No guilt this time: the Zionist, ethnic cleansing template, rubber-stamped by the West

I stumbled upon this documentary today and found the history lesson so clear and compelling, that I needed to repost it.  "The Zionist Story -- through the eyes of an Ex-Israeli Soldier," tells the powerful story of how a "European problem," led to land theft and the near erasure of the Palestinian people in Western Asia (fondly called the Middle East by those who prefer to geographically locate it in relation to Western Europe, rather than its actual position within Asia.)



And as BeelzObama the Changeling prepares for his second stroll to the throne in January, let us not forget that the road was paved with plenty of -- Palestinian blood, Israeli money and Americans, blinded by the "Audacity of Hope."

Related:
- Israel’'s Doomsday E-1 Settlement. Diabolical Encroachment to Prospective Palestinian State

“Non-member observer state” -- Palestine inches toward self-determination and human dignity

The fact that I'm not a particularly trusting soul (especially given the top, two "No" votes of the nine) and, that symbolism without substance means absolutely nothing to me -- I gotta say this is going to take some careful, mulling over:



Quicker than you could spit, one of Israel's favorite, lap-dogs had her two cents ready -- Clinton blasts 'unfortunate and counterproductive' U.N. Palestinian resolution:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blasted the United Nations General Assembly Thursday for voting to recognize Palestine as a nonmember state.

"I want to say a few words about the unfortunate and counterproductive resolution at the United Nations General Assembly," Clinton said at an event hosted by Foreign Policy magazine in Washington D.C...."it places further obstacles in the path of peace," Clinton said.

"We have been clear that only through direct negotiations between the parties can the Palestinians and the Israelis achieve the peace that they deserve," Clinton said. (emphasis mine)

Then came Susan Rice, with her, "Ditto" to Hilary's bullshit:



(Anybody else hearing strains of James and Bobby Purify's, "I'm Your Puppet?)

Seeking self-determination is a distraction?  This, from a Black woman, whose "people" (in quotes, because I'm not sure that's how either, she, or her boss see themselves) -- have been fighting for self-determination, ever since, they were brought to these, alleged united states?

Let's be clear -- from Durban, to Benghazi, to Palestine -- the string-pullers have trained both her, and the Changeling extremely well.  Rather than loyalty to any folk who look like them, their steps are undoubtedly ordered by their greed, self-loathing and megalomania (in no particular order).  I find absolutely nothing about either, of which I should be remotely proud.

I began this post on the night of the vote.  For some reason, I did not/could not finish it.  Then, lo and behold within three days, it turned out my suspicions about both of those top, two "No" votes were confirmed when I read this, US Pledges More Funds for Israeli Missile Defense and this -- Israel seizes $120m in Palestinian tax revenue over UN statehood vote:

Israel has seized more than $120m (£75m)in tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority in response to last week's overwhelming vote at the UN general assembly to recognise the state of Palestine...

...The financial sanction is Israel's second punitive response to the vote. On Friday, it announced a big settlement expansion programme.

An Israeli official said Israel was entitled to deduct the sum from a debt of more than $200m (£125m) owed by the PA to the Israel Electric Corporation. But he conceded that the move was in response to the UN vote, and that it could be repeated next month. "A lot depends on what the Palestinians do or don't do," he said.

But, call it "God," "Allah," "Jehovah," or my, crisis-of-faith preferred,"Spirit" -- take your pick.  All I know is, I'm eternally grateful that the powers-that-be were stopped (this time), from further linking their greed and brutal inhumanity, especially in Africa -- to a damned  Black face by this:  Susan Rice withdraws for secretary of state.

