As we approach Yom Kippur, I call on America’s Jews to examine the Goldstone findings, and consider their implications. In the spirit of the season, we must consider the painful truth of Israel’s behavior in Gaza, and understand that we must work, together, to discover the truth — and then urge on all relevant parties in the search for peace.

Every Yom Kippur, we read the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Is such the fast I desire, a day for people to starve their bodies? … No, this is the fast I desire: To unlock the fetters of wickedness and untie the cords of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free.”

Let this be the Yom Kippur on which American Jews choose not just to starve their bodies, but also to unlock the fetters and untie the cords — let this be the Yom Kippur on which we act on the Scriptural imperative to “seek peace and pursue it,” by calling ourselves and Israel to account.

mondoweiss

Can Israeli actions in Gaza be justified on the basis of Jewish scripture?:

Geoffrey Alderman v David Goldberg
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/12/judaism-gaza-israel-halachah

“That’s what the evidence shows,” he said.

Even in Indiana, Doctors Support National Health Insurance

By STEVEN HIGGS

Don’t count Dr. Aaron Carroll among those who were stunned by a Sept. 13 New England Journal of Medicine survey that said American physicians overwhelmingly support national health insurance. A researcher at the Indiana University School of Medicine, Carroll wasn’t surprised because the data confirm studies he published in 2003 and 2008 on the subject of physician attitudes toward reform, work that drew national media attention, including an appearance on The Colbert Report.

In the New England Journal study, 63 percent of the doctors want a mix of public and private insurance plans, and 10 percent want a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system. In the April 1, 2008, edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine, Carroll and Dr. Ronald T. Ackerman, also from IU Med, published a survey that showed “a total of 59 percent supported legislation to establish national health insurance.” Five years earlier, it was 49 percent.

“Those who tell you that doctors are against this or that doctors are really opposed to significant health care reform are not paying attention,” Carroll said from his Indianapolis office during a telephone interview. “The good, carefully gathered evidence on this topic show that doctors really recognize that reform is necessary and are willing to take pretty big steps toward getting a better system.”

***

Full article is a must read for anyone hoping to make an INFORMED decision on this issue:

http://www.counterpunch.org/higgs09242009.html

Replacing one s h i t t y program with another s h i t t y program is no answer.

The abject ignorance is yours, unfortunately. This isn’t about Israel “defending” itself; it’s about Israel getting away with slaughter, military occupation, land theft, and apartheid by invoking the Holocaust to play the victim. It’s the most craven and depraved exploitation of The Holocaust imaginable! No one should support such depravity in the first place; but to support it to defend Jews is truly sick.

Israelis themselves are beginning to reject the lies of Bibi and his ilk. IDF troops told their stories of the war crimes committed during Operation Cast Lead publicly. Some are refusing to serve. Others are fighting back in other ways, and the more the State of Israel tries to maintain its victim status, the more people in Israel and the world are seeing the truth and rejecting Israeli policies.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6851624.ece#

http://original.antiwar.com/neve-gordon/2009/09/27/palestinians-and-israelis-follow-thoreau-but-is-anyone-watching/

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1116923.html

Say what you will of Netanyahu’s speech – personally, I applaud his emphatic and UNAPOLOGETIC assertion that Israel has the right to defend herself. As the democratically elected agent of the Israeli people, Netanyahu exhibited the honor and courage which have sustained the Jewish State for more than six decades. When being on the right side of history comes down to pure, unadulterated facts, Israel need not and will not apologize.

If nothing else, there’s a valuable lesson in this for BO.

http://original.antiwar.com/hacohen/2009/07/19/fascism-needs-an-enemy/

Leading Israeli Scholar Avi Shlaim: Israel Committing “State Terror” in Gaza Attack, Preventing Peace

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/14/leading_israeli_scholar_avi_shlaim_israel

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe

Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state’s legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

Settlements Turned Israel into Apartheid State

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1039411.html

Avi Shlaim: The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (Paperback)

http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Wall-Israel-Arab-World/dp/0393321126

Do you ever count how many hours you’re forced to work as a slave under the current corporate tyranny in health care, only to discover–when its too late–that they won’t cover the care you need when you actually do get sick? They deny claims at a rate of 30% to people who have paid for insurance; that’s a tyranny if ever there was one. So, RATIONING is occurring, while corporate insurance makes profit off of it. That’s slavery.

Don’t be daft. Your costs are going up. Period. Whether we stay in the current system, or whether we change. Obama will create a system even WORSE than the one we’ve got now, and it will cost you more. Single-payer, like the Canadian, British systems of health care, is really the only answer. They pay virtually production costs for medication, we pay 5 times that price, because Big Pharma likes it that way. Get real, we cannot afford to continue providing obscene profits to these corporate suits so we can live under the illusion that we’re not slaves to a “federal tyranny!”

People arguing to continue their own medical misery and slavery so that BIG INSURANCE and BIG PHARMA can make obscene profits is really an amazing thing! They like being slaves to corporate suits, who literally determine whether or not they live or die. It’s mind-boggling.

They like their health care plan, they say. Of course they do. Until of course, they have to use it. Then 30% of the time, their insurance provider will DENY THEIR CLAIMS, and then, of course, it’s too late to come back and change their mind.

And, then, if they lose their job, they have none at all. And, then they discover too late that they can’t afford to buy individual health care insurance. Or they have a condition which precludes them. Or whatever other argument BIG PHARMA and BIG INSURANCE decide to use for their profits.

I have had Government-run health care in my life through the military. I’ve never been rationed, had whatever tests I needed to prevent or detect serious diseases like cancer, and given a choice, I’d take government-run healthcare ANY DAY. We’d save money with a single-payer government run system. The costs might be more, but companies would save money, patients would save money, and the system would not disappear when you lose your job. Big Insurance and Big Pharma would not have control over our lives, which they do–literally–under our current system.

Clearly, you don’t have a grasp of the political history of the Middle East, nor does Ferd, even though he’s been to Dachau.

So, do yourselves a favor and inform yourself. Read Avi Shlaim’s brilliant history, The Iron Wall.

But start informing yourself here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

Don’t be stupid. No one–NOT ONE PERSON–has made any argument defending Hamas. Read Avi Shlaim, an eminent Israeli historian:

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe

Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state’s legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions

Avi Shlaim The Guardian, Wednesday 7 January 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

For everyone who has not read it, I highly recomment Avi Shlaim’s book, The Iron Wall.

Where did you find the information about the firm that raised so much for 0bama.

My source for that was the Atlantic.Com article written June 2008 by Joshua Green, called “The Amazing Money Machine” (subtitled, “How Silicon Valley made Barack 0bama this year’s hottest start-up”). The interviews were conducted in Feb 2008, then published in June 2008.

It is a lengthy piece that is divided into three sections. It is important to read the whole thing. It is favorable toward 0bama, but unwittingly reveals a lot of things like the Pelosi connection to the firm. Here is the link to it – remember there are 3 sections. At the end of the first and second sections you click NEXT to get to them.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/obama-finance

I even believe there was election night fraud in NC. NC is an entrenched red state that went for 0bama. Yes, it has a high AA voter registry, but it also has a powerful republican onslaught every election day. I think it had to do with the Boards of Election and the electronic voting machines. I believe there is a half-hearted investigation about that. Those decks were stacked to the hilt with 0bama zealots.

I know what you mean about not being able to discuss this subject with certain people. Even my liberal daughters who have me to thank for their own baby feminism and being liberal democrats have made some horrendous suggestions as to why their mother did such an about face. Even after taking pains to explain my views, they continue to think I have a loose screw. That is very unsettling.