Thursday, December 31, 2009

Copenhagen: Morales and Chavez a 'smashing success' -- an insider's report from the ALBA delegation

Hi. I thought this report of mobilization for our future on the planet
was the most hopeful thing I could send you today. Ron Ridenour
is an LA guy and old friend who's long lived in Latin America and
most recently, Copenhagen, exercising his craft as writer and activist.
My warmest wishes to all, for better years ahead.
Ed

From: Sid Shniad

http://links.org.au/node/1433

Copenhagen: Morales and Chavez a 'smashing success' -- an insider's report
from the ALBA delegation
By Ron Ridenour

December 23, 2009 -- "Nobel War Prize winner walked in and out of a secret
door, and that is the way capitalism and the United States Empire will end
up leaving the planet, through a secret back door." So spoke Venezuela
President Hugo Chavez from the plenary podium on the last afternoon,
December 18, of the 12-day long Copenhagen climate conference (COP15).

"While the conference was a failure, it, at least, led to more consciousness
of what the problem is for all of us. Now starts a new stage of the struggle
for the salvation of humanity, and this is through socialism. Our problem is
not just about climate, but about poverty, misery, unnecessary child deaths,
discrimination and racism—all related to capitalism", Chavez said at the
Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Latin America (ALBA) press conference
held at the Bella Centre immediately following Chavez' last remarks at the
plenary.

Bolivia's President Evo Morales followed Chavez' remarks by saying:
Barack Obama said a while ago -- the only delegate to walk in and out of the
stage from a concealed door -- that he came here not for more words but for
action. Well, then you should act by using the money you are spending for
wars against the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq, for militarising Colombia
with seven military bases to save lives, to save the planet our Mother
Earth.

Both presidents, the only heads of state representing eight of the nine ALBA
countries present at COP15,[1] denounced the failure of the Copenhagen
conference in both form and content.

Chavez: "There are no documents presented for consultation by all. The
responsibility is a lack of political will by a few rich countries,
including the host Denmark, headed by the US Empire."

Morales: "There is profound difference between their document [26 rich
countries drew up a so-called `Copenhagen Accord'][2] and the peoples
fighting for humanity and the planet. This group of friends led by Obama
accept that temperatures can increase by 2 degrees Celsius by 2020. This
will end the existence of many island states; it will end our snow-capped
mountains. And Obama only seeks to reduce gas emissions by 50% in 2050. But
we want and need 90 to 100% reduction, in order to save the planet. Then
they speak of spending crumbs for mitigation and adaptation. The third
theme, which they are only just now debating, is how to set up a system of
controls for monitoring agreements and what sanctions there will be if this
is not done.
That is why we want an International Climate Justice Tribunal that can
sanction failure to comply with agreements, so that we can govern based on
balance and achieve real solutions."

President Morales was referring to one of the five questions -- to be
answered yes or no-- that he proposes for a global referendum on climate
change. The other four are:

1. Do you agree with re-establishing harmony with nature, recognising the
rights of Mother Earth?

2. Do you agree with changing this model of over-consumption and waste that
the capitalist system represents?

3. Do you agree that developed countries reduce and re-absorb their domestic
greenhouse gas emissions so that the temperature does not rise more than 1
degree Celsius?

4. Do you agree with transferring all that is spent on wars to protecting
the planet and allocate a budget for climate change that is bigger than what
is used for defence?

At the press conference, and on various other occasions during the three
days of his attendance, Morales posed the problem and the solution to it
thus: "The rich countries seek to divide the rest of us ... by offering
crumbs of money. Mother Earth can't be preserved with money alone. Europe's
food almost entirely depends upon petrol. What happens when there is no
petrol? This dependency on fossil fuel is a threat to humanity, so we have
to change the structures of food. It is a structural problem of two forms of
life: one way of living is the way of over-consumption and waste, the way of
luxury, of egoism and individualism-capitalism. The other way is vivir
bien — living well — food enough for all and living in harmony with others
and our Mother Earth, in solidarity and complementarily."

At the final press conference -- for which I was one of two media
consultants during this two weeks, along with Nick Buxton -- for the ALBA
countries, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela attended. Cuba's
vice-president Esteben Lazo said that socialism offers greater protection
for the Earth than does capitalism:
"Before our revolution, capitalism had nearly depleted all our forests. We
have focused on replanting and now 20% of the land is covered by forests. We
also educate our school children about ecology, and about the ALBA network.
We are founded on principles of solidarity, of human rights and nature's
rights."

Democracy anecdotes

Nick and I had rushed to put out a media advisory announcing the above press
conference, about which we were informed only 90 minutes before that Morales
would be attending rather than leaving Copenhagen earlier that day as he had
planned. We wrote it in a blink and passed out 200 fliers. At the appointed
time, the press room began to fill with media and delegates from several
countries. Bolivia was the only state, of which I know, that insisted on
allowing anyone to attend our press conferences, in accordance with Morales'
practice of inclusiveness and transparency. The time allotted was 30
minutes. Morales did not arrive on time, which he usually does. We heard
from a top Bolivian delegate inside the plenary that Evo had just gotten an
opportunity to respond from the floor to the rich countries' secret
document, now leaked. Fifteen minutes ticked by and he did not arrive.
Another phone call informed us that Chavez would be following Evo and then
they were both coming to the media hall. Oh, no! Chavez never talks briefly.
We would lose the conference time and 100 people present would be
disappointed.

Use the "dead" time, my experience told me. I asked two Indigenous social
movement delegates if they would take the podium and speak, perhaps about
their movements and the five-point referendum. They agreed. I translated for
them. They spoke of how this very act of taking the podium before their
president's arrival illustrated how democratic the new Plurinational State
of Bolivia actually is. Social movements work hand in glove with the
government and their president -- reelected less than two weeks before with
a 64% majority.

As the activists were speaking, about their movement and the referendum, in
walked presidents Morales and Chavez followed by the Cuban, Ecuadorian and
Nicaraguan leaders. The activists and I calmly walked off the stage and the
leaders took our seats as we nodded to one another.

Morales' entourage of ministers and ambassadors took their seats. They are
known to us as Eugenio, Pablo, Roberto, Ivan, Angélica, David, Rene and not
Your Honorable, Excellency, Minister, Ambassador. When speaking with or
about their presidents, most common people call them Evo and Chavez.

On other occasions -- such as before 3000 persons at the ALBA People's
Meeting held in a sports stadium on December 17, where Morales and Chavez
spoke alongside top leaders from Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua -- the leaders
of the Bolivian and Venezuelan governments thoughtfully thanked their teams
of paid workers and volunteers, and the organisers of political events. They
also praised the activists inside and outside the Bella Centre conference.

They applauded the 100,000 plus demonstrators who mobilised on December
12 -- twice the size of the hitherto largest demonstration ever held in the
Banana Republic of Denmark -- and the 1500 activists arrested
preventatively, nearly none of whom had performed an illegal act. Only two
handfuls were eventually charged with any violation. Several hundreds had
their hands handcuffed behind their backs and were forced to sit on the cold
ground and asphalt for up to five hours before being bussed to makeshift
cage cells. No water, no toilet. This is the treatment a "democratic" police
state can render potential "terrorists" under their new terror laws, which
they deem to be necessary to accompany their imperialist wars.

In addition to these demonstrations, there were smaller ones attended by
hundreds or thousand in several parts of the city everyday. Some were
decidedly opposed to capitalism and its wars. I participated in one in front
of the Yankee Embassy of Murder the day before its president was to receive
the so-called Nobel Peace Prize.

Evo Morales

Evo Morales, 50, comes from the people's struggles. He was an amateur soccer
player, a musician, a coco farmer and a union organiser and leader before
entering politics. He is a man of dialogue with his people. I note one
illustration. When he came out of a news conference, the Indian Youth
Climate Network, a group of youth from India, wanted him to hear a song one
of them had written about Bolivia. He stopped to listen to "I wish I was
Bolivian", sung to the tune of "Homeward Bound" by Simon and Garfunkel.

"Every day they are stalling and they are saying the same old things again,
But one bright country stands apart,
They're saying things close to my heart,
They've got a plan with hope in hand,
They're saying c'mon, let's just start...
Bolivia, I wish I was Bolivian...
Just one degree temperature rise,
300 ppm in the skies,
100 per cent emissions down by two thousand forty,
Does anyone know the price of waiting?
Fighting, hating, procrastinating,
My future stands in front of me,
While people here make history,
I hope and pray that it will be,
What the world's children wish to see,
Bolivia,
We've got to take the boldest steps,
There's work to do; clean up the mess,
Bolivia"

The evening before, Morales attended one of the hundreds of side events
organised by people's movements and NGOs. This one was about the Indigenous
peoples of the Americas. He spoke briefly giving plenty of time for
questions and comments from the floor. Anyone could speak and there was no
formality or nervousness before the president.

At one point, Evo Morales said that he couldn't always set in motion all
that we wanted but it would be easier now, given that the Movement Towards
Socialism, the president's party, had won so overwhelming in the
presidential electoral campaign and also now controls both parliament
houses.
"Politics is a science of serving the people. I live to serve the people.
Participating in politics is part of assuring our dignity, our traditional
way of life. It is my duty to take your message to the heads of state here.
If I make a mistake, let me know so that I can rectify it.

"I don't think we'll make progress here. We must organise and mobilise all
the more. Not just climate justice activists, but all of us: workers,
farmers, media people, academics, everybody. That is the answer."
Following this meeting, several Indigenous people told me that those are not
empty words. "We always speak out in meetings with the president and we
offer criticisms and make demands. He listens."
Niels Boel, a writer for the daily Danish newspaper Information had one of
two dozen bilateral interviews with Evo Morales. He wrote:
As the police fought against demonstrators ... the world's greatest
activist, Bolivia's President Evo Morales, got off with being chased by the
press.

