NewsTrust - Gaza - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Independent)

OpEdNews - Article: One year later...and the doors to the world's largest prison are still sealed shut

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Op Ed News - By Pam Rasmussen - Nov. 19 (Opinion) - Since January 2006, when Palestinians had the audacity to choose their own government (led by Hamas) in elections widely recognized as free and fair, Israel has imposed collective punishment on the people of Gaza in the form of a crushing blockade. Less than a quarter of the volume of supplies they normally need have been allowed in since December 2005 – and in some weeks, the trickle permitted by Israel is significantly less. Israel maintains a list of “duel-use” items such as steel pipes and fertilizer, which it says could be used to manufacture weapons. These are never allowed in, with rare exceptions for "special humanitarian cases."

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Goldstone's Rosh Hashanah Bomb

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Jamal Dajani - Sep. 18 (Opinion) - The news hit Israel like a bomb, and I do not use this word lightly for a region riddled with bullets that has seen its share of real bombs that kill and maim people.

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Holocaust Still a Political Football

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Ira Chernus - Sep. 04 (Opinion) - Matthew Rothschild and I both thought of Edward Said when we read about two Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative Council insisting that Gaza's schools should not teach the history of the Nazi Holocaust. Cleric Yunis al-Astal said this would be "marketing a lie" and a "war crime." Jamila al-Shanti commented, "Talk about the Holocaust and the execution of the Jews contradicts and is against our culture, our principles, our traditions, values, heritage, and religion."

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Why Eileen Fleming is no longer a Feature Correspondent for The Palestine Telegraph

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Op Ed News - By Eileen Fleming - Jul. 26 (Advocacy) - Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" "But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" "And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right."-Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

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John Pilger on Honduras, Iran, Gaza, the Corporate Media, Obama's Wars and Resisting the American Empire

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By John Pilger, Amy Goodman - Jul. 06 (Interview) - Award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker, John Pilger, joins us for a wide-ranging conversation on on Honduras, Iran, Gaza, the media, health care, and Obama’s wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pilger has has written close to a dozen books and made over 50 documentaries on a range of subjects including struggles around the world for a more just and peaceful society and against Western military and economic intervention.

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Canadian Judge Upholds Government Decision to Bar British MP George Galloway on National Security Grounds

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By George Galloway, Amy Goodman - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - Canadian officials say they banned Galloway on national security grounds, saying he provided financial support to Hamas, the Palestinian political party which was elected in January 2006 and controls the Gaza Strip

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Let Shalit Go

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Jamal Dajani - Mar. 20 (Opinion) - Almost a thousand days have passed since the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit, an Israeli tank gunner, by three Palestinian militant groups. At the time Shalit was 19. He would have been at home in Mitzpe Hila this week had the negotiations between Israel and Hamas not faltered.

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An Honest Conversation about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By David H. Young - Mar. 12 (Opinion) - the fundamentals of this conflict that have existed since 1967 are somehow becoming more obvious and less accessible every day. As rhetoric bleeds into strategy, sobering arguments are polluted by perverse distortions and the only thing that makes sense is confusion. As a humble remedy, perhaps, the following conversation is a synthesis of hundreds of hours of candid discussions between Israeli and Palestinian colleagues and friends. It offers no solutions or common ground, but only pain. Until we get through the meat of this war, the bones will never heal. Here is how these enemies think and argue.

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CLOSED ZONE

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - Mar. 04 (Opinion) - An Israeli creator of the Oscar-nominated "Waltz with Bashir" released a short film Wednesday about the effects of his country's Gaza blockade on Palestinians.

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The new movement against Israel's apartheid

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

socialistworker.org - By Eric Ruder - Feb. 27 (Opinion) - the assault on Gaza has also brought a change of another sort. It stirred a commitment among people around the world that the time has come to do something about the intolerable conditions facing Palestinians.

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Can Gaza Be Rebuilt Through Tunnels?

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

TruthOut - By Ann Wright - Feb. 25 (Opinion) - How do you rebuild 5,000 homes, businesses and government buildings when the only way supplies come into the prison called Gaza is through tunnels? Will the steel I-beams for roofs bend 90 degrees to go through the tunnels from Egypt? Will the tons of cement, lumber, roofing materials, nails, dry wall and paint be hauled by hand, load after load, 70 feet underground, through a tunnel 500 to 900 feet long and then be pulled up a 70-foot hole and put into a waiting truck in Gaza?