Her current withdrawal saves me the long, drawn-out pondering as to why in the hell, Black folk supported her for the position in the first, damned place.  The CBC in general and the still-voteless-in-DC, Eleanor Holmes-Norton in particular, certainly ought to be ashamed for this exercise in symbolism madness. {smdh}

Related:
- Israel’s Apartheid Deepens, Along With Its Global Isolation
- Freedom Rider: Susan Rice and American Evil
- Beyond Benghazi: Partisan Rift over Susan Rice Ignores Hawkish Record on War, Africa and Keystone XL
- The revealingly substance-free fight over Susan Rice
- Black Women’s Group Seeks to Support Susan Rice for Secretary of State

As always -- the more things change, the more they stay the same

"John Pilger made the film 'Palestine Is Still The Issue' in 1977. It told how almost a million Palestinians had been forced off their land in 1948, and again in 1967. Twenty five years later, John Pilger returns to the West Bank of Jordan and Gaza, and to Israel, to ask why the Palestinians, whose right of return was affirmed by the United Nations more than half a century ago, are still caught in a terrible limbo - refugees in their own land, controlled by Israel in the longest military occupation in modern times." (emphasis mine)

-- from Palestine is Still the Issue

And now, it's 2012...

Israel's Gaza Rampage: It's Not Just War -- An Interview with John Pilger:

"...And as you've described, the sheer bias of television in the United States means that not even the names of people, of whole families annihilated or most of the families annihilated can be mentioned. You know, what is being stolen here is not just simply Palestine, yet again, but our own consciousness. If we allow this, then there is something of us that goes. That's really at stake here." (emphasis mine)

Quite the bitter taste that word "Occupy" leaves, no?

Not in my name, Mr. President (probably the last time I'll afford you even that titular respect)!!

Little "Chucky" Krauthammer's at it again. His commentary in, Why was there war in Gaza? -- is as ridiculous as his commentary on Glenn Beck's, ridiculous rally on the Mall.  And this is what passes for "clear and balanced journalism," informing we the people. {smdh}

Related:
-What's Missing from CBS's Gaza History?
-After Israel, Hamas reach Gaza cease-fire, both sides claim victory
-Bomb Iran? No. Bomb Gaza? Yes!

Still deeply mired in "Ruminations"...

As Michelle Alexander wrote in "The New Jim Crow," convict-leasing is still very much alive and well - and enriching the Prison Industrial Complex under the guise of being beneficial not only to inmates, but to surrounding communities in particular and the country in general - Georgia may use prisoners to fill farm labor gap:

State officials have set their sights on another potential pool of workers to help bridge Georgia’s severe farm labor gap: prisoners.

The idea is to put nonviolent inmates -- who are spending the end of their prison terms at one of the state’s 13 transitional centers -- to work picking fruits and vegetables across Georgia.

This is at least the state’s second attempt to tackle the labor shortages since enacting a tough new immigration law many farmers blame for their problems. State officials started experimenting last summer by encouraging criminal probationers to work on the farms, but results are mixed...

...Offenders are referred to the state’s transitional centers by prison officials and the State Board of Pardons and Paroles based on their criminal records and behavior in prison. Wages they earn on work release are sent to the centers. Portions are applied to room and board, fines, fees, restitution and child support. The rest is held for them until they are released. More than 2,700 inmates are in the transitional centers now.

This is nothing more than a damned chain gang - absent those pesky chains:

By 1955, chain gangs were eliminated throughout the United States. Georgia was the last state to abandon chain gangs in that year. However, the termination of chain gangs proved to be temporary.

Apparently, Georgia's waxing nostalgic.

I remember, both chain gangs and migrant workers (my grandmother called them "Flayida people") being used growing up in South Carolina (and I was born in 1956! -  so the termination of their use was very temporary!).   I'm 55 damned years old and both are still going on in the south (in the agricultural areas of South Florida - today - Haitians get to do the pickin') . {SMDH}

And now, some continued WTFery from the "usual suspects" in the Middle East - UNESCO clears way for Palestine seat vote:

Palestine has won a first diplomatic victory in its quest for statehood when the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation [UNESCO] executive committee backed its bid to become a member of the cultural body with the rights of a state.

Palestine's Arab allies braved intense US and French diplomatic pressure to bring the motion before the committee's member states, which passed it by 40 votes in favour to four - the US, Germany, Romania and Latvia – against it, with 14 abstentions...

...The move was swiftly criticised by the US and Israel. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said UNESCO should "think again" about voting on Palestinian admission...(no surprise there)

..."I found quite confusing and somehow inexplicable that you would have organs of the United Nations making decisions about statehood or statehood status while the issue has been presented to the United Nations," Clinton said..."The decision about status must be made in the United Nations and not in auxiliary groups that are subsidiary to the United Nations."...(translation:  "Not by you underlings!"   I can't believe I admired this woman at one time.  "Long as I'm living, I'm learning" is the only excuse I have for that!)

