An Unnecessary War

Jimmy Carter • originally published in the Washington Post       
see more in NEWS & ANALYSIS

I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided.

After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had moved to other communities, and the streets, playgrounds and shopping centers were almost empty. Mayor Eli Moyal assembled a group of citizens in his office to meet us and complained that the government of Israel was not stopping the rockets, either through diplomacy or military action.

Knowing that we would soon be seeing Hamas leaders from Gaza and also in Damascus, we promised to assess prospects for a cease-fire. From Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was negotiating between the Israelis and Hamas, we learned that there was a fundamental difference between the two sides. Hamas wanted a comprehensive cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis refused to discuss anything other than Gaza.

Israel? Wrap it up, sweetie, we’re starting to get queasy

from 23/6 • see all posts in HUMOR    

The situation in Gaza became more grim yesterday as the Red Cross discovered starving Palestinian children clinging to their dead mothers’ bodies. The Red Cross complained that it had tried to get Israel to allow access to the area on Sunday, but wasn’t allowed in until Wednesday. A rep for the humanitarian group said, “The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded.”

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald wonders why both of America’s political parties are so strongly in Israel’s corner. Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell drafted a non-binding resolution expressed their full support for Israel. The resolution is seen as “a bid to keep [Republicans] from ‘out-hawking‘ the Democrats on the issue.”

Last night, we polled 700,000 Americans and asked them, “what would it take for Israel to lose your support?” Here’s the results:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Interview w/ Jay Reatard

Interviewed by Steven Hyden     • see all posts in ARTS & CULTURE

Memphis garage-rocker Jay Reatard was one of the big breakout artists of 2008, releasing two fantastic singles collections on two different labels—Singles ‘06-’07 collected songs from various 7-inches released by In The Red, andMatador Singles ‘08 packaged together a special series of monthly vinyl-only releases from his new label. Along with earning critical praise for his music—which is a lot more sophisticated and clever than its dumb, Ramones-inspired artifice might suggest—Reatard also got the wrong kind of publicity when he punched out an unruly fan during a disastrous show in Toronto last spring. Inevitably, video of the incident was widely circulated on the Internet, and Reatard was painted as a petulant would-be rock star who couldn’t stand the heat of the punk-rock kitchen. Reatard maintains that he’s merely a musician and songwriter and not a badass tough guy, and he continues to be a prolific record-maker who’s currently prepping his first full-length album for Matador, set for an early 2009 release. The A.V. Club recently caught up with Reatard to talk about music, fighting, and whether it was wrong to name himself after a politically incorrect term for the cognitively disabled.

The A.V. Club: How are you?

Jay Reatard: I’m in fucking panic mode, trying to finish up my record before next week when I have to deliver it. I need to take a little break. I’ve been frying my brain on recording this morning. I had 15 songs done, and then I had to get shipped away to London for two weeks. Then I came home for three days to work on the record, and then I flew back to Paris. And now I’m back home this morning to work on the record again. It’s pretty hectic.

AVC: Are you recording by yourself?

JR: Yeah. I’m just doing it in what would be my dining room if I was eating, rather than creating music there. I’m doing it at my house, like I always have. It’s simply for convenience’s sake. If I have a song idea at 9 in the morning, it’s pretty difficult to say, “Hey dude, get the fuck over here in the next five minutes before I lose inspiration.” I have a couple of drum kits at my house, and I keep them miked up, so it’s easier just to sit down and do it myself. On this record, I recorded with the drummer I’ve been playing with for the past year and a half. He played on about a third of the record, which is a pretty big step for me. I haven’t recorded with other people for four years, I guess.

Bristol Palin Says to Teens: Don’t Get Pregnant

By Jodi Jacobson, RH Reality Check

Bristol Palin may be way ahead of her mom when it comes to one of the country’s most controversial issues.

On December 27, Bristol Palin, daughter of Alaska Governor and former Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin gave birth to a healthy baby boy.  Today, Bristol, who is 18 years old and just shy of achieving her high school diploma, joined her mother in a statement on the birth of her first child, Governor Palin’s first grandchild.

Governor Palin, obviously elated with the safe delivery of her grandchild and the health of her daughter, stated;

We are over the moon with the arrival of this healthy, beautiful baby.

And, she continued:

The road ahead for this young couple will not be easy, but nothing worthwhile is ever easy. Bristol and Levi are committed to accomplish what millions of other young parents have accomplished, to provide a loving and secure environment for their child. They are both hard workers, they’re very strong, and have faith they’ve made the right decision in setting aside their own interests to make this child their highest priority.

The operative word here is “decision.”  Bristol and Levi, along with their families, made a decision that was right for them.  And the fact that they have this choice is instructive on many levels.

