I received these photos from my friend in Gaza Saturday.

They're graphic and shocking but consider that the Palestinians have no choice. They can't turn it off and say "It's too upsetting, I don't want to see".

I want people to see. They want people to see, to understand what is being done to them. Imagine if it were happening to you, to your parents, to your children. The world has NO right to shut its eyes in silent complicity.

Posted with a special prayer that the photographer, Mohammed Omer, who was almost killed the other day, remain safe.


























To the tyrants of the world

To the lovers of the darkness
To the enemies of life...
You ridiculed the pain of the frail people
Your hands covered in their blood
You deformed the charm of existence
And you've grown but seeds of sadness in their land


Wait, don't let the spring, the clearness of the sky and
the shine of the morning light fool you
Because the darkness, the thunder rumble and the blowing of the wind are coming toward you from the horizon
Beware because there is a fire underneath the ash
Who grows thorns will reap wounds
You've taken off heads of people and the flowers of hope; and watered the sand with blood until it's drunk
The blood's river will take you away and you will be burned by the fiery storm.

ألا أيها الظالم المستبد
حبيب الظلام عدو الحياه
سخرت بأنات شعب ضعيف
و كفك مخضوبة من دماه
و سرت تشوه سحر الوجود
و تبذر شوك الاسى في رباه
رويدك لا يخدعك الربيع
و صحو الفضاء و ضوء الصباح
ففي الافق الرحب هول الظلام و قصف الرعود و عصف الرياح حذار فتحت الرماد اللهيب
و من يبذر الشوك يجن الجراح
تأمل هنالك انى حصدت رؤوس الورى و زهور الأمل
و رويت بالدم قلب التراب اشربته الدمع حتى ثمل
سيجرفك سيل الدماء
و يأكلك العاصف المشتعل


Aboul-Qacem Echebbi أبو القاسم الشابي - Tunisian Poet

Edit to fix broken link

http://rafahtoday.org | http://gazatoday.blogspot.com | http://benjaminheine.blogspot.com
http://angryarab.blogspot.com | http://www.chris-floyd.com/war | LIGHT A CANDLE FOR GAZA

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -Anatole France

The rich man's table is the ooor man's grave...

man, the world just doesn't get it...how can these people be treated so badly and be expected to act all nice nice with Israel? It's cognitive dissonance writ large and transformed into atrocities.

play frisbee

The only wasted vote is a vote for someone you don't believe in. -- Ralph Nader

bullshit is the glue that binds us as a nation - george carlin 1937-2008

Terminal City

It's good to see you in this thread. They cut off all fuel supplies. The place is on the verge of a grave humanitarian catastrophe with no hopsital supplies and no medication.

I think the world gets it, gets it so well that there's an extremely organized effort by governments, the media and political gatekeepers like KOS and DemocraticUnderground to keep ordinarly people from knowing what's taking place down down there. Barely any discussion unless carefully sequestered, monitored and controlled by the pro-Israeli collaborators. And definitely NO posting of photographs/videos that will knock down the lies. I believe there's forced ignorance but nobody who understands even 1/2 of what's going on there expects the Palestinians to act all nice with Israel. Hence the increased fabricated outrage and accusations of growing antiSemitism so silence the truth.

I think what really keeps the Israelis from pursuing true peace with the Palestinians is fear. Fear of retribution for all the unforgivable crimes they committed. And for that fear of retribution, the Israelis are locking themselves in the vicious trap of needing to get rid of the evidence and rewrite what they can.

Remember Jenin? Cover up the evidence. Whitewash the blood. It's the same everytime, every place, every massacre and the US, the UK, France and Russia, they all know what's taking place down there and they're all as complicit.

The Nazis used to cut off the power in the Warsaw Ghetto too.

Using stolen, smuggled and captured weapons, the Jewish Ghetto Fighters led by Mordechai Anielewicz drove the German soldiers out. On April 19 1943 a major German attack using both tanks and heavy guns was also repelled and again the German soldiers retreated. On April 20 the Germans attacked a factory area of the ghetto but were forced to retreat yet again when the Jews set off a mine. The Germans cut off the ghetto’s electricity, water and gas but still the Jews did not surrender, using as their motto “LIVE AND DIE WITH DIGNITY”. The next day the Germans returned and set the ghetto on fire. As the buildings burned, Jews leapt from their windows and emerged from cellars. “We took pains,” said the German commander General Jurgen Stroop, “to ensure that those Jews, as well as others, were wiped out immediately.”

www.holocaust.com.au/mm/j_warsaw.htm

http://rafahtoday.org | http://gazatoday.blogspot.com | http://benjaminheine.blogspot.com
http://angryarab.blogspot.com | http://www.chris-floyd.com/war | LIGHT A CANDLE FOR GAZA

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -Anatole France

The rich man's table is the ooor man's grave...

