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Monday, January 12, 2009

Gaza demonstration in Auckland - pictures

There have now been public demonstrations against the Israeli attack on Gaza all over the world. This was one of them:
Further pictures of the Gaza demonstration in Auckland on Saturday (09/01/2009).
"Israel! USA! -
How many kids have you killed today?"
"From Auckland to Gaza -
support the Intifada"
And horror of horrors - to the Kiwi Fiends of Israel spinmeisters - there were actually Muslims there too.PHOTOS: Chris McBride

There's little left to say, it feels now. Phosphorus shells raining down in urban areas, Israeli military targeting every member of the Hamas and any government employee in uniform as well as any government building - and they aren't overly fussed how many civilians get killed in the process. Gaza City is basically under siege, the whole strip is encircled by Israel - with Egypt on one side doing Israel's bidding.

Israel has responded to the dozen or so rockets that were launched the other day by a deeper round of attacks into the refugee camps. The Hamas political head in Syria reportedly said that negotiations were useless now. War rhetoric from Hamas most likely, this is a dark hour for them and not a time for suggesting tea and crumpets with the neighbours. Israel meanwhile lets the American weaponry do all the talking. Their negotiators are in Egypt and both sides will have to come to some sort of cease-fire arrangement - through this channel one would expect. The windows of Obama's inauguration and the Israeli election are fast approaching - Israel will ramp it up over the next few days to bash out a better position for itself and a worse one for the Palestinians.

6 Comments:

At 12/1/09 8:08 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

A conversation with Michael Laws

Dear Michael. As someone who has supported you in the past I would like you to consider the following. ..... I assume that your article in the SST was written in ignorance of the following:

WASHINGTON, Jan 9 (IPS) - Contrary to Israel's argument that it was forced to launch its air and ground offensive against Gaza in order to stop the firing of rockets into its territory, Hamas proposed in mid-December to return to the original Hamas-Israel ceasefire arrangement, according to a U.S.-based source who has been briefed on the proposal.

The proposal to renew the ceasefire was presented by a high-level Hamas delegation to Egyptian Minister of Intelligence Omar Suleiman at a meeting in Cairo Dec. 14. The delegation, said to have included Moussa Abu Marzouk, the second-ranking official in the Hamas political bureau in Damascus, told Suleiman that Hamas was prepared to stop all rocket attacks against Israel if the Israelis would open up the Gaza border crossings and pledge not to launch attacks in Gaza.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45350

Why send rockets to Sderot?
This town was founded in 1951. It stands on the ruins of Najd, an Arab village that was ethnically cleansed by Jewish militia - before the State of Israel was declared and before the Arab league moved to stabilise the area on 15 May 1948.
The surviving villagers, who were driven to Gaza and remain there, still possess legal title to over 12,000 dunums of land. They are prohibited from returning and have received no compensation. Jews owned about 400 dunums in 1948.
(Khalidi, Walid, ed. All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated By Israel in 1948. Institute for Palestine Studies: Washington, D.C., 1992.)

This history is backed by none other than Israel's foremost Zionist historian, Benny Morris. Note the dates. The arab League did not move until 15 May 1948 and the real fighting was in September/October.


Morris: (My) book is a double-edged sword. It is based on many documents that were not available to me when I wrote the original book, most of them from the Israel Defense Forces Archives. What the new material shows is that there were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had previously thought. To my surprise, there were also many cases of rape. In the months of April-May 1948, units of the Haganah [the pre-state defense force that was the precursor of the IDF] were given operational orders that stated explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them and destroy the villages themselves.

http://www.logosjournal.com/morris.htm

We should remind ourselves that the rockets are symbolic:

From: An Unnecessary War by Jimmy Carter

"I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided.

After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years)"

...and that the U.N. supports the Palestinian's right to return or compensation for their property.

I strongly recommend that you read statements made by Khalid Mashal, director of Hamas' Political Bureau

"Our message to the Israelis is this: we do not fight you because you belong to a certain faith or culture. Jews have lived in the Muslim world for 13 centuries in peace and harmony; they are in our religion "the people of the book" who have a covenant from God and His Messenger Muhammad (peace be upon him) to be respected and protected. Our conflict with you is not religious but political. We have no problem with Jews who have not attacked us - our problem is with those who came to our land, imposed themselves on us by force, destroyed our society and banished our people.

