A brief series interlude: Death in 3s, an uncomfortably close call and some belated "Ruminations"

In the last three months, death has knocked on my family's door three times.  I'm just now getting back home -- from yet another a funeral.

My aunt, the second of my grandmother's children (my mother was the first), died of a heart attack at 81 years old in mid-February.  I'd flown to Florida to take care of some tenant/maintenance issues at the house there, when I got the call.  I handled the headaches and changed my airline ticket and rental car drop-off location, and then drove the nine or so hours home so I could be there.

I flew back from there, and by the time I got back to Texas, I got a call shortly thereafter that her daughter's husband had died in March due to complications from sickle cell anemia (I'd planned to go to his funeral, but couldn't work it out financially). Then, the man who helped raise me and my brother after my parents divorced, passed away last week after some long-suffering and debilitating effects of Alzheimer's at 88 years old. His daughters and I were like sisters -- there was no way I wouldn't  show up for his "home-going."

I flew home Thursday morning.  Here are the stubs from my boarding passes for that leg of the trip:

   

Since my connecting flight was leaving from Terminal C, I went upstairs and rode the Link Train from Terminal A, through Terminal B, to Terminal C.  As I had an almost 2-hour layover, I decided to go to a cafe to get something to eat.  As I stood at the register, waiting to pay, the manager with a walkie-talkie came over to the young sister ringing me up and whispered something her ear.  She looked at me, eyes as big as saucers and said, "There's been a shooting in Terminal B!"  I said, "What?!  How?!  The only folks with guns in the terminals are the TSA people right?"  She said she didn't know who'd done the shooting, but she was going to find out.  She finished ringing me up and went in a back room with her manager.

I sat at a table close to the register, hoping to get some more details when she came back out, but she never did.  I just sat there nervously eating, eyes flitting around the cafe.  When I finished, I went to my gate and said to myself, "Let me hurry up and get the hay-ell on that damned plane!"

I got on, but we just sat on the tarmac, delayed because there were passengers who'd arrived at Terminal B but were stuck there.  They waited for a little while (the flight was fully booked) and then decided to go ahead and leave -- there were quite a few empty seats.

When I finally got home, I told my son what had just happened and we flicked through the local news channels to see if there was anything on about it.  There was nothing.  Later, I went online and found this, this and this.  And wonder of wonders -- the ass-hats from the NRA were all swooping in for a convention the following day! -- Houston airport shooting hot topic at NRA convention.  I swear, you just can't make this stuff up!

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Ballot Initiative Could Alter District-Congress Relationship:

“When I hear a senator saying he’s of two minds, that’s progress as far as we’re concerned,” Norton said.

This, from DC's  Representative-in-name only, makes sense?  Please.  She (along with the rest of the Black, misleadership class) has been begging for DC statehood/autonomy forever -- to no avail (and the Changeling putting those, "Taxation without Representation" plates on his official vehicle, mattered not one iota either).  Am I the only fool that understands that the powers-that-be have no intention of ever letting that Home Rule thing happen (at least not until they've effectively "bleached" the District of its chocolate residents, that is)??  {smdh}

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No, we all can't go to Cuba anytime we want, but what's the big deal about JoeC and Bey going?

(Photo courtesy of Naturally Moi)

I mean, it's not like the Changeling sent them on some kind of educational, or covert 007 mission or anything, right?  And certainly, there's no danger of them putting their heads (OR pennies) together with an Assata Shakur while they were there, kicking around ideas, plans or actions for Black Revolution 2.0, is there?  I sure don't think so (there's sure nothing revolutionary going on with Sasha Fierce over there ---> (quite the contrary actually).

If I thought this young sister was at all culturally savvy (or cared to be), I'd say she did an excellent, undercover job of exposing Mr. & Mrs. "O" for the, "We'll step on, and over, alla y'all -- because we're better than you" selves that they are (but then again, Mrs. "O" did say she felt Bey was a great role model for her daughters.  Wait!  Isn't "Sasha" their younger daughter's name?).  But, unfortunately, I don't think that about the sister.  I'll leave it at that.

What Black folk should have their panties in a knot over, is this piece of work by Ole JoeC:

Culture icon and hip hop superstar Jay-Z has invested in Israeli wireless technology company, Duracell Powermat, and has signed on as the new face of the company. Duracell Powermat, a joint venture between Procter & Gamble and Israel’s Powermat, was announced in September of 2011. Duracell, a brand of batteries manufactured by P&G, has also invested in Powermat.

