Gaza demonstration in Auckland
support the Intifada"
Contrary to the spurious Fiends of Israel rubbish that excuses Israel's injustice and attempts to paint the demonstration today as somehow "extremist" the protest was a public demonstration expressing popular concern and outrage over Israel's actions. But this criticism is coming from a group backing the State terror apparatus of Israel that is killing and demolishing its way through Gaza. The Intifada is the resistance of the Palestinians to the oppression of the Israelis. So that is what was chanted as we marched down Auckland's main street. Perhaps we were up to 1500 in number and we had come to show solidarity with the Palestinians. Demonstrators outraged by the Gaza Strip conflict threw shoes and burned Israeli and United States flags in Auckland today, in a passionate but generally well-behaved protest.
The 1000-strong march in Auckland this afternoon followed a similar-sized demonstration in Wellington last week and other protests around the world. - NZPA
They have no one else right now - no one. Not the Arab countries, not the big powers, not the EU, and if the Israelis start killing their workers and targeting their compounds again then they won't even have the UN anymore. All they have left, a besieged sliver of an enclave with a bigger population than Auckland - is public opinion.
PHOTOS: Chris McBrideIf that public opinion fades and the Israeli government senses that they can get away with even more than what they have already without meeting universal condemnation then the horrors have only just begun. So when we look at local pro-Israeli opinion on the Gaza situation it really is quite appalling the barbarism some of them are willing to countenance to support the objectives of the Jewish State.
So let's go through one such blog as an example, I'm sure you are all familiar with Little Britain:
Now are you sure you want to back the Israelis on this one, David?"Yeah" (29/12/2008)
Even if the civilian toll will be severe? It will probably be quite severe.
"Yeah, I know, I know." (30/12/2008)
And you would rather comment on straw-man anti-semitism controversies in the local press than the humanitarian disaster in Gaza? Because it's going to be a humanitarian disaster.
"Yeah, I know." (31/12/2008)
You would deny the Palestinian refugees a right of return?
"Yeah" (03/01/2009)
And you would refuse to condemn the Israelis if they escalated the conflict and launched a ground invasion?
"Yeah" (04/01/2009)
And killed 500 people and counting? You'd just go on about anti-semitism and quote the equivalent of the discredited Protocols of the Elders of Hamas?
"Yeah. Yeah, I know, I know." (06/01/2009)
And if the Israelis use phosphorus weapons in built up areas you would rather criticise individuals at the UN?
"Yeah" (06/01/2009)
Even if they blow up the Palestinian parliament building? Even if they shoot at UN workers and facilities? You would rather give a lecture on the Holocaust while defenceless Palestinian women and children are being slaughtered by the score?
"Israel - I like Israel" (09/01/2009)
Right.... But haven't you supported protests in the past against regimes that employ repression and in your own words:
"Yeah - I know, I know." (10/01/2009)
But you want to back Israel?
"Yeah" (10/01/2009)
So... you want to back the colonial Zionist entity in their terror campaign against the Palestinian Arabs and you want to excuse and down-play and attempt to defend, or indeed ignore, the daily evidence that the IDF's campaign in the Gaza refugee camps is nothing more than a sustained series of war crimes against an already shattered people - most of whom are the children of refugees that Israel will not let back preferring to keep them in this hell-hole...
[UPDATE: 1:00PM Sunday:
"Yeah" (11/01/2009)
posted by Tim Selwyn @ 9:22 pm
20 comments
20 Comments:
Oh please...
Zionist fascists, when was the last time you saw a Jihadist raze a whole territory and murder indiscriminately as we are seeing in Gaza?
You have learned from your Yankee bosses how to create a fire storm and call it holy.
Public opinion is not on your side. 90% of the protesters on Queen Street were Muslims.
You were not there obviously, I was. I would say about a third may have been Muslim - but who knows?
p.s,; the israeli's took our place in the anglo-american fist, the five fingers of canada, who have lost over 100 soldiers in afghanistan, america, britain , and n.z and australia, that's wot chris trotter called the english speaking democracies in no left turn, and tina, there is no alternative , or tinaa there is no acceptable alternative to western liberal (and english speaking) democracy.
Martin Guptill was far better watching yesterday...
something about stones and glass houses springs to mind when i read about people protesting against Israels right to response and semmingly in support of Hamas
I attended the protest and to me it looked like 2/3 of the numbers were Muslims. I don't think I will be going again with the guys with swastika signs and obvious fanatical Muslims who were calling for Jewish blood.
Really 7:08PM - you must have been that guy from the Kiwi Fiends of Israel, flittering about the periphery attempting to spin the reporters covering it.
I felt very uncomfortable chanting "Allah Akbar" since I am not Islamic and also through out the protest I did feel as though I was there for one reason (to protest the killing of children and innocent civilians etc) and the Muslims were there for another (the downfall of Jewish people/religion and hunger for retribution). Very surprised to find out that John Minto is also a practicing Muslim.