While he did not go to jail this time, the world's first Indigenous
president knows what prison and torture are all about. He was so treated
under previous Bolivian presidents doing capitalism's bidding. As Boel
wrote:
Solutions for Morales come only from people's organizations, which can
overcome capitalism.
And that is why I say this conference was a smashing success. Especially
because of Morales and Chavez' anti-capitalist dialogue in those few days,
and the many thousands carrying picket signs displayed during the massive
march that damned the greedy economic system ("Change the system, not the
climate"), capitalism is now on the agenda of many more people than in a
long time. Even some of the mass media could not avoid headlining this
message from the two "bad boys".

"I have heard many debates in the UN where presidents condemn climate change
but they never say -- cowardly enough -- what causes it. We say clearly that
it is caused by capitalism", Morales said in closing.
[Ron Ridenour worked with the ALBA countries' delegation at the Copenhagen
climate talks. He has written widely on Latin America and other political
developments. His website is at http://www.ronridenour.com. This article
first appeared at Tlaxcala, the network for linguistic diversity. It has
been posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the
author's permission.]
Notes

1. ALBA is comprised of: Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica,
Ecuador, Honduras (which was not present given the illegal coup d´état
against the legitimate President Manuel Zelaya), Nicaragua, St. Vincent and
Grenadines, and Venezuela.

2. This exclusive accord, rejected by the other nations, is a non-binding
political agreement setting an objective for them to keep a maximum rise in
temperature by 2 degrees Celsius; a voluntary commitment to publicise the
amount of each developed country's greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation
action for developing states; short-term funding for development countries
up to 2012 of $30 billion annually, to increase to $100 billion annually
between 2013 and 2020. (The US alone is spending $1.5 trillion dollars to
rescue the banks responsible for the financial and economic global crisis.)
These 26 countries suggest that there be another climate conference in
Mexico in a year's time.

Post-note: Some institute calculated that the amount of carbon emissions
from this two-week ordeal was greater than some of the island nations exude
in a year. One of the wastes during this failed non-summit, non-climate
conference was the amount of paper used by 30,000 delegates and 3000
journalists and technicians. The official figures published by the UN even
on the first day stated that 8 million sheets of paper were provided. I
guess that Nick and I used 2000 sheets of paper, which we distributed to let
media people know of our news conferences.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

health care -- cool chart

 
----- Original Message -----
Subject: health care -- cool chart

Terrorism Still Less Deadly in US
Than Lack of Health Insurance, Salmonella

By: Blue Texan
Tuesday December 29, 2009
Firedoglake
http://firedoglake.com/2009/12/29/terrorism-still-less-deadly-in-us-than-lack-of-health-insurance-salmonella/



Since we still seem to be having a national freakout over some loser who got on a plane with a bomb in his underwear, which was apparently worthy of a presidential address, it might be a good idea to put the actual danger posed by terrorist attacks in some numerical perspective.

If you count the Ft. Hoot shooting as a terrorist attack, which even the likes of [blogger] Pantload doesn't, 16 people have died in the United States as result of terrorism in 2009. The other three deaths include the Little Rock military recruiting office shooting (1), the Holocaust Museum shooting (1), and Dr. George Tiller's assassination (1), the last two coming at the hands of right-wing extremists. On the other hand, 45,000 Americans died because they didn't have health insurance and 600 died from salmonella poisoning.

Clearly, providing health care to all Americans is beyond our capabilities, so when do we launch the $700 billion-a-year War on Salmonella?

Related posts:... (listed at original site)

DN: Crackdown in Iran

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/28/crackdown_in_iran_up_to_12

Crackdown in Iran: Up to 12 Dead, Hundreds Arrested in Opposition Protests

Democracy Now: December 28, 2009

"This is a very critical time. We have to realize that Iran's political
system is falling apart. And political solutions are becoming less
and less obvious. There is very much the danger of a full-scale
military coup by the Revolutionary Guard. And the US and other
foreign actors involved with issues on Iran bear a big responsibility.

Anything that they would provoke in bringing any kind of military action
against Iran—particularly during the past few weeks we have seen again the
reemergence of discourse that Iran has to be attacked, that Israel should be
given a green light to launch aerial attacks against Iran. These would all
be extremely dangerous. That is pretty much what the Revolutionary Guards
are looking for. They're looking for any kind of confrontation that can
rescue them from the domestic crisis they're facing and, that way, just shut
down the whole country and put it on a war footing. "

In Iran, police opened fire into crowds of protesters Sunday, killing as
many as twelve people, including the nephew of defeated presidential
candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. Security forces have also arrested hundreds
of people, including a number of prominent opposition figures. We speak with
Hadi Ghaemi of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

Hadi Ghaemi, director of the New York-based International Campaign for Human
Rights in Iran.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today with Iran, where police opened fire into crowds
of protesters Sunday, killing a number of people, including the nephew of
the defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. The Iranian
government confirmed five deaths, but opposition websites say as many as
twelve protesters have been killed in cities across Iran. Security forces
have also arrested a number of prominent opposition figures.

The protests took place on Ashura, one of the holiest days in the Shiite
Muslim calendar. They were the bloodiest and among the largest
anti-government protests since the uprisings that followed the disputed
presidential election in June. Hundreds of people were reported wounded, and
300 were arrested in Tehran.

The protests also marked one week since the death of the dissident cleric
Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who had become a fierce critic of
Iran's leaders in recent months. Amateur videos uploaded on the internet
show bloody scenes of police and Basij militias brutally attacking crowds of
protesters. There are also scenes of protesters pushing back police forces
with rocks and setting police cars and motorcycles on fire.

For more, I'm joined on the phone by Hadi Ghaemi. He is the director of the
New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. He's closely
tracking developments in Iran.

Welcome to Democracy Now! Tell us what you know. And why the latest round of
protests and attacks on the protesters?

HADI GHAEMI: Good morning, Amy, and thanks for having me.

As you mentioned, yesterday Iran was the scene of a major unrest. And we see
that the political crisis in that country six months after the election, not
only not coming to an end, but it's expanding, and the government and the
Supreme Leader are facing major issues of legitimacy. And basically, the
political elites who have been in charge of the country for the past thirty
years have come to head-on war with each other. And yesterday showed that
the level of violence is escalating.

And it was very, very disturbing to see that on the holiest day of the
Shiite calendar the government felt free to use violence, and as many as ten
people throughout the country are reported killed. That has been a shocking
development for many people, because even thirty years ago when protests
were taking place against the Shah, the Shah's military did not open fire on
that day. And now we see a government that has claims to religious authority
basically overlooking all that and killing its own people on that day.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the significance more of Ashura and also the death
of the nephew of the presidential candidate.

HADI GHAEMI: Ashura is the holiest day for the Shiites, because it marks the
martyrdom of their third Imam, who is really their hero, the man who stood
up against tyranny. And even though he did not have an army, only with
seventy-two people, he took out on a much larger army to fight for his
ideals and what he believed was a fight against tyrannical, so that imagery
has been very potent in Shiite version of Islam. And yesterday was a day
where every day in Iran people congregate to mark that day. And to see it
turned violent was very shocking for many people.

Now, the death of—the death of the nephew of the opposition leader, Mousavi,
is being reported as an assassination. It looks like it was very targeted.
An SUV pulled out in front of him, and someone jumped out and shot him point
blank. And then his body was taken to a hospital, where Mousavi visited it.
And at the same time, Basiji forces surrounded the hospital. And by
midnight, it's reported that the body disappeared. So it's becoming quite an
intrigue. But one analysis is that he was assassinated as a warning to
Mousavi himself. And it also shows that the political infighting is becoming
very personal within the regime.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, for people who are listening right now on the radio, you
can go to our website at democracynow.org, and you can see all of the video.
But talk about the significance of what we're seeing, from people's cell
phones, video that they're taking and that they're uploading. What kind of
crackdown is going on, Hadi Ghaemi?

HADI GHAEMI: Yeah, we're really seeing a modern phenomenon in terms of
social networking and impact of technology on empowering people. The
government has done its best to shut down any channels of communication and
information coming out of the country or being circulated within the
country. We've had the foreign journalists banned from going on this trip
and covering anything, including the wire services. The media within Iran is
highly censored.

And actually yesterday 'til afternoon, they would not even admit anything
unusual happening in the country. And the Revolutionary Guard who are in
power right now politically, they had been warning people not to congregate
and not to hold any kind of events on that day, and yet we see that hundreds
of thousands of people throughout the country came out. And they were very
creative in getting the information out as soon as possible through the
internet. So, by late afternoon, there were so many YouTube videos and
images flooding the internet that the government media could not deny
anymore that events were taking place. And by the end of the evening, the
police commander was coming out and admitting that five people have been
killed, 300 have been arrested, and signaling that the country is undergoing
a major crisis. But the role of the citizen journalists to bringing out
information, showing what is really happening in the country, has been very
significant, and it's quite a phenomenon.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the significance of the arrest of Ebrahim Yazdi, who
served as foreign minister in the early months of the 1979 revolution, also
Emadeddin Baghi, the human rights campaigner and journalist.

HADI GHAEMI: Yes, these are two of the most well known personalities in the
country. Ebrahim Yazdi, let me just say, he's a seventy-eight-year-old man,
who remained in the country while much of his friends and other opposition
left the country during the past thirty years. He stayed within the country
and believed in struggling within the framework of the regime and was a
constant critic of the regime.