If I thought he was at all culturally savvy (or cared to be), I'd say he did an excellent job of setting himself up to take Israel's cash (down the road), so he could use it to help the many Africans-who-look-like-him, living in apartheid conditions -- in Israel.  But again, like his wife, I do not think that.  What I do think is, he's just another shabos goy -- just like Russell Simmons (Sorry, you gotta read all the way to the end for the reference).

UPDATE:
A few things on this particular "rumination" -- First, Brother Amenta and I shared this convo on another post recently:

Amenta -- "When Jay Z, easily got the ok to go to Cuba I wondered who in his camp is an agent."
Me -- You're the second person I've read that said that! As I said here, I doubt THEY had a damned 007 clue, but y'all could be right, they could have been the Changeling's "useful idiots!"

A week later, I read Obama Uses JayZ to Trap Assata Shakur, posted over at Freedom Rider (follow the Dhoruba bin Wahad link there to read the entire interview). It included this sentence:   Jay-Z’s delegation included a State-Department “reliable” personage who transmitted the Obama’s administration’s position.  My snark about them not having "a damned 007 clue" was intended, and stands -- as does my "useful idiots" comment.

Second, staying on the subject of Assata Shakur, Sis. Carolyn over at Perspectives... (see sidebar) shared this link with me recently: Statement by the National Network on Cuba on the placement of Assata Shakur on the FBI's most wanted terrorist list.  A good read, and if you're into those "games people play" with other people's lives, a good move!

Third, according to the Naturally Moi link in Sasha's photo up there on the right, "...the weird outfit is supposed to be an owl."

No folks, THIS is an owl (guess I'm just not visionary enough to connect big green eyes, with big brown ones):

(Photo courtesy of Graham McGeorge, from the 2013 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

End of update

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What can I say about Amira Hass other than I certainly appreciate the alliance of values she and Sister Cynthia McKinney hold.  Mincing no words here, she mirrors what having "stones" is about (pun intended):

In the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, stones have played a central role. The stone was the symbol of the first Palestinian intifada (1987-1993), as children as young as 8 years old rained their projectiles down on the occupying Israeli army. Soldiers often responded with live ammunition, killing more than 1,000 Palestinians, about 200 of them children. Youths with stones confronting soldiers with Galils and M-16s: Palestinian children took center stage as David against the Israeli Goliath. The image pricked the conscience of many Israelis, and citizens and governments around the world, and ultimately helped force Israeli leaders, including the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, to the negotiating table. (The Oslo agreement they forged with Palestinian negotiators proved to be disastrous; nevertheless, there was a palpable sense during the first intifada that the stone would lead to Palestinian liberation.)

Today, the stone remains a part of Palestinian resistance to Israel’s occupation, which is more entrenched than ever. And while growing numbers of Palestinians advocate nonviolent resistance as the most promising path to a just peace, others strongly defend the right of Palestinians to throw stones as a legitimate act of political resistance against an illegal 47-year military occupation. One of them is an Israeli journalist.

“Throwing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule,” wrote Amira Hass in an April 3 article in the newspaper Haaretz. “Throwing stones is an action as well as a metaphor of resistance.”...

...In her piece, Hass underscored the “right” and “duty” of Palestinians to resist the occupation in the face of “shooting, torture, land theft, restrictions on movement, and the unequal distribution of water sources.” The Israeli journalist, who unlike nearly every Western correspondent, lives in the occupied West Bank, offered this resistance advice:

“It would make sense for Palestinian schools to introduce basic classes in resistance: ... how to behave when army troops enter your homes; comparing different struggles against colonialism in different countries; how to use a video camera to document the violence of the regime’s representatives; methods to exhaust the military system and its representatives; a weekly day of work in the lands beyond the separation barrier; how to remember identifying details of soldiers who flung you handcuffed to the floor of the jeep, in order to submit a complaint; the rights of detainees and how to insist on them in real time; how to overcome fear of interrogators; and mass efforts to realize the right of movement.”

Not least of these strategies, Hass asserted in the article that has drawn so much heat, is hurling rocks at soldiers: “Stone-throwing is the adjective attached to the subject of ‘We’ve had enough of you, occupiers.’ ” (emphasis mine)

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Pelosi: Members are lined up to sign Paycheck Fairness Act (tried to embed but not allowed).  That damned Nancy Pelosi is somethin' else ain't she?

