It's time to take a stand!

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

It's time to take a stand

(Monday 29 December 2008)

SHAMELESS Israeli leaders claim that their quarrel is not with the Palestinian people of Gaza but with Hamas.

But these weasel words are exposed by the scale of civilian casualties.

Israel announces that it is going for a knockout blow, insisting that its aggression will put an end to the overhyped rockets fired from Gaza that have killed 14 people in Israel over a seven-year period, in contrast to a four-figure Palestinian death toll during that time, courtesy of Israeli aerial power.


The imperialist powers have roared Israel on, demanding an end to Palestinian rockets but, from Israel, merely greater efforts to avoid civilian casualties.


Obsequious Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas all but absolves Israel, blaming Hamas for not renewing a truce which Israel has consistently flouted by tightening its economic stranglehold on Gaza, which has driven 90 per cent of Gazans to a below-poverty-line existence and condemned 1.5 million people to receiving running water every five days.


Those who affect impartiality and call for a renewal of the truce miss the point that the key question is not the Palestinians' inaccurate and rudimentary rockets.


The question that Israel and its international backers refuse to consider is the need, under international law and common humanity, to end the military occupation, the ethnic cleansing and illegal Jewish colonisation of the West Bank.


The US, Britain and other European Union powers back Israel just as they used to support apartheid South Africa, although, these days, they all celebrate the onset of democracy in South Africa and draw a veil over their complicity with tyranny.


Former South African cabinet minister Ronnie Kasrils, who played a central role in the armed struggle against apartheid, believes that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is "infinitely worse than apartheid."


He, like many Jews throughout the world, wants to see a boycott against Israel such as was imposed on apartheid South Africa, a boycott that was ignored and belittled for decades by the rich and powerful before being recognised as having played a key role in undermining the apartheid state.


Some people look forward to Barack Obama's presidency for a new drive to justice in the Middle East and, in truth, virtually anyone would be an improvement on George W Bush, but the president elect was proud to pose with an I love Sderot T-shirt, which encapsulates the Palestinian nightmare.


Sixty years ago, Sderot did not exist.


In the place it now occupies stood the Arab village of Najd whose inhabitants were driven out by zionist forces in 1948, three years before the village was destroyed and rebuilt as Sderot.


When Chief Albert Luthuli appealed to the world for a boycott of apartheid, Britain's labour movement reacted swiftly. There were no calls for a phoney impartiality, for trade union friends of apartheid alongside trade union friends of democracy.


Yet many in the movement believe that it is possible to back the oppressor as well as the oppressed.


It is time for Britain's trade unionists to stand up for the principles that they apply elsewhere in the world and put pressure on Israel through economic sanctions to force it to treat the Palestinians as equal human beings.

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[Thinking Man's Idiot]

End the massacre in Gaza
Issued by: CPGB-ML
Issued on: 29 December 2008

The CPGB-ML condemns the massacre that is currently being perpetrated against the people of Gaza by the Israeli state. We join with all progressive and freedom-loving people around the world in calling for the immediate cessation of Israel's bomb attacks, and we state our unreserved support for all Palestinian groups involved in Gaza's defence.

Over the last two days, nearly 300 Gazans have been killed in air raids, with up to 700 others wounded. Saturday (27 December) was the single deadliest day in Gaza since the 1967 war.

Predictably, Israel has claimed that its actions are a legitimate response to Palestinian rocket attacks since the collapse of the ceasefire last week - Israel says militants have fired 110 rockets into Israel over the last few days. This sentiment has been implicitly (and in some cases explicitly) backed by the self-appointed 'international community'. As hi-tech bombs were raining down on Palestinian civilians, that seasoned stooge Zalmay Khalilzad, US ambassador to the UN, had the audacity to claim that "the way forward from here is for rocket attacks against Israel to stop, for all violence to end".

What a joke! Imagine the outcry in the imperialist press if 300 supporters of the ‘Movement for Democratic Change’ were killed by Zimbabwean state forces – the various bourgeois scribblers would be lining up to condemn Zimbabwe, and the plans for a commemoratory rock concert at Wembley Stadium would be well under way.

As we have said before, one cannot equate the violence of the oppressed with the violence of the oppressors. Israel is not under siege; it is not an occupied country; its citizens (at least its jewish citizens) are not denied their basic human rights; its water, electricity and medical supplies have not been cut off; it is not in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. Meanwhile, Gaza has over the last two years been effectively turned into a giant concentration camp. Gazans cannot move in or out of their country; the supply of food, electricity, water and medicines has been cut off; frequent Israeli bombing raids take place; the unemployment rate exceeds 80 percent and the people are living a miserable existence well below the poverty line.

Are the Palestinian people expected to simply give up their right to existence? The right to resist occupation is enshrined in international law, and the Palestinian military resistance to Israeli occupation is legitimate and laudable.

Still, one does not need to accept the legitimacy of the Palestinian rocket attacks in order to condemn the massacre that is taking place in Gaza. According to detailed information released by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a grand total of 15 Israelis have died as a result of Qassam rocket attacks since these were first fired over seven years ago (in October 2001). Meanwhile, close to a thousand Gazans have been killed in Israeli military raids this year alone. These lopsided figures alone are enough to give lie to Israel's claim that it is simply protecting its citizens from rocket attacks.

Israel's agenda is clear enough: not happy with the democratic choice of the Palestinian people, it is seeking regime change in Gaza (having already effected regime change in the West Bank). Foreign Minister Livni said in an interview with the BBC: "We took Hamas by surprise, we targeted Hamas headquarters, so this is the beginning of a successful operation, I hope, but the idea is to change realities on the ground."