I don't think people like him and his generation are leading these protests.
They are simply just the older generation and don't have the capacity or
organization to be much of a factor on a daily event, but just their voice
and symbolic presence seems to be intolerable to the government, and they're
looking for a scapegoat. They've done this during the past six months, where
they take prominent people, opinion makers, basically anyone who can analyze
and put the situation in context for the larger population, into prison,
believing that way the larger popular movement will be decapitated and will
not have any directions and will fizzle away. The reality has been that it
has not. Young people seem—it just seems to be a very locally organized,
very horizontal at the grassroots, and people keep finding ways to connect,
inform each other, and plan events.

Emadeddin Baghi is a very significant case, because he is the most well
known human rights defender in the country. After Shirin Ebadi, he's the
most well known and most connected internationally. Just last year he won
the recognition of Martin Ennals Prize, which is a prize given by Amnesty
and all the—Amnesty International and all the major human rights
organizations, because he has been relentlessly campaigning for—against the
death penalty, for the abolition of the death penalty. And right now, again,
taking him in is a somewhat of a symbolic, I think, act by the government
out of frustration, just wanting to feel like they are putting down these
protests, one way or another. But he was certainly a very important figure
in propagating the importance of human rights, respect for human rights, and
those are the very topics that the government fears their discussion and
their discourse would be inflammatory in public. But taking him away, I don't
think is going to do anything in quieting down the protests.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Hadi, how do you think the US should respond?

HADI GHAEMI: This is a very critical time. We have to realize that Iran is
domestically—its political system is falling apart. And political solutions
are becoming less and less obvious.

There is very much the danger of a full-scale military coup by the
Revolutionary Guard. And the US and other foreign actors involved with
issues on Iran have a big responsibility here. Anything that they would
provoke in bringing any kind of military action against Iran—particularly
during the past few weeks we have seen again the reemergence of discourse
that Iran has to be attacked, that Israel should be given a green light to
launch aerial attacks against Iran. These would all be extremely dangerous.
That is pretty much what the Revolutionary Guards are looking for. They're
looking for any kind of confrontation that can rescue them from the domestic
crisis they're facing and, that way, just shut down the whole country and
put it on a war footing.

So the US policy, on one hand, should not be going on a full throttle in
normalizing relations with Iran. I think Obama's original idea of
negotiating with Iran has to be reevaluated. There has to be dialogue. There
has to be engagement. But it should not be to a point where a military
dictatorship is being legitimized throughout that process. And at the same
time, the pendulum should not swing in the other direction, where military
attack is seen as the only option, because that would not solve anything,
and it would also bring down this democracy movement that's underway in
Iran.

AMY GOODMAN: Hadi Ghaemi, I want to thank you very much for being with us,
director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, speaking to
us from New Hampshire.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Holocaust Survivor on Hunger Strike at Gaza Border, Model Letter, Breaking peaceful protests

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/28-3

Awaiting Gaza March, Holocaust Survivor Stages Hunger Strike

by Jailan Zayan
Agence France-Presse: December 28, 2009

CAIRO - An 85-year-old Holocaust survivor was among a group of grandmothers
who began a hunger strike in Cairo on Monday to protest against Egypt's
refusal to allow a Gaza solidarity march to proceed.

American activist Hedy Epstein and other grandmothers participating in the
Gaza Freedom March began a hunger strike at 1000 GMT.

"I've never done this before, I don't know how my body will react, but I'll
do whatever it takes," Epstein told AFP, sitting on a chair surrounded by
hundreds of protesters outside the United Nations building in Cairo.

Egyptian authorities had said it would not allow any of the 1,300 protesters
who have come to Egypt from 42 countries to take part in the march to enter
the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing, the only entry that
bypasses Israel.

High-ranking officers and riot police were deployed on the Nile bank where
the UN building is located and where hundreds of Gaza Freedom March
participants asked the United Nations to mediate with the Egyptian
government to let their convoy into Gaza.

"We met with the UN resident coordinator in Cairo James Rawley and we are
waiting for a response," Philippine Senator Walden Bello told protesters.

"We will wait as long as it takes," he said.

Protesters who wore T-shirts with "The Audacity of War Crimes" and "We will
not be silent" held a giant Palestinian flag, as others sang, danced and
shouted "Freedom for Gaza" in various languages.

Separately, organisers of another aid convoy trying to reach the blockaded
Gaza Strip -- Viva Palestina led by British MP George Galloway -- said it
will head to Syria on Monday en route for Egypt after being stranded in
Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba for five days.

Turkey dispatched an official on Saturday to try to convince the Egyptians
to allow Viva Palestina to go through the Red Sea port of Nuweiba -- the
most direct route but Egypt insisted that the convoy can only enter through
El-Arish, on its Mediterranean coast.

The Gaza Freedom March and Viva Palestina were planning to arrive one year
after Israel's devastating war on Gaza that killed 1,400 Palestinians.
Thirteen Israelis also died.

Meanwhile, at least 300 French participants of the Gaza Freedom March spent
the night camped out in front of their embassy in Cairo, bringing a major
road in the capital to a halt, as riot police wielding plexiglass shields
surrounded them.

On Sunday, police briefly detained 38 international participants in the
Sinai town of El-Arish, organisers said.

"At noon (1000 GMT) on December 27, Egyptian security forces detained a
group of 30 activists in their hotel in El-Arish as they prepared to leave
for Gaza, placing them under house arrest. The delegates, all part of the
Gaza Freedom March of 1,300 people, were Spanish, French, British, American
and Japanese," a statement on the group's website said.

"Another group of eight people, including American, British, Spanish,
Japanese and Greek citizens, were detained at the bus station of El-Arish in
the afternoon of December 27," they said.

On Sunday, Egyptian police also stopped some 200 protesters from renting
boats on the Nile to hold a procession to commemorate those who died in the
Gaza war.

On December 31, participants are hoping to join Palestinians "in a
non-violent march from northern Gaza to the Erez-Israeli border," the
organisers said.

© 2009 Agence France-Press

***

From: Jeff Warner PatnJeff@keyway.net
Sunday, December 27, 2009 10:05 AM

LA Times: one item today:
--- Article on page A25 reports that the Israeli army assinated 3
Palestinians in the West Bank the army believed to have killed a setter a
few days ago, and an airstrike killed 3 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

NY Times : one item today:
---
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/world/middleeast/27mideast.html?_r=1&ref=world
"Israeli Military Kills 6 Palestinians" Same as listed yesterday. Reports
that three accused of killing a settler were killed in the West Bank, and
three accused of planning something were killed in Gaza. Salam Fayyad, the
Palestinian prime minister, condemned the West Bank operation as an
"assassination" and "an attempt to target the state of security and
stability that the Palestinian Authority has been able to achieve."

You have an opportunity to write a letter to the editor to express your
views about peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A model letter to
the LA Times is below our signature. Use the model letter as your own,
modify it as you see fit, or be inspired to write your own letter. The LA
Times letter may be applicable to the NY Times.

E-mail your letter to
letters@LATimes.com and/or letters@NYTimes.com
and please send a BCC to me.

best jeff


MODEL LETTER - START # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

RE: "6 Palestinians killed in West Bank, Gaza," Dec. 27

The only thing notable about these killings of Palestinians by the Israeli
army is that they were reported in The Times, and that three of them
occurred in the West Bank. Not reported by The Times is that the Israeli
army kills Palestinians several times each week in the Gaza Strip, and in
midnight raids abducts 10-50 Palestinians each week in the West Bank, and
illegally transports them into Israel.

I don't know what Israel is trying to accomplish with its continual violent
occupation of Palestine. What I do know is that Israel's actions
delegitimatize Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's efforts
to build Palestinian institutions in preparation for a Palestinian state.

The United States should work to restrain its ally Israel from acting to
undercut efforts at peace, specifically Israel must stop using American made
and supplied weapons in extrajudicial assignations.

Your Name
Your city
Your phone number

## ##

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/23/israel-palestinian-peace-movement

Breaking Palestine's peaceful protest

Palestinians have a long history of nonviolent resistance but Israel has
continuously deployed methods to destroy it

By Neve Gordon
guardian.co.uk, 23 December 2009

Why," I have often been asked, "haven't the Palestinians established a peace
movement like the Israeli Peace Now?"

The question itself is problematic, being based on many erroneous
assumptions, such as the notion that there is symmetry between the two sides
and that Peace Now has been a politically effective movement. Most
important, though, is the false supposition that Palestinians have indeed
failed to create a pro-peace popular movement.

In September 1967 - three months after the decisive war in which the West
Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem were occupied - Palestinian leaders
decided to launch a campaign against the introduction of new Israeli
textbooks in Palestinian schools. They did not initiate terrorist attacks,
as the prevailing narratives about Palestinian opposition would have one
believe, but rather the Palestinian dissidents adopted Mahatma Gandhi-style
methods and declared a general school strike: teachers did not show up for
work, children took to the streets to protest against the occupation and
many shopkeepers closed shop.

Israel's response to that first strike was immediate and severe: it issued
military orders categorising all forms of resistance as insurgency -
including protests and political meetings, raising flags or other national
symbols, publishing or distributing articles or pictures with political
connotations, and even singing or listening to nationalist songs.

Moreover, it quickly deployed security forces to suppress opposition,
launching a punitive campaign in Nablus, where the strike's leaders resided.
As Major General Shlomo Gazit, the co-ordinator of activities in the
occupied territories at the time, points out in his book The Carrot and the
Stick, the message Israel wanted to convey was clear: any act of resistance
would result in a disproportionate response, which would make the population
suffer to such a degree that resistance would appear pointless.

