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“Gaza Burning” – Worldwide Impact

By SusanUnPC on January 14, 2009 at 1:27 AM in Gaza, Israel, Media

France is under seige, with numerous fire bombings of synagogues. A Jewish student group has reported “55 anti-Semitic attacks in France since Gaza attack,” according to Pakistan Dawn. Reuters reports that “faith leaders” across France from “Jewish, Muslim and Roman Catholic faiths,” have met with President Nicolas Sarkozy to issue a plea for calm.

Mohamed Moussaoui, head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) [France has over five million Muslims], announced the joint appeal on Monday evening after meeting Sarkozy. “We are all working so we do not fall into the trap of tensions opposing Muslims and Jews,” he said.

Standing next to him in the Elysee Palace courtyard, Grand Rabbi Gilles Bernheim, presenting France’s 600,000 Jews, said Sarkozy “was very pleased that this initiative came from religious leaders and not politicians”.

“We are appealing to our fellow citizens’ sense of responsibility,” said Paris Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, head of the bishops conference of the majority Roman Catholic Church…. [emphasis mine]

Reuters has another video (with news story) of anti-Jewish protests in Asia:

Then there is the “hottest,” most-watched video at Reuters: It is shocking footage of bunker-busting bombs while, Reuters reports, both sides are ignoring the worldwide pleas for a ceasefire:

I look forward to each week’s half-hour of the McLaughlin Group. Last Friday night’s discussion on Gaza was riveting. See this featured quote from Pat Buchanan about the grave situation in Gaza:
mclgroup

McLaughlin introduced the segment on Gaza thusly, and this portion of the former Jesuit priest’s question certainly piqued the interest of Pat Buchanan, a devout Catholic:

[...] The international response to Israel’s retaliation has been blistering. The Vatican described Gaza in these words. Quote: “More and more, Gaza resembles a big concentration camp,” unquote.

Israel described the Vatican comment as, quote, “Hamas propaganda.” Pope Benedict XVI has been negotiating a trip to Israel for this May. That trip may now be on the back burner.

Question: Is the Vatican description of Gaza as a concentration camp basically true, or is the Israeli government justified in describing the Vatican description as, quote-unquote, “Hamas propaganda”? Mort Zuckerman.

Mort Zuckerman, also on the panel, differed:

MR. ZUCKERMAN: Well, it certainly isn’t a concentration camp. The Israelis left Gaza with considerable force — that is, force against their own people. They turned over all of Gaza in 2005 to the Palestinians. But every day since then, the Palestinians have rained rockets on the Israeli communities, rockets with increasingly greater range, greater lethality and greater accuracy.

Right now a million people, not 500,000, are within range. And Tel Aviv was just about a year away before they developed that capacity. Israel simply could not tolerate that. And since, when the Palestinians were there, they have — every single one of those rockets or missiles was directed against civilians. Not a single military target was involved. Israel had no choice but to respond.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Here’s a question. What is the Israeli action suggesting, telling Obama? Obama.

MR. BUCHANAN: That’s to me?

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: That’s to you.

MR. BUCHANAN: What the Israelis are doing is they’re presenting Obama with a fait accompli. They’re going to try to take down Hamas and try to stop these rockets. I don’t think they’re going to succeed.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: No, the message is something different. Who can tell me what the message is?

MR. BUCHANAN: Well, let me talk about the concentration camp.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Quickly. …. READ ALL.

Meanwhile, here’s the latest mobile report from Al Jazeera English:

  • TeakwoodKite

    During one of Mr. Johnson’s recent articles I posted about these Bunker busters…I wanted know what the blast radius was, they use spent uranium in them.

    The photo indicates two miles is not a safe distance.

    I wonder after mankind…we can be so destructive. Why?

    • WildChild

      It’s fun blowing shit up.

    • Patrick Henry

      Because unlike Animals ..We Have very creative brains Teak…Wow..Wonder what this club will do on that dudes head..Whack..!!..