...David Killion, the US ambassador to UNESCO, issued a statement urging all delegations to join the United States in voting "no" while in Washington, US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland sharply criticised the Palestinian effort.

"This is not going to create a state for them," she said at her daily briefing. "It is going to make things harder ... It further exacerbates the environment of tension."  (Is it me?  Or does Victoria sound like she's the one a little "tense?")

Nimrod Barkan, Israel's ambassador to UNESCO, said the move would harm the agency and would not advance Palestinian aspirations.  (I couldn't resist the italics on his first name, especially after reading what he said.)

"The problem is that the politicisation of UNESCO is detrimental to the ability of the organisation to carry out its mandate," he told Reuters. (Doesn't the "U.N." in UNESCO kinda throw that whole "politicisation" as "detrimental" thing out the window?  And when hasn't Education, Science and Culture not been politicized among these "usual suspects?")

France, which has advocated observer status of the UN, said that UNESCO was not the place to further the Palestinian case for recognition.

"The priority is to revive negotiations," foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said. "We consider that UNESCO is not the appropriate place and the General Conference is not the right moment." (And how long have they been "negotiating" with nothing but expanded settlement-building to show for it?)

Both US and Israel argue that the way to create Palestine is through negotiations. (Um, shouldn't Palestine be a part of that argument regarding "the way to create" their own damned selves??  Sounds pret-t-y, damn imperialist to me.)

As does this piece of, "You better do what we say, or we'll (literally) squeeze the life out of you!" madness - Aid Blackmail in Palestine:

Once again, Palestinians are being punished for daring to exercise a choice.
It happened before in 2006, when they took part in what was deemed to be the wrong kind of democracy and picked the wrong (Hamas) government. That mistaken execution of free will caused the international community to close its funding tap - cutting Palestinian aid and salaries.

Now, there are penalties for taking another 'wrong' turn, despite repeated threats and warnings: US congress is blocking US $200 million intended for the Palestinian Authority (PA), which persisted with its UN statehood bid in the face of US disapproval.

Few things typify international complicity in stalling Palestinian aspirations like this on/off money switch. The current cut in cash will affect health and social projects - but not, it is said, the PA's security commitments (coordinated with Israel). In other words, the pinch is designed to cause Palestinian suffering - but is calibrated so as not to upset Israeli concerns, or totally derail the stagnating status quo.

Really now, is it just me??  Before you answer, read the whole the piece, cuz everbody benefits from this mess, but the Palestinians!  And Tony Blair - with his faux, Middle East Peace Envoy ass (Oh, the irony!  Like Shrub and his administration, shouldn't he be in jail charged as a WAR criminal for that fake WMD war in Iraq?  Just sayin'...) - is making sure it stays that way according to this - Palestinian leaders renew attack on Tony Blair over Israel:

In fact, Blair's remit from the Quartet was restricted to easing economic constraints in the West Bank and Gaza and helping with state-building. He was asked to take on the role of political mediator by the US only in the run-up to the Palestinians' demand for full membership at the UN. "He was parroting exactly what the Israelis wanted," said Shaath.

I tell you, nobody captures his bullshit more succinctly than anti-war political cartoonist (and Blair's fellow countryman), Leon Kuhn.

Oh, and that, "remit from the Quartet" being "restricted to easing economic constraints in the West Bank and Gaza and helping with state-building" thing?  Ve-e-ery problematic indeed - particularly on these two fronts:

1. 
   
   In a brief description over at Dispatches - The Wonderful World of Tony Blair, Peter Osborne shares this:

   Dispatches shows that at the same time as Blair is visiting Middle East leaders in his Quartet role he is receiving vast sums from some of them. If Blair represented the UK government, the EU, the IMF, the UN or the World Bank, this would not be permitted.
   