After a few weeks of nightly curfews, cutting off telephone lines, detaining
leaders, and increasing the level of harassment, Israel managed to break the
strike.

While much water has passed under the bridge since that first attempt to
resist using "civil disobedience" tactics, over the past five decades
Palestinians have continuously deployed nonviolent forms of opposition to
challenge the occupation. Israel, on the other hand, has, used violent
measures to undermine all such efforts.

It is often forgotten that even the second intifada, which turned out to be
extremely violent, began as a popular nonviolent uprising. Haaretz
journalist Akiva Eldar revealed several years later that the top Israeli
security echelons had decided to "fan the flames" during the uprising's
first weeks. He cites Amos Malka, the military general in charge of
intelligence at the time, saying that during the second intifada's first
month, when it was still mostly characterised by nonviolent popular
protests, the military fired 1.3m bullets in the West Bank and Gaza. The
idea was to intensify the levels of violence, thinking that this would lead
to a swift and decisive military victory and the successful suppression of
the rebellion. And indeed the uprising and its suppression turned out to be
extremely violent.

But over the past five years, Palestinians from scores of villages and towns
such as Bil'in and Jayyous have developed new forms of pro-peace resistance
that have attracted the attention of the international community. Even
Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad recently called on his
constituents to adopt similar strategies. Israel, in turn, decided to find a
way to end the protests once and for all and has begun a well-orchestrated
campaign that targets the local leaders of such resistance.

One such leader is Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a high school teacher and the
co-ordinator of Bil'in's Popular Committee Against the Wall, is one of many
Palestinians who was on the military's wanted list. At 2am on 10 December
(international Human Rights Day), nine military vehicles surrounded his
home. Israeli soldiers broke the door down, and after allowing him to say
goodbye to his wife Majida and three young children, blindfolded him and
took him into custody. He is being charged with throwing stones, the
possession of arms (namely gas canisters in the Bil'in museum) and inciting
fellow Palestinians, which, translated, means organising demonstrations
against the occupation.

The day before Abu Ramah was arrested, the Israeli military carried out a
co-ordinated operation in the Nablus region, raiding houses of targeted
grassroots activists who have been fighting against human rights abuses.
Wa'el al-Faqeeh Abu as-Sabe, 45, is one of the nine people arrested. He was
taken from his home at 1am and, like Abu Ramah, is being charged with
incitement. Mayasar Itiany, who is known for her work with the Nablus
Women's Union and is a campaigner for prisoners' rights was also taken into
custody as was Mussa Salama, who is active in the Labour Committee of
Medical Relief for Workers. Even Jamal Juma, the director of an NGO called
Stop the Wall, is now behind bars.

Targeted night arrests of community leaders have become common practice
across the West Bank, most notably in the village of Bil'in where, since
June, 31 residents have been arrested for their involvement in the
demonstrations against the wall. Among these is Adeeb Abu Rahmah, a
prominent activist who has been held in detention for almost five months and
is under threat of being imprisoned for up to 14 months.

Clearly, the strategy is to arrest all of the leaders and charge them with
incitement, thus setting an extremely high "price tag" for organising
protests against the subjugation of the Palestinian people. The objective is
to put an end to the pro-peace popular resistance in the villages and to
crush, once and for all, the Palestinian peace movement.

Thus, my answer to those who ask about a Palestinian "Peace Now" is that a
peaceful grassroots movement has always existed. At Abdallah Abu Rahmah's
trial next Tuesday one will be able to witness some of the legal methods
that have consistently been deployed to destroy it.

. Comments on this article will remain open for 24 hours from the time of
publication but may be closed overnight.

Healthcare Debate: Round One or Kayo?

Hi. Truthout is one of the major resources for articles I send you.
Their blog provides serious responses by the public, and this one
drew many such, mostly negative. I've added only two of the first
four. Check it out below, maybe go to the site for the full discussion.
And consider getting their daily digest. Today's had a varied dozen
of single-paragraph, well-written descriptions of topics of interest.
Anyway, this one's a doozy.
Ed

http://www.truthout.org/1228096
We Won Round One on Health Care

by: Scott Galindez

t r u t h o u t : 28 December 2009

There are widespread opinions out there on the Senate version of health care
reform. I understand people's frustration with how "Traitor Joe" Lieberman
and "Ben Arnold" Nelson held the Senate bill hostage. A robust public option
would have been a great start to the real reforms needed to fix our broken
health care system. Traitor Joe and Ben Arnold succeeded; there will not be
a robust public option.

Many progressive groups have not given up on getting a public option this
time around. Putting energy into pressuring Congress to come out of
conference with the public option restored is a waste of valuable resources.
One group goes as far as calling for the Democrats to call Lieberman's bluff
and force him to filibuster the old-fashioned way by holding the floor for
days. The problem with that is the need for 60 votes in the Senate has not
gone away with the Christmas Eve passage of the Senate bill.

When the House and the Senate complete their next task and merge the two
bills, the final version will go back to the Senate and the House for a
final vote. While it is true that there can be no amendments and the final
bill is not subject to debate, it is subject to one more cloture motion in
the Senate. If the Senate doesn't reach 60 votes on that motion, they can't
vote on final passage.

With the need for 60 votes in the Senate, the reality is the final bill
coming out of conference will look a lot like the bill that passed the
Senate. If the House version of the public option comes out of conference, I
believe Traitor Joe and his 40 GOP Republican colleagues would kill the
bill.

I know many groups are telling people that after conference there is only a
need for 51 votes. They are wrong; I thought the same thing in August only
to have many Congressional sources tell me I was wrong. Over the last few
days, I confirmed the continued need for 60 votes with Senator Reid's office
as well as Senators Levin and Feingold.

Many are saying it's better to just let the bill die and start over. I
disagree, and here is why.

Access to the Same Options as Members of Congress

Does everyone remember cheering when many Democratic Party candidates for
president called for allowing the American people to buy into the same
insurance plans as members of Congress? Bill Bradley was the first; I seem
to remember Howard Dean, John Edwards and John Kerry proposing the same
thing. I know that it was in most of President Obama's stump speeches last
year. It's in the Senate bill - well, not exactly.

Remember the confusion when most were reporting the public option was dead
and Harry Reid unsuccessfully tried to deny that, saying there was still a
public option in the bill? He wasn't referring to the Medicare expansion; he
was referring to the compromise on the public option. It wouldn't be a total
public option; private insurers, at least one of which would be a nonprofit,
would offer national plans that would be administered by the same government
agency that administers the federal employee health plan. That is what
members of Congress have, so it is what President Obama and many past
Democratic Party candidates campaigned on for the last decade.

It is not as good as the public option in the House bill, but it is better
than what we have today.

Needed Reforms

a.. It will be illegal to deny people based on pre-existing conditions;
that, in itself, is a major reform.
b.. There will a cap on out-of-pocket expenses.
c.. Small businesses will be able to buy from a national exchange, giving
them increased buying power.
d.. A new benefit will allow workers to buy into a plan that will provide
them a cash benefit if they become disabled and need in-home care.
e.. Access to Medicaid will be increased to people making 130 percent to
150 percent of the poverty level; the percentage will be worked out in
conference.
f.. There will be limits on insurance company profits, requiring that 85
percent of revenues be spent on delivering health care.
g.. If insurance companies exceed those limits and more than 15 percent go
to advertising, profit etc., they would have to pay rebates to those they
insure.
h.. The Senate bill requires all insurers to fully cover federally
recommended preventive health services, such as immunizations, colonoscopies
and HIV testing.
i.. Insurers would not be allowed to rescind a policy for someone who gets
sick.
j.. State and federal regulators would be required to review rate
increases and determine if they are justified.
Let's face it, if this bill was the first offer and we were not teased by
the "robust public option," we would all be ecstatic.

Reform Doesn't End With the President's Signature

FDR has a legacy as a great reformer, but let's not forget that Social
Security was weakened to get it through Congress, and then reformed over the
years to make it a better program. Advocates for universal health care need
to continue to fight until every American has full health care coverage.
There are short-term fights that can be waged right away: How about
eliminating the three-year exemption on pre-existing conditions? Let's make
it an election-year issue to make the law outlawing denial of coverage based
on pre-existing conditions go into effect immediately instead of in 2014.
Expanding access to Medicare to younger Americans would be a powerful
election-year tool; let's make Republicans come out on the record against
that without the ability to hide behind other parts of a larger bill.

I understand everyone's frustration, but let's get strategic and accept this
as a first-round win, and continue to fight until the American people get
what we deserve: universal health care delivering as good an outcome at as
good a cost as other industrialized countries. Until someone proves me
wrong, I believe that means single payer.