      Wow..wonder what this club will do on a hollow Log insteasd of a head…wack..

      Kool..

      That was the beginning of the arms race Kite..

      Some Like Making Music..

      Some like Killing…

      Some make Better Guitars..out of Harp..

      and some Make Bombs and bullets out of Slings and
      Swords..

      Ah…The Complex human Mind..fragile..

      Beauty and beast..

      Phantom of The Opera..Jeckyl and Hyde…

      Good and Evil…

      CANT GO MUCH FURTHER WITH THEM WEAPONS TEAK..

      Ka Boom..Nukes…Hydrogen..Fusion..Why..Mankind is playing God..ya Know..??

      Probably making God very upset..

      Been a Long Ride..but I think its about Over..

  • Patrick Henry

    Suz…

    Looks Like The IDF is determined to go ALL the way and Play Cowboy.in This BALLGAME….Like George Bush at IRAQ…..which HAMAS Dude are the IDF going to hang..

    This is a real Whupping…and niether IDF or israel care What the WorldSays..IMO…

    They know how hamas plays to game and that Women and kids Would Die..

    This is thier SHOCK and AWE..

    Bunker Busters and Regime Changes ..seem to be In the Wind..besides the SMOKE and smell of Burning Flesh…

    Wonder which Horseman of the Apoco..this Is..??

  • WhatNow

    FYI. I got this from a friend in email form. I went to the site, pretty interesting videos that are not seen here in the US.

    IDF – Israeli Defense Force, the Israeli Army is having a broadcast on You Tube explaining what’s going on. You Tube wants to remove it by using the excuse that not too many people are logging in.

    Please forward this email, so many people will log in and the IDF will be able to have its voice heard.
    Thanks.

    http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk

    • Winston

      Nice and slimey; Hamas launches rockets from School Yard.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN9WzUc7iB0&feature=channel_page

      They use civilians as human shields.

      If any one fights back they yell, “you are killing innocent children”.

      • mountainaires

        Israel in the Dock at The Hague?

        http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/14/israel-gaza-un-court-palestine

        Israeli ‘human shield’ claim is full of holes
        Craig Nelson, Associate Editor

        January 13. 2009

        In 2005, Israel’s Supreme Court barred the IDF from using Palestinians as human shields, which had been a common practice.

        The IDF euphemistically dubbed the procedure of forcing Palestinian civilians at gunpoint to go before them into buildings from which they feared attack its “neighbour procedure”. (“The idea is that a person is going in to warn people inside and explain the situation,” army spokesman Capt Jacob Dallal said at the time. “It’s done for the safety of everyone.”)

        Despite the court ruling, the practice has continued, according to Israeli and international human rights groups. Amnesty International said last week that Israeli soldiers were taking over Palestinian homes in Gaza and using the homes as military observation and firing positions, effectively using their imprisoned occupants as “human shields”.

        http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090113/FOREIGN/591536290/1140

        • Mary

          In fact, Mountain, Haaretz is reporting that the IDF takes a Palestinian home, forces the family inside to cower on the first floor, and uses the upper floors for sniper fire and machine gunning.

          THAT is using civilians as shields.

          • mountainaires

            Thanks, Mary. Your comments are appreciated, as well as the Haaretz reference. B’tselem has reported for years at their site about the use of Palestinians as “human shields” by the IDF.

            • Mary

              You’re welcome.

              I think we ALL know why Mort Zuckerman never mentions any of that.

              A billionaire Jewish publisher, in the perfect position to promote one version of what’s going on.

              Even the Pope now agrees with Pat Buchanan, describing Gaza as a concentration camp like South African apartheid.

              Indeed, even the Jerusalem papers report that the IDF uses Palestinians as human shields, as does the British papers.

              It is only the American press that does not.

              Sad, what Americans are not being told, and how easily they are led—just like the invasion of Iraq, eh?

