Irish Protests Against Israeli Attacks on Gaza Escalate

by Paulo Nunes dos Santos - Freelance photojournalist Tue Dec 30, 2008 05:20 pdossantos at mac dot com

Demonstration against Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, held in Dublin on the 29th of December 2008.
In the 29th of December 2008, hundreds of people gathered outside the Israeli embassy in Dublin, to demonstrate against Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip.

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by Paula Geraghty Tue Dec 30, 2008 16:26

all images (c)

by Bruno M. Tue Dec 30, 2008 22:44

congratulations to the photographer for a great set of images taken at the demonstration. Unfortunately couldn't be there but this multimedia piece gives me an idea of what have happen.

great stuff Paulo

by redjade Wed Dec 31, 2008 16:20

See C.B. WatchBlog Part One here:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/90331

Below is the first video made by CNN reporter Karl Penhaul who accompanied the Human Rights activists (including Caoimhe) aboard the small ship, The Dignity

In the video, Caoimhe explains to the passengers that the captain is searching for options of where to go after the Israeli attack and that the ship is 'in distress.'

'Karl Penhaul is a video correspondent for CNN, based out of Bogotá, Colombia. Appointed to this position in February 2004, he covers breaking news around the world utilizing CNN's new laptop-based 'Digital Newsgathering' system.'
• http://edition.cnn.com/CNN/anchors_reporters/penhaul.ka....html

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by redjade Wed Dec 31, 2008 16:24

CNN's Karl Penhaul....

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by redjade Wed Dec 31, 2008 16:32

Live on PressTV (http://www.PressTV.ir)
[PressTV is the Shia/Iranian/Persian answer to the Sunni/Qatari/Arab al Jazeera (http://english.aljazeera.net)]

Note: see Caoimhe on the deck on the ship...

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by redjade Wed Dec 31, 2008 16:40

I made mp3's of CNN's Karl Penhaul video report and Cynthia McKinney's CNN interview just in case CNN decides to 'disappear' them... UPDATE: I finally found the Penhaul video that I took the audio from (below), his report allows one to get the scale of things - a small boat harassed and attacked by multiple Israel Navy ships.

CNN's Karl Penhaul describes in detail how the ship was attacked
CNN's Karl Penhaul describes in detail how the ship was attacked 3.06 Mb

Cynthia McKinney reminds CNN viewers about the USS Liberty
Cynthia McKinney reminds CNN viewers about the USS Liberty 1 Mb

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by redjade Wed Dec 31, 2008 18:29

Speaking from Lebanon, Irish national Caoimhe Butterly said the Israeli naval vessels had been tailing the Dignity for some time when one, without lights, rammed the yacht three times, damaging the hull on the port side and smashing the wheelhouse.

“We had not been expecting this so far out,” she said.

“We were not prepared, some of us were not wearing life vests.

“They gave no radio warning, we were not asked to identify ourselves. [The attack] was very sudden, very aggressive.

“After they rammed us they fired flares, spoke on the radio and threatened to shoot if we did not return to Larnaca. They said we were engaged in terrorist activity. We were afraid the boat would sink,” she said.

Caoimhe on the Dignity (AP Photo)

by redjade Fri Jan 02, 2009 16:27

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by Eddie Sheridan Fri Jan 02, 2009 22:11 dreadlockedpasta at eircom dot net

I am in the US at the moment and when I tried to view this story and site, I got blocked and a warning that this site was unsafe and had to make an exception to view it. It amazes me how little real news I get here compared to back in Ireland. Until there is a way to let everybody know whats going on in palestine things will never change.

by Eddie Sheridan Fri Jan 02, 2009 22:18

I would like to add that I was home for Christmas and passed by the demo and beeped my support for the suffering that is happening but I condemn the burning of the Israeli flag. I understand people are angry but you cannot stop one nation from being crushed by doing the same to the other.

by Viola Wilkins - IWW Sat Jan 03, 2009 00:02 violawil at bigpond dot net dot au

Voices of Resistance Sing On: Eartha Kitt, Odetta & Utah Phillips - they rock!