Comments
This is a moderated forum. It may take a little while for comments to go
live. Be civil and on-topic, don't threaten or advocate violence, please
keep it under 300 words. Thanks for participating

One of many Responses:

Mon, 12/28/2009 - 21:05 - John Watson (not verified)

It's as if this writer hasn't seen or thought about the bill. I could go
down the whole list, but just a few of the big things: 1. Pre-existing
conditions. There are annual caps on coverage, which means that anyone with
a serious illness that takes intensive care ( often, a pre-existing
condition expressing itself: cancer, heart etc.) will end up paying most of
the bills, which means that, as now, people will be going bankrupt due to
medical problems. 2. Premiums will be skyrocketing within a few years -
there are no restrictions! And no way to enforce the 80% (not 85%, as far as
I know) portion outside of 'profits'; compsnies that I've worked for make
sure that very little is called a 'profit', to save money on taxes. it's
easy for accountants and lawyers to skate by such a publicity stunt anyway.
3. 'Exchanges' are a codeword for keping the current system. Gee, you get to
choose between the current set of companies in an oligopolic market. Good
luck finding affordable premiums. 4. "State and federal regulators would be
required to review rate increases and determine if they are justified." What
can they do at that point, and why would 'regulators' ever cross the
insurance industry anyway? Various states have tried something with the same
wording, to no effect. Expanding Medicaid is good, I agree, but most of the
other good changes listed will simply be used as an excuse to raise rates.
Justifiably so, if you consider that the goal of insurance companies is
profits (real ones) and the changes will be expensive to them. And the
'incremental' argument is dead now; the bill freezes in insurance-dominated
health care - there's nothing to build on (as there would be by changing age
limits on Medicare), and no one will be raising this subject again after the
'great victory', especially the fundamental issues. Single Payer is dead for
at least 20 years, whereas if no bill had passed fundamental policies could
have been challenged again in the nearer future.

These are good points, but I
Mon, 12/28/2009 - 21:58 - BillyDoc (not verified)

These are good points, but I strongly disagree with the conclusion.
Experience has shown that this "baby step" bill will be thrown up in all our
faces as "the job is already done" exactly to prevent further improvements.
Also, the main culprits in our current health care extortion racket . . .
which costs twice as much as the health care systems of civilized countries,
with what are generally the worst or nearly the worst outcomes of any
industrial country . . . will still be with us and will still be conniving
to circumvent any legislation that dares to interfere with their profits.
And the loopholes to do this are no-doubt already in place. On the other
hand, if this bill goes into the trash heap there will be real pressure to
do the job right from the public, and it will be very hard for our
coin-operated congressmen to hide the fact that they have betrayed us all
for money. There is nothing quite like being surrounded by an angry mob of
"villagers with pitchforks" to focus the thought processes on whether or not
further betrayal is a good idea or not. That's what it will take, I fear, so
scuttle this bill and bring it on.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Electronic Intifada: One year has passed, Vigil reminder

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10969.shtml

Israel resembles a failed state

Ali Abunimah,
The Electronic Intifada, 27 December 2009


One year has passed since the savage Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, but
for the people there time might as well have stood still.

Since Palestinians in Gaza buried their loved ones -- more than 1,400
persons, almost 400 of them children -- there has been little healing and
virtually no reconstruction.

According to international aid agencies, only 41 trucks of building supplies
have been allowed into Gaza during the year.

Promises of billions made at a donors' conference in Egypt last March
attended by luminaries of the so-called "international community" and the
Middle East peace process industry are unfulfilled, and the Israeli siege,
supported by the US, the European Union, Arab states, and tacitly by the
Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah, continues.

Amid the endless, horrifying statistics a few stand out: of Gaza's 640
schools, 18 were completely destroyed and 280 damaged in Israeli attacks.
Two-hundred-and-fifty students and 15 teachers were killed.

Of 122 health facilities assessed by the World Health Organization, 48
percent were damaged or destroyed.

Ninety percent of households in Gaza still experience power cuts for four to
eight hours per day due to Israeli attacks on the power grid and degradation
caused by the blockade.

Forty-six percent of Gaza's once productive agricultural land is out of use
due to Israeli damage to farms and Israeli-declared free fire zones. Gaza's
exports of more than 130,000 tons per year of tomatoes, flowers,
strawberries and other fruit have fallen to zero.

That "much of Gaza still lies in ruins," a coalition of international aid
agencies stated recently, "is not an accident; it is a matter of policy."

This policy has been clear all along and it has nothing to do with Israeli
"security."

From 19 June 2008, to 4 November 2008, calm prevailed between Israel and
Gaza, as Hamas adhered strictly -- as even Israel has acknowledged -- to a
negotiated ceasefire.

That ceasefire collapsed when Israel launched a surprise attack on Gaza
killing six persons, after which Hamas and other resistance factions
retaliated.

Even so, Palestinian factions were still willing to renew the ceasefire, but
it was Israel that refused, choosing instead to launch a premeditated,
systematic attack on the foundations of civilized life in the Gaza Strip.

Operation Cast Lead, as Israel dubbed it, was an attempt to destroy once and
for all Palestinian resistance in general, and Hamas in particular, which
had won the 2006 election and survived the blockade and numerous
US-sponsored attempts to undermine and overthrow it in cooperation with
US-backed Palestinian militias.

Like the murderous sanctions on Iraq throughout the 1990s, the blockade of
Gaza was calculated to deprive civilians of basic necessities, rights and
dignity in the hope that their suffering might force their leadership to
surrender or collapse.

In many respects things may seem more dire than a year ago.

Barack Obama, the US president, whom many hoped would change the vicious
anti-Palestinian policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush, has instead
entrenched them as even the pretense of a serious peace effort has vanished.

According to media reports, the US Army Corps of Engineers is assisting
Egypt in building an underground wall on its border with Gaza to block the
tunnels which act as a lifeline for the besieged territory (resources and
efforts that ought to go into rebuilding still hurricane-devastated New
Orleans), and American weapons continue to flow to West Bank militias
engaged in a US- and Israeli-sponsored civil war against Hamas and anyone
else who might resist Israeli occupation and colonization.

These facts are inescapable and bleak.

However, to focus on them alone would be to miss a much more dynamic
situation that suggests Israel's power and impunity are not as invulnerable
as they appear from this snapshot.

A year after Israel's attack and after more than two-and-a-half years of
blockade, the Palestinian people in Gaza have not surrendered. Instead they
have offered the world lessons in steadfastness and dignity, even at an
appalling, unimaginable cost.

It is true that the European Union leaders who came to occupied Jerusalem
last January to publicly embrace Ehud Olmert, the then Israeli prime
minister -- while white phosphorus seared the flesh of Gazan children and
bodies lay under the rubble -- still cower before their respective Israel
lobbies, as do American and Canadian politicians.

But the shift in public opinion is palpable as Israel's own actions
transform it into a pariah whose driving forces are not the liberal
democratic values with which it claims to identify, but ultra-nationalism,
racism, religious fanaticism, settler-colonialism and a Jewish supremacist
order maintained by frequent massacres.

The universalist cause of justice and liberation for Palestinians is gaining
adherents and momentum especially among the young. I witnessed it, for
example, among Malaysian students I met at a Palestine solidarity conference
held by the Union of NGOs of The Islamic World in Istanbul last May, and
again in November as hundreds of student organizers from across the US and
Canada converged to plan their participation in the global Palestinian-led
campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions modeled on the successful
struggle against South African apartheid in the 1980s.

This week, thousands of people from dozens of countries are attempting to
reach Gaza to break the siege and march alongside Palestinians who have been
organizing inside the territory.

Each of the individuals traveling with the Gaza Freedom March, Viva
Palestina, or other delegations represents perhaps hundreds of others who
could not make the journey in person, and who are marking the event with
demonstrations and commemorations, visits to their elected officials and
media campaigns.
Against this flowering of activism, Zionism is struggling to rejuvenate its
dwindling base of support. Multi-million dollar programs aimed at recruiting
and Zionizing young American Jews are struggling to compete against
organizations like the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, which run
not on money but principled commitment to human equality.

Increasingly, we see that Israel's hasbara (propaganda) efforts have no
positive message, offer no plausible case for maintaining a status quo of
unspeakable repression and violence, and rely instead on racist demonization
and dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims to justify Israel's actions and even
its very existence.

Faced with growing global recognition and support for the courageous
nonviolent struggle against continued land theft in the West Bank, Israel is
escalating its violence and kidnapping of leaders of the movement in Bilin
and other villages (Mohammad Othman, Jamal Juma' and Abdallah Abu Rahmeh are
among the leaders of this movement recently arrested).

In acting this way, Israel increasingly resembles a bankrupt failed state,
not a regime confident about its legitimacy and longevity.

And despite the failed peace process industry's efforts to ridicule,
suppress and marginalize it, there is a growing debate among Palestinians
and even among Israelis about a shared future in Palestine/Israel based on
equality and decolonization, rather than ethno-national segregation and
forced repartition.
Last, but certainly not least, in the shadow of the Goldstone report,
Israeli leaders travel around the world fearing arrest for their crimes.

For now, they can rely on the impunity that high-level international
complicity and their inertial power and influence still afford them. But the
question for the real international community -- made up of people and
movements -- is whether we want to continue to see the still very incomplete
system of international law and justice painstakingly built since the
horrors of the Second World War and the Nazi holocaust dismantled and
corrupted all for the sake of one rogue state.

What we have done in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza and the
rest of Palestine is not yet enough. But our movement is growing, it cannot
be stopped, and we will reach our destination.

Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One
Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. He will be
among more than 1,300 persons from 42 countries traveling to Gaza with the
Gaza Freedom March this week. This essay was originally published by
Al-Jazeera and is republished with the author's permission.