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$900 Million From U.S. To Gaza: Is The Administration Nuts?

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By Marty Peretz - Feb. 23 (Opinion) - The real issue is: where will the cash go? The administration is assuring us that it will not go to Hamas, as if anyone can assure that materiel and money can be siphoned off just to the desired parties. This, frankly, is a joke...and Mrs. Clinton knows it. So should President Obama.

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Once You See What Truly Happened in Gaza, it Will Change You Forever

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Media Benjamin - Feb. 19 (Advocacy) - For those of you who want to get a better sense of the Israeli occupation of Gaza... PLEASE read Media Benjamin's personal experience. I completely identified with it. When one finally sees or witnesses how Palestinians are treated, it really does changes your perceptions forever. CAUTION: GRAPHIC PICTURES INCLUDED.

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Mitchell's Prospects for Lasting Israeli-Palestinian Accord 'Slim to None'

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Council on Foreign Relations - By Bernard Gwertzman - Feb. 02 (Interview) - ... it's clear to me that they've substituted at this stage process for substance. They have no intention of making major changes in America's approach to the Arab-Israeli issue, because right now, the prospects of any sort of conflict-ending agreement between Israelis and Palenstinians are slim to none.

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Gaza War

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Informed Comment - By Juan Cole - Jan. 25 (Opinion) - According to UNICEF, their preliminary estimate of the damage done by the Israeli military to Gaza infrastructure is $1.9 billion. Note that this is Gaza infrastructure, not Hamas infrastructure. So at least the war weakened Hamas's political control of Gaza, right? Not so much. So then, the Israeli military boasted that it destroyed 60% of the tunnels whereby Gazans smuggle food, medicine and other goods into Gaza (the Israelis say they bring in explosives for rocket-making as well; but since rockets can be made from simple materials and petroleum products, and since the rockets are so primitive, they can't be bringing in very good explosives). So at least, the Israeli war on the people of Gaza permanently reduced the capacity of those tunnels, right? Naw, the Gazans are working Caterpillar backhoes to rebuild the tunnels, already!

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A Second Opinion

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Smart Set - By Morgan Meis - Jan. 23 (Opinion) - ... the Palestinians are at a fundamental disadvantage because they are not as comfortable with the rules of humanity-showing as the West has defined them over the last couple of millennia. They do not, in our eyes, play the victim right. There is nothing, in principle, that should make the Palestinian struggle for autonomy and self-rule any less legitimate than the struggle to end apartheid, the American civil rights struggle, Gandhi's fight to end English colonialism in India, or any number of other struggles that were ultimately recognized as struggles of a common humanity. Perhaps the only meaningful difference is that Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela were able to provide a sympathetic face, the proper face of the victim, to the Western world. The closest to such a figure that the Palestinians have come so far was Yasser Arafat. But let us speak an embarrassing truth. Arafat looked like a racist portrayal of "The Arab" from some 1930's cartoon. And he was always rendered impotent by an essential schizophrenia, an inability to fully bridge the civilizational gap between the West and the Middle East. I often found myself descending into a sustained cringe-mode watching Arafat in the past and watching other Palestinian leaders today. I see them making mistakes, expressing themselves in ways that convey the very opposite of what they intend. Suddenly, Tzipi Livni appears on the screen and I become more comfortable. What she is saying is abhorrent to me, but I like the way she says it.

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"Exterminate all the Brutes": Gaza 2009

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

zcommunications.org - By Noam Chomsky - Jan. 20 (Opinion) - As the current US-Israel assault raged, Times columnist Thomas Friedman explained that Israel's tactics both in the current attack and in its invasion of Lebanon in 2006 are based on the sound principle of "trying to `educate' Hamas, by inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain on the Gaza population." That makes sense on pragmatic grounds, as it did in Lebanon, where "the only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians -- the families and employers of the militants -- to restrain Hezbollah in the future." And by similar logic, bin Laden's effort to "educate" Americans on 9/11 was highly praiseworthy, as were the Nazi attacks on Lidice and Oradour, Putin's destruction of Grozny, and other notable attempts at "education."