              • rayve

                It’s sad that more Americans are not interested in digging deeper for information than what’s on CNN or FOX.

                • Mary

                  Wolf Blitzer’s first job in journalism was working for the Jerusalem Post.

              • opiedopie

                Thanks mountainaire and Mary,
                I guess the facts are too much for the “Israel-can-do-no-wrong” crowd here. Its easier to cup their ears and keep repeating the “right-to-defend-themselves” meme.

  • http://watchpaul.blogspot.com Rose

    YouTube banned them but LIVELEAK has them.

  • AF catfish

    Bunker busters. Why must it come to this.

    • http://baddemocrat08.wordpress.com obamastolemyboyfriend

      We’ll see if any earthquakes or tsunamis come about. I had a theory about those Bunker busters cracking the earth and causing this while weather stuff when we were Bunker Busting Iraq. If I weren’t just a working sap, I’d do some research into the timing of the boms and the timing of massive earthquakes and tsunamis! Really someone should do some research! That cannot be good for planet earth!

      • http://baddemocrat08.wordpress.com obamastolemyboyfriend

        oops!

        Meant to say wild weather stuff!

      • don tufts

        you have a choice when you have a group of insane zelots in a hardened underground bunker,either use a ground assault and lose a large number of friendly troops and i mean a large number or use a perscision strike with a penatrator and not lose any friendlys.thease are your choices as a commander that is unless you just want to sit a take fire upon your troops from the other side and hope you can talk the other side from shooting at you.grow up.

    • Mary

      Yes, catfish. Bunker busters.

      And the whole world knows they are supplied by the United States.

  • CG

    Israel hit by rockets
    Sent at 01/14/09 01:11:54
    Al Jazeera says rockets fired from Lebanon hit Israel landing outside the city of Kiryat Shmona.

  • HARP

    Bunker busters actually cause less collateral damage than regular bombs. Could it be that the explosions were the result of rockets stored in basements ?

    • don tufts

      exactly,its amazing when secondarys go off they are more than likely more intense than the original bomb strike.people put this in perspective ,thease are pinpoint strikes not area bombing which it would be if the purpose was just to terrorize .think ,look at pictures of rotterdam or london if you really want to see what a terror bomobing from the air looks like.also to the earlier poster that said deep penatration boombs use depleated uranium you are dead wrong.dp is used for sabot gun rounds to penatrate hardened steel tank armor not reinforced concreate.

  • BernieO

    I would like to see a lot more interfaith statements like that made by the religious leaders in France – and I would like to see the media cover these events. I think this would do more to defuse the hatred around the world than anything any government could do. Not that I think that it would work in Gaza.

    Thanks for mentioning the McLaughlin Group. I agree that it is the best discussion on television. I wish they would post their video online. I think the popularity of the show would grow. It would help if more people watched. The show used to be just theatre but I think Bush scared McLaughlin so badly that he has gotten a lot more substantive and objective in recent years.

  • Steve1

    Hey, I hope SOS nominee Clinton will be able to be proactive with her approach to the Palestinian situation. But who would like to live next to Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran, Iraq, Bin Laden, Syria. The list goes on. How would you react with rockets and Human bombings going off when ever. Where you shop, live, on your family and friends. How would you react with so called educated pople talking about qiping you off the face of the earth? Is Hamas a rational group or terrorist? Bid Laden? Let’s just ask the families of the victims of Setp. 11th? Yes, Israel has every right to defend itself-no one else will? Yes, lets find a solution for this problem. Israel has every right to durvive in a safe sane environment. Secretary Clinton, superstar will have her job cut out for her. I pray that effete Barry Soetoro and his corrupt minions don’t hadicap her efforts. That phony one is no friend of Israel’s!

    • Steve1

      people, wiping, Israel……..survive

    • http://baddemocrat08.wordpress.com obamastolemyboyfriend

      I’m starting to fear that these events will soon be coming to a town near you (us)!