***

*JUSTICE FOR GAZA

What : Silent Candlelight Vigil--Justice For Gaza

When: TODAY, Monday, December 28, 2009, 5:00 to 6:30 p.m

Where: In front of the Israeli Consulate, 6380 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
90048

Please bring your own candle (or paper-covered flashlight). We will
maintain silence except for the designated speakers. Only one banner will
be displayed. For more info or to add your organization as a sponsor:
vtamoush@gmail.com or (714) 362-7676

***Sponsored by:
* LA Jews For Peace * FOR-LA (Fellowship of Reconcilliation)
* Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries * Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid,
* St. Anselm of Canterbury Episcopal Church * Islamic Shura Council
* Kinder USA * Friends of Sabeel Orange County * Los Amgeles Chapter -
National Lawyes Guild * Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid * Jews for Peace
Between Israelis and Palestinians * Women In Black - Los Angeles * Orange
County Peace & Freedom Party * Orange Ccounty KPFK Peace Support Group
* US Committee for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USCOM4ACBI)
* Anti-Racist Action - L.A./ People Against Racist Terror * Middle East
Fellowship of Southern California * Friends of SABEEL LOS ANGELES
* Muslims for Progressive Values * South and West Asia & North Africa
Collective/Radio Intifada/KPFK
* CODE PINK, * OOA, * Veterans For Peace

*AND THE LIST CONTINUES TO GROW!*

Cast Lead 2, Silent Vigils Tonight

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1261408947

Cast Lead 2

By Uri Avnery
Gush Shalom: 26.12.09

DID WE win? Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of the Gaza War, alias
Operation Cast Lead, and this question fills the public space.

Within the Israeli consensus, the answer has already been given: Certainly
we won, the Qassams have stopped coming.

A simple, not to say primitive, answer. But that is how it looks to the
superficial observer. There were the Qassams, we made war, no more Qassams.
Sderot is thriving, the inhabitants of Beersheba go to the theater.
Everything else is for philosophy professors.

But anyone who wishes to understand the results of this war has to pose some
hard questions.

Was the real aim of the war to stop the Qassams? Could this have been
achieved by other means? If there were other aims, what were they? Is the
final balance sheet positive or negative, as far as the interests of Israel
are concerned?

I PITY the historians. They have to scrutinize documents, peruse protocols,
disentangle tortuous texts.

Documents are misleading. If Talleyrand (or whoever it was) was right in
saying that words were invented in order to hide thoughts, this is even more
true for documents. Documents falsify facts, hide facts, invent facts – all
according to the interests of the writer. They disclose a little to hide the
rest. Anyone who has been involved in public affairs knows this.

Therefore, let's ignore the protocols. What were the real aims of those who
started the war? I believe that they were as follows, in order of decreasing
priority:

To overthrow the regime in Gaza, by turning the life of the inhabitants into
such hell that they would rise up against Hamas.

To return to the Government and the army their self respect, which had been
severely damaged in Lebanon War II.

To restore the deterrent power of the Israeli army.

To stop the Qassams.

To free the captive soldier, Gilad Shalit.

Let's examine the results, one by one.

THIS WEEK, hundreds of thousands gathered in the Gaza Strip for a
demonstration in support of Hamas. Judging from the photos, there were
between 200 and 400 thousand. Considering that there are about 1.5 million
inhabitants in the Strip, most of them children, that was quite an
impressive turnout - especially in view of the misery caused by the Israeli
blockade that has continued throughout the year and the ruined homes that
could not be rebuilt. Those who believed that the pressure on the population
would cause an uprising against the Hamas government have been proved wrong.

History buffs were not surprised. When attacked by a foreign foe, every
people unites behind its leaders, whoever they are. Pity that our
politicians and generals don't read books.

Our commentators portray the inhabitants of Gaza as "looking with longing at
the flourishing shops of Ramallah". These commentators also derive hope from
public opinion polls that purport to show that the popularity of Hamas in
the West Bank is declining. If so, why is Fatah afraid of conducting
elections, even after all Hamas activists there have been thrown into
prison?

It seems that most of the people in the Gaza Strip are more or less
satisfied with the functioning of the Hamas government. In spite of the
misery of their lives, they may also be proud of its steadfastness. There is
order in the streets, crime and drugs are decreasing. Hamas is trying
cautiously to promote a religious agenda in daily life, and it seems that
the public does not mind.

The main aim of the operation has failed completely.

THE SECOND aim, on the other hand, has been achieved. The Olmert government,
which lost public confidence in Lebanon War II, won it back in the Gaza War.
That did not help Olmert himself – he had to resign because of the cloud of
corruption affairs hovering over his head.

The army has restored its self-confidence. It has proved that the military
deficiencies, that came to light at every step in the Lebanon War, were
superficial. The public believes that in Gaza the army functioned well. The
fact that a total of six Israeli soldiers were killed by enemy fire, while
over a thousand people died on the other side, has reinforced this belief.
Only few people are bothered by moral scruples.

THE QUESTION whether the third aim – deterrence - has been achieved is
closely connected with another question: Who won the war militarily?

In a war between a regular army and a guerrilla force, it is hard to decide
what "victory" means. In a classic battle between armies, victory belongs to
the side which remains in control of the battlefield once the fighting ends.
Obviously that does not apply in an asymmetrical contest. The Israeli army
did not want to stay in the Gaza Strip – on the contrary, it was very keen
to avoid such a possibility.

Some argue that Hamas won the war: if a band of ill-armed guerrillas holds
out for three whole weeks against one of the strongest armies in the world,
that constitutes a victory. There is a lot of truth in that.

On the other hand, the deterrent force of the army has certainly been
restored. All Palestinian factions and all Arab forces in general, now know
that the Israeli army is prepared to kill and destroy without any restraint
in any military confrontation. From now on, the Hamas leaders – as well as
the Hizbullah chiefs – will think twice before provoking it.

THE QASSAMS have stopped almost completely. Hamas has even imposed its
authority on the small, extreme factions, which wanted to continue.

No doubt the newly restored deterrent force of the army has had a bearing on
that. But it is also true that the army is taking great care not to cause
regular incidents, as was their wont before Cast Lead. At least for now, the
deterrence in the Gaza theatre is mutual.

It can be asked whether a means could have been found to stop the Qassams
short of war. If the Israeli government had recognized the Hamas authorities
in the Gaza Strip – at least de facto – and maintained businesslike
relations with them, and if it had not imposed the blockade – could the
missiles have been stopped? I do believe so.

THE RELEASE of Shalit – a secondary but important aim in itself – has not
been achieved. If Shalit is freed, it will happen only as part of a prisoner
exchange, and that will look like a huge victory for Hamas.

TAKING INTO consideration all these results, one can draw the conclusion
that the war has ended in a kind of draw.

Except for Goldstone.

This war has dealt a fatal blow to Israel's standing in the world.

Is that important? David Ben-Gurion famously said that "it is not important
what the Goyim say but what the Jews do." Thomas Jefferson, on the other
hand, said that no nation can afford to behave without "a decent respect for
the opinions of mankind". Jefferson was right. "What the Goyim say" has an
immense impact on all the spheres of our life - from the political arena to
security matters. The standing of our state in the world is a vital factor
in our national security.

The Gaza War – from the decision to throw the army into a densely populated
area to the use of white phosphorus and flechette munitions – has raised a
dark cloud over Israel. The Goldstone report, coming as it did after the
gruesome pictures broadcast throughout the war by all the world's TV
networks, has produced a terrible impression. Hundreds of millions of people
saw and heard, and their attitude towards Israel has changed for the worse.
This will have far-reaching impact on the decisions of governments, the
attitude of the media and in thousands of big and small decisions concerning
Israel.

Almost all our spokesmen and journalists, from the President down to the
last TV talk-show host, keep parroting that the Goldstone report is
"one-sided", "vile" and "lying". But people around the world know that it is
as honest a report as could be expected after our government's decision to
boycott the investigation. The damage increases from day to day. Some of it
is irreversible.

It is impossible to measure the results of the war without laying this fact
on the scales. The upshot is that the damage done to us by the war outweighs
any benefits.

Some people in our leadership silently accept this conclusion. But there is
no lack of voices – both in the leadership and in the street - which talk
openly about a "Cast Lead 2" as being just a matter of time.

A saying attributed to Bismarck goes: Fools learn from their own experience,
clever people learn from the experience of others. Where does that leave us?

***

*JUSTICE FOR GAZA

What : Silent Candlelight Vigil--Justice For Gaza

When: Monday, December 28, 2009, 5:00 to 6:30 p.m

Where: In front of the Israeli Consulate, 6380 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
90048

Please bring your own candle (or paper-covered flashlight). We will
maintain silence except for the designated speakers. Only one banner will
be displayed. For more info or to add your organization as a sponsor:
vtamoush@gmail.com or (714) 362-7676

***Sponsored by:
* LA Jews For Peace * FOR-LA (Fellowship of Reconcilliation)
* Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries * Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid,
* St. Anselm of Canterbury Episcopal Church * Islamic Shura Council
* Kinder USA * Friends of Sabeel Orange County * Los Amgeles Chapter -
National Lawyes Guild * Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid * Jews for Peace
Between Israelis and Palestinians * Women In Black - Los Angeles * Orange
County Peace & Freedom Party * Orange Ccounty KPFK Peace Support Group
* US Committee for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USCOM4ACBI)
* Anti-Racist Action - L.A./ People Against Racist Terror * Middle East
Fellowship of Southern California * Friends of SABEEL LOS ANGELES
* Muslims for Progressive Values * South and West Asia & North Africa
Collective/Radio Intifada/KPFK
* CODE PINK, * OOA, * Veterans For Peace

*AND THE LIST CONTINUES TO GROW!*

- - -

http://www.gazafreedommarch.org/solidarity

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

* December 26, 2009

For contact information:
In Cairo: Ann Wright, 019 508 1493, **microann@yahoo.com**

In Europe (Portugal): Ziyaad Lunat, +351938349206,
**z.lunat@googlemail.com**

In US: Nancy Mancias, 1 (415) 342-6409,
**codepink.nancy@gmail.com*


*International Campaign in Support of the **Gaza** Freedom March*
Thousands of Unison Actions Assembled around the World

A massive mobilization between December 27, 2009 and January 1, 2010 with
candlelight vigils, concerts, marches, demonstrations, art installations and
movie screenings will assemble all over the world to send a clear message to
world leaders: end the siege on Gaza.