Eartha Kitt has died at the age of eighty-one. She was blacklisted in 1968 after she spoke out against the Vietnam War at a White House luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson. When Johnson asked her about the Vietnam War, Kitt replied, “You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. They rebel in the street. They don’t want to go to school because they’re going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam.” The First Lady reportedly burst into tears.

For four years afterward, Kitt performed almost exclusively overseas and was investigated by the FBI and CIA.

When Rosa Parks was asked which songs meant the most to her, she replied, “All of the songs Odetta sings.”

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2008/12/31/amy_goodman...ng_on

Sweet Honey In The Rock's bernice johnson reagon on Odetta http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/30/dr_bernice_johns...sical

Utah Phillips

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/1/placeholder_utah_p...llips

by CW Sat Jan 03, 2009 03:00

Photos- 3 Catholic Workers Arrested at Israeli Embassy, Washington D.C. opposing the bombing and siege of Gaza

http://www.jonahhouse.org/IsraeliEmbassy.htm

by redjade Sat Jan 03, 2009 12:48

02/01/2009
'Anarchists' block entrance to IAF base in protest of Gaza strikes

Twenty-one members of the "Anarchists Against the Wall" group were arrested Friday morning after they blocked the entrance to the Sde Dov Israel Air Force base in North Tel Aviv.

The protestors, wearing white masks and covered in fake blood, laid on the street and played dead.

They said they were arrested after they left the road and were on the sidewalk.

Ayala, one of the protestors, said that the protest was meant to "show IAF pilots the results of their actions in Gaza. From thousands of feet in the air, a pilot who aims and presses a button can ignore, forget, or be unable to fathom that at that moment he killed innocent people. We came here to remind them of this."

[....]

by redjade Sat Jan 03, 2009 13:01

Starhawk writes:

''I've ridden on busses in Israel. I understand that gnawing fear, the squirrely feeling in the pit or your stomach, how you eye your fellow passengers wondering if any of them are too thick around the middle. Could that portly fellow be wearing a suicide belt, or just too many late night snacks of hummus? That's no way to live.

But I've also walked the pock-marked streets of Rafah, where every house bears the scars of Israeli snipers, where tanks prowled the border every night, where children played in the rubble, sometimes under fire, and this was all four years ago, when things were much, much better there.

And I just don't get it. I mean, I get why suicide bombs and homemade rockets that kill innocent civilians are wrong. I just don't get why bombs from F16s that kill far more innocent civilians are right. Why a kid from the ghetto who shoots a cop is a criminal, but a pilot who bombs a police station from the air is a hero.

Is it a distance thing? Does the air or the altitude confer a purifying effect? Or is it a matter of scale? Individual murder is vile, but mass murder, carried out by a state as an aspect of national policy, that's a fine and noble thing?

I don't get how my own people can be doing this. Or rather, I do get it. I am a Jew, by birth and upbringing, born six years after the Holocaust ended, raised on the myth and hope of Israel. The myth goes like this....''

Dublin: Starhawk (right) on the May Day '04 march to Farmleigh

by ec Sat Jan 03, 2009 16:16

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/416913.html

by Starstruck Sat Jan 03, 2009 17:30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpeC7P-2LfU

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by ec Sat Jan 03, 2009 18:57

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/03/israeli-for...-gaza

by ec Sat Jan 03, 2009 19:00

.

by PBPA - People Before Profit Alliance Sat Jan 03, 2009 20:28

For more images of New Years Day Protest & January 3rd protest in Dublin
see: www.peoplebeforeprofit.ie

Also please support IAWM protest this Tuesday 6th January @ 5pm at Israeli Embassy

Christy Moore & others stand in solidarity with Gaza

by Michael Hogan Sat Jan 03, 2009 21:12

The Israeli tactics emulate those of Nazi Germany during World War 2 and although they may champion in the short term, there will be no long term advantage from the the despicable acts of terrorism.

Time and people of true humanism will see to the eventual destruction of the barbaric Israeli.

by not the last commentator Sat Jan 03, 2009 22:55

war tactics that are recognisably that of the USA since World War 2 and although they may champion in the short term, there will be no long term advantage from the the despicable acts of terrorism.