   He would also have to declare his financial interests and be absolutely transparent about his financial dealings. But no such stringent rules govern the Quartet envoy.  (Hold that thought - because, while Blair's greedy self-enrichment on the backs of the Palestinian people is an egregious problem of the first order, the definitely bigger problem, is that this "Quartet" - comprised of  the US, EU, Russian officials, and the UN Secretary General - shouldn't be able to "remit" any-damned-thing, to any-damned-body!)

2. Ali Abunimah explains why "no such stringent rules govern the Quartet envoy and rightly indicts those same "usual suspects" in - Why the UN must abolish the 'Quartet':
   

The Quartet, although often referred to as if it were an official body, was founded in 2002 as an informal committee. There is no UN resolution giving it a mandate, although it has taken on an air of permanence and precendence over every other international institution.

From the start, the Quartet served not so much as a forum for international involvement in addressing the question of Palestine, but rather a substitute for real international involvement and a cover for American control.

Anis Nacrour, a French diplomat who served as a senior advisor to Tony Blair in the Quartet office in Jerusalem told Channel 4 that from its inception, the Quartet was "a smokescreen for the action of the Americans and the tandem between Americans and Israelis. At the end of the day, all this was for buying time for allowing the Israeli government to do whatever they wanted to do." (I'd say that sure is what it looks like).

Another strange thing happened that gave me pause regarding the Middle East, though for a different reason - my skinfolk, Susan Rice.

The most brazen attack came from American ambassador Susan Rice who declared that the US was “outraged” at the UN’s failure “to address an urgent moral challenge and a growing threat to regional peace and security.” (Lawd ha' mercy!  Somebody please tell me how this woman could say this shit with a straight face!)

Without naming Russia and China, Rice dismissed any parallels with NATO’s now blatant neo-colonial intervention in Libya as a “cheap ruse by those who would rather sell arms to the Syrian regime than stand with the Syrian people.” She staged a walk-out by the US delegation after Syrian ambassador Bashar Jaafari accused the US of “partaking in genocide” by supporting Israel. The US has repeatedly wielded its veto power to block resolutions critical of Israel.  (Like I said up there, HOW?  Look I'm no foreign policy "expert" (though I do try to keep up) - but, like the walk-out staged in Durban, I do see one common denominator in both - Israel.  Thought I'd mosey on over to Haaretz to sniff around - and whaddya know -  Syria recognizes Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital!)

Rice’s comments reek of hypocrisy. While denouncing the Syrian regime’s anti-democratic measures, the US and European powers turn a blind eye to the repressive methods of their allies in the region, including the Saudi monarchy and, up until this year, the regime of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak—to name just two. As in the case of Libya, the concern of the US and European powers is not democratic rights, but the advancement of their economic and strategic interests in the Middle East.

In Craig Murray's - Diplomatic Blowback, he said:

I know the American Envoy to the UN, Susan Rice, and have in the past worked with her and had great respect for her; she was genuinely committed to the fight against apartheid. But her histrionic walkout in reaction to a Russian statement which was both plainly true, and an eminently forseeable result of Amercia’s own rash actions, was just pathetic.

His reference to her apartheid work is that "other reason" to which I alluded above.  How can sister, Rice, be so invested in the wrong of apartheid, and not see that what she and the Changeling's administration are doing is the same damned thing!  Sounds like some of that "split mind" shit that bell talked about here, in videos #4 - #5.

But on the real though, those usual suspects need to stop meddling in other people's business.  Certainly, nobody's coming over here meddling in ours (and if any of those countries even thought about telling them what to do, they'd either ignore them, or worse, start yet another baseless war)!  Continuing to engage in these imperialist forays into often, sovreign nations will - sooner, rather than later - backfire.  And it ain't gonna pretty

And finally (again, speaking of bell - see videos #4 - #5), I was just undone when I saw these pictures over at The Crunk Feminist Collective:

But proudly and humbly as hell, I've no need to comment on the whys and wherefores of the photo, except to say screw John and Yoko!  Because, not only did my lil sis, Crunktastic do the damned thing in HANDLIN' IT in her post, the others in the comment section definitely had her back! I was so moved and impressed with this piece of writing, I had to give it my Richard Wright, "Using Words as a Weapon" award today.

Not only do these young sisters continue to TEACH my old ass - they give me a genuine "hope and change" feeling.

*(All emphases in this post are mine.)