I got this email from when I was a Democrat and subscribed to the DCCC emails (never cancelled it, I always like being abreast of e'erybody's lies).  And this one would have been too funny for how ignorant they believe most folk are to their tactics of blaming Rethuglicans for obstructing everything, if not for their hubris and my long memory (we don't all have it twisted).  Just like the Democrats held the majority in both the House and the Senate when Shrub & Co. lied us into the Iraq war, they also lied when they engineered the bait-and-switch in favor of Ledbetter versus the real Paycheck Fairness Act:

April 9, 2013

Friends --

As the first woman Speaker of the House, I know a thing or two about challenging the status quo. I'm really proud of that, and I'm proud of all the women who have made our country strong.

But the truth is, we're still a long way from fairness and equality in the workplace -- women make just 77 cents for every dollar a man makes.

Republican obstructionists continue to block progress on paycheck fairness -- tell them to stop acting on the wrong side of history:

Stand with me and women across the country and help us get to 100,000 strong for paycheck fairness >>

Equal work deserves equal pay -- and passing the Paycheck Fairness Act is the next step in the fight for equal pay.

This bill won’t see the light of day unless we hold House Republicans’ feet to the fire. Tell House Republicans it’s time to finally pass the Paycheck Fairness Act:

http://dccc.org/Equal-Pay

Thanks,

Nancy Pelosi

Am I the only one that remembers this dog & pony show, staged to make all you female 'mericans, think the Changeling had immediately done a damned thing about equal pay for women shortly after he burst on the scene?



Or when Pelosi stepped up on the floor in the first week of the 111th Congress, and told the lie again (even though the words on the bottom of the screen tell exactly what Lebetter was really about?



Rosa DeLauro would have done better on her damned own, rather than allowing the Changeling and Pelosi to manipulate a bill she'd worked on so hard, for so a long.

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Also, got this petiton from Avaaz and thought about my telling Amenta last year, "Lawd ha' mercy! I knew my people had it right when they were growing their own food and raising their own chickens and hogs out in the country!": 

Dear Avaazers,

It’s unbelievable, but Monsanto and Co. are at it again. These profit-hungry biotech companies have found a way to exclusively ‘own’ something that freely belongs to us all -- our food! They’re trying to patent away our everyday vegetables and fruits like cucumber, broccoli and melons, forcing growers to pay them and risk being sued if they don’t.

But we can stop them from buying up Mother Earth. Companies like Monsanto have found loopholes in European law to get away with this, so we just need to close them shut before they set a dangerous global precedent. And to do that, we need key countries like Germany, France and the Netherlands -- where opposition is already growing -- to call for a vote to stop Monsanto’s plans. The Avaaz community has shifted governments before, and we can do it again.

Many farmers and politicians are already against this -- we just need to bring in people power to pressure these countries to keep Monsanto’s hands off our food. Sign now and share with everyone to help build the biggest food defense call ever:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/monsanto_vs_mother_earth_x/?bCWVXbb&v=23931

Once a patent exists in one country, trade agreements and negotiations often push other countries to honour it as well. That's why these food patents change everything about how our food chain works: for thousands of years, farmers could choose which seeds they’d use without worrying about getting sued for violating intellectual property rights. But now, companies launch expensive legal campaigns to buy patents on conventional plants and force farmers to pay exorbitant royalty fees. Monsanto and Co. claim that patents drive innovation -- but in fact they create a corporate monopoly of our food.

But luckily, the European Patent Office is controlled by 38 member states who, with one vote, can end dangerous patents on food that is bred using conventional methods. Even the European Parliament has issued a statement objecting to these kinds of destructive patents. Now, a massive wave of public outcry could push them to ban the patenting of our everyday food for good.

The situation is dire already -- Monsanto alone owns 36% of all tomato, 32% of sweet pepper and 49% of cauliflower varieties registered in the EU. With a simple regulatory change, we could protect our food, our farmers and our planet from corporate control -- and it's up to us to make it happen:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/monsanto_vs_mother_earth_x/?bCWVXbb&v=23931

The Avaaz community has never been afraid to stand up to corporate capture of our institutions, from pushing back the Rupert Murdoch mafia, to helping ensure that telecoms keep their hands off our Internet. Now it’s time to defend our food supply from this corporate takeover.