Time and people of true humanism will see to the eventual destruction of the barbaric Yankee & all barbarisms in general. Indeed time and people of true humanism shall see to it that no facial hair ever again not even ulotrichinian moles or furry warts appear on either cheeks or chiny chin chin.

"a peaceful world without whiskers".

But somehow it's supposed to hurt more to say Israel is just like nazi Germany and not just like the USA - doesn't it?

by Andrew - WSM (personal capacity) Sun Jan 04, 2009 15:26

So the real tragedy here is not the hundreds of people being killed over the last days in Gaza but the fact someone burnt a flag. And what a curious positions for a self-described 'anarchist' to take, generally we are rather keen on the burning of flags, holding a nationalist symbol as being more important that hundreds of lives is as weird an 'anarchist' position as I've seen.

Your position is all the odder given the reality that over these days dozens of Israeli anarchists have been beaten, arrested and witnessed their Palestinian comrades being murdered for protesting the war that you seem to love. If your really an 'anarchist' who claims special concern for the historical treatment of Jews I'd suggest you take your lead from what the Jewish anarchists on the ground are doing - see http://www.anarkismo.net/article/11141

by Fred Johnston Sun Jan 04, 2009 16:51

'Gavina' gives what is by now a familiar response - deport anyone who protests. I think that was tried sixty years ago, Gavina, by a group of individuals at least some of whose ghettoising tactics are familiar to the Israel military, and espoused by them. Forgetting history seems to be an art-form among some of the gurus of the laughingly-titled Israeli Defence Forces. I listen to Israeli spokesmen - Australians, Californians, New Yorkers - lauding the murder of Palestinians; is there some sort of memory in there of how easy it was to get rid of the native Americans and the Australian Aborigines when a 'superior' race need living room? And the immigrant 'Israelis' are the most fanatical, the most ready to set up illegal settlements: naturally, killing natives to defend their 'homesteads' is nothing to them. Natives are always a nuisance. There is something, one feels, of old Wild West Manifest Destiny about Israeli ambitions towards the Palestinians. Gaza has become both a ghetto and a reservation - thus echoing in one stroke two shameful periods of history. Are the Israeli Defence Forces moving towards a re-enactment of Wounded Knee? Will the 'hawks' be happy then? And why not - after all, the great American Eagle has spread its sheltering wings over them. So learn your history, Gavina, before spouting off clichéd nonsense.

by Frank Adam - Private citizen Sun Jan 04, 2009 18:51

Was it Rantissi? or was it Hananiah who declared that HAMAS would rocket Sderot till it, "became a ghost town??"

The demonstrators with placards that if you do over somebody you create people who will do over yourself or others are so right.... It was HAMAS & friends who these eight years since 2000 have fired over 8000 rockets against Israel's Western Negev towns - particularly SDEROT - of which 5000+ since Israel left the Gaza Strip in 2005, and 3000+ this last year. Now the GAZA citizens are reaping what their friends they voted for, have sown - rather cheap given the eight years of disrupted life they inflicted on Israelis.

As Bomber Harris said of the Allied bomber offensive in '41- '45, "They have sown the wind, and they must reap the whirlwind." Only the big raids on Hamburg, Dresden and Berlin totted up 40,000 dead a time - not 400 - and altogether over half a million Germans died in Allied air raids on Germany so come off the ceiling in your outrage, and ask yourselves what HAMAS intended to obtain in practical politics by needling Israel with a low level military running sore?

Remember there were also eight years from the 1949 armistices to the 1956 Sinai Campaign in which last three years the Nasser government sent purpose trained killers and saboteurs to wreck civilian transport and other targets in the Negev towns. That also blew up in his face as did the totally anti - UN, Arab armed opposition to the creation of Israel and the accompanying regular Arab armies' invasion to bury UN 181, so Israel was and is entitled to the takings of its defensive victory.