We didn't defeat the Nazi, we assimilated them and their decedents still can not get enough death to satisfy their perversion.

(Hope you don't mind, I posted a link to this thread over on RI. People need to look at this.)

I have about 2000 such photos. It's time WE look at what WE are ALLOWING to be done in OUR names with OUR money.

I wish these pictures were plastered everywhere for everyone to see and for everyone to think about.

There's no excuse for this. Those photos are my explanation for why I refuse, under any circumstances, to vote for Hillary, Obama or Edwards and will do everything I can to expose them as collaborators of evil. Please post those wherever you want.


PS. Sorry for leading you into a typo (caught off the power). I meant 'cut off the power'.

http://rafahtoday.org | http://gazatoday.blogspot.com | http://benjaminheine.blogspot.com
http://angryarab.blogspot.com | http://www.chris-floyd.com/war | LIGHT A CANDLE FOR GAZA

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -Anatole France

The rich man's table is the ooor man's grave...

Fear of retribution for all the unforgivable crimes they committed. And for that fear of retribution, the Israelis are locking themselves in the vicious trap of needing to get rid of the evidence (Genocide) and rewrite what they can.

I have an israeli history book, "the iron wall" and in it, the clear policy of
the israeli state was to not negotiate in order to *get more* land.. It has
been the policy to be disingenuous for our entire lifetimes in order to take more.

They don't negotiate or make peace because they believe they can steal more:
"The only way to achieve a settlement in the future is the total avoidance of
all attempts to arrive at a settlement in the present." - Jabotinsky

Its degenerate; i'm for a total boycott of israel in every regard; fuck those evil shits.

"for a total boycott of Israel in every regard". I refuse to believe there's nothing we can do and that we just have to sit by passively as these crimes are committed.

Israel is no than a thief stalling and manouvering for more time to steal. It won't accept serious negotiations until there's no one left to negotiate with. Jabotinsky's statement dovetails with that Gold Meir's ugly

"How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to."Golda Meir, March 8, 1969.

http://rafahtoday.org | http://gazatoday.blogspot.com | http://benjaminheine.blogspot.com
http://angryarab.blogspot.com | http://www.chris-floyd.com/war | LIGHT A CANDLE FOR GAZA

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -Anatole France

The rich man's table is the ooor man's grave...

Ze'ev Jabotinsky "Writings: On the Road to Statehood" (Hebrew) (Jerusalem 1959), pp 251 -260

This history book is really excellent; but it makes me sick to my stomach to read it:
"The Iron Wall, Israel and the arab world" by Avi Shlaim:
http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Wall-Israel-Arab-World/...

I want to highlight all the passages testifying to the lies, betrayals and immorality of a government based on land-theft and existing for the kind of land-theft that demands the murder of innocent women, children and men whose SOLE crime is to have been born Palestinian and in the way of Israel's land-stealing bulldozers.

I'm so angry right now.

Rachel Corrie murdered by those criminals. Crushed to death by an IDF bulldozer while trying to stop them from destroying more lives.

James Miller, international award-winning film-maker shot to death in Rafah while carrying a white flag.

Tom Hurndall intentionally gunned down by an Israeli punk sniper while he was trying to move young Palestinian children from the line of fire. Gunned down by a bastard soldier serving a bastard government that whitewashes its crimes with an aplomb not seen since the Nazis.

Peace activists shot and tear-gassed.

Little kids shot in the head with carefully aimed rifles.

A people starved and terrorized because they won't fade gently away in the night so Israelis can continue their lie that "we made the dessert bloom"

I'm sputtering mad tonight. Angry and cold. Sickened to heart by these crimes.

And from our media? Nothing. Silence. Complicity.

From US voters? The same. Worse. Apathy. Silent acquiescence.

From our government? A few billion dollars more and an integrated missile shield with Israel. Just hand over the launch keys why don't we?

God damn all the complicit, collaborating souls involved to eternal torment.

Sorry for ranting like that. That just came out of nowhere. Thanks for the information Sweetheart and thanks very much for caring. If enough people did and refused to condone this under any circumstances and for any reason, the world wouldn't be in the mess it's in today. I want to read it. I'm willing to be sick to my stomach. The world can't turn its back on this because it's too squeemish.