With hope and determination,

Jeremy, Michelle, Oli, Dalia, Pascal, Ricken, Diego and the whole Avaaz team

I tell you!  Wa-a-a-y too many folk trying to control the damned world by hook or by crook -- and equally, wa-a-a-y too many of us not giving a shit about it! {smdh}

Related:
- Carnell Moore, Houston Airport Shooter, Left 'Monster Within Me' Suicide Note
- Why the Hunt for Assata Shakur Matters
- On Cuba Trip, Jay-Z Responds To Washington With Verse
- Why Nancy Pelosi Is Calling On Her Colleagues To Force A Fair Pay Vote
- Paycheck Fairness, Ledbetter and the "Walmart Women"
- Soybean Farmer Takes Monsanto to Supreme Court

"Tails to kites" -- America, Israel and the megalomania of exceptionalism

When W.E.B. Dubois wrote, "Why I won't vote" in October 1956, I was three months old.  As I read it this week at 56 however, it seemed he'd just written it today! If you don't believe me,  just take the time to read it.

But this post is not about elections (well, not exactly).  It is primarily about Israel's undue influence on, and blatant disregard for, America (except as its battering ram, of course) - and how that influence can be fashioned, into yet another "necessary war" by the Changeling and his handlers, if we don't step up and say loudly,"Never Again!"

Substituting  "Conservatives" for "A.D.A.'s," Dubois hit the nail on its proverbial head with his "kites and tails" analogy in the essay.  It seemed a perfect, and continuing description of the relationship between America and Israel -- "... they seek to act as tails to kites.  But since the kites are self-propelled and radar-controlled, tails are quite superfluous and rather silly."  After watching this newly revealed video, posted by Brother nomad at ironymous this week, there should be no doubt in your mind exactly who the "kite" is:




So, in 2001, any West Bank land that Israel wanted to retain was to be declared, "military and security zones."  And in 2012, we have this, Israel orders demolition of 8 Palestinian villages for IDF training sites; and this, Israel may revive illegal Palestinian home-razing policy -- all while those "quite superfluous and rather silly" tails (America and those other, neocolonial "usual suspects") -- stand by and do nothing.

Adding insult to injury, Bibi brags at the 1:04 click, "I know what America is.  America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in the way."

And nothing proves him more right, about how "very easily" America is to move, than this recent laugh-a-palooza at the DNC (Please, do look at the couple's faces at the 1:09, 2:43 and 3:15 - 3:25 clicks!):



Well Mr. Zogby, you can say, "I don't know" all you want, but according to this piece in the San Francisco Chronicle -- he most certainly did:  Obama Changes Platform to Back Jerusalem as Israeli Capital:

"The president yesterday “said put it back in,” said Robert Wexler, a former Florida Democratic congressman who is president of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace.

The change was sought because “the president wanted certainty regarding his steadfast commitment to Israel,” said Wexler, who was part of the discussions among the White House and Democratic lawmakers."

Hm-m-m, seems Bibi really does know "what America is."

"People who treat other people as less than human, must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned."

James Baldwin

With both, Israel and America -- Denying the Israeli Past, while continuing to ignore its present, I can't help but believe that, like America (given its ever-increasing spate of retaliatory incidents from without, as well as home-grown carnage from within), Israel should certainly consider Mr. Baldwin's prescient and wholly logical, admonition.

Fear can either be a great motivator -- or stop you dead in your tracks. And beneath all of Israel's drum-beating and chest-thumping for war with Iran -- I smell fear.

But it's not the, "We're just trying to live peacefully here in our (stolen) homeland, but the Muslim world just hates us and wants to wipe us out" kind of fear, necessarily (though it is that, in a revisionist history kind of way); it seems more like the "poisoned bread" kind of fear, about which Baldwin warned, that says, "Oh shit! Our continuing, foot-on-neck, ethnic cleansing-fueled, occupation will soon bite us in the ass if we don't hurry up and wipe them out" kind of fear -- particularly for the Zionists.

Haaretz writer, Amira Hass, addresses the latter pretty clearly in her, pot-meet-kettle, "Israel must understand it cannot be like America" piece (Yeah, I always like it when somebody other than me, calls "real Americans" out on their hardly, "exceptional" bullshit):

The labyrinth of interchanges and roads on the way to Jerusalem tells of planners, ministers, mayors and contractors who "think America." We have gotten used to dimensions that dwarf anything that is not asphalt - people and trees, for example. We have gotten used to "transportation solutions" that gobble up nature. Moreover it's as if, without meaning to, these so-called solutions are tearing apart the existing social fabric.

