12/11/08 – 3/1/09; Sonja Karkar; is the founder and president of Women for Palestine abd one of the founders and convenors of Australians doe Palestine in Melbourne. This article was written before the seige began. – (6 Items)
A peace effort in the Middle East has been 15 years in the undoing.The illegal settlement movement, supported by every Israeli administration to date, has burgeoned out of control and its right wing leaders are vehemently opposed to negotiating land for peace.We will probably see the present Foreign Minister and Kadima party leader, Tzipi Livni – if she forms the next government and takes over from Ehud Olmert, now interim PM – use the same stalling tactics with the Palestinian Authority that have, up until now, allowed land grabs from the Palestinians for the Zionist dream of a greater Israel. After all, Livni was nurtured on that dream.
See: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8148&page=0;
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24865995-28737,00.html
Israel is not the cause of terror
Editorial; 3/1/09
Islamist terrorists hate all democracies as much as Israel’s. THE new year dawned with excellent news from Iraq. For the first time since Saddam Hussein created a compound that protected him from the people he oppressed, his Republican Palace is in the hands of representatives of Iraq’s citizens. During the terrorist attacks that followed the US occupation of Iraq in 2003 it was the heavily fortified coalition headquarters, but now it is under the control of an Iraqi government that relies on the voters, not soldiers and secret police, for its power. This outcome offers hope that the horror Iraqis have long endured is coming to an end. Just as important, it shows that change is possible in the Middle East, that the cynics who suggest that the US invasion was misplaced idealism at best and more likely an imperialist assault on Islam that was doomed to fail, were wrong. Whether the people of Iraq will ultimately decide that the blood and treasure spent in pursuit of a democratic state was justified cannot be known now, but this morning there is light at the end of a long tunnel and cause for hope that Iraq could actually become a stable democracy.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24866334-16741,00.html
They will never coexist
3/1/09
American military might didn’t win the war in Vietnam, even though the US and its allies “won” many battles. Also, the might of the Russian military machine didn’t win the war in Afghanistan—they, too, won some battles but lost the overall war. Similarly, Israeli military muscle may destroy much and kill many, but it won’t win “the war” in the Middle East. When will these slow learners realise that you can’t fight an idea, with F15s, Apache helicopters, tanks and laser-guided weapons? I wish it wasn’t true, but part of me thinks the Palestinians and the Israelis will never peacefully coexist. Both believe they have right on their side and both believe their God is superior. I don’t have the answer to this conflict and I doubt if anyone does. But as sure as heck it doesn’t lie in bombs and bullets. Roy Stall; Mount Claremont, WA
See: http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/ theaustralian/comments/they_will_never_coexist
Israel takes little comfort from Obama
Paul McGeough; 3/1/09
In July Barack Obama sought to boost his Jewish vote back in America with an emotional stump-speech in Sderot, a community in Israel which is a target for much of the Palestinian rocket-fire from Gaza. Referring to his children Malia, 9, and Sasha, 7, the then US presidential candidate said: “If somebody is sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that – and I’d expect Israelis to do the same thing.” This week, however, Obama had no such words of comfort for Anwar Balousha. A 40-year-old father from Gaza who describes himself as a factional agnostic, Balousha had to bury five of his daughters – Tahrir, 17, Ikram, 14, Samar, 13, Dina, 8, and Jawaher, 4 – after they were killed when their home was destroyed in an Israeli missile-strike on a nearby mosque. Obama was monitoring the situation “along with other global events”, a spokesman said. Monitoring? It sounded like a line from the Bush school of loose linguistics, where “immediate” and “ceasefire” are coupled to be heard by one audience as an instinctive, human appeal to halt a brutal war, while the meaning conveyed to others is approval to press their attack.
See: http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/news/world/world/general/israel-takes-little-comfort-from-obama/1399026.aspx
Incursion in November was the last straw
Paul McGeough; 3/1/09
Israel’s global PR machine has worked well to have many of the world’s leaders accept that Hamas should be blamed entirely for the horror of this last week. As always, the reality of the Middle East is murkier than the diplomatic spin would have us believe. The thousands of Palestinian rockets, so wild and erratic that some Israeli analysts dismiss them as “flying stove-pipes”, have killed 19 Israelis in eight years. In the same period 3000 Palestinians have died under Israeli fire in Gaza.However, in June last year a deal was struck. Rocket fire from Gaza into Israel’s southern communities did not stop, but it was curtailed dramatically. The arrangement was described variously as a “ceasefire” or a “truce”. At times the Arabic term tahdi’ah, which translates as a lull or a period of calm, was used.
See: http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/incursion-in-november-was-the-last-straw/2009/01/02/1230681745686.html
Life in the hunger queues
3/1/09
The vegetable market at the beach camp, a crowded warren housing refugee families in Gaza, was all but deserted. Subhi Saeda, 55, waited for customers but none came, save one man who stopped briefly to check prices but moved on once he heard how high they had risen. “You should have seen this stall in the past; now we have very few vegetables for sale,” Saeda said. “It’s so frustrating for us.” Farmers near the border with Israel have stopped going into their fields for fear of being mistaken for militants and that, combined with severe limits on all but humanitarian imports, has pushed prices up dramatically in recent days. On his stall Saeda had only potatoes, peppers, onions and tomatoes. A box of tomatoes now sells for 30 shekels, three times its price last week. Potatoes have doubled in price, onions too.
See: http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/life-in-the-hunger-queues/2009/01/02/1230681746024.html
Tags: Human Rights, Israel, Terrorism, USA