"Steve Wright" you sound like a Kiwi Fiend of Israel the way you distort it. If you felt uncomfortable chanting Allah Akbar don't say it. It was said at the odd point, but it was hardly a big deal - maybe half a dozen times all up when some of the Muslim speakers were addressing the crowd. As for your assumptions about what Muslims were there for - maybe you weren't at the demo at all. It had nothing whatsoever to do with retribution - it was about survival and resistance. If you interpreted what they were saying - or the banners they had - as wanting a "downfall of Jewish people/religion" rather than the end of occupation by Israel (the Jewish State) then that came from your assumptions rather than what was said at the march.
Anon 10.19 is correct. Also Tim it is NOT occupation. The Jews were in Israel before Islam was born. How can they occupy something that belongs to them?
Sigh.
Shlomo Sand, Professor of History at Tel Aviv University:
"But during the 1980s an earthquake shook these founding myths. The discoveries made by the “new archaeology” discredited a great exodus in the 13th century BC. Moses could not have led the Hebrews out of Egypt into the Promised Land, for the good reason that the latter was Egyptian territory at the time. And there is no trace of either a slave revolt against the pharaonic empire or of a sudden conquest of Canaan by outsiders.
Nor is there any trace or memory of the magnificent kingdom of David and Solomon. Recent discoveries point to the existence, at the time, of two small kingdoms: Israel, the more powerful, and Judah, the future Judea. The general population of Judah did not go into 6th century BC exile: only its political and intellectual elite were forced to settle in Babylon. This decisive encounter with Persian religion gave birth to Jewish monotheism.
Then there is the question of the exile of 70 AD. There has been no real research into this turning point in Jewish history, the cause of the diaspora. And for a simple reason: the Romans never exiled any nation from anywhere on the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean. Apart from enslaved prisoners, the population of Judea continued to live on their lands, even after the destruction of the second temple. Some converted to Christianity in the 4th century, while the majority embraced Islam during the 7th century Arab conquest."
http://mondediplo.com/2008/09/07israel
A few questions and a comment on religious expressions as forms of group solidarity:
Palestinians were forceably removed from some of their land, and Israelis and Jewish people from other countries were invited to settle on that land with the active support of the Israeli government. On top of this the refugess and others in Gaza are vitually imprisoned in Gaza by Israel. As a result people in Gaza live in very restricted, debilitating and dehumanising circumstances. When the elected government of Gaza (Hamas) fires some very low powered, low-tech rockets or uses bombs to resist this, the Israeli government says they have the right to restist with overwhelming sophisticated military force.
Doesn't the elected government of Gaza have the right to use weapons to resist their displacement, occupation, brutalisation and being attacked?
The Israeli strategy of moving settlers onto occupied, stolen territory amounts to them using civilians as human shields.
So why do the Israeli government and their supporters get so righteous in their accusation of Hamas using human shields?
People who are critical of the Israeli government's brutal policies and repressive military and economic actions against Gaza, are frequently called anti-semitic on political blogs like this. A lot of this name-calling draws on the past terrible holocaust of Jewish people by Hitler's regime. Islamic and Arabic people have a long history of being subjected to brutal prejudice,displacement and attacks, especially by people in the west. Today the negative portrayal of, active discrimination against and hate crimes against Muslim and Arabic people is particularly strong in the west. It is also seen in the way the people of Palestine are portrayed as savage, and in some ways less than human.
Why shouldn't the appologists for Israeli policies and practices be called Islamophobic and/or Arab-phobic?
I went on a recent demo for Palestine on which some people did a couple of "Allu Akbar" ("God is Great")chants. I don't follow any religion, but I accept the way various religious expressions are made by those who are religious - carol singing at Christmas, or even "God defend NZ". I don't really understand how a god I don't believe in will support NZ's military defence, or why this is central to our national anthem when we have never been under military attack in my lifetime. However I still sing the song when required, and it kind of works in uniting many of us behind our sports teams.
Anyway, Allu Akbar seems to play a pretty similar role in uniting some people. It didn't bother me on the demo I was on.
It is nice how the same mantra used by suicide bombers as the press the detonator is used by protesters to unite against the Zionists.
Anti-Flag:
It's not retardation, it's contrived: "Steve Wright"/Fiends of Israel press release (linked to in post) tried to imply that the religious exclamation was itself offensive etc. etc. right down to the same spurious lines almost verbatim as per Anon 10:07PM.
Who sells Sudan the arms and which companies are building oil pipelines there? I don't think they're Muslim....
As for Palestine, there were probably under 100,000 Jews there before the Zionisrt movement started in the late 19th century, as to over a millio Palestinians. Note - around a quarter of Palestinians are Christian, and some are Jewish!
ManyJews are not Zionists either, like the ones in Toronto occupying the Israeli consulate in protest at the murder in Gaza. As for suicide bombing or rockets, if the Plestinians had helicopter gunships would you complain any less? Israel uses them to kill Palestinians in far greater numbers....
No, they're Chinese.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21143-2004Dec22.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7258059.stm
So what were you going to say again?
The chinese aren't the ones carrying out the beheadings, amputations and crucifixions (all in the name of Allah and with supporting Quran/Hadith verses).
now is a good time to take the gaza strip back and end the hamas
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