A slow genocide

In Hebron, where 600 Uzi-toting Jewish settlers live among 240,000 Palestinians, 85% of the water is diverted to the few Jewish settlers. The remainder is rationed among Palestinians.

The reality is a cruel contrast between a people with swimming pools amidst green lawns and a people who must share bathing water.

Israel: a Middle East superpower

Did you know Gaza is a giant prison and the Israelis are still the jailers?
The U.S. provides Israel with the money and military financing that makes occupation possible. Because of access to American technology and financial support:

Israel has the world's sixth largest military.
Israel has become the third largest arms producer in the world*.
Israel is the world's fourth largest nuclear power.

Israel produces 12% of the world's arms. And it sells to countries few other want to associate with: Apartheid-era South Africa (where it trained the notorious security forces and helped develop the regime's nuclear program), Mobutu's Zaire, Liberia under Charles Taylor, the Burmese generals, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Honduras and Guatemala under their military dictatorships, the corrupt and brutal regimes of Central Asia and Rwanda, where it sold small arms to the Hutu before and during the genocide, then, without interruption, to the Tutsis immediately afterwards. [ED. Israeli arms merchants are now in Sudan as the Darfur genocide unfolds.] +

Your Tax Dollars at Work

Merry Christmas Israel! Here's a $600 million Xmas bonus!
While cutting back on social programs that help U.S. citizens, Uncle Sam is not a total Scrooge this holiday season. In addition to gifts for the super rich of the good 'ole USA, Israel is also receiving a Xmas bonus. [+].
ED. Earlier this year, Israel handed the U.S. a $2.2 billion bill for the Gaza redeployment (see News archives). Is this the first installment?

Poverty and Occupation

Did you know 81% of the 1.3 million people in the Gaza Strip live below the poverty line and that it is ranked the second poorest place on Earth?

As the occupying power, Israel is responsible for the well-being of this hostage population.

Source: nationmaster.com

"Don't Bomb Us!

A Blog by Al Jazeera Staffers: Sabbah has just posted that Al Jazeera staff members decided to start a new blog to give voice to a lot of concern around the office regarding what is going on (recent leaked memo revealed that, in 2004, Blair stopped Bush from bombing AlJazeera's offices in Qatar; U.S. has bombed AJ in Afghanitan and in Baghdad by "mistake") and will also serve as a tribute to fallen journalists.

They have also started a Flicker album!

Scowcroft on Gaza Disengagement: "Terrible news" -
Bush "wrapped around the little finger" of Israel's PM Ariel Sharon

Former National Security Adviser to Ford and George H.W. Bush and mentor to Condoleeza Rice, Brent Scowcroft talks of his last meeting with Rice:

"We were having dinner just when Sharon said he was going to pull out of Gaza," at the end of 2003. "She said, 'At least there's some good news,' and I said, 'That's terrible news.' She said, 'What do you mean?' And I said that for Sharon this is not the first move, this is the last move. He's getting out of Gaza because he can't sustain eight thousand settlers with half his Army protecting them. Then, when he's out, he will have an Israel that he can control and a Palestinian state atomized enough that it can't be a problem." Scowcroft added, "We had a terrible fight on that."

Unlike the current Bush Administration, which is unambiguously pro-Israel, Scowcroft, James Baker, and others associated with the elder George Bush believe that Israel's settlement policies arouse Arab anger.... article

Even more shockingly, Republican elder statesman, Gen Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to Bush's father, accused Bush Jr. of being "wrapped around the little finger" of Israel's PM Ariel Sharon.

Scowcroft has finally said aloud what no one in official Washington or the media dared to utter. His accusation helps explain much about the Bush AdministrationÍs foreign policies and why they seem so often to damage rather than promote US interests. article

Abbas and the Lame Duck

The long campaign for the elimination of [Palestinian President] Mahmoud Abbas is entering its final phase.

Much to the regret of Sharon & Co., Abbas cannot be "eliminated" the usual way, as were Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and many other Palestinian leaders. In the case of Abbas, it is not even allowed to use the word "elimination" - an official term of the Israeli army, taken straight from the Mafia lexicon. more

Children living under occupation - how do they cope?

"I want to tell the world that we are living in hard conditions under Israeli occupation... the schools are closed and pupils had to stay at home. We can't study and if we want to, the explosions that are often heard, the bombing, the noise of tanks prevent us to do so." more