iraq as we head into an election year. The New York Times offered a glimpse of this argument in a November 25 piece headlined “As Democrats See Security Gains in Iraq, Tone Shifts.” The article suggested that “leading Democratic presidential candidates” were having trouble acknowledging “success” in Iraq while still opposing the war: “But the changing situation suggests for the first time that the politics of the war could shift in the general election next year, particularly if the gains continue.”…

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Secret Air War Confirmed
Lenin’s Tomb
A recent (typically apologetic) study by the CSIS of US bombing raids in Iraq and Afghanistan has produced figures that confirm what many of us have been arguing – that the US has drastically escalated its aerial assault on Iraq and Afghanistan, below the radar of the corporate media. You may not have realised by how much, though….

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SLAUGHTERING OF CHILDREN ON THE EID
Desert Peace
Islamic custom is to slaughter a lamb or a goat on the Festival of Eid Al-Adha, a custom that goes back to the time of Abraham our Father who slaughtered a beast rather than his son. This particular custom fulfills one of the basic principles of Islam, that being sharing and helping the poor. The slaughtered animal is shared with the community and a portion of it is donated to the needy. Zionism has given a new meaning to the holiday, instead of animals being slaughtered, it is Palestinian children. Just this week alone the following was reported from Gaza….Two sick teen-age girls died on Wednesday, the first day of Eid, in Gaza after being barred from seeking medical treatment abroad by the Israeli occupation….

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Report indicates White House encouraged torture tape destruction
Administration demands retraction, calling news story “pernicious”
Joe Kay, WSWS
At least four top White House lawyers knew about the existence of videotapes documenting the torture of prisoners held by the US Central Intelligence Agency, according to a report published Wednesday. One source has said that several officials strongly encouraged the destruction of the tapes to eliminate evidence of the interrogations. The report, published in the New York Times, directly implicates leading figures in the Bush administration in the criminal destruction of evidence, in addition to the original crime of torture captured on the videotapes. In an indication of the extreme nervousness of the White House over the revelations, press secretary Dana Perino immediately issued a highly unusual statement condemning the article and demanding that the Times change its headline….

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Of Mice and Real Men
Iraqi Democrat
As we approach the first year since the murder of Saddam Hussain, one can only reflect of the events since as being driven by the most undignified beasts you can ever imagine (…) How opposite they are to Saddam, when you think of the dignity which the man went to the gollows with, that he never gave the occupier what they wanted and kicked or screamed or begged or collapsed on the floor and cried for mercy. The very fact that Saddam stayed in Iraq throughout the invasion and occupation, the fact that he chose to fight his corner in the joke which was the courtroom impressed allot more people and showed the present impotent idles called the “Government”, a thing called dignity, bravery, self respect and grace….

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Holiday Season Hypocrisy
Stephen Lendman
… Whatever Christmas was, it no longer is, and our behavior corrupts it and the spirit of the man it honors. He spread it in deeds and teachings from his Sermon on the Mount and message to “turn the other cheek,” love thy neighbor, not kill, and do unto others as you’d want them doing to you. The consumerist ethic glorifies receiving, not giving; condoning predatory capitalism and ignoring its harm; neglecting the greater good; sanctifying overindulgence while forgetting those most in need throughout the year. In the spirit of the season, thoughts should be on helping others and giving thanks. In an unfettered marketplace, it’s impossible. It’s a sad testimony to a society obsessed with greed and gratification at the expense of beneficial social change. At Christmas, it defiles the holiday spirit and forgets the needy. For them, Christmas is “Bah Humbug,” and Santa Scrooge – all take and no give…

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Torture, interrogation and intelligence
Wikileaks exclusive
Lecture on torture techniques by Dr. Larry Forness of the American Military University. The document explains the rationale behind torturing prisoners, torture methods, and a justification for ignoring international law. Forness advocates the injection of truth serums, threatening to inject Muslim prisoners with pigs’ blood, and torturing detainees’ friends and family. The American Military University teaches courses primarily to US military and associated personnel. Forness, in his faculty biography states “Dr. Larry Forness is a former United States Marine, with expertise in intelligence and unconventional warfare. He provides consulting services to various units of the U.S. Military. He has also worked with special units of our allies, particularly Israel and South Korea.”….