To tackle the blockade against Gaza, grassroots activists are moving quickly
and acting in unison for an absolutley crucial time. Dec. 27 will mark one
year since the Israeli attack and invasion of the Gaza Strip. Although the
Israeli tanks have left, the complete closure of the borders continues.

In order to unite the public to influence public leaders behind the Gaza
Freedom March goals, solidarity action organizers harnessed the power of the
internet to coordinate a global week of actions. There will be actions at
many places around the world: France, United Kingdom, Turkey, Ireland,
Germany, Spain, United States, Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Switzerland,
Sweden, Jordan, Canada, Israel/Palestine, Poland, Denmark, and Greece.

On December 31, 2009, more than 1,400 citizens from across the world will
travel to Cairo to join the Gaza Freedom March. This historic non-violent
action has been organized by The International Coalition to End the Illegal
Siege of Gaza. Its objective is to draw international attention to the siege
and blockade of Gaza which are illegal under international law.

According to the United Nations, the most recent invasion left 1,400
Palestinian civilians dead, thousands injured and hundreds of thousands
homeless, many of whom still live in tents. Many more are living in the
ruins of their houses or with relatives. It is now one year later, and no
progress has been made. In fact the situation is more dire than ever.
Hospitals lack many medicines and supplies to provide even routine medical
care. Building materials so desperately needed after the last winter's
invasion by Israel are not permitted into Gaza.

Israel's blockade of Gaza is a flagrant violation of international law that
has led to mass suffering. The U.S., Egypt and the rest of the international
community are complicit. The law is clear. The conscience of humankind is
shocked. Yet, the siege of Gaza continues.

For more information about the Gaza Freedom March global actions visit:

http://www.gazafreedommarch.org/solidarity.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Silent Candlelight Vigil for Gaza, Amira Hass: Danger: Popular struggle

Hi. I hope your holiday is festive, though the world trembles.

Monday's vigil is part of thousands of actions happening
throughout the world, as per the press release below the local
announcement. I took a look at US events and was almost
exhausted by the time it took to get through California. You can
look for yourself by clicking on the release website. Speaking of
which, the list of sponsoring organizations is not only long, wide
and diverse, but unique for this era and this cause. Alevai.
Ed

From: Karin Pally
Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 7:42 AM

*JUSTICE FOR GAZA

What : Silent Candlelight Vigil--Justice For Gaza

When: Monday, December 28, 2009, 5:00 to 6:30 p.m

Where: In front of the Israeli Consulate, 6380 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
90048

Please bring your own candle (or paper-covered flashlight). We will
maintain silence except for the designated speakers. Only one banner will
be displayed. For more info or to add your organization as a sponsor:
vtamoush@gmail.com or (714) 362-7676

***Sponsored by:
* LA Jews For Peace * FOR-LA (Fellowship of Reconcilliation)
* Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries * Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid,
* St. Anselm of Canterbury Episcopal Church * Islamic Shura Council
* Kinder USA * Friends of Sabeel Orange County * Los Amgeles Chapter -
National Lawyes Guild * Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid * Jews for Peace
Between Israelis and Palestinians * Women In Black - Los Angeles * Orange
County Peace & Freedom Party * Orange Ccounty KPFK Peace Support Group
* US Committee for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USCOM4ACBI)
* Anti-Racist Action - L.A./ People Against Racist Terror * Middle East
Fellowship of Southern California * Friends of SABEEL LOS ANGELES
* Muslims for Progressive Values * South and West Asia & North Africa
Collective/Radio Intifada/KPFK
* CODE PINK, * OOA, * Veterans For Peace

*AND THE LIST CONTINUES TO GROW!*

- - -

http://www.gazafreedommarch.org/solidarity

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

* December 26, 2009

For contact information:
In Cairo: Ann Wright, 019 508 1493, **microann@yahoo.com**

In Europe (Portugal): Ziyaad Lunat, +351938349206,
**z.lunat@googlemail.com**

In US: Nancy Mancias, 1 (415) 342-6409,
**codepink.nancy@gmail.com*

*
*

*International Campaign in Support of the **Gaza** Freedom March*
Thousands of Unison Actions Assembled around the World

*(Worldwide)*


A massive mobilization between December 27, 2009 and January 1, 2010 with
candlelight vigils, concerts, marches, demonstrations, art installations and
movie screenings will assemble all over the world to send a clear message to
world leaders: end the siege on Gaza.

To tackle the blockade against Gaza, grassroots activists are moving quickly
and acting in unison for an absolutley crucial time. Dec. 27 will mark one
year since the Israeli attack and invasion of the Gaza Strip. Although the
Israeli tanks have left, the complete closure of the borders continues.

In order to unite the public to influence public leaders behind the Gaza
Freedom March goals, solidarity action organizers harnessed the power of the
internet to coordinate a global week of actions. There will be actions at
many places around the world: France, United Kingdom, Turkey, Ireland,
Germany, Spain, United States, Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Switzerland,
Sweden, Jordan, Canada, Israel/Palestine, Poland, Denmark, and Greece.

On December 31, 2009, more than 1,400 citizens from across the world will
travel to Cairo to join the Gaza Freedom March. This historic non-violent
action has been organized by The International Coalition to End the Illegal
Siege of Gaza. Its objective is to draw international attention to the siege
and blockade of Gaza which are illegal under international law.

According to the United Nations, the most recent invasion left 1,400
Palestinian civilians dead, thousands injured and hundreds of thousands
homeless, many of whom still live in tents. Many more are living in the
ruins of their houses or with relatives. It is now one year later, and no
progress has been made. In fact the situation is more dire than ever.
Hospitals lack many medicines and supplies to provide even routine medical
care. Building materials so desperately needed after the last winter's
invasion by Israel are not permitted into Gaza.

Israel's blockade of Gaza is a flagrant violation of international law that
has led to mass suffering. The U.S., Egypt and the rest of the international
community are complicit. The law is clear. The conscience of humankind is
shocked. Yet, the siege of Gaza continues.

For more information about the Gaza Freedom March global actions visit:

http://www.gazafreedommarch.org/solidarity.

* *

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1137056.html

Danger: Popular struggle

By Amira Hass
Haaretz : December 23, 2009

There is an internal document that has not been leaked, or perhaps has not
even been written, but all the forces are acting according to its
inspiration: the Shin Bet, Israel Defense Forces, Border Police, police, and
civil and military judges. They have found the true enemy who refuses to
whither away: The popular struggle against the occupation.

Over the past few months, the efforts to suppress the struggle have
increased. The target: Palestinians and Jewish Israelis unwilling to give up
their right to resist reign of demographic separation and Jewish supremacy.
The means: Dispersing demonstrations with live ammunition, late-night army
raids and mass arrests. Since the beginning of the year, 29 Palestinians
have been wounded by IDF snipers while demonstrating against the separation
fence. The snipers fired expanding bullets, despite an explicit 2001 order
from the Military Adjutant General not to use such ammunition to break up
demonstrations. After soldiers killed A'kel Srour in June, the shooting
stopped, but then resumed in November.

Since June, dozens of demonstrators have been arrested in a series of
nighttime military raids. Most are from Na'alin and Bil'in, whose land has
been stolen by the fence, and some are from the Nablus area, which is
stricken by settlers' abuse. Military judges have handed down short prison
terms for incitement, throwing stones and endangering security. One union
activist from Nablus was sent to administrative detention - imprisonment
without a trial - while another activist is still being interrogated.

For a few weeks now, the police have refused to approve demonstrations
against the settlement in Sheikh Jarrah, an abomination approved by the
courts. On each of the last two Fridays, police arrested more than 20
protesters for 24 hours. Ten were held for half an hour in a cell filled
with vomit and diarrhea in the Russian Compound in Jerusalem.

Israel also recently arrested two main activists from the Palestinian
organization Stop the Wall, which is involved in research and international
activity which calls for the boycott of Israel and companies profiting from
the occupation. Mohammad Othman was arrested three months ago. After two
months of interrogation did not yield any information, he was sent to
administrative detention. The organization's coordinator, Jamal Juma'a, a
47-year-old resident of Jerusalem, was arrested on December 15. His
detention was extended two days ago for another four days, and not the 14
requested by the prosecutor.

The purpose of the coordinated oppression: To wear down the activists and
deter others from joining the popular struggle, which has proven its
efficacy in other countries at other times. What is dangerous about a
popular struggle is that it is impossible to label it as terror and then use
that as an excuse to strengthen the regime of privileges, as Israel has done
for the past 20 years.

The popular struggle, even if it is limited, shows that the Palestinian
public is learning from its past mistakes and from the use of arms, and is
offering alternatives that even senior officials in the Palestinian
Authority have been forced to support - at least on the level of public
statements.

Yuval Diskin and Amos Yadlin, the respective heads of the Shin Bet security
service and Military Intelligence, already have exposed their fears. During
an intelligence briefing to the cabinet they said: "The Palestinians want to
continue and build a state from the bottom up ... and force an agreement on
Israel from above ... The quiet security [situation] in the West Bank and
the fact that the [Palestinian] Authority is acting against terror in an
efficient manner has caused the international community to turn to Israel
and demand progress."