When the penny drops in the Arab mind that they can have peace, if they leave Israel alone, then there will be peace all round. The trouble is the Arab mind was formed in supremacist, violent conquest, and Arabs have to learn that imperialism is over for everybody - including Arabs.

by Michael - Human League Mon Jan 05, 2009 11:37

Mr. Ron Prosser is putting on the style as he goes through ''the numbers game '' .Five Hundred Palestines Dead ,Two and A half Thousand Palestines
Injured By Israei Bombs. 500 Murdered and 2,500 attempted Murders is a 'numbers game' according to Roly Poly Prosser On Sky News with the
intense ''Murdoch Style Interviewing Techniques'' to the fore.

by Raw Footage Mon Jan 05, 2009 13:34

This video clip was taken with a mobile camera immediately after a terrorist Israeli air strike hit a busy market where kids with their mothers and fathers were searching for food to eat from one of the local markets early on Saturday 03, Jan 2009.

Stomach-churning but important raw footage. You can hear "Where are the world?"

http://sabbah.blip.tv/#1642223

by redjade Mon Jan 05, 2009 13:43

If you clicked on the link directly under the video:
http://tinyurl.com/8drdjx

You will have found that the video is not from the current war in Gaza....

'This video is from September 23rd 2005, and was taken in the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip'

by photos Mon Jan 05, 2009 23:36

photos from Gaza
http://cryptome.info/0001/gaza-kill/gaza-kill3.htm

by Justin Morahan Tue Jan 06, 2009 14:00

Amid all this unadulterated murder by the Israeli army what can words say to the civilians who are being ruthlessly destroyed by this evil regime?

Nothing, sadly.

The story from Pickwick comes to mind. He had fallen into a pool through the ice and his friends sat around shouting "Save yourself, save yourself".

Whether we like it or not, we, the people who elected them should pile on pressure on our TDs and Ministers and EU repreentatives to get off the fence and call a spade a spade. The present Israeli State must be condemned,not coddled with privilges from us.

The Anarchists of Israel are to be praised along with all Israelis who try to stop this carnage in whatever way they can in their own country against their own government.

A comment on the thread after the video explains that the words on their posters say:
"KILLERS IN UNIFORM" AND "CHILDREN'S BLOOD ON THE HANDS".
That's what these brave young Israelis think of their own army's massacre in Gaza

by redjade Fri Jan 09, 2009 16:07

'Many doctors from international organizations have been waiting in Rafah for permission to cross into Gaza. None of them have been allowed except for two Norwegian medics. Negotiations with the Norwegian Embassy are ongoing to send a third medic on Thursday.

Caoimhe Butterly, an Irish activist who worked on sending aid boats from Cyprus to Gaza, has been working in Egypt to get permissions for medics.

"It is important to pressure for doctors to cross the borders to Gaza. It's a purely humanitarian issue," she says. On Tuesday, only one Norwegian doctor was allowed in Gaza by the Egyptian authorities. According to Ms. Butterly, Norway and Egypt have an agreement that allows for the passage of Norwegian doctors.'

by FSM believer Tue Jan 13, 2009 17:17

Daniel Finkelstein, "there can be peace and prosperity at the smallest of prices. The Palestinians need only say that they will allow Israel to exist in peace. They need only say this tiny thing, and mean it, and there is pretty much nothing they cannot have. Yet they will not say it. And they will not mean it. ... Again and again .. the Palestinians have been offered a nation state in a divided Palestine. And again and again they have turned the offer down, for it has always been more important to drive out the Jews than to have a Palestinian state. ... There cannot be peace until this changes."

January 7, 2009
link - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/dan...4.ece

by dunk Tue Jan 13, 2009 17:47

Meanwhile on Democracy Now, another Finkelstein, this time author Norman Finkelstein, argues differently, saying that Hamas is committed to peace and the 2 state solution:

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: We have the Arab League, all twenty-two members of the Arab League, favoring a two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We have the Palestinian Authority favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We now have Hamas favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. The one and only obstacle is Israel, backed by the United States. That’s the problem.