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Woman testifies she was raped by US contractors in Iraq
AFP
A US woman who said she was raped by US contractors in Iraq testified in Congress on Wednesday, telling legislators that she was kept under armed guard in her trailer after reporting the incident. Jamie Leigh Jones, now 23, said that she was gang raped inside the Baghdad Green Zone in July 2005 while she was working for the Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc, which has support contracts with the US military…

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Moqtada al-Sadr may extend freeze on militia
Reuters
Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is considering extending a freeze on the activities of his powerful Mehdi Army militia, his spokesman said. “Yes, there is a chance that the freeze on the Mehdi Army will be extended,” Salah al-Ubaidy told Reuters late on Wednesday. Ubaidy did not say how long another extension might last or why the group was thinking of extending a freeze that U.S. commanders say has helped ease overall levels of violence in Iraq…

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Bomber kills 13 Iraq volunteers and US soldier
Reuters
A suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives killed 13 neighbourhood patrol volunteers and a U.S. soldier in a volatile Iraqi province on Thursday. U.S. officials say attacks in Iraq are down by 60 percent since June, but have also warned that violence could return if Iraqi political leaders do not make more progress on reconciling warring sects and ethnic groups. President George W. Bush said he was dissatisfied with progress but defended Iraq’s political process, saying despite a deadlock on laws in the Baghdad parliament, communities were moving towards reconciliation at the provincial level….

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WILL NOBODY BRING CHRISTMAS CHEER TO BESIEGED AND STARVING GAZA?
Peter Ramsden / CSPL – Via thepeoplesvoice.org
This Christmas innocent Gazans are starving. Critically ill cancer and renal failure patients die an agonising death, unable to receive treatment because Israel blocks vital drugs and other medical supplies, including dialysis machine spares, and prevents the sick crossing the border for proper hospital care. New-born babies and those just months old are dying too, denied treatment. The United Nations Declaration of the Right of the Child lies buried under the sands of Gaza. Israel has even imposed a fishing ban on the 3000 licensed fishermen, robbing them of their livelihood and the population of a proper diet. Boats ignoring the ban are fired on. Are those not Palestinian territorial waters? Have Palestinians no rights under the UN Law of the Sea Conventions?…

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It’s Not Just The Palestinians Who Won’t Recognize A “Jewish State”
Lawrence of Cyberia
I am currently working on a long post about why the PLO recognizes the state of Israel, but refuses to meet Olmert’s demand for formal recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state”; and about the hysterical response that the PLO’s refusal has provoked among some of the Usual Friends Of Israel™. While I was working on it this afternoon, I came across a document in the U.S. National Archives (click image left to enlarge), that I thought deserved a mention in its own right. The document is from 14 May 1948. The context is that the Zionist government has proclaimed a “Jewish state” in Palestine, and is seeking U.S. recognition of that state. The document is President Harry S. Truman’s response to that request…

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GI Special 5L14: Big Surprise [ December 20, 2007 ]
Thomas F. Barton
Most national polls suggest that Iraq is hardly fading; according to a recent CBS/NY Times poll (12/5-9/07), when asked to name the most important issue facing the country, the public named the Iraq War by a large margin—twice as many as the next issue (healthcare).

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Six Palestinians killed as Israeli army sweeps into central Gaza Strip
Rami Almeghari – IMEMC
Six Palestinians, including five resistance fighters, have been killed on Thursday, as the Israeli army swept early on into the central Gaza Strip town of Maghazi, IMEMC learned. IMEMC learned that the Abdelrazeq Nofal, a civilian from the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip, who was visiting family members in Maghazi, where the Israeli invasion has been taking place. Today is a public holiday in the Palestinian territories, marking the aL-Adha Eid occasion, the second largest Muslim annual holiday , as people are used to exchanging family visits….

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Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch rejects Israel’s Jewish identity
Haaretz
Israel’s identity as a Jewish state discriminates against non-Jews, the Holy Land’s top Roman Catholic clergyman said in a pre-Christmas address on Wednesday. “If there’s a state of one religion, other religions are naturally discriminated against,” Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah told reporters at the annual press conference he holds in Jerusalem before the Christian holiday. In his address, which he read in Arabic and English, Sabbah said Israel should abandon its Jewish character in favor of a political, normal state for Christians, Muslims and Jews….

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December 19, 2007: 57 Iraqis Killed, 12 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
Despite a very slow newsday, at least 57 Iraqis were killed and 12 more were wounded in the latest reported violence. Meanwhile, Iraqi Muslims are observing the Eid al-Adha, which marks the end of the yearly Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. This year, the Iraqi government extended the official holiday to include Christmas. Iraqi newspapers will cease publication until next Wednesday for the observances, and reports from the country are expected to be scant until then. U.S. forces released information on a “torture complex” discovered by troops on Dec. 8. Over the next three days, troops uncovered a grisly scene and found 26 decomposed bodies. Twenty-two suspects were also killed and 37 more were detained during the operation, which took place north of Muqdadiyah….

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