  • Steve1

    Secratary Clinton did a super banged-up job with her confirmation hearings! Compare that with Barry Soetoro’s boring speeches in the past few weeks! She shows what a a competent class act really looks like. Barry Soetoro, the Drama Queen with all of his funny associations and his past personal behavior is going to engulf this country in one drama distration after another. Chicago cess pool scandals,will keep Barry very busy! I hope madam Secretary will stay focus and keeps our country safe.
    If she plays her cards right- can we say, prez, 2012!

    • SJ

      Barry does not have the people of the Gaza strip to study at the moment, its party time. All the folks coming in for Hawaii and Africa, we are going to party till 3000, don’t you people know what has happened a black man has become President of the USA, so we have to keep honoring that as if its one of the new wonders of the world.

    • http://baddemocrat08.wordpress.com obamastolemyboyfriend

      Nope. It looks as though the US is planning a President Obama dictatorship:

      http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=hj111-5

  • tek

    I just read that Bin Laden’s ready to enter the fray. Can you say: WWIII?

    • http://baddemocrat08.wordpress.com obamastolemyboyfriend

      As one of my coworkers has been saying, you can just feel something big coming!

  • mountainaires

    The Humiliation of America

    By Paul Craig Roberts

    Israeli politicians have been bragging for decades about the control they exercise over the US government. In his final press conference, President Bush, deluded to the very end, said that the whole world respects America. In fact, when the world looks at America, what it sees is an Israeli colony.

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21755.htm

  • mountainaires

    Anger Begins Knocking at Israel’s Borders

    Mel Frykberg

    http://www.antiwar.com/ips/frykberg.php?articleid=14062

  • mountainaires

    January 12, 2009

    A Message to Barack Obama
    Blowback From a Tragic Error
    By BILL and KATHLEEN CHRISTISON

    Your unwillingness before inauguration to say anything substantive about Gaza in public is in our opinion a tragic error. Specifically, your failure to censure Israel for refusing to accept immediately the U.N.’s ceasefire resolution on Gaza will severely and very rapidly damage the true U.S. national interest of improving our relationships throughout the Islamic world.

    Over the longer run, it will also damage our relationships with much of the rest of the world, which sees us as the financier and enabler of Israeli actions in Gaza that are irrational and immoral and that will, over time, harm Israel’s own long-term interests. Perhaps most important of all, your own actions, or inactions, have encouraged the entire right wing of Israeli politics and that part of the Israel lobby in the U.S. that is dominated by the conservative, elderly (and generally wealthy) leaders of AIPAC.

    These groups – that is, the people who actually determine Israeli policies today – are the ones whom your actions have encouraged to *intensify* current Israeli military activities in Gaza. That makes you personally responsible for any killings of either Palestinians or Israelis that occur between now and your inauguration.

    You might call this the blowback of your own policies toward Israel.

    Sincerely,

    Bill and Kathleen Christison

    http://counterpunch.org/christison01122009.html

    If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality: Bishop Desmond Tutu

  • pieces of you

    And Osama just released another message?

    Why didn’t they just have Jesus send a message via tortilla?

    Both would have the same level of credibilty.

  • http://baddemocrat08.wordpress.com obamastolemyboyfriend

    Don’t fret folks! FOX news just announced that Obama is going to have his own comcast channel. We will be able to watch Obama’s speeches 24/7! Isn’t that exciting? Yep. They are going to play over and over again his speeches from the Keynote speech at the 2004 convention though the present! Oh, the humanity!

    America is dying! Call 911!

    http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=hj111-5

  • Sassy

    Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.
    -St. Francis of Assisi

  • OxyCon

    France should round up all the uncivilized, savage lunatics and airdrop them all into the center of the Arabian desert.
    Otherwise there will never be peace in France as the homicidal maniacs spread their death and de4struction around the globe.

  • mountainaires

    From http://www.antiwar.com [libertarian]:

    Hamas Accepts Ceasefire. Will Israel?