If it were only a matter of ministers, planners and asphalt, so be it. But thinking America has become a character trait. Thinking America guides Jewish-Israeli society in its policy toward our very own red Indians. Why should we be less successful than the United States, Canada or Australia, which, as they came into being and gained world eminence, wiped out - to differing degrees - the societies and communities that lived there before?

Now, when the remnants of the first peoples in those countries dare to demand rights, a share in resources and compensation, they no longer endanger whites and their hegemony. And this could be just as true for us...

Though I agree with her that, the "remnants of the first peoples" in the countries she listed, now can, and do "demand rights, a share in resources and compensation," that certainly doesn't mean they're getting anywhere near what they're owed (Now I could be wrong, and  If I am, I'd appreciate someone from those other two countries she mentioned offering their current, real-world experience).

And while they kinda sorta co-exist with their oppressors often in, or very close to, poverty conditions and definitely not equally -- it's obvious their mere existence still seems to threaten the "hegemony" of the alabaster brethren among whom they live.  It's abundantly clear in the way they continue to mistreat them, even down to the refusal of said brethren and sistren to stop using the word "our" when talking about "Others" -- as if they're nothing but personal property (i.e. "our very own red Indians," or Ann Coulter's, "our Blacks," in referring to Herman Cain).

Those who insist "on being white and other lies," are all afraid because of what they've done to other human beings.  They're clearly afraid of the possible vengeance those deeds might one day provoke -- hence the need for all the guns; the police state apparatus; mass incarceration of those to which they've done all these horribly, inhumane things, occupation and yes, war.



In this piece from RT News, Bibi's fear is showing.  And despite Panetta's, Deputy Dawg posturing -- it's evident that this Israeli piece of "bread," which Americans have "cast on the waters," has definitely come "floating back to them poisoned" in the person of one, Benjamin Netanyahu.

(Interesting that Panetta met with Ehud Barak in Ashkelon, the city in which whistle-blowing, nuclear scientist, Mordechai Vanunu was imprisoned for 18 years, because he told the truth about Israel's secret proliferation of nuclear weapons in Dimona.  Kindly allow me this brief, non-revisionist history interlude in the service of that truth):




Back to the afore-mentioned, RT News piece:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said sanctions were not curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. He waved off the visiting Pentagon chief’s advice to stick to a diplomatic resolution of the crisis.

At a Wednesday meeting with US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in Jerusalem, Netanyahu suggested that Israel’s patience with Iran was reaching the end of its tenure.

"Right now the Iranian regime believes that the international community does not have the will to stop its nuclear program," he noted. "This must change, and it must change quickly because time to resolve this issue peacefully is running out."

He stressed that while the sanctions were hurting Iran’s economy, they were failing to force it to abandon its nuclear program.

“Neither sanctions nor diplomacy has yet had any impact on Iran's nuclear weapons program,” Netanyahu said.

Seems the American, Dr. Frankenstein is being backed into a corner by its "monster" -- a corner from which, it will not emerge unscathed.

Sanctions

The Changeling, like his predecessors, is aggressively peddling sanctions as a "soft" approach to stop Iran's alleged, nuclear weapons program, even though Iran, a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has the "inalienable right," under Article IV, "to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. . .” (something no one has yet been able to dispute they are doing).  Israel on the other hand, as a non-signatory, can pretty much do whatever the hell it wants.

Sanctions are just another bullying, rather than diplomatic attempt to make the Iranians "heel," while covering up the non-partisan greed of America and those "quite superfluous and rather silly" other tails in the Western world. Hold onto your heart, as John Pilger documents the continued fall-out from another of America's "soft" approaches -- sanctions in Iraq:



This is what "American exceptionalism" looks like.  And since, "America is a thing you can move very easily..." -- it seems there'll be plenty more of it. {smdh}

I think I'll end this with some sage words from Noam Chomsky with which I agree: "The US and Israel, Not Iran, Threaten Peace."