Recently, Ms Livni told a meeting of the Kadima party that she would topple Hamas if she was elected prime minister in the coming general election, saying: "The state of Israel, and a government under me, will make it a strategic objective to topple the Hamas regime in Gaza. The means for doing this should be military, economic and diplomatic." It would be difficult to be clearer than that.

If Israel genuinely wanted to stop the Qassam rocket attacks, it could have done so very easily by complying with the terms of the ceasefire, under which it was supposed to lift the blockade against Gaza in order to end the humanitarian crisis there. It totally failed to respect those terms, and therefore should not be surprised that the ceasefire has collapsed. As has happened many times before, Israel has violated the terms of a ceasefire and used the Palestinian response to 'justify' the unjustifiable.

We reiterate the call of Khaled Meshaal, leader of Hamas, for a renewed intifada against Israel. Only through the intensification of the Palestinian resistance will Israel be forced to recognise the right of the Palestinians to freedom from colonial occupation.

NB. While Israel's crimes are being ignored, 10 people protesting outside the Israeli Embassy in London have been arrested by police under trumped-up charges (our party comrade, who is among those arrested, is being charged with "threatening words and behaviour"). We call for the immediate release of these ten people, whose only 'crime' is demonstrating their support for, and sympathy with, the people of Gaza.

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[Thinking Man's Idiot]

Israeli massacre in Gaza: more than 300 dead and 1,000 injured
GAZA, December 28.— For the second consecutive day Israel has continued its bomb attacks on Gaza which have, to date, caused the deaths of 300 people and left more than 1,000 wounded. At the same time, it has announced that it is to mobilize troops as a prelude to a ground force operation.

- Cuba condemns Israeli attack on Gaza

[ZingPao]

I agree completely that the killing should stop, but Hamas is unreasonable and they hide behind civilians. It will never stop because Islam wants to kill all infidels including you (whoever is reading this). You are defending people that would be happy to remove your head.

Originally Posted by ZingPao

I agree completely that the killing should stop, but Hamas is unreasonable and they hide behind civilians. It will never stop because Islam wants to kill all infidels including you (whoever is reading this). You are defending people that would be happy to remove your head.

Are you pissed? Have you actually met Muslims? Obviously not or you would not make such crass statements? Catholics are all paedophiles and Islam (translates as 'peace' btw) want to kill us all! Read some History Zing. Please.

[ZingPao]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Are you pissed? Have you actually met Muslims? Obviously not or you would not make such crass statements? Catholics are all paedophiles and Islam (translates as 'peace' btw) want to kill us all! Read some History Zing. Please.

Not pissed, just shocked that so many people would take up for these Hamas cowards. Islam is anything but peace, check the facts unregistered. Hamas refuses to recongnize Israel's right to exist like many other Islamics.

I work with Muslims and before that went to school with many Iranians and Iraqis. I know them. I often tell the story of one class I was in where the professor asked the class how we would feel about a woman being elected president. People gave their opinion and then Dr. Cole asked one of the Iranians what he would do if a woman was elected president in his country. He pounded his desk while answering, "I would kill her!!!" We all laughed, but we knew it wasn't funny because he was dead serious.

Feel free to disagree here. Join the forum.

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

Originally Posted by ZingPao

Not pissed, just shocked that so many people would take up for these Hamas cowards. Islam is anything but peace, check the facts unregistered. Hamas refuses to recongnize Israel's right to exist like many other Islamics.

I work with Muslims and before that went to school with many Iranians and Iraqis. I know them. I often tell the story of one class I was in where the professor asked the class how we would feel about a woman being elected president. People gave their opinion and then Dr. Cole asked one of the Iranians what he would do if a woman was elected president in his country. He pounded his desk while answering, "I would kill her!!!" We all laughed, but we knew it wasn't funny because he was dead serious.

Feel free to disagree here. Join the forum.

I'm a member. And someone who almost married a beautiful Muslim. They've shown me nothing but kindness and generosity. And they hold your Jesus as a great prophet. It's a strange angle to take. It's the equivalent of me saying all Americans are burger munching, obese Christian fundamentalist war-mongering, petrol-combustion engine junkies that couldn't put a pin in Canada on a globe. They don't want to kill you Zing. Get real!

Gaza: This is only the beginning

As I write this, Israeli jets are bombing the areas of Zeitoun and Rimal in central Gaza City. The family I am staying with has moved into the internal corridor of their home to shelter from the bombing. The windows nearly blew out just five minutes ago as a massive explosion rocked the house. Apache’s are hovering above us, whilst F16s sear overhead. By Ewa Jasiewicz
Gaza today: 'This is only the beginning' read more...

[Knight of the Word]

I hope the religous fanatic fucks wipe each other off the face of this world

go hamas fuckwads go israeli scum you can do much better then this, fight to the death, will let your false gods sort you out.

[Knight of the Word]

ITS TIME TOO TAKE A STAND

LETS TAKE UP A COLLECTION TO DEVELOP A VIRUS OR BUY a few nukes TO WIPE BOTH THESE PARASITIC

RELIGIOUS GROUPS FROM THE EARTH, ITS TIME TOO SEND THEM TOO MEET THEIR GODS

Trust me they are not worth saving as their hate only corrupts the world, its time too cut our losses and annihilate those stupid pricks off the map.

[ZingPao]

Originally Posted by Knight of the Word

ITS TIME TOO TAKE A STAND

LETS TAKE UP A COLLECTION TO DEVELOP A VIRUS OR BUY a few nukes TO WIPE BOTH THESE PARASITIC

RELIGIOUS GROUPS FROM THE EARTH, ITS TIME TOO SEND THEM TOO MEET THEIR GODS

Trust me they are not worth saving as their hate only corrupts the world, its time too cut our losses and annihilate those stupid pricks off the map.

I try not to feel that way, but you have a certain logicical point here.