The problem all along has been that Israel doesn’t want Gaza to develop, and Israel doesn’t want to resolve diplomatically the conflict...the leadership in Damascus and the leadership in the Gaza have repeatedly made statements they’re willing to settle the conflict in the June 1967 border. The record is fairly clear. In fact, it’s unambiguously clear.

Every year, the United Nations General Assembly votes on a resolution entitled “Peaceful Settlement of the Palestine Question.” And every year the vote is the same: it’s the whole world on one side; Israel, the United States and some South Sea atolls and Australia on the other side. The vote this past year was 164-to-7. Every year since 1989—in 1989, the vote was 151-to-3, the whole world on one side, the United States, Israel and the island state of Dominica on the other side.

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by FSM believer Wed Jan 14, 2009 13:01

"We now have Hamas favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border."

Is there any other source that backs this up?

by dunk Wed Jan 14, 2009 13:32

Hamas was signaling that it wanted a diplomatic settlement of the conflict along the June 1967 border. In order to defeat the peace offensive, Israel sought to dismantle Hamas. The blockade was implemented before Hamas came to power. It doesn’t even have anything to do with Hamas...

notes Norman Finkelstein on: The Facts about Hamas and the War on Gaza, 2009-01-10
@
Middle East Online : http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/opinion/?id=29692
Counter Punch : http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein01132009.html
Iraq War : http://www.iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/tiki-read_article.ph...86776

more info at
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/

Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History
read part of his book online at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0520245989/count...hmaga

To back up that claim, lets go back to April, 8 months prior to this massacre:

Hamas accepts two-state idea, says Carter, Tuesday 22 April 2008
· Referendum might let it live with 1967 boundaries
· Gaza spokesman throws doubt on new hope
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/22/israelandth...s.usa

The former US president Jimmy Carter said yesterday that the leaders of the Islamist movement Hamas would accept a two-state peace agreement with Israel as long as it was approved by a Palestinian referendum or a newly elected government.

Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History - Norman Finkelstein

by Rational Ecologist Wed Jan 14, 2009 13:38

There is the very strong suspicion that this latest Israeli offensive is as a result of the vast oil&gas resouces off Gaza. Very similar to the US invasion of Iraq-go in, destroy the counrty, put in place a puppet-regime( US/Israel-friendly) and bleed the country of it's resources. Anyone remember East Timor? Thus the zeal and savagery of the attack.
Tony Blair is implicated in the great theft. This is nothing less than imperialism, 21ts Century -style. It is sickening and depressing that the US/Israel have learnt nothing. Then again, they don't want to learn.
This is a classic resource war ( sic Jacques Delors ). Human life-especially Arab-is cheap. They are women-hating, medieval savages, so no loss there!!
Economics, economics, economics!

by dunk Wed Jan 14, 2009 13:58

Israeli Professor Under Hamas Rocket Fire, Neve Gordon Condemns Israeli Invasion of Gaza, points out Gaza is an occupation and tells of Israeli protestors being arrested

Speaking recently on Democracy Now, click on link below to watch:

NEVE GORDON: ...We just had a rocket here about an hour ago... First of all, I agree with the idea of a basic right to self-defense. And the right to self-defense is a right to self-defense from violence. We have to understand that the occupation itself is violence. It’s an act of violence. Putting people in a prison, in a prison of one million and a half million people and keeping them there for years on end without basic foodstuff, without allowing them to enter and exit when they will, is an act of violence. Without electricity, without clean water, it’s all an act of violence. And these people are resisting. I am against the way they’re resisting, but we have to look at their violence versus our violence.

... I have two comments to make, one related to protest in media. 700 Israelis have been arrested since this war began, because they protested this war. This has not made it to an international media, and it’s an act of intimidation by the state against those who protest the war.

Second, regarding what Lanny said, that no country would allow another country to bomb its citizens, he’s right. He forgets one essential fact, and that is the occupation. And Gaza was not—is still under occupation, because Israel controls all of its borders, and the West Bank is under occupation, and East Jerusalem is under occupation. And the act—the first, the initial, the primordial act of violence is the occupation. The rockets are a reaction to that act of violence. And so, we have to keep in mind that within—it’s not between a state and another state. It’s been between an occupier and an occupied.