Related:
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- Sukant on Latest Zionist Massacre in Gaza, and Relation to 'Arab Spring'
- The liberal way to run the world - "improve" or we'll kill you
- Iran Call for Nuclear Abolition by 2025 is Unreported by New York Times
- On the verge of an Israeli Spring?
- The Elephant in the map room

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:

I could write a book about my feelings regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip. But Greg Mitchell's piece over at Editor & Publisher led me to this - from a December 30th column by Amira Hass in the Jerusalem daily, Haaretz - which says it so much better and so much more succinctly than I ever could:

"This is not the time to speak of proportional responses, not even of the polls that promise a greater share of Knesset seats to the mission's architects. This is, however, the time to speak of the voters' belief the operation will succeed, that the strikes are precise and the targets justified.
Take, for example, Imad Aqel Mosque in Jabalya refugee camp, bombed and strafed shortly before midnight on Sunday. These are the names of the glorious military victory we achieved there - Jawaher, age 4; Dina, age 8; Sahar, age 12; Ikram, age 14; and Tahrir, age 17, all sisters of the Ba'lousha family, all killed in a "precise" strike on the mosque. Another three sisters, a 2-year-old brother and their parents were injured. Twenty-four neighbors were wounded and five homes and three stores destroyed. This part of the military victory did not open our television or radio news broadcasts yesterday morning, nor did they appear on many Israeli news Web sites.

This is the time to speak about the detailed maps in the hands of IDF commanders, and about the Shin Bet advisers who know the exact distance between the mosque and nearby homes. This is the time to discuss the drone planes and the hot air balloons fitted with advanced cameras floating over the Strip day and night, filming everything. 

This is the time to rely on legal advisers studying the operation to find the right phrasing to justify "collateral damage." Time to praise Foreign Ministry spokespeople who in their polished language, with their elegant South African or charmant Parisien accents, say it is the fault of Hamas, which uses neighborhood mosques for its own purposes. 

Talk of double standards has always been moot. Maybe there was a huge weapons store in the mosque. Maybe Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades militants met there every night and from there planned to launch their upgraded fighter jets. 

Where does the IDF Chief of Staff sit when he draws up war plans? Not in the Sahara, or even in the Negev. What would happen if someone blew themselves up at the entrance to Tel Aviv's Cinematheque movie theater, and those who sent him said sorry, but he was headed for the Defense Ministry down the street? 

This is not the time to recall long-forgotten history lessons to say this is not the way to topple a government. Nor is it the time to make rational recommendations for balanced statesmanship. The time for such things has passed, along with the New Order we once arrogantly tried to establish in Lebanon, which only brought us Hezbollah. Along with the Orientalists' plans to reduce the popularity of the PLO, which only paved the way for the emergence of a militant Islamic nationalist movement. 

The time of such recommendations has passed, along with the grab of Palestinian lands and hyperactive construction of settlements in the Oslo era, which only laid the cornerstone for the second intifada and the fall of Fatah. 

The era of reason and judgment died long ago, even before the targeted assassinations of Fatah activists in the West Bank, which soon turned into shooting attacks on soldiers and the emergence of another few thousand young people taking up arms, not to mention the phenomenon of suicide bombers. 

It is never the right time to say "we told you so," because once it is possible to say those words, they are already invalid. We cannot revive the dead, nor repair the damage caused by arrogance and megalomania. 

This is the time to speak of our own satisfaction and enjoyment. Satisfaction from tanks once again raising and lowering their barrels in preparation for a ground attack, satisfaction from our leaders' threatening finger-waving at the enemy. That's how we like our leaders - calling up reservists, sending pilots to bomb our enemies and manifesting national unity, from Baruch Marzel to Tzipi Livni, Netanyahu to Barak to Lieberman."

According to Mitchell's column, Hass is:

... not only an Israeli but both of her parents are Holocaust camp survivors. Yet she has gone on to become the most prominent Israeli journalist to make it her mission to report as often as possible from Gaza and the West Bank – breaking bans and earning the wrath of both Israeli and Palestinian officials. She earned headlines in this regard just in the past month.
Hass was born in Jerusalem, and studied the history of Nazism at Hebrew University. She joined Haaretz in 1989 and began living nearly fulltime in Gaza or Ramallah starting in 1993. She earned the Press Freedom Hero award from the International Press Institute in 2000, among other international journalism prizes. She now lives in Ramallah. 

Earlier this year, now a regular Haaretz columnist, Hass traveled to Gaza by boat to demonstrate her opposition to the Israeli blockade. On December 1, she was ordered to leave by Hamas, and arrested by Israeli police on her return to Israel.

A woman after my own heart!!! She lived among the "other," coming out with the simple realization that, "Right is right," and "Wrong is just plain, wrong" despite the real, or perceived loyalities involved. Would that we all should take a such a stand.

Remember the President-select's promises to AIPAC in March of 2007 and again in the video below in May 2008?



He's in hock - up to his neck - to the American Jewish lobby on Gaza. His first 100 days will surely be interesting.