We shall never recognise the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our national rights. We shall never recognise the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody else's sins or solve somebody else's problem. But if you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms. Hamas is extending a hand of peace to those who are truly interested in a peace based on justice."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jan/31/comment.israelandthepalestinians


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/06/gaza-israel-hamas

I do not wish to take too much of your time. Should any of this information interest you I am happy to continue this correspondence.

Sincerely,

Michael's reply:

No. I prefer to take my news sources from reputable named sources such as the BBC, CNN and the like.

Hamas are religious nutters sworn to Israel’s destruction. Firing rockets and priming suicide bombers – and targeting Jewish civilians –

Provoked Israel’s understandable Gaza intervention.

You obviously can’t read: Hamas have rejected the UN ceasefire.

My reply:
No. I prefer to take my news sources from reputable named sources such as the BBC, CNN and the like.


My links are to The Guardian, the Jimmy Carter piece was published in the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/07/AR2009010702645.html

Israel's foremost Zionist Historian and IPS news. I am sorry you do not consider them reputable.

Hamas are religious nutters


By your own admission, you have only read what others say about them. If you do not read their statements and offers of truce as printed in the Guardian, how can you know this?

sworn to Israel's destruction. Firing rockets and priming suicide bombers


Hamas outlawed suicide bombings years ago.

– and targeting Jewish civilians –

The British Medical Journal asserts that two thirds of Palestinian children are killed by small arms fire to the head and upper body.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/331/7518/699?HITS=10&sortspec=relevance&hits=10&stored_search=&author1=Summerfield&maxtoshow=&andorexactfulltext=and&FIRSTINDEX=0&fulltext=Israeli&resourcetype=1&searchid=1127601519980_8774&RESULTFORMAT=
This implies targeting children, more than a thousand of whom have died during the period when Israel suffered 15 casualties to rockets.

Provoked Israel's understandable Gaza intervention.

It disappoints me that you consider the killing of 800, mostly civilians, an understandable intervention as a result of an average of 2 Israeli deaths per year in the last 8 years and none in the last year.


You obviously can't read: Hamas have rejected the UN ceasefire.

Hamas have rejected any ceasefire that does not include lifting the blockade of Gaza which has caused 75% malnutrition among its population and the cessation of Israeli incursions which killed 30 Gazans during the period of the truce. This is not to mention the 50 killed in the West Bank which fired no rockets.

My request was, I thought, a reasonable one - that you hear the other side of the story. I am sorry that you have declined.

No reply to date.

Isn't it a shame that someone with such access to the media is unwilling to read anything that differs from his pre-conceived position. My dictionary defines bigotry as refusing to consider the point of view of others.

 
At 12/1/09 8:49 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

That last photo has some decent arab hotties. Pity about the headwear think but thankfully it Islam doesn't stop them wearing figure hugging clothing to inflame the passion of the infidel passabys.

 
At 12/1/09 9:13 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think the sign held by a bearded man, reading 'Justice For Palestine' is a good one with a plainly valid message, and I find it clever how the sign is written with the same blue that's on the State flag of Israel, nice touch I feel, as far as context and associations go.

 
At 13/1/09 6:58 am, Blogger Carol said...

The Israeli authorities will not only ramp up the military effort. It seems they are ramping up the propaganda effort with attempts to enlist volunteers to flood news websites with pro-Israeli propaganda. From The Guardian's Richard Silverstein:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/09/israel-foreign-ministry-media

Hasbara Spam Alert

With Israel's foreign ministry organising volunteers to flood news websites with pro-Israeli comments, Propaganda 2.0 is here

By Richard Silverstein

The hasbara brigade strikes again! You always hear about Israeli attempts at media manipulation. Everyone knows it's going on but usually the process happens through cyber insurgents like those involved with Giyus (and its media monitoring software, Megaphone). Now, we know that the Israeli foreign ministry itself is orchestrating propaganda efforts designed to flood news websites with pro-Israel arguments and information.
A reader of my blog has received the following email which documents both the efforts and the agency that originated them. The solicitation to become a pro-Israel "media volunteer" also includes a list of media links which the ministry would like addressed by pro-Israel comments:

Dear friends,

We hold the [sic] military supremacy, yet fail the battle over the international media. We need to buy time for the IDF to succeed, and the least we can do is spare some (additional) minutes on the net. The ministry of foreign affairs is putting great efforts in balancing the media, but we all know it's a battle of numbers. The more we post, blog, talkback, vote – the more likely we gain positive sentiment.

I was asked by the ministry of foreign affairs to arrange a network of volunteers, who are willing to contribute to this effort. If you're up to it you will receive a daily messages & media package as well as targets.