Reasons for invasion:
I think the actual reasons have to do—the two major reasons—with rebuilding the reputation of the Israeli military after its humiliation in 2006 in Lebanon and the upcoming Israeli elections. Both Labor and Kadima, the two out of the three major parties, were behind in the polls against BB Netanyahu’s Likud, who was blaming them of being soft on the Palestinians. And I think the timing, in terms of the elections, which are on February 10th, was perfect to show that Kadima and Labor, that are in party, know how to be tough on the Palestinians. And in fact, already in the polls we see that Labor has added almost 50 percent to what it had before the war began. So I think there’s some cynical political issues and reputation issues that played a dramatic part in initiating this war.

Fmr. Clinton Special Counsel Lanny Davis vs. Israeli Professor Neve Gordon: A Debate on the Israeli Assault on Gaza, January 12, 2009
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/12/fmr_clinton_speci...davis

previous interview
Israeli Professor Under Hamas Rocket Fire, Neve Gordon Condemns Israeli Invasion of Gaza, January 05, 2009
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/5/israeli_professor_...raeli

by FSM believer Wed Jan 14, 2009 17:00

"Hamas favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border "

I want to believe this but I can't.

I'm further away from believing this now.

I don't trust Carter neither did the american people. He also keeps dubious friends....
from http://www.nationalreview.com/impromptus/impromptus0503...2.asp

No one quite realizes just how passionately anti-Israel Carter is. William Safire has reported that Cyrus Vance acknowledged that, if he had had a second term, Carter would have sold Israel down the river. In the 1990s, Carter became quite close to Yasser Arafat. After the Gulf War, Saudi Arabia was mad at Arafat, because the PLO chief had sided with Saddam Hussein. So Arafat asked Carter to fly to Riyadh to smooth things over with the princes and restore Saudi funding to him — which Carter did.

If this is true, that Hamas will settle for a 2 state solution surely someone representing them has said so somewhere?
I have never seen evidence of Hamas allowing Israel to exist ? or its people?

by redjade Wed Jan 14, 2009 17:07

Your source to prove your point is the National Review??!

c'mon! you can do better than that!

NR is just a poorly sourced opinion rag that American Conservatives only read for its sense of humour. Its journalistic decline went down with its founder's health - William F Buckley - and when he died, the editors kicked out his son for being too complimentary towards Obama.

So many things to criticise Carter for, and all you have is the National Review to back you up? There was a time when Indymedia.ie had quality trolls.

by Tim Wed Jan 14, 2009 18:14

Just reading about the use of White Phosphorous in Gaza.
Under the Geneva Convention 1980, it is banned as a weapon.
The US and IDF try to get around this by saying it is used as a flare to illuminate, (and they're firing it during the day).

It is illegal to bombard civilian areas with White Phosphorous, which is an inaccurate weapon that sets fire to buildings and people (burns through clothing, skin and down to the bone, and cannot be put out by water.

the batch numbers on the shell casings photographed by The Times in Gaza, show that they came from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, which is where all the US military White Phosphorous is made.
Last week, a USAF herc from Little Rock, Arkansas (very close to Pine Bluff) showed up in Shannon.
What was it doing? Where had it been? Where was it going? What had it carried?
You can be sure the pilots were not asked those questions by our boys in blue.
For more, including pictures of the Herc, see www.shannonwatch.org

by dunk Wed Jan 14, 2009 22:53

From todays Guardian, Jonathan Freedland makes comparisons between Gaza situation and past fighting on our island:
Amid the horror and doom of Gaza, the IRA precedent offers hope
The Northern Ireland example is instructive. Through dialogue even the most implacable of enemies can make peace

Whether it was apartheid in South Africa or the 30-year bloodshed in Northern Ireland, there were plenty of dark days when the blood seemed as if it would never stop.

Which is why the mention of Northern Ireland, once a byword for strife, is now an invocation of hope. If republicans and unionists - who once wished each other dead - can sit in government together, then surely Israelis and Palestinians are not fated to fight for ever.