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Reports - Peace Is in the Eye of the Beholder

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

TruthDig - By Chris Hedges - Jan. 19 (Advocacy) - These Jewish terrorists hanged two British sergeants and booby-trapped their corpses. Irgun, together with the terrorist Stern gang, massacred 254 Palestinians in 1948 in the village of Deir Yassin. Tell me the moral difference between Irgun Zvai Leumi, the Stern gang and Hamas. I fail to see one.

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Where's the Love+Peace+VOICE of the Artists Against Apartheid?

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Op Ed News - By Eileen Flemming - Jan. 19 (Opinion) - This song was written about a Man about ready to pick up arms against his oppressor. That wall must come down in Israel, then make them stand alone by treating the Palestinians as humans.

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Peres: Gaza Operation is Collective Punishment, and I Love It

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Think Progress - By Matthew Yglesias - Jan. 17 (Opinion) - He says it gives him “no pleasure” to see people suffering, but he also says that the main point of the operation is to provide a strong blow to Gaza’s population to teach them a lesson. So that’s kind of a disingenuous protestation of displeasure. And of course in his remarks, Peres is echoing New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s explanation of Israeli strategy which, in turn, echoed Friedman’s own rationale for invading Iraq—that we needed to send a “suck on this” message to the Arab world. It also seems related to what Jonah Goldberg has termed the “Ledeen Doctrine”, the view that “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” Israel being much smaller than the United States, it presumably needs to pick up a smaller and crappier place like the Gaza Strip.

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Israel Should Stop the War and Let US Enjoy the Inauguration

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Informed Comment - By Juan Cole - Jan. 17 (Opinion) - There are rumors that the Israeli government may declare a unilateral cease fire Saturday. They had better. Because if they ruin the Obama inauguration by splashing the bloody bodies of dead Palestinian children all over the press during the next few days, no Americans, even the most pro-Israeli, are going to forgive them. The war has left 1,140 Palestinians dead, over 300 children, and over 5,000 wounded including many women and children, as well as 13 Israelis (4 of them civilians killed by rocket fire). We pay for these wars, we provide the fighter jets, bombs, and tanks. And we don't want our money used for this sanguinary purpose in the first place; we have enough to be guilty about all on our own. And we especially don't want to hear a peep from over there while we swear in our first African-American president.

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Palestine: Israeli Troops Enter Residential Areas of Gaza City

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Global Voices - By Ayesha Saldanha - Jan. 16 (Opinion) - Thousands of Palestinians have been fleeing from Gaza City as IDF troops have entered residential areas. A number of the foreign activists in Gaza were helping at Al Quds hospital when it came under attack, and managed to disseminate reports of what was going on. We hear from them and other bloggers in this roundup of Gaza blogs during the last 24 hours.

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Free Palestine (Song for Gaza)

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Pal Stein - By 'Pal Stein' - Jan. 16 (Advocacy) - (VIDEO - 3:56) Song lyrics: The world can see our suffering All the bad that's happening Each day's spent just hoping You'll be gone by morning Our girls and boys they look so sad Their mums and dads it makes them mad Everyone will make a stand Until our people get their land Someday I hope you realize Our people you can paralyze But we will never compromise, our home Your tanks and planes just terrorize Your men with guns just brutalize But we will never sacrifice, our home

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Gaza Strip Bombings 2008-09

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Global Voices - Jan. 15 (Opinion) - The six month truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip mediated by Egypt ended on December 19. Following the end of that ceasefire, tensions and violence escalated between Israel and Hamas. On December 27, airstrikes by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) hit over 40 Hamas targets in Gaza. According to early reports, the airstrikes killed at least 225 people and wounded around 700, in the bloodiest one-day death toll in 60 years of conflict between Israel and Palestine. The bombardment set off angry demonstrations in Israel's Arab towns and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as well as protests in countries around the region.

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Israel Committing "State Terror" in Gaza Attack, Preventing Peace

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Avi Shlaim, Amy Goodman - Jan. 14 (Interview) - The assault on Gaza is entering its nineteenth day, with no end in sight. Israel continues its intense bombardment of the territory as Israeli troops edge closer to the heart of Gaza City. Nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than 4,400 injured, many of them women and children. Thirteen Israelis have died over the same period, ten of them soldiers.

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