New Year’s resolution – Citizen Justice #3

Citizen Justice • Operation Itch Video
see all Citizen Justice     see all posts in HUMOR

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Broken Ceasefire: Facts about the Israeli War on Palestine

 

BSNews 2009-01-01 — By Michael Hess.    •  more in NEWS & ANALYSIS     

Western press have recently and erroneously reported that Hamas broke a six month ceasefire even as most reported in November 2008 that Israel itself first broke the informal truce. In recent days Prime Minister Olmert has tied the end of the current attacks by Israel on Gaza to an international “monitoring” force to ensure that Hamas meets terms of a new ceasefire. Some of the early pre-strike tactics have been questioned by officials, and it is unlikely this latest conflict will resolve anything because it does not address the root cause, the ongoing occupations.

In this decades long occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem there have been many lulls that lapse into tit for tat violence and then creep back into lulls again.

In the most recent case, Hamas and Israel came to an informal agreement in June 2008 where Hamas would halt rocket fire and reign in various militant factions in the Strip while at the same time opening border crossings. Instead, Hamas largely kept the ceasefire and the crossings never opened except for the most sporadic of instances and the humanitarian crisis deepened in Gaza.

Western press in light of the most recent assault on Gaza seem to have forgotten who broke the truce and are erroneously attributing the end of the ceasefire to either rockets and or the expiration of the original agreement.

Hagada Hasmalit provided an analysis of of articles describing the breakdown of the ceasefire and who was responsible and also took the New York Times to task for the devolving reportage during this most recent spate of violence. Viewing the timeline of news reporting from November 4-15, 2008 it becomes crystal clear that Israel broke the ceasefire.

In one of the first stories on the breakdown of the ceasefire the Independent posted a story entitled ‘Massive’ rocket attack launched on Israel and reported the following:

 

“Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip fired more than 35 rockets towards Israel today, the army and the Islamist group said, hours after the Israeli army killed six militants in the coastal territory. 

An Israeli police spokesman said the rockets landed in southern Israel, causing no damage or injuries.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attacks, the first such announcement by the Islamist group since an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Israel went into effect on June 19.”

 

The Guardian headline read Hamas fires rockets after Israel kills six in Gaza and they reported:

 

“Hamas militants fired more than 35 rockets into Israel today, hours after the Israeli army killed six people in the Gaza Strip in the first major exchange of fire since a truce took effect in June.”

 

Amnesty International also covered the breaking of the ceasefire in Gaza ceasefire at risk and wrote:

 

“The killing of six Palestinian militants in Gaza by Israeli forces in a ground incursion and air strikes on 4 November was followed by a barrage of dozens of Palestinian rockets on nearby towns and villages in the south of Israel. The Palestinian attacks caused no casualties or damage, but there is a real risk that any further armed actions by either side would risk igniting another deadly campaign.”

 

The Times reported Six die in Israeli attack over Hamas ‘tunnel under border to kidnap soldier’:

 

“A five-month truce between Israel and the Islamist rulers of the Gaza Strip was foundering yesterday after Israeli special forces entered the besieged territory and fought Hamas militants, leaving six Palestinian fighters dead and four Israeli soldiers wounded.”

 

Yedioth also covered the breakdown of the ceasefire in a piece headlined IDF leaves Gaza after op, 6 gunmen killed:

 

“For the first time since the ceasefire took effect in June, IDF forces operated deep in the Gaza Strip Tuesday night in a bid to collapse a tunnel located 250 meters (273 yards) from the border – and which terror groups intended to use for kidnapping Israeli soldiers.”

 

Haaretz reported the story with a headline entitled IDF kills Hamas man in Gaza clash:

 

“Israel Defense Forces troops yesterday killed a Hamas gunman and wounded two others in the first armed clash in the Gaza Strip since a cease-fire was declared there in June … Since the cease-fire, the IDF has launched frequent raids across the fence, albeit smaller in scale. The IDF is apparently interested in keeping these incursions low-profile, and they receive little attention in the Israeli media. Additionally, raids tend to be limited to addressing ‘immediate threats,’ as defined by the IDF.”

 

The New York Times weighed in during mid-December with this article Deadly Gaza Border Clash Threatens Truce:

 

“At least six Palestinian militants were killed in a clash and an Israeli airstrike on Nov. 4 after an Israeli force entered Gaza for the first time in five months to destroy a tunnel Israel said it believed was intended for use in the abduction of soldiers.”

