Originally written by Scott Rasmussen on January 5, 2009 1:57 AM Anyway, I'm tired of communist-front International ANSWER running amok here in San Francisco, protesting outside my building (which houses the Israeli consulate...) and spraying "Free Palestine" graffiti all over the financial district.  What a bunch of savages.  But they're sure to be back on Monday, with the SFPD in tow (what is all that extra policing costing the taxpayer?!).

I suppose with Abbas due on Monday in New York to put a personal face into the appeal for a ceasefire, the U.S. would have to make a stand whether to let peace-dove Abbas down and risk a detrioration of ground support for Abbas and an increase in global security costs at a time of economic downturn. No?

Originally written by Scott Rasmussen on January 4, 2009 6:57 PM I'm tired of communist-front International ANSWER running amok here in San Francisco, protesting outside my building (which houses the Israeli consulate...)

Move to Warsaw! My house is next to the Israeli Embassy and the demonstrations here are very orderly.

Do NOT move to Odense, where a Palestinian shot at and hurt two Israeli businessmen at their place of work.

Nanna

PS: I believe AC can read this: http://www.berlingske.dk/article/20081231/danmark/712310035/

"To israelske forretningsdrivende blev ramt af skud og såret, da en formodet palæstinensisk gerningsmand i går åbnede ild mod dem i Rosengårdscentret i Odense kl. 15.20, da centret var fyldt med mennesker på nytårsindkøb. ..."

MT: http://gramtrans.com/

Originally written by Jacek Krankowski on January 5, 2009 12:46 PM What interests me is whether there is any new thinking on either side, which would be the only way to move forward. Or are we still 100% stuck in ancient mantras which have proved pretty ineffective over the last 60 years?

A position shared by all freedom friends and peaceful people in the world, from all parties, all religions, all countries. But things did not change since 1948 when these exclusive photos (first time ever published) that I can see in another Translators Community were taken: http://www.arabswata.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18585 
Salaam

Post updated because: 5 minutes ago an Aljazeera, we have seen two families arrive in Al-Shifa Hospital: The first WAS  family of 7 members (father, mother and 5 children) all killed by Israeli bombs; the second WAS  a family of 5 members (father, mother and 3 children) of whom ONLY the father survived.

I was hearing on Aljazeera that what is happening in Gaza is the wildest genocide and war crime that mankind has even known. And I was telling to myself that the analyst was somehow exagerating probably. But when I was told that it is the first time that the volume of bombs launched on Gaza during the first week only was 10 TIMES  as much as what the Yankees launched on Vitenam during the whole war there, I understood then, and I started to say too: THIS IS THE WILDEST GENOCIDE IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND. But how can people know, if TV channels show 2 or 3% of what's happening?

http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein01012009.html

January 1 , 2009

Israel Has No Intention of Granting a Palestinian State

If Hamas Did Not Exist

By JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN

Let us get one thing perfectly straight. If the wholesale mutilation and degradation of the Gaza Strip is going to continue; if Israel’s will is at one with that of the United States; if the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and all the international legal agencies and organizations spread across the globe are going to continue to sit by like hollow mannequins doing nothing but making repeated “calls” for a “ceasefire” on “both sides”; if the cowardly, obsequious and supine Arab States are going to stand by watching their brethren get slaughtered by the hour while the world’s bullying Superpower eyes them threateningly from Washington lest they say something a little to their disliking; then let us at least tell the truth why this hell on earth is taking place.

The state terror unleashed from the skies and on the ground against the Gaza Strip as we speak has nothing to do with Hamas. It has nothing to do with “Terror”. It has nothing to do with the long-term “security” of the Jewish State or with Hizbullah or Syria or Iran except insofar as it is aggravating the conditions that have led up to this crisis today. It has nothing to do with some conjured-up “war” – a cynical and overused euphemism that amounts to little more the wholesale enslavement of any nation that dares claim its sovereign rights; that dares assert that its resources are its own; that doesn’t want one of the Empire’s obscene military bases sitting on its cherished land.

This crisis has nothing to do with freedom, democracy, justice or peace. It is not about Mahmoud Zahhar or Khalid Mash’al or Ismail Haniyeh. It is not about Hassan Nasrallah or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. These are all circumstantial players who have gained a role in the current tempest only now that the situation has been allowed for 61 years to develop into the catastrophe that it is today. The Islamist factor has colored and will continue to color the atmosphere of the crisis; it has enlisted the current leaders and mobilized wide sectors of the world’s population. The primary symbols today are Islamic – the mosques, the Qur’an, the references to the Prophet Muhammad and to Jihad. But these symbols could disappear and the impasse would continue.

There was a time when Fatah and the PFLP held the day; when few Palestinians wanted anything to do with Islamist policies and politics. Such politics have nothing to do with primitive rockets being fired over the border, or smuggling tunnels and black-market weapons; just as Arafat’s Fatah had little to do with stones and suicide bombings. The associations are coincidental; the creations of a given political environment. They are the result of something entirely different than what the lying politicians and their analysts are telling you. They have become part of the landscape of human events in the modern Middle East today; but incidentals wholly as lethal, or as recalcitrant, deadly, angry or incorrigible could just as soon have been in their places.