If you wish to participate, please respond to this email.


My friend did so and received this official communique from the ministry with talking points about Operation Cast Lead which s/he was to use in her/his propaganda efforts. Among the links was was a Peter Beaumont Cif piece. The following were identified as "target sites": the Times, the Guardian, Sky News, BBC, Yahoo!News, Huffington Post, and the Dutch Telegraaf. Also targeted were other media sites in Dutch, Spanish, German and French considered critical of the invasion.

Locally, here in Seattle, peace activists held a rally at our federal building attended by 500 protesters. In the foreign ministry communique issued the next day, activists were directed to comment in the Seattle Post Intelligencer's article about the demonstration. The comment thread for the article is riddled with clear hasbara "plants" who distort the balance and tone of the discussion with their programmed arguments, making it much more favorable than it otherwise would be.

Here the foreign ministry's coordinator describes a meeting he attended at the government's offical office:

Hi all,

I had a meeting in the ministry of foreign affairs today, and was very happy to hear that their metrics show that Israel's position in the internet is getting better every day. It means that you're doing a good job! MFA are concerned with the biased public opinion in Europe. So please focus your efforts on European media.

What can you do to help?

- Identify internet battle-grounds in different languages, and let me know
- Comment/post/vote in the listed links and others; you can use the material attached below
- Write letters to authors and editors. Identify yourself as a local resident
- Have your friends join this activity


This message was meant to encourage the pro-Israel activists in their work:

World governments are still patient with Israel's justified operation in Gaza. The [sic] public opinion, on the other hand, is impatient, to say the least. This gap will soon close – it always does.

It is our goal to shift the public opinion, as conveyed in the internet; avoiding, or at least minimising, sanctions by world leaders. We need to buy the IDF enough time to achieve its goals.


Besides the talking points provided by the foreign ministry to the pro-Israel web activists, they are offered online pro-Israel material to link to in their comments such as these:
Bicom.org.uk/

Aish HaTorah's What Really Happened in the Middle East

YouTube video: Amid Gaza violence, Israeli and Palestinian doctors save baby's life -

CNN's Amanpour interviews Tzipi Livni

Military incursion should be seen as part of War on Terror

Blog from Southern Israel, Morit Rozen

Remember when the defence department was paying public relations companies and Iraqi newspapers to insert articles praising the Iraq war? The companies also attempted to plant coverage favorable to the US military in US newspapers. There rightly was a media uproar about the manipulation. We'll see whether the same happens over this.

The foreign ministry shouldn't get a pass on this one. It may view such hasbara as maximising its efforts to "explain" Israel's position in the world media. I view it as a cynical attempt to flood the web and news media with favorable flackery in a vain attempt to tilt public opinion toward Israel. Not only does it do Israel a disservice, it stains every legitimate effort that the ministry might make to explain Israel to the world, since no one will believe a word it says knowing it engages in such outright propaganda.

Not to mention that this is such cheap pennyante stuff. What do they gain by this? How effective can it be and how many can be convinced? By the way, I've even noticed the hasbaraniks in my own blog. You can see them a mile away because they've never published a comment before yet write something like: "I've enjoyed your blog for a long time, but anyone with a brain in their head knows that Hamas is out to destroy Israel blah, blah blah." Pretty formulaic stuff. Also, you can Google a few phrases of the comment and if you find it appears elsewhere on the web you know you either have a hasbaranik or someone who has repetition compulsion.

In some instances, western media may intentionally or unintentionally fall victim to manipulation. Tony Karon points out that pro-Israel journalist-historian Michael Oren has published several stories since the Gaza incursion began in US media outlets like the New Republic and Los Angeles Times. He is also on active duty with the IDF in Gaza serving as a public affairs officer liasing with foreign media. You will find nothing noting this in the Los Angeles Times op ed. In effect, the media is allowing advocates like Oren to pass themselves off as disinterested experts when they are anything but. It behooves editors to do some due diligence when they publish any piece that advocates for one side or the other to determine whether there may be conflicts of interest or other unacknowledged factors influencing a commentator's judgment.

It seems we are now well and truly in the world of Propaganda 2.0.

 
At 13/1/09 11:39 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jesus Carol, can you stop spamming us with this stuff? Just provide the link and leave it at that, no one is going to0 read this stuff.

 
At 13/1/09 12:53 pm, Blogger Tim Selwyn said...

Thanks for posting that in full, Carol. I recommend reading it.

 

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