- Canada should call on Israel to immediately end its military attack on Gaza;
- Canada should demand that Israel release the members of the Palestinian Authority whom it has illegally arrested;
- Canada's vote against the resolution condemning the Israeli attacks, adopted by the U.N. Council on Human Rights in Geneva, is disgraceful, and does not reflect Canadian opinion;
- Canada bears responsibility, as the first country to cut off funding for the Palestinian National Authority, thus helping to create a humanitarian disaster;
- Canada should call for the end of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (illegally occupied since 1967 and continued against all UN resolutions).
Minister, please see to it that our country's voting pattern at the UN is aligned with the wishes of the Canadian people. Please take a stand on Canada's behalf against Israel's unbridled violence.
Yours sincerely,
Eleanor Grant
Waterloo, Ontario
cc Prime Minister Harper
cc foreign affairs critics Stephane Dion, Francine Lalonde, Alexa McDonough
cc Andrew Telegdi (my MP)
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on July 11, 2006]
Note: www.acp-cpa.ca
Canada Should Oppose Israeli Attack On Gaza
Posted on Tuesday, July 11 at 09:01 by EleanorContributed By
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"I think it's important to always carry enough technology to restart civilization, should it be necessary." Mark Tilden
<a href="http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0%2C5478%2C19739185%5E1702%2C00.html">http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0%2C5478%2C19739185%5E1702%2C00.html</a> <br />
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41 dead as Israel pounds Gaza<br />
From correspondents in Gaza City<br />
10jul06<br />
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ISRAEL pounded Gaza with fresh air strikes today as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed the massive operation will go on - despite so far failing to win the release of a soldier seized two weeks ago.<br />
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Forty-one Palestinians and an Israeli soldier have been killed since Israel launched its operation last Thursday, pouring tanks and troops into the Gaza Strip and moving into land evacuated in September after a 38-year occupation. <br />
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This afternoon (local time), one bystander was killed and seven Palestinians wounded when an Israeli aircraft fired two rockets at a car carrying three members of the armed wing of the ruling Hamas party, near the town of Rafah<p>---<br>The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.... : Albert Einstein
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"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
(Albert Einstein)
Let's see. Israel is the fourth largest military power in the world. They have nuclear weapons, tanks, and a full powered military. What do the Palestinians have? Rocks, homemade rockets, and guns.
The Palestinians have the right under the Geneva conventions to resist any occupation and that is what they are doing.
Let us not forget what precipitated this lates round. The Israeli shelling of a beach which killed innocent civilians.
But we should now add Lebanon to the mix too! Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, Hizballah - Oh my!
Hopefully Kofi Annan can give us all some much needed moral clarity.
Speaking of the “beach shelling”, isn’t it interesting how that all played out? I think so.
The Israelis investigated and determined that in this case, based on timing and the nature of the shrapnel found in the bodies, they did not die from an Israeli missile. They believe that what exploded were buried military ordnance.
Israel certainly acknowledged firing missiles at Qassam missile launchers. After all, since Israel pulled out of Gaza last summer, it has been used as a launching area for about 800 missiles into Israel, more than two a day. The Palestinians did what they have been doing for years. They fire missiles at Israel from behind human shields, looking for the opportunity to make the world believe that Israel is targeting innocent civilians.
The Western media eagerly accepted the Palestinian version of the story, and trumpeted the charges. The New York Times ran a front-page photo of the young grieving girl, said to have lost five siblings, her step-mother and her father. The Times said that it was caused "apparently by an errant Israeli shell," and that this marked the end of a 16-month truce. CNN said that Hamas was attacking Israel with rockets, in retaliation for a series of Israeli attacks, including "an artillery shell blast that killed at least seven Palestinians picnicking on a Northern Gaza beach…" CBS News made similar charges. The media couldn't contain their outrage, even before they really knew what had happened. Rather than wait for the facts, they blamed Israel.
The story, however, is suspect for a number of reasons. People should view for themselves the 92-second video allegedly showing the aftermath of the people being killed on the beach. It can be viewed at ogrish.com, a website known for showing very graphic videos. In an excellent analysis of the content of the video on his website Media Cleansing (scroll down to the June 19th entry and read from there), journalist and author Peter Brock points out a number of serious questions about the video.
First, it was shot by a group called Ramattan Studio. They also provided the still photo of the girl on the beach. That photo carried a credit to Ramattan Studio/Associated Press. So who is Ramattan and what is their relationship with AP? Ramattan is a video production company that shoots video, takes pictures, and provides them to various news agencies, including AP, CNN, NPR and virtually every major broadcast media organization in the world. But Ramattan is also admittedly the eyes and ears for the Palestinian cause. The founder of the company is Qassem Ali, who had been detained by the Israelis for three years for his support of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
According to Brock, the young girl's "mother or stepmother being lugged off to a pair of waiting ambulances. Although parked in the sand they ran their sirens throughout the entire video, making it almost impossible to hear the excited words being shouted by over-acting 'rescuers.' No identifiable medical personnel or any police are at the scene. One of the smaller children appears to be fatally burned, arms dangling loosely as it is carried off, attesting to the recentness of some kind of fatal explosion. The Ramattan cameraman peculiarly delays shooting the scene until running up to begin filming just a few feet away from the scattered bodies and other scattered items. One man gestures for him to get closer."