 

And again two days later with this piece Hamas Fires Rockets Into Israel:

 

“The confrontations, following five months of relative calm, began to spike this month when the Israeli military destroyed a tunnel being dug toward Israel … The Israelis said it was an isolated operation, not a violation of the cease-fire agreed to in June, and asked Egypt to pass that message to Hamas in advance. But six Hamas militants were killed during the tunnel’s destruction, leading Hamas to retaliate with rockets, which led to more closings and operations and then more rockets.”

 

Without a doubt, Israel broke the ceasefire and the calamity predicted by most news sources back in November has come to pass. Israel it seems, never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Ehud Olmert, Jim Jones and an international monitoring force

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said according to the Las Vegas Sun ”Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who rebuffed a French proposal for a two-day cease fire, won’t agree to a truce unless international monitors take responsibility for enforcing it, government officials said. He’s made this point in talks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other world leaders who are pressing for an end to the violence, they added.”

International peace groups and human rights activists have asked for this for years, now in an abrupt about face, Olmert is actually demanding an international force capable of enforcing an agreement.

Perhaps Olmert believes this will only be for the Palestinians. Caroline Glick on the other hand sees great peril for Israel if monitors are introduced.

She was very upset and vocal in early December when President Elect Barack Obama chose General Jim Jones as his National Security Adviser. In a scathing piece in the right-wing Jerusalem Post she wrote:

 

“…Gen. Jim Jones, Obama’s designated national security adviser, is Israel’s most outspoken critic. The source, who held a two and a half hour meeting with Jones, told his associates that Jones is keen to deploy NATO forces, perhaps including US troops, to Judea and Samaria. 

Jones’s plan, which is vociferously opposed by the IDF, would make it impossible for the IDF to carry out counterterror operations in the areas. As a practical matter, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens who live in the areas would be imperiled.”

 

Of course, Palestinians and much of the world would rightly oppose only a one-sided force with a mandate to only go after Palestinians but not Israel, so it’s not clear what kind of “monitor” force would be imposed. It could just be yet another impossible condition to fulfill, Israel has been known to make demands for impossible conditions.

UN evidence that there was a semi-official lull

An AP story said “Karen Abu Zayd, commissioner of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which helps Palestinian refugees, raised the possible violation of an informal truce in a video press conference with U.N. reporters from her base in Gaza.”

 

“‘What we understood here (was) that there was a 48-hour lull to be called, and this was called by the Israelis,’ Abu Zayd said. ‘They said they would wait 48 hours. That was on Friday morning, I believe, until Sunday morning, and that they were going to evaluate.’”

 

Timing of the initial attacks coincided with the time kids would be most likely on the streets

There’s a certain cynicism from the Israeli government that says it is going out of its way to not target civilians, dropping leaflets, using robocalls to cell phone and yet the timing of the attacks were right at the time when Palestinian schoolchildren would be leaving morning classes or heading to afternoon classes.

A physician from Gaza City, Mona El Farra, currently in the UK wrote about the timing in The Guardian of the first Israeli attacks:

 

“The first military air strikes struck at the exact time that schoolchildren make their way home. Where I live in Gaza City, several primary schools are very close to the police headquarters that were among the first targets. These horrifying facts explain the high number of women and children among the dead. Thirty children and nine women have been reported dead and another 130 children and 38 women injured … Israel’s actions are creating more and more hatred. While families in Gaza cower in their homes, ready for death to strike, how can Israel talk of peace? Neither building the wall in the West Bank nor attacking Gaza so savagely will bring peace to Israel. Only peace that is based on justice and respects the rights of us all will work in the end. We are humans too.”

 

The doctor and and deputy director of the Red Crescent Society also lost a 22 year-old cousin in the attacks.

Bush Apologizes: The Farewell Interview We Wish He’d Give

Matt Taibbi • Rolling Stone  
see all posts in HUMOR  

Despite a financial crisis for the ages, the catastrophic collapse of a Republican Party crippled by his political legacy, and the highest presidential disapproval rating in the history of American polling, outgoing commander in chief George W. Bush has not completely lost his sense of fun. When Rolling Stone caught up with him at the White House shortly after the holidays for what would turn out to be his final extended sit-down interview as president, the graying but still quite fit Texan had just finished his morning exercycle session in an eagle-emblazoned sweatsuit and was fiddling with a new toy.

“They call it a Wii, or a Mee, or something,” Bush tells me, smiling as he waves a wandlike plastic device in front of a 54-inch plasma TV in the Treaty Room, a large, brightly lit chamber on the second floor of the Executive Residence that traditionally functions as the president’s private study. The president is playing a friendly game of Major League Baseball — the Boston Red Sox against his cherished Texas Rangers — and a computer-rendered Daisuke Matsuzaka drills a hard slider right past him, down and in.

“Huh,” says the president. “Might have to choke up a little.”