Strip away the clichés and the vacuous newspeak blaring out across the servile media and its pathetic corps of voluntary state servants in the Western world and what you will find is the naked desire for hegemony; for power over the weak and dominion over the world’s wealth. Worse yet you will find that the selfishness, the hatred and indifference, the racism and bigotry, the egotism and hedonism that we try so hard to cover up with our sophisticated jargon, our refined academic theories and models actually help to guide our basest and ugliest desires. The callousness with which we in indulge in them all are endemic to our very culture; thriving here like flies on a corpse.

Strip away the current symbols and language of the victims of our selfish and devastating whims and you will find the simple, impassioned and unaffected cries of the downtrodden; of the ‘wretched of the earth’ begging you to cease your cold aggression against their children and their homes; their families and their villages; begging you to leave them alone to have their fish and their bread, their oranges, their olives and their thyme; asking you first politely and then with increasing disbelief why you cannot let them live undisturbed on the land of their ancestors; unexploited, free of the fear of expulsion; of ravishment and devastation; free of permits and roadblocks and checkpoints and crossings; of monstrous concrete walls, guard towers, concrete bunkers, and barbed wire; of tanks and prisons and torture and death. Why is life without these policies and instruments of hell impossible?

The answer is because Israel has no intention of allowing a viable, sovereign Palestinian state on its borders. It had no intention of allowing it in 1948 when it grabbed 24 per cent more land than what it was allotted legally, if unfairly, by UN Resolution 181. It had no intention of allowing it throughout the massacres and ploys of the 1950s. It had no intention of allowing two states when it conquered the remaining 22 per cent of historic Palestine in 1967 and reinterpreted UN Security Council Resolution 248 to its own liking despite the overwhelming international consensus stating that Israel would receive full international recognition within secure and recognized borders if it withdrew from the lands it had only recently occupied.

It had no intention of acknowledging Palestinian national rights at the United Nations in 1974, when –alone with the United States—it voted against a two-state solution. It had no intention of allowing a comprehensive peace settlement when Egypt stood ready to deliver but received, and obediently accepted, a separate peace exclusive of the rights of Palestinians and the remaining peoples of the region. It had no intention of working toward a just two-state solution in 1978 or 1982 when it invaded, fire-bombed, blasted and bulldozed Beirut so that it might annex the West Bank without hassle. It had no intention of granting a Palestinian state in 1987 when the first Intifada spread across occupied Palestine, into the Diaspora and the into the spirits of the global dispossessed, or when Israel deliberately aided the newly formed Hamas movement so that it might undermine the strength of the more secular-nationalist factions.

Israel had no intention of granting a Palestinian state at Madrid or at Oslo where the PLO was superseded by the quivering, quisling Palestinian Authority, too many of whose cronies grasped at the wealth and prestige it gave them at the expense of their own kin. As Israel beamed into the world’s satellites and microphones its desire for peace and a two-state solution, it more than doubled the number of illegal Jewish settlements on the ground in the West Bank and around East Jerusalem, annexing them as it built and continues to build a superstructure of bypass roads and highways over the remaining, severed cities and villages of earthly Palestine. It has annexed the Jordan valley, the international border of Jordan, expelling any ‘locals’ inhabiting that land. It speaks with a viper’s tongue over the multiple amputee of Palestine whose head shall soon be severed from its body in the name of justice, peace and security.

Through the home demolitions, the assaults on civil society that attempted to cast Palestinian history and culture into a chasm of oblivion; through the unspeakable destruction of the refugee camp sieges and infrastructure bombardments of the second Intifada, through assassinations and summary executions, past the grandiose farce of disengagement and up to the nullification of free, fair and democratic Palestinian elections Israel has made its view known again and again in the strongest possible language, the language of military might, of threats, intimidation, harassment, defamation and degradation.

Israel, with the unconditional and approving support of the United States, has made it dramatically clear to the entire world over and over and over again, repeating in action after action that it will accept no viable Palestinian state next to its borders. What will it take for the rest of us to hear? What will it take to end the criminal silence of the ‘international community’? What will it take to see past the lies and indoctrination to what is taking place before us day after day in full view of the eyes of the world? The more horrific the actions on the ground, the more insistent are the words of peace. To listen and watch without hearing or seeing allows the indifference, the ignorance and complicity to continue and deepens with each grave our collective shame.