A couple ruminations and an update...

I.  State-sponsored murder is still murder - particularly so, if there's "Too Much Doubt."

I've read many an article on the Troy Davis case but, this Dispatch from Death Row:  Saving Troy Davis With a Family's Love brings a definite ray of sunshine amid all this sadness - his nephew.

(Photo Courtesy Amnesty International)

I can't say whether he's innocent or guilty.  But what I can say is - this case should not only be giving the state of Georgia serious pause, but every, single person in this country (Don't fool yourself, it can surely happen to anyone).

This isn't a civil case, where the standard of proof is satisfied by either,  "a preponderance of the evidence" or, "clear and convincing evidence."  This, is a criminal case, and the standard of proof -seeing as people's freedom and/or their very lives hang in the balance - is "beyond a reasonable doubt."  Given the numerous recantations and the, at least one, alternative suspect, I'd say the "beyond..." part, absent an evidentiary hearing on the new evidence, comes up a little short.

And no, I'm not discounting the fact, that the family of the slain officer is also in pain here.  I just keep asking myself - "They've waited all this time, what difference would the additional time it'd take for an evidentiary hearing make now?"  Certainly, that's preferable to having the state murder an innocent man in their name - right?

Angela Davis said, in this 2003 video - "Capital punishment is a legacy of slavery.  It's a sediment of  slavery."  Others, too, have made that connection:

Troy Davis, victim of judicial lynching, and on a lighter, but still on-point note - U.S. Prison/Industrial Complex - The New Slavery & The Sickness In The American System.

UPDATE - Tomorrow, Georgia Murders Troy Davis

II.  Some more of that - "Change" y'all wanna believe in.

For some time now, I've just been trying to make sense of this world in which we now live.  Believe me when I tell you - it's becoming increasingly difficult.  And just when I thought I'd reached my peak of disgust with the smoke-and-mirrors, "tenth dimensional" chess playing and unquenchable thirst for money and power - I read this last week:  U.S. Appeals to Palestinians to Stall U.N. Vote on Statehood - and just shook my head, yet again.

This, is why people rode and died?  So that - our own lived experience here notwithstanding - people who look like us can impose the same thing on e'erybody else??  Strange, I never thought supremacy was the goal.  Seems I was mistaken:

The Obama administration has initiated a last-ditch diplomatic campaign to avert a confrontation this month over a plan by Palestinians to seek recognition as a state at the United Nations...The administration has circulated a proposal for renewed peace talks with the Israelis in the hopes of persuading the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to abandon the bid for recognition at the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly beginning Sept. 20.

The administration has made it clear to Mr. Abbas that it will veto any request presented to the United Nations Security Council to make a Palestinian state a new member outright. (emphasis mine)

This man (that y'all keep conflating with MLK) seems a lit-tle, too, willing, to shed what King believed about freedom and self-determination, in exchange for a fast-track to complicity with that Israeli foot, grinding on the necks of these brown folk, who've for decades now, been cordoned off and treated like interlopers in their own land - no?

Senior officials said the administration wanted to avoid not only a veto but also the more symbolic and potent General Assembly vote that would leave the United States and only a handful of other nations in the opposition. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic maneuverings, said they feared that in either case a wave of anger could sweep the Palestinian territories and the wider Arab world at a time when the region is already in tumult. President Obama would be put in the position of threatening to veto recognition of the aspirations of most Palestinians or risk alienating Israel and its political supporters in the United States.

Let those emphasized portions sink in for a minute...

Damn that "All in the Game" foolishness!  That is some real WTFery right there.  After his, hat-in-hand to AIPAC on the campaign trail performance, here he is again - actin' like the, "Can I have more, Sir?" puppet-of-an-overseer that he is.  And what's worse (for America)?  Most people know it (except for some, who can't see anything but Israel):

• Obama should support Palestinian statehood
• Israel does not want a Palestinian state. Period.
• Turkey takes over the Arab Spring
• Jack Straw urges MPs to back Palestinian statehood bid
• Saudi prince calls on U.S. to back Palestinian U.N. status (more than that!) 
• Palestine Goes to the UN
• Israel's diplomatic drive to block Palestinian UN bid
• The crime of apartheid 

UPDATE:  I spoke to my friend, Eric after that electioneering visit to CCNV.  As his latest post reveals, the Changeling continues to be, exactly who I thought he was.