1. Am I my brother's keeper?
2. Who is my brother?

http://rafahtoday.org | http://gazatoday.blogspot.com | http://benjaminheine.blogspot.com
http://angryarab.blogspot.com | http://www.chris-floyd.com/war | LIGHT A CANDLE FOR GAZA

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -Anatole France

The rich man's table is the ooor man's grave...

that is exactly what it is.

http://gorilla.wildlifedirect.org/
http://www.stopwhaling.org/site/c.foJNIZOyEnH/b.26...

http://www.stopaipac.org/
http://www.chris-floyd.com/war/
BOYCOTT ISRAEL HERE>>>>>>>>http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-israel.php#compan...


Skinner and EarlG's DU is a gatekeeper for the status quo banksters and corporatists in the so-called democratic party. I wonder how much they get paid?

http://rafahtoday.org | http://gazatoday.blogspot.com | http://benjaminheine.blogspot.com
http://angryarab.blogspot.com | http://www.chris-floyd.com/war | LIGHT A CANDLE FOR GAZA

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -Anatole France

The rich man's table is the ooor man's grave...

Israel will stop at nothing to urge the Gazans to leave. They dare not kill them all. Thank God for technology that prevents Israel from committing its crimes in darkness & undocumented otherwise the Gazans would have been slaughtered long ago.


Genocide. International Silence. SHAME!

Around minute 7 for the following video. The head of UNWRA speaks of the humanitarian crisis. Also an explanation of the electricity arrangements and how Israel controls it preventing other countries from providing electricty to Gaza after Israel bombed Gaza's powerplant to make it dependent on an Israel-controlled electrical supply that Israel uses as a "war weapon" in contravention of international law.

These are War Crimes.

http://rafahtoday.org | http://gazatoday.blogspot.com | http://benjaminheine.blogspot.com
http://angryarab.blogspot.com | http://www.chris-floyd.com/war | LIGHT A CANDLE FOR GAZA

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -Anatole France

The rich man's table is the ooor man's grave...

fuck fuck fuck.

http://gorilla.wildlifedirect.org/
http://www.stopwhaling.org/site/c.foJNIZOyEnH/b.26...

http://www.stopaipac.org/
http://www.chris-floyd.com/war/
BOYCOTT ISRAEL HERE>>>>>>>>http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-israel.php#compan...


Skinner and EarlG's DU is a gatekeeper for the status quo banksters and corporatists in the so-called democratic party. I wonder how much they get paid?

of little kids in uniform picking up fingers and other body parts of their dead classmates

This is intolerable. If we, as ordinary people, don't start doing something, who will? We've got to find a way to fight this injustice and the media's complicity.

http://rafahtoday.org | http://gazatoday.blogspot.com | http://benjaminheine.blogspot.com
http://angryarab.blogspot.com | http://www.chris-floyd.com/war | LIGHT A CANDLE FOR GAZA

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -Anatole France

The rich man's table is the ooor man's grave...

Their caption is "you paid for it, might as well look at it!" Thanks for publishing these. My heart broke so much when I saw them this afternoon that I couldn't post. Those poor people. The Israelis are blockading FOOD from Gaza. How can this be? Will no one stop those criminals?

I'm so angry when I look at these photos.


"Famine"

180 fuel stations have shut down after Gaza residents to buy gas for cooking.

A Palestinian economist Hasan Abu Ramadan said the current humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip will be deepened by the blockade on fuel and food supplies. He warned that Gaza Strip could go from a situation of deep poverty to all out famine, disease, and malnutrition.

Abu Ramadan said that more than 80% of the Strip's 1.5 million residents have been surviving with the help of food aid from international organizations such as UNRWA for Palestinian refugees.

International condemnation

Most international actors in the region believe there already is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, including the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator, the Undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs John Holmes, who said at a press conference at UNHQ in New York on Friday that "This kind of action against the people in Gaza cannot be justified, even by those rocket attacks".

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon expressed particular concern, in a statement issued later on Friday through his spokesperson, about the "decision by Israel to close the crossing points in between Gaza and Israel used for the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Such action cuts off the population from much-needed fuel supplies used to pump water and generate electricity to homes and hospitals".

The UN Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied territories, John Dugard, also issued a much sharper statement on Friday, saying that Israel must have foreseen the loss of life and injury to many nearby civilians when it targeted the Ministry of Interior building in Gaza City.

This, and the killings of other Palestinians during the week, plus the closures, "raise very serious questions about Israel's respect for international law and its Commitment to the peace process", Dugard said. He said it violates the strict prohibition on collective punishment contained in the Fourth Geneva Convention, and one of the basic principles of international humanitarian law: that military action must distinguish between military targets and civilian targets.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19...


Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin briefed the cabinet last week about the "achievements" of his organization: 810 Palestinians killed during the past two years. (...) Last week, the brigade commander in Gaza, Colonel Ron Ashrov, defined the operation in the Zeitun neighborhood as "very successful." Why? Because his troops killed 19 Palestinians in a single day and further inflamed the conflagration in the South.

...

Defense Minister Ehud Barak should understand this better than anyone. He has certainly read a book or two about history, and he knows that it is impossible to forcefully extinguish a determined and protracted struggle for freedom, like that of the Palestinians. He is also the person who once said in a television interview, courageously and frankly: "If I were a Palestinian, I would join a terror organization." He is the one who is now orchestrating the sowing of death in Gaza.

...

One's heart goes out to the residents of Sderot, but one should also remember that they bear the same responsibility for the situation as do all Israelis. If a survey were conducted in this battered city, it would show that there is also a majority in Sderot in favor of continuing the occupation and siege, as everywhere else in Israel. And despite all the suffering they are experiencing, the situation of their neighbors to the south is much worse.

Haaretz presented a mirror image last week on its front page: a crying toddler in Sderot and a crying toddler in Gaza, both in the arms of their fathers. The other newspapers deemed it sufficient to print pictures of the weeping in Sderot on their front pages. But in recent days, Israel has killed dozens of residents of the besieged, blacked-out and starved Gaza Strip. This information cannot be ignored, with all due sympathy for Sderot.

The continued killing in Gaza is leading nowhere, except for exacerbating the situation in Sderot. It will not weaken the Palestinians' struggle for freedom and will not bring security for Israel. The yearning for a "large-scale military operation" in Gaza, as described by warmongering generals and commentators, is also infuriating. This operation already started a long time ago - just listen to the death figures of Diskin and his colleagues. We have killed over 800 Palestinians in two years, and it is appalling that some take pride in this. And what have we solved?


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/946518.html

Blackouts.
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues

January 21, 2008

It is late here, I want to fall asleep...

I switch off the small table lamp next to my bed. The obscurity is total. A thick black curtain envelops the room.

I close my eyes, the darkness gets even thicker, like a heavy thick veil...

I plunge my head into the pillow. I hear myself breathe. I feel my heartbeat. I hear the obscurity.

I am wide awake in the darkness.

My body says "am tired, let me go"...and my mind replays those images, waking my body up, every time it dozes off...

I get up, turn on the computer, my mind is very alert, my body drudging behind...

I want to chase the pictures away. But I can’t. They have followed me into the darkness of my room, tugging at my sleeve, shouting "Wake up, wake up, you can’t go to sleep." And here I am.

A boy not older than 12, paralyzed and totally dependent on a breathing machine.
The machine has stopped. No electricity. A total blackout.

The whole family takes turns pumping air manually to keep him alive. A vigil of artificial air.

Hospitals in total darkness. Children, adults, the elderly, anyone relying on a life saving machine is right now, as am typing this, in his/her agonizing moments...

The place – Gaza.
The people – The Palestinians.

My mind takes me to other images.

Sudan - A gathering strongly condemning. "Where is your democracy?" shouts one. "This is criminal" shouts the other...

Egypt – "Open the Rafah border now." "We don’t need Bush’s democracy." "Enough"...

Jordan – Many holding a candle vigil sitting on the cold grounds, in the heart of the night. A spontaneous gathering of protest. Several kids holding the Palestinian flag, and a picture of SADDAM HUSSEIN right next to it. They gathered from Baqa'a, Al-Wahdat, East Amman, West Amman, Zarqa... and carrying his picture? Why do you think this is so?

"Why are you here?" asks the TV anchorman.

"I want people to become aware and stop this carnage" replies a 10 year old.

"I am here because I support the children of Gaza" says another 12 years old.

It is very cold out there, it is well past midnight.

Compare those kids to yours – can you do that? There is no comparison.

A few politicians appear, they talk the usual nonsense. They say "the Arab governments have to intervene in this humanitarian crisis."

Excuse me?

Did the Arab governments intervene when 500’000 Iraqi children died due to 13 years of the most brutal sanctions ever?

Did the Arab governments intervene when Iraq was bombed senseless and left with no electricity and no water for over 5 years now?

Did anyone apart from a few voices here and there, utter anything against the squeezing into death of the Iraqi population?

Until today, we get one hour max of electricity per day. If you have the means you buy fuel for a generator and you get 4 hours of electricity per day. And even that is considered too much by some. Like the asshole who wrote to me and said. "Well you have 3 to 4 hours, why are you complaining?"