There was state collusion in killings, but the British army did not bomb entire buildings in the Falls Road because it suspected an IRA cell lurked within.

That need not take decades. There are elements within Hamas readier than most Israelis realise to negotiate an end to occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines. But Israel has to decide that a meaningful peace is its goal too, starting with an understanding that this problem will never be solved by force. But it can be solved.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/14/gaz...eland

The question is, if this 2 state solution is something that Hamas will settle for, then, will Israel settle for peace? In that Norman Finkelstein DN! interview, see above, feels that Israel do not want peace, he states:

the second main reason for the attack is because Hamas was signaling that it wanted a diplomatic settlement of the conflict along the June 1967 border. That is to say, Hamas was signaling they had joined the international consensus, they had joined most of the international community, overwhelmingly the international community, in seeking a diplomatic settlement. And at that point, Israel was faced with what Israelis call a Palestinian peace offensive. And in order to defeat the peace offensive, they sought to dismantle Hamas.

Meanwhile, more horrific updates on the illegal use by Israel of White phosphorus during the day:

Also from Democracy Now, on todays show, horrific details and eye witness accounts that state it and DIMES (Dense Inert Metal Explosive) are being used:

White Phosphorous and Dense Inert Metal Explosives: Is Israel Using Banned and Experimental Munitions in Gaza?
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/14/white_phosphorous...metal

MARC GARLASCO: Well, we have not stated that Israel is using it as a weapon. We’ve clearly stated that we’re standing on the border, observing day after day the Israeli Defense Forces firing white phosphorus into the refugee camps and Gaza City. Now, we are not there on the ground to observe any further how it’s being used. I’m about like, say, a mile away. And so, from that distance, you can see very precisely that it’s going in.

DR. MADS GILBERT: Well, I have to underline what my friend on the border is saying. There’s been a palpable absence of international presence. In fact, Dr. Fosse and myself were the only two Westerners in Gaza for those first ten days we stayed there. And it’s absolutely incomprehensible that we, in 2009, we do not have the press on such war ground as Gaza is. And I think also it’s urgent to have international agencies come in and exactly do the examination on the ground to find out what kind of weapons are used.

Related article:
Gaza's burn victims add to pressure on army over phosphorus
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east...8.ece

CNN Confirms Israel Use Of White Phosphorus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQWl_uQKxOI

Daylight White phosphorus illegal bombardment: Israel Using Banned and Experimental Munitions in Gaza

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by gazasympathiser Thu Jan 15, 2009 09:02

Keep taking the pills!

And I suppose Sir Jeremy Greenstock who has said that Hamas is a national-liberation movement with no intention of wiping out Israel is an Islamist and/or self-hating Jew also?

This wooly liberal Jeremy Greenstock is the same person who approved the US/K invasion of Iraq.

Why such a turnaround?

A vision on the road to Damascus perhaps?

Or he has actually talked to Hamas and has gone beyond the rhetoric and seen there is a deal to be done.

A deal on terms that are reasonable to the Palestinian refugees.

A dispossed people still confined to camps 60 years after being ethnically cleansed from the lands.

Lands they had owned for centuries and millenia alongside their Christian and Jewish neighbours?

by gazasympathiser Thu Jan 15, 2009 09:11

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/today/today_...a.mp3

Hamas is not tied to Iran and does not want to set up a Taliban state, does not want the destruction of Israel and is intent on peace and coexistence with Israel.

Hamas is a grievance based organisation!

Cessation of rocket firing would have been possible had it not been for Israel breaking the ceasefire!

by FSM believer Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:19

Carter Visits Arafats tomb.

http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/FiM3HLFWqrK/Carter+Visit...arter

Arafats corruption...
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiq...y.asp

I didn't say Carter was an Islamist. I was just making the point that he may be of a one sided view.

If Hamas are willing to accept a two state solution then why can't they say it?

Would Hamas allow any Palestinian in Gaza to publicly say he/she supported a two state solution?

by gazasympathiser Thu Jan 15, 2009 12:14

Greenstock who is actually talking to Hamas says they are prepared to accept a 2 state solution.