    After thousands dead and thousands seriously maimed and wounded, the truth is finally coming out. Israel has made a huge strategic blunder, slaughtered innocent civilians, and hasn’t wiped out Hamas. In fact, as Larry warned in the very beginning, Hamas has only been strengthened as the defenders of the people. This entire episode, like many others before it, i.e., Lebanon, is utterly depraved, and it is a war crime.

    Top Israeli defense officials say that the military has accomplished all that it possibly could in nearly three weeks of attacks on the Gaza Strip, and they support the idea of ending the operations before the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama next week.

    Foreign Minister and leader of the ruling Kadima Party Tzipi Livni expressed roughly the same sentiment yesterday, saying she thought the attacks should end without any formal agreement. Defense Minister Ehud Barak is openly endorsing the idea of stopping the attacks for a week while ceasefire negotiations continue to allow humanitarian aid into the strip.

    Al-Arabiya is also reporting today that Hamas plans to accept the latest draft of the Egypt-brokered ceasefire agreement, so long as Israel withdraws its forces from the Gaza Strip. They also have scheduled a press conference for later in the day to formalize their position on the deal.

    All this seems to be a recipe for ending the conflict, which has now claimed roughly 1,000 lives and caused enormous humanitarian strife in the Gaza Strip.

    The only apparent obstacle to peace now is Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who last night was reported to be deliberately delaying a cabinet meeting to prevent any talk of a ceasefire and whose aides lashed out at Barak’s “lack of responsibility” in calling for a ceasefire, claiming he was aiding Hamas in doing so. Though wildly unpopular in Israel and having lost control of his own party, Olmert seems intent on keeping the war going as long as he possibly can.

  • mountainaires

    These are War Crimes:

    19 days in, the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip passed another major milestone, with over 1,000 Palestinians killed in the attack. The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which has been tracking the toll, said 673 of those killed were civilians, with 225 children and 69 women. 13 Israelis have also been killed, three of them civilians, though at least four of those soldiers were killed by the Israeli military.

    Red Cross President Jakob Kellenberger described the situation in the Gaza Strip as “shocking” and called for the Israeli military to make more provisions to ensure that ambulances could rescue wounded civilians from the attacks.

    Surveyors say that the attack has done at least $1.4 billion in damage to the infrastructure of the tiny strip. Securing the funds will likely be difficult, particularly in the global economic downturn. So far the United Nations has allocated $7 million (less than $5 per Gazan) to provide for them during this time of emergency.

    Israel ‘shells UN building’
    Thursday, January 15 12:22 pm

    UN Outraged As Its Gaza HQ Is Hit
    Explosion hits media offices in Gaza
    Israel apologises to Ban for hitting U.N. compound

    Witnesses and UN officials said the United Nations Relief and Work Agency building was being used as a shelter for civilians fleeing the bombardment of the Palestinian enclave when it was struck.

    UN spokesman Chris Gunness said: “Our compound in Gaza has now received three hits, reportedly of white phosphorus.

    “Buildings in the compound are on fire, there are loaded fuel tankers nearby. Three people have been injured.

    “It is not clear at this stage if they are UNWRA staff or some of the 700 or so civilians who have taken refuge in our compound.”

    The use of white phosphorous, which causes horrific burns on contact with skin, was banned as a weapon of war in civilian areas under the 1980 Geneva protocol.

    http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090115/r_t_itn_wl/twl-israel-shells-un-building-41f21e0_2.html?printer=1

    • don tufts

      why dont you go and become a hamas spokesperson you would be welcomed with open arms as im shure you have nevr looked at the idf gun camera videos to see your heros fire for example a 81mm morter from next to a school and i mean next to like maybe 3 ft from the building and then running as soon as they have fired a couple of rounds like school kids that have just tp someones house like the cowards they are.

  • http://www.google.com mike

    hMkIKm hi! how you doin?

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