Although now used as a game room, the Treaty Room still has a classic feel, with a century-old painting by Theobald Chartran depicting the signing of the peace treaty after the Spanish-American War, and a magnificent mahogany “treaty table” first used by Ulysses S. Grant. A bookshelf on the north wall displays standard-issue Americana such as Poor Richard’s Almanack, but it also contains former swimsuit model Kathy Ireland’s Powerful Inspirations: Eight Lessons That Will Change Your Life (“There’s a lot of good life stuff in there, a lot of stuff about patience,” the president says) and a well-worn copy of 101 Dumb Dog Deaths (“Makes me laugh every time, especially the one about cow-tipping”).

Matsuzaka delivers again, but the president looks fastball when the pitch is a change. “Damn it!” he shouts, bouncing the Wii wand off an antique globe in the corner. “Goddamn motherfucking shit!” After collecting himself, he takes a seat at his desk and leans back in his grand leather easy chair, stirring the ice cubes in a glass of Diet Coke with a finger.

So are we meeting up here because Michelle Obama is measuring the Oval Office windows for drapes?
[Laughs] No. I just like it up here. Plus, people tend to get nervous in the Oval Office. Figured I’d make it a little easier on you by doing this here.

While I was waiting, one of your staffers told me a crazy story about a certain member of your Cabinet breaking wind in the Oval Office. Can you confirm that story?
Well, like I said, people get nervous down there. It’s — [laughs] — I can’t believe someone told you about that.

But you’re leaving office in a couple of weeks. Come on. Throw us a bone. Just think, you finally get to talk about all of these things.
Look, I can’t. Besides, it wasn’t that big of a — OK, fine. It was Condi.

No Gaza exit strategy

The Real News Network      
more in NEWS & ANALYSIS 
Dion Nissenbaum: It is difficult to see how this ends

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Obama camp ‘prepared to talk to Hamas’

 

The Gaurdian   • more in NEWS & ANALYSIS    
The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon George Bush’s doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, sources close to the transition team say.

US president-elect, Barack Obama, steps out from behind a curtain. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters

The move to open contacts with Hamas, which could be initiated through the US intelligence services, would represent a definitive break with the Bush presidency’s ostracising of the group. The state department has designated Hamas a terrorist organisation, and in 2006 Congress passed a law banning US financial aid to the group.

The Guardian has spoken to three people with knowledge of the discussions in the Obama camp. There is no talk of Obama approving direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on, but he is being urged by advisers to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, and there is growing recognition in Washington that the policy of ostracising Hamas is counter-productive. A tested course would be to start contacts through Hamas and the US intelligence services, similar to the secret process through which the US engaged with the PLO in the 1970s. Israel did not become aware of the contacts until much later.

A UN resolution was agreed last night at the UN, calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire between Hamas and Israeli forces in Gaza. The resolution was passed, though the US, represented by secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, abstained.

On January 20, everything will be illegal

from 23/6   see all posts in HUMOR  

Planning to go to Washington for the inauguration parade? Might as well just handcuff yourself and put yourself in jail, because security measures for the event are going to be the tightest ever for an inauguration. Among the prohibited items on the parade route: chairs, coolers, backpacks, umbrellas, strollers and aerosol cans (which means no Silly String or hairspray). Restrictions are being placed on posters, and the police presence will be in the thousands.

Still want to check it out? We’ve put together a map showing the parade route, along with some of the security checkpoints and hotspots. Memorize it, and leave the umbrellas at home.

KEY:

1. No pepper spray. Also, no pepper. Also, no Dr. Pepper. Also, no doctors allowed. We don’t need some fancy M.D. giving out unwanted diagnoses that might panic a crowd.

2. Satellite-jamming tower will block parade viewers from sending cell phone pictures of the event to their friends.

3. Because bicycles are prohibited from the parade route, a police cordon will be established around Chinatown to prevent restaurants from dispatching any delivery guys.

4. Pennsylvania residents will be barred from the parade route for fear that unbridled state pride regarding the name of the avenue will cause Pennsylvanians to riot.

5. Undercover Navy Seals dressed as civilians will infiltrate the crowd and subdue anyone who appears “fidgety.” Obviously, that is because they are nervous about their assassination attempt, and not because it’s 10 degrees out and there are no bathrooms.

6. Snipers perched on Superior Court building ordered to shoot and kill anyone holding a can of Silly String. WHO’S SILLY NOW, BUCKO?

7. All observers will be issued canaries as an early warning system in the event of toxic gas in the area.

8. Inauguration ceremony itself will occur in windowless, reinforced-steel room, without video cameras or other recording devices. President-elect will take oath from inside sealed, sterilized chamber surrounded by rottweilers.

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