What gives you so much insight into this process?

Are you secretly negotiating with Hamas?

Furthermore if you were negotiating or prepared to negotiate would you give away key concessions to the counter-party ahead of negotiations?

If you did you would make a very poor negotiator and would sell yourself and your people down the river!

The Israelis are truly stupid if they think Hamas would concede a point like this without movement from the Israelis stiffed Fatah last time round.

Time for the Israelis to show they are serious about peace.

Given their current behaviour I'd say clearly they are not as they have torpedoed the efforts by Greenstock and others, and set the peace process back by years, with their brutality and blatent disregard for international law and human rights in Gaza.

by Rational Ecologist Thu Jan 15, 2009 12:47

Israel wants control of Gaza'a resources. As soon as this is secure, then naturally " peace " negotiations or a " settlement" will be indulged. All agreements contain the seeds for the next conflagration, remember Versaille.
This isn't political, religious or ideological so much as pounds, shillings and pence or more accurately gas, oil and water.
This is genocide in the pursuit of empire, nothing less!!

by dunk Thu Jan 15, 2009 13:55

Israel hits UN refugee agency in Gaza
• Relief and works agency compound on fire
• 'Outraged' UN chief demands inquiry into attack

John Ging, the head of UN operations in Gaza told al-Jazeera television: "This is going to burn down the entire warehouse ... thousands and thousands of tonnes of food, medical supplies and other emergency assistance is there."

He said the phosphorus fires were hard to extinguish "because if you put water on it, it will just generate toxic fumes and do nothing to stop the burning". Phosphorous munitions are banned under international law as a weapon but permitted if used to create a smokescreen.

The news agency Reuters reported that a missile or shell had struck the Gaza tower block where it and other media organisations have offices. The 13th floor of the al-Shurouq Tower, which houses Abu Dhabi television, appeared to have been hit, injuring one of its journalists.

Reuters said it had provided Israeli forces with the co-ordinates of its office at the start of the war and had been repeatedly assured it was not a target.

Watch vid and read article from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/15/israel-gaza...talks

al-Jazeera : Israeli forces pound Gaza City
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/20....html

Meanwhile, In Ireland pressure is mounting for expulsion of Israeli embassador:
We want him out! He represents a state that is conducting a slaughter
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/90621

Might Ireland be the first European to use diplomatic boycott, following in the steps of Venezuala, Jordan, Bolivia?

by diaspora Mon Jan 26, 2009 19:03

VIDLINK- Omagh's Gary MacLennan Addresses Australia on its Complicity with Israel's Death Dealing
Brisbane J17

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Id-IYs1n-Ls&feature=PlayL...dex=7

by dunk Thu Jan 29, 2009 16:43

From Democracy Now!:

EU Signals Readiness to Recognize Hamas

Meanwhile, a European Union official has indicated for the first time the EU might break from the US-backed boycott of Hamas. Speaking in Jerusalem, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the EU would deal with a Palestinian unity government including Hamas, if Hamas accepted a two-state solution.

Javier Solana: “It has to be a team of people that will continue trying to obtain what is the desperation of so many people, which is two states and two states that can live together and, at the same time, that they can live together in the context of a very important initiative taken by the Arab League, which is the Arab peace initiative. Those who can work in that direction, of course, they have to be helped and supported."

The new stance would break from Israel and the US, which has demanded Hamas also recognize Israel’s right to exist and renounce violence. But Israel has refused to adopt the same conditions toward Palestinians.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana’s comments come as Hamas officials continue to repeat they’d accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. In an interview with the Associated Press, Hamas spokesperson Ghazi Hamad said, “We want to be part of the international community. I think Hamas has no interest now to increase the number of crises in Gaza or to challenge the world.” Hamad continued, “We accept a state in the ‘67 borders. We are not talking about the destruction of Israel.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/29/headlines#7

many months ago it was: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/04/20....html

Hamas ready to accept 1967 borders
Meshaal's comments follow two meetings with former US president Jimmy Carter [AFP]
Hamas has said it is ready to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders but "will not recognise Israel".