A German newspaper examined the footage and expressed doubt that this was caused by Israel firing a rocket, and said that it was possible that the event was staged.
Even U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan seems to be questioning the tendency to blame Israel in this case. According to Peter Brock of Media Cleansing, Annan said that he "considered the IDF's findings almost a week after the fatal beach explosion 'strange.' But Annan's spokesman was quick to point out that Annan had no plans to mobilize an international investigation urged by Human Rights Watch." Brock says that Annan "was well-experienced in practicing patience before condemning perpetrators of high-profile crimes that eventually proved to be orchestrated by Muslims against Muslim victims, strategizing for gullible media during crucial military or diplomatic maneuvers." He was referring to the May 1992 "breadline massacre" in the Bosnian capital along with the back-to-back Sarajevo marketplace slaughters in 1994, which were initially blamed on the Serbs but were determined to have been engineered by Muslim Bosnian troops.
Marc Garlasco, who was trotted out to condemn Israel in the Gaza case, is said to be a "battle damage expert" with Human Rights Watch. But he has a bias and seems to have some doubts about who is really to blame. Garlasco said that it was "impossible to rule out the possibility that militants had rigged an Israeli shell into an improvised bomb…" That possibility looks increasingly likely.
On Iraq, however, Garlasco has already made up his mind about alleged human rights violations committed by U.S. troops. He said, for example, that "What happened at Haditha appears to be outright murder," referring to the incident still under investigation in which 24 Iraqis were killed following an IED explosion that brutally killed a U.S. Marine. "The Haditha massacre will go down as Iraq's My Lai," he said, referring to the atrocity in the Vietnam War in which Vietnamese civilians were killed.
Regarding the Gaza deaths, this is far from the first time the media have been quick to assume Israel's guilt before knowing the facts. It happened in Jenin, the site of an alleged massacre by Israel of more than 5,000 Palestinians, which later turned out to be more like 50, again in a situation where Israel was forced to defend its people. In another incident, a young man named Mohammad Dura was said to have been shot by the Israeli military, but it was later proven that he was shot by another Palestinian.
Blame everyone but the Palestinians, that’s what I always say!
Where is the outrage for the 9 innocent Israeli folks who were murdered by a Palistenian suicide bomber while eating lunch at a falaffal shop back in what...May? You know, the one Hamas said was a legitimate action?
Back to the Beach Blast...
Doctors from Israeli hospitals report that they received the two victims from the Gaza Beach explosion in strange condition: all the shrapnel had been removed from their bodies in procedures that were neither called for, nor good for the patients.
Niham suffered serious damage to her abdomen and upper limbs, with cuts all over her body as a result of the surgical intervention performed on her at Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
Strengthening claims that the IDF was not responsible for the explosion, the Tel Aviv hospital said that no shrapnel was found in her body, except for one piece that was not reachable by surgery and would have to be left there. The damage to her body was “without doubt” caused by shrapnel.
Ichilov hospital did not accuse Shifa Hospital in Gaza of directly of removing shrapnel for no medical reason, but it said that it had never received a patient who was in an explosion with all the shrapnel removed (except for one unreachable piece).
“This is surprising and raises questions” about the care she received in Shifa, the Ichilov spokeswoman said. Asked whether Ichilov surgeons had contacted Shifa doctors who treated the patient to ask the reason for the incisions to remove shrapnel, the spokeswoman said: “We are not in such close contact with Shifa. We received the medical report on the patient, and that’s all.”
Similar reports came from Sourasky Medical Center where a member of the Ghalia family, Ahyam, was sent.
The only reason I can think of for such invasive and unnecessary procedures is to remove incriminating evidence. In other words the doctors working at Shifa hospital were afraid that the explosion was of Palestinian origin, and in order to cover-up, they removed the shrapnel. The presence of one piece of shrapnel they could not reach and that the Israelis could remove without danger to the patient reveals precisly that. Now, according to the IDF, the second piece of shrapnel is also not of Israeli origin.
An additional piece of shrapnel was removed during surgery on Adham Ralya on Wednesday, June 14, and was sent for initial analysis by the IDF Technology Unit. “Examination of the second piece of shrapnel,” said Major General Kalifi, “proves conclusively that this was not a 155-mm shell. As also has been demonstrated by the first piece of shrapnel, based on analysis of the composition and content of the shrapnel, and of course on examination of the explosive compounds found on the second piece, evidence of 155-mm shells was clearly absent.”
Free Palestine!
Allah is the most deceitful in Sura 3:54 and in Sura 30:8
In sura 10:21 Allah is referred to be the fastest in deceit
Another reference to the deceit of Allah: 7:99
and (they) Deceived and Allah Deceived and Allah is the deceivest of deceivers (Sura 3:54)
Also, thought it might have been Sun Tzu.
It certainly isn't an original though.
Free lapdances!
I guess CSIS's motto is 'We're in the Yellow Pages under 'Spooks''
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"I think it's important to always carry enough technology to restart civilization, should it be necessary." Mark Tilden
<br />
The Times Online is reporting today that Israel is admitting their version of the events on the beach is flawed.<br />
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<a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-2230076_2,00.html">http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-2230076_2,00.html</a>