The destruction of Gaza has nothing to do with Hamas. Israel will accept no authority in the Palestinian territories that it does not ultimately control. Any individual, leader, faction or movement that fails to accede to Israel’s demands or that seeks genuine sovereignty and the equality of all nations in the region; any government or popular movement that demands the applicability of international humanitarian law and of the universal declaration of human rights for its own people will be unacceptable for the Jewish State. Those dreaming of one state must be forced to ask themselves what Israel would do to a population of 4 million Palestinians within its borders when it commits on a daily, if not hourly basis, crimes against their collective humanity while they live alongside its borders? What will suddenly make the raison d’etre, the self-proclaimed purpose of Israel’s reason for being change if the Palestinian territories are annexed to it outright?

The lifeblood of the Palestinian National Movement flows through the streets of Gaza today. Every drop that falls waters the soil of vengeance, bitterness and hatred not only in Palestine but across the Middle East and much of the world. We do have a choice over whether or not this should continue. Now is the time to make it.

Jennifer Loewenstein is the Associate Director of the Middle East Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She can be reached at amadea311@earthlink.net

Originally written by Jacek Krankowski on January 5, 2009 12:46 PM What interests me is whether there is any new thinking on either side, which would be the only way to move forward.

To understand what I will now metaphorically say will require a deep reflection as it is not of immediate literal application to the conflict at hand, but in the long run it can bear fruit. It is but one example of what 'new thinking' means. It means for everybody to think 180^o differently than before. Any signs of that anywhere yet?

Tsukahara Bokuden (1489 - 1571) was a famous swordsman. He was widely regarded as a kensei (sword saint). He was the founder of a new Kashima style of fencing, and served as an instructor of the provincial governor.

Bokuden learned the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto-ryu from his adopted father and later honed his skills by engaging in musha shugyo (warrior's ascetic training), traveling throughout Japan and training with most of the skillful and knowledgeable swordsmen of the day. After receiving a divine inspiration from the deity Takemikazuchi no kami, he named his martial system as Kashima Shinto-ryu. He also, for a brief period, called his system Mutekatsu-ryū ("winning without hands").

In one anecdote, Bokuden was challenged by a mannerless ruffian. When asked about his style, Bokuden replied that he studied the "Style of No Sword." The ruffian laughed and insultingly challenged Bokuden to fight him without a sword. Bokuden then agreed to fight the man without his sword but suggested they row out to a nearby island on Lake Biwa to avoid disturbing others. The ruffian agreed, but when he jumped from the boat to the shore of the island, drawing his blade, Bokuden pushed the boat back out, leaving the ruffian stranded on the island. Bokuden explained, "This is my no-sword school." (Edited from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukahara_Bokuden)

My understanding of Hamas is that the political divisions and factions within Hamas are what is causing many of the current problems.

                        Hamas and the Quest for Middle East Peace

11/10/2008

[…]

To understand the reasons for the ambivalence of Hamas on reconciliation with Fatah we need to examine the internal political divisions within Hamas which resulted from its January, 2006 electoral victory over Fatah. In the process, Hamas took control of a political entity, the Palestinian Authority, which was the creation of the Oslo Accords that it rejected. As such Hamas' participation, let alone victory in the election signified a de facto recognition of Israel and a two-state peace deal that was the very basis of the Oslo Peace Accords. This de facto recognition of the state of Israel became more explicit with the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in June. Despite this, however, Hamas' hardliners like Mahmoud Zahar noted that Hamas would never recognize Israel.

Following their electoral victory, the contradictions within Hamas rapidly multiplied and then coalesced around three factions within the organization. The first one was led by Ismail Haniya, which realized that Hamas would need to be more pragmatic as a governing party than when it was in opposition. Here they took their cue from Hamas-controlled municipalities like Qalqilya which were compelled to develop working relationships with local Israeli municipalities if it wanted to ensure continuous water and electricity supplies to its inhabitants. Haniya's faction was also aware that the Palestinian Authority was heavily dependent upon aid from the United States and the European Union. Washington, alone, had spent more than US $1.7 billion to combat poverty, improve infrastructure and promote good governance in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Haniya's faction of Hamas realized that all governance entail compromise and therefore was prepared to affect a rapprochement with Fatah, Israel and the West. Ahmed Youssef, a senior political adviser to Hamas leader Ismail Haniya sent a letter to US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice saying, "Many people make the mistake of presuming we have some ideological aversion to making peace. Quite the opposite, we have consistently offered dialogue with the US and the EU to try and resolve the very issues that you were trying to deal with in Annapolis." Youssef has also stated: "Hamas proposes a long-term truce during which the Israeli and Palestinian peoples can try to negotiate a lasting peace".

Haniya also wanted to reach a deal with Israel about Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, captured by Hamas fighters in June 2006. This deal however was torpedoed by Khaled Meshal, the Head of Hamas' Politburo who lives in exile in Damascus. Meshal and the people close to him constitute the second faction within Hamas. Ideologically they stand between Haniya's pragmatic approach and the hardliners.

This hardline faction is led by former foreign minister Mahmoud Zahar, head of the military wing, Ahmad Jabari, and former Interior Minister Said Siyam. This faction is pressing for an escalation of aggression against both Fatah and Israel. …

http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000725.htm