Bill Moyers, a rare and dying breed of journalist - on Gaza

"Open up and let the wind blow through..."

This wonderfully written example of humanity ran in counterpunch.com's Weekend Edition, January 2 - 4, 2009. It was so thoughtful, so honest, so true - I wrote the author for permission to reprint it here in it's entirety and she said yes. I'm glad. It's a decidedly different, first-hand account of what is happening in Gaza - one our media rarely, if ever portrays. Enjoy!

~#~

Hearts Are Made to Be Broken Shiv'a in Gaza, December 2008 By DEB REICH

"My heart has been broken so many times, writes Alice Walker somewhere, that it feels like an open suitcase with the wind blowing through it" … But maybe, she muses, hearts are made to be broken, and what is required of us is simply a steadfast acknowledgment: Open up and let the wind blow through; that's what hearts are for.

If so, Gaza 2008 is good cardiac training.

I am an American-Israeli Jewish woman of 60 living now in an Arab town in Israel and working for Jewish-Palestinian-Arab-Israeli reconciliation. I have two friends in Gaza and I will tell you how we came to be acquainted.

The first step was simply refusing to be enemies. There are thousands of Palestinians and Jews like me, in the Middle East and worldwide, who refuse to be enemies. We rarely make the headlines in your local paper, but we are here. One day we will prevail - not over anyone, but with everyone together. We are creating a new reality together and the paradigm, sooner or later, will shift decisively. Meantime, people needlessly bleed and suffer and die and mourn; the scenarios are endless but the outcomes are identical: death, injury, pain. What distinguishes Gazan suffering at the moment is that the noncombatants have nowhere to run to. The borders are sealed. The bombs fall. The world watches.

* * *

In 2006, one of my several informally adopted children, business consultant and "business for peace" activist Sam Bahour of Al Bireh, Palestine, started an Arabic-English-Arabic translation service, AIM Word Factory. A key goal was to provide employment for underemployed Gazan translators. To have the honor of being one of the first customers and helping that great idea launch, I sent him, for translation into Arabic, an anti-war story I wrote many years ago called "Dudu in Heaven," about an Israeli woman who loses her brother in the 1967 Six-Day War. The translator in Gaza was a young professional named Maha M., and the shared literary mission led to some email exchanges, all conducted via Sam. "Maha says the story is too sad," Sam reported at one point. "She likes it very much, but she says you ought to write a happier one next time."

Not long ago, I discovered that Maha's nephew Mohammed, 14, is the boy whom Sam has been helping for some years now in a very personal struggle with a rare inherited immune disease, CGD. Sam donates and helps raise money from private donors for Mo's treatment and medication and has been successful in assisting Maha to get the necessary "permits" from Israel to enable her to accompany Mo for his treatment. Mo became a patient at the Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, an excellent Israeli facility near Tel Aviv. ("Everyone on the medical staff will go straight to heaven someday," says Sam.) Mo and Maha recently spent two and a half months at the hospital and the nearby Bet Hayeled ("Children's House"), the hostel for young patients and their families on the hospital grounds; their "permits" do not permit them to leave the campus and their travel documents are deposited with the guard at the hospital entrance. This is the reality of Israel and Palestine, so far; the change we are struggling to midwife is not yet. In November, Mo underwent a bone marrow transplant at Tel Hashomer.

I only discovered that our Gaza-based translator of "Dudu in Heaven" was in Israel toward the end of their stay, early in December when Sam mentioned it by chance. I got organized fairly quickly and went to visit them, accompanied by Abdalla, the 22-year-old son of my landlord upstairs. I figured Mo would enjoy an Arabic-speaking visitor and Abdalla was happy to oblige. We invested in an enormous basket of chocolates - "the absolutely correct gift to bring to a Palestinian child in the hospital," according to Abdalla - chocolate being one of those things that evidently transcend cultures. Also for the young patient, Abdalla's mom Faryal contributed some never-worn boy's jeans and sweatshirts that her sister Shadya in New Jersey sent recently for Abdalla's kid brother, who is too big to wear them. For Maha, I raided my bookshelf and selected Garrison Keillor's anthology, "Good Poems for Hard Times," and a couple of other books I thought she might enjoy.