We have been in a blackout for over 5 years...

I remember every time we could find candles to buy or those cheap kerosene lamps that suffocate you in the night, we felt we found a treasure.

Batteries for flashlights were like diamonds.

Did anyone ask after the thousands of Iraqis young and old dying in hospitals with no electricity?

Did anyone care about the kidney patient relying on dialysis, or the crippled relying on a breathing machine?

NO ONE gave a fuck.

And NO ONE gives a fuck today.

Because today was like yesterday and is like tomorrow.

17 years of genocide, a slow sure genocide and no Arab government gave a damn. No Muslim government gave a damn.

A population that went down from 25 million or so to 20 million, 5 million less and no one still gives a damn.

No, quite the contrary.

You found Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the rest... rushing to its further annihilation.

You found so-called Muslim countries like Iran and its thug proxies like the Hezbollahs of this world, not only keeping a total silence about it but worse, training more of them in the art of killing.

You found the international community shrouded into deafness.

And you found the so-called left snoozing away, resting their heads on tombs and dead bodies...into a deep sleep.

What happened to Iraq is happening to Gaza and to the whole of the Palestinian cause.

What happened to Iraq WILL happen again in Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia...

Enough of your slogans, vile people.

Enough of your theories and your analysis.

Enough of your buying into clichés, banners and false flags.

Wake up. Wake up!

Wake up just like am awake right now.

Wake up like those 10 years old, fully awake in Sudan, Egypt and Jordan...

Wake up from the blackout you have fallen into, like some drinker who can’t hold his drink. Wake up from your amnesia, your indifference, your apathy, your complacency...wake up!

How many more Palestinians and Iraqis will it take for you to nudge you out from your slumber?
How much more blood and wasted innocent lives will it take you before your alarm bell rings?

How many more Iraqs and Palestines do you need?

How much more inter-cleansing does it take ?

You run like sheep after more banners and more slogans...

Look at the REALITY you bastards.

Look, look, look...

Why do you think I am still up writing ?

I want to slap with you this REALITY.

But as usual, you prefer slogans...easy made slogans, handy solutions made of WORDS.

You carry them like a key around your neck, but you can't open the fucking door.

And the door stares at you. And you can’t. You are paralyzed in the obscurity.

The darkness of a blacked out DEAD BRAIN.

You still hope that someone else will deliver or save...

You still hope that Mubarak, Abdallah, Khaddafi, Assad, Nasrallah, Ahmadinajad, Abbas, Hanieh, and God knows who else will deliver...and save.

You are fucking dumb.

You are worse than fucking dumb. You are a lazy, treacherous lot.

Stay in the obscurity.

Rot there.

But the little ones carrying the flag and the picture know it better than all of you put together.

They are sitting in the darkness, in the heart of the night, but they see.

Whilst you are not only deaf, but also blind.

Gaza, Baghdad, are in darkness.

Yes they are blacked-out.

Blacked out from your minds and hearts

You only allude to them when convenient, when it pays off...

The Enemy , we know who he is, who they are...

But do you see the rest ?

Do you see You ?

Do you see how your mimicking like monkeys, got us to where we are at ?

Of course you don’t. And you hardly ever will.

Gaza, Baghdad are in darkness.

And you are in total obscurity.

Stay asleep. Do stay asleep.

Your presence is like your absence.

Nothing.

Black, pitch black.

A blackout.

http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2008/01/blackou...

http://rafahtoday.org | http://gazatoday.blogspot.com | http://benjaminheine.blogspot.com
http://angryarab.blogspot.com | http://www.chris-floyd.com/war | LIGHT A CANDLE FOR GAZA

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -Anatole France

The rich man's table is the ooor man's grave...

Of course, none of the (D)onkey hopefuls would intercede, and it's my understanding that Western Europe has tethered itself to Israel tighter than ever.

How does this end in anything other than genocide?

My best friend was almost killed there last week. I can't bear your question of "How does this end in anything other than genocide?" because that's ripped my soul apart for years. All I know is that if we don't find a way to stop this, it will end in genocide. As a member of the human race, I have to do everything I can to try to ward that. If I have one regret about PI, it's for not having totally dedicated it to the antiwar/Pro-Palestinian cause because those are the 2 biggest issues facing us right now. Fail those and we fail totally afaic.

http://rafahtoday.org | http://gazatoday.blogspot.com | http://benjaminheine.blogspot.com
http://angryarab.blogspot.com | http://www.chris-floyd.com/war | LIGHT A CANDLE FOR GAZA

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -Anatole France

The rich man's table is the ooor man's grave...