The brutal repression of the first intifada, and the suppression of the
first unarmed demonstrations of the second intifada with live fire, have
proved to Palestinians that the Israelis do not listen. The repression left
a vacuum that was filled by those who sanctified the use of arms.

Is that what the security establishment and its political superiors are
trying to achieve today, too, in order to relieve us of the burden of a
popular uprising?

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Merry Christmas from Bethlehem, Monday Evening Vigil

-----Original Message-----
From: R Scott Kennedy <kenncruz@pacbell.net>
Sent: Dec 24, 2003 9:34 PM

Benjamin Kennedy, born and raised in Santa Cruz, is a graduate of Santa
Cruz High School. He is living in Bethlehem and working as a volunteer
at the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem. Ben plans to continue
his undergraduate studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz
in 2004. Benjamin Kennedy <goleedsunited@hotmail.com>

Merry Christmas from Bethlehem
by Benjamin Kennedy

This year I will spend my first Christmas away from home. Up to this
point, all 23 of my previous Christmas celebrations have been spent
in the warm embrace of my family. This year I have the opportunity to
spend Christmas in Bethlehem, the place where it all got started. I
have been living and working here in Bethlehem for the past two months.
Even though my younger sister has joined me and will be celebrating
Christmas with in Bethlehem, the experience of these last two months
leaves me feeling very far from home. The Christmas season has only
served to highlight and amplify these feelings.

In the past, the celebrations of Christmas have naturally focused on the
town of Bethlehem. The scripture readings, the hymns, the carols, even
the wrapping paper all create an image of Bethlehem in the time of the
coming of Jesus. This picture for me was always very clear. The star,
the manger, the wise men, and so on -- the mental picture was formed in
my mind at a very young age. This picture, while familiar and
reassuring, was always lacking a basis in reality. The Biblical world
seemed so far away from my daily life, and I was always aware of the
nature of the image I had created in my head. My time in Bethlehem has
replaced this idealized and romantic image with one based in the cold
hard reality of the modern world.

The continued occupation of the Palestinian people by the State of
Israel is the dominant and overwhelming feature of life in Bethlehem.
The brutality and repression of the occupation alter every aspect of
life. Sometimes it is manifested in violent and dramatic clashes. But
most often it is seen in smaller more gradual ways. Either way, the
major result of the Israeli occupation is the destruction of Palestinian
lives.

Living under occupation and experiencing just a fraction of what
Palestinians have been experiencing virtually continuously since 1967
have permanently changed the image of Christmas in my mind. I know I
will never be able to forget the things I have seen and heard over the
past two months. They will always be associated with Bethlehem and
therefore Christmas in general. Christmas was a big event when I was a
child and children have always been the focus of the celebration of
Christmas in my family. As I have grown up, my role has changed from a
participant to more of an observer. But still my strongest association
with the feelings of Christmas will be as a child.

I would like to share two specific experiences I have had in Bethlehem
that illustrate what life is like for Palestinian children living under
the occupation. These two specific experiences serve to highlight just
what an unbearable price the children of Bethlehem and the rest of the
occupied territories have paid, simply for being Palestinians.

As I walk in the morning through town to my volunteer job, reminders of
the price of the occupation of Bethlehem surround me. On nearly every
building of the town posters of the Palestinian 'Martyrs' are pasted on
the wall. These posters are made to commemorate the deaths of all the
Palestinians that have died in the fight against the occupation. They
are a feature of every Palestinian town. Some are rather threatening
pictures depicting fighters posing with rifles and machine guns before
their deaths. But I find others are more striking. These are the posters
honoring the civilians who have been killed during the occupation. On my
way to work, the face I see the most is that of Christine Saada.
Christine was a ten year old girl who died on March 27, 2003, two days
after Israeli soldiers opened fire on her family's car, mortally
wounding her and injuring her mother, father and sister.

To me, Christine Saada is just that smiling girl in those posters. I
have read about her and seen her parents in the media, but she is still
defined mainly by the haunting image of her posters. To the small tight
knit community of Bethlehem, however, she was a friend, classmate,
sister and daughter. Christine is just one of the 494 Palestinian
children killed since the start of the second Intifada in September 2000
(www.rememberthesechildren.org).

The other experience that has focused my attention on the plight of the
Children of Palestine came from another ten year old, but in a much
different way. Tarek Zoughbi is the eldest son of the friends I'm living
with. Tarek is an amazing boy, bright, energetic, always ready to dance
and constantly looking out for his little brothers and older sister.
Tarek, his siblings and their mother, who is an American, have just
returned from living for a year in the United States. Tarek and I had
just finished watching a movie on the satellite TV when an advertisement
for the next show came on. The advertisement was for the American movie
'Heat,' starring Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino. Tarek immediately sat up
and exclaimed, "Ohh!! I want to see that movie!! It looks great!!!"
Despite the fact that Heat is one of my favorite movies, in
consideration of the R rating and the tremendous amount of violence
throughout, I said, "Tarek, that movie is pretty serious. There is a lot
of violence and I don't think it is the best movie for you to watch.
Maybe we can find something else." For a moment I was satisfied with my
very ?parental? response. Then Tarek quickly replied, "That stuff
doesn't work here. I know a boy who was shot by the soldiers. He was a
friend of mine. It is part of our life." I was at a complete loss. How
could I argue with that? I looked at his mother and she just shrugged
her shoulders. The violence that I watch on TV in the States is a very
real part of every day life for every child living in the Palestinian
occupied territories. The boy that was killed was a friend from around
the neighborhood who was killed by Israeli soldiers during an invasion
into Bethlehem. Tarek and I watched the movie until bed time, happily
sharing the couch.

It is frequently stated in the US that Palestinians teach their children
to hate Israelis. A Palestinian friend of mine pointed out to me once
that, "No Palestinian child has ever needed to be taught to hate
Israelis. They see with their own eyes what the Israelis are doing to
their families and friends." In a meeting at the cultural center at the
Deheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, the director put it another way, "I
knew how to throw stones at the soldiers who came into the camp before I
knew how to read." The occupation is the crucible in which the core
principles and values of these children are being forged. Even the most
committed and ever-present parents struggle against the environment
their children grow up in.

Every Palestinian community has suffered a great deal under the
occupation. Despite the terrible pain and suffering inflicted on
Bethlehem the last years, in the bizarre and irrational world that is
life in Palestine under the Occupation, the City has been relatively
lucky. Many other towns and areas have suffered more than Bethlehem, if
such calculations are actually possible. In Jenin, the parents of a
friend of my sister and I were involved in programs to try and reach out
to the youth of the community. The mother said that: "The boys from
seventh to eighth to ninth grade have gone crazy. There is no other word
for it. They are absolutely out of control. They have no interests other
than guns and violence. They have stopped going to school. They wait for
the Israelis to come into town and chase after the tanks to throw rocks.
It is beyond despair and anger. They really are crazy. It is hard not to
think that this whole generation is finished. Just gone."

These are the feelings that are expressed in the inhumane and
indefensible terrorist attacks on Israel. After a few days here, the
question in one's mind changes from: Why are there so many attacks on
Israel? To, Why aren't there more attacks on Israel? The situation in
the occupied territories is really that bad. The solution becomes very
simple: End the Occupation!

So, as you celebrate Christmas this year, I implore you to focus some
attention and concern on the population of Bethlehem. The Israeli
occupation is a gross and indefensible violation of the Human Rights of
the Palestinian people. The challenge to myself and all Americans is
that this abuse is directly supported and encouraged by the actions of
our government. Despite this fact, every Palestinian person I have
encountered on this trip has been happy to see and eager to engage me as
a friend. As a Palestinian man said to a friend and I as he walked by
with his little girl in Ramallah, "It gives us hope that you would come
here, and see the situation that we live in."

It is in this spirit of humanity, compassion and understanding, that I
have the privilege and honor to extend to you the Christmas wishes of
the Palestinian people of Bethlehem: End the Occupation!! Merry
Christmas!! Peace on Earth!!


Benjamin Kennedy, born and raised in Santa Cruz, is a graduate of Santa
Cruz High School. He is living in Bethlehem and working as a volunteer
at the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem. Ben plans to continue
his undergraduate studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz
in 2004. Benjamin Kennedy <goleedsunited@hotmail.com>

***

From: Karin Pally
Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 7:42 AM

*JUSTICE FOR GAZA

What : Silent Candlelight Vigil--Justice For Gaza

When: Monday, December 28, 2009, 5:00 to 6:30 p.m

Where: In front of the Israeli Consulate, 6380 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
90048

Please bring your own candle (or paper-covered flashlight). We will
maintain silence except for the designated speakers. Only one banner will
be displayed. For more info or to add your organization as a sponsor:
vtamoush@gmail.com or (714) 362-7676

***Sponsored by:
* LA Jews For Peace * FOR-LA (Fellowship of Reconcilliation)
* Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries * Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid,
* St. Anselm of Canterbury Episcopal Church * Islamic Shura Council
* Kinder USA * Friends of Sabeel Orange County * Los Amgeles Chapter -
National Lawyes Guild * Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid * Jews for Peace
Between Israelis and Palestinians * Women In Black - Los Angeles * Orange
County Peace & Freedom Party * Orange Ccounty KPFK Peace Support Group
* US Committee for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USCOM4ACBI)
* Anti-Racist Action - L.A./ People Against Racist Terror * Middle East
Fellowship of Southern California * Friends of SABEEL LOS ANGELES
* Muslims for Progressive Values * South and West Asia & North Africa
Collective/Radio Intifada/KPFK
* CODE PINK, * OOA, * Veterans For Peace

*AND THE LIST CONTINUES TO GROW!*