We drove to the hospital and found Maha and Mo and a parking space, and had a wonderful visit, everyone bonding instantly after the first hug. Maha is a writer-editor-translator type just like me, only a couple decades younger. She and Abdalla took a bunch of digital photographs and I prayed inwardly - even though some ghastly crisis in Gaza was already clearly imminent - that all four of us would be back together again one day soon for a reunion. Mo is a great kid: undersized, on account of the illness, but with a smile like a lighthouse and a passionate interest in airplanes. His dream to become an airline pilot someday is not the most realistic dream for a seriously ill Palestinian child from Gaza in 2008, but insofar as our dreams keep us going, maybe it's very functional. The boys talked soccer and other guy topics and there was a lot of laughter. The chocolates were a big hit.

Abdalla was rather subdued afterwards and I saw that the experience had deeply affected him. We talked mostly of inconsequential things during the drive home.

* * *

Around the time of that visit in early December, after a battery of tests, Mo's bone marrow transplant was declared a guarded success and he was discharged the week before Christmas to make room for the next young patient, despite the iffy situation in Gaza and the near-impossibility of obtaining "permits" to return to the hospital for the required twice-monthly follow-up treatment. There are never enough beds, apparently, for the sick children in this world.

Mo's prospects soon took a dramatic turn for the worse with the Israeli assault on Gaza launched last week - two days after Christmas, on December 27, 2008. Not even the indomitable Sam Bahour can get a child out of Gaza right now. The date for Mo's first post-op intravenous treatment at Tel Hashomer - December 30th - came and went. The treatments are - how shall I put it? - not optional. As I write this, cosy at my desk with a fresh cup of coffee and plenty of everything, Mo and Maha are sitting in Gaza in the dark, in the cold, with little fuel and no reliable supply of food and water, along with Mo's parents and six siblings. Right about now, the family are surely thinking of Mo's seventh sibling, Nora, who died four years ago of CGD at the age of 16, in a hospital in Egypt, before the doctors were able to diagnose her. Mo has a good chance to manage his illness, if only he can somehow get back to Tel Hashomer. I think of them sitting there, listening to the bombs whistle in flight and waiting for the planned Israeli ground assault, while tanks mass along the Gaza perimeter. In the lethal game of mindless violence and counter-violence playing out in Israel and Palestine lo these many years, Mo and his family are innocent bystanders. His innocence will not get Mo to his IV treatments, however.

Can you feel that wind blowing right through your heart?

* * *

While Abdalla and Mo were talking sports at the hostel that day in early December, Maha and I were chatting about the things women talk about. She told me about her shopping, at the minimarket on the hospital grounds, in preparation for their expected return to Gaza. "My sister-in-law told me to buy us a lot of candles," she remarked, "because, you know, there's no electricity most of the time now." We contemplated this bleak picture together in silence for a few moments.

"So I asked the clerk at the shop to sell me some candles that will last a long time," Maha continued. "And he showed me these fat, tall ones that are encased in a solid glass container…" I could feel the hair lifting on the back of my neck. "He said they would burn for a week, so I bought a whole bunch of them," concluded Maha, oblivious, as I sat there, dumbstruck. She was describing the traditional Jewish shiv'a candle - the candle of bereavement lit by Jewish families all over the world for the seven days of mourning on the death of a loved one.

As this ghastly December drew to its grim close, Maha still had enough fuel left to run a small generator for an hour every day or two, so she could get online and do some emails or charge her mobile phone. I got an email saying they are OK ("bombs falling nearby but not on us, so far") and I sent my love and prayers for the family. As of New Year's Eve, I knew they were still alive because I got an e-card from Maha yesterday. Her message said: Dear Deb, I wish you and your children a Happy New Year and a long, happy, healthy and successful life. May every day of the New Year glow with good cheer and happiness for you and your family… Love and best wishes, Maha.

(Deb Reich is a writer and translator in Israel/Palestine, at debmail@alum.barnard.edu)

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.