Interview by: Kourosh Ziabari

The carnage in Gaza and the attacks with white phosphorus weapons will eventually isolate the Zionist regime in the international arena.

In an exclusive interview, American journalist Hannah Mermelstein condemned the Israeli atrocities and called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza to allow humanitarian assistance to enter the Strip.

She is the co-founder and co-director of Birthright Unplugged Association, which takes mostly Jewish North American people into the West Bank to meet with Palestinian people and to equip them for returning to their own communities and work for justice; moreover, it takes Palestinian children from refugee camps to Al-Quds, the sea, and the villages their grandparents fled in 1948, and supports them to document their experiences and create photography exhibitions to share it with their communities and with the world.

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Peter Chamberlin

In the closing days of the Bush disaster Israel is moving to consolidate gains it has made over the past eight years toward its ultimate goals of "Greater Israel" and the Zionist-dominated new world order. The urgency of the hour for Israel can be seen in the open display of Jewish/Israeli political muscle-flexing in Washington. The normally invisible Israeli hand around America's throat has been clearly visible lately, as America moved to take four specific actions on Israel's behalf which will probably prove to be harmful to America's interests, forcing a major expansion of the war on terror.

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Mickey Z.

“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
- Matthew 16:26

I wasn’t supposed to be born. After my mother gave birth to my sister, the doctors told her she’d never have another child. They couldn’t say exactly why (later, she was diagnosed with endometriosis) but they were pretty damn certain…the way doctors tend to be pretty damn certain. Wisely, my mother ignored such white coat condescension and less than two years later, yours truly arrived on the scene. Mom called me her “miracle baby” and I think this played a role in the amazingly close relationship we always had.

In the U2 song “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own,” Bono warbles: “That’s all right, we’re the same soul.” This simple line have given me the poetic license to imagine that my mother defied the medical odds by choosing to “share her soul” (so to speak) with me. This selfless act is what made it possible for me to be born and for us to have been such good friends.

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MIFTAH

Israel’s assault on Gaza entered its third week today, January 17, as the death toll reached a staggering 1,200 dead. Amongst the dead, 410 were children, while some 5,300 Palestinians have been wounded. The Israeli death toll remains at 13, ten of whom were soldiers.

More fears were raised this week regarding Israel’s use of chemical weapons in Gaza. As of now, Israel has neither confirmed nor denied it is using phosphorus shells. However, on January 13, the Palestinian Network of Non Governmental Organizations (PNGO) demanded an urgent international investigation into allegations that Israel used internationally prohibited weapons against Palestinians in Gaza. Based on the reports of Palestinian and foreign doctors working in Gaza hospitals, PNGO has concluded that new Israeli weapons are causing burns that can reach to the bones of the victims. PNGO also said that another type of unidentified weapon fires smoke and noxious gases that cause breathing difficulties, particularly in children. Just days later, on January 15, Chris Gunness, an UNRWA official in Gaza, claimed that Israeli jets had fired unknown chemical weapons on an UNRWA compound in Gaza. Three Palestinians were injured. At the time, about 700 displaced Palestinians were inside the building when it was targeted by Israel's air force. Gunness explained, “[The chemical compound] looks like phosphorus, it smells like phosphorus and it burns like phosphorus.” The UN building continued to burn into the late afternoon. “I don’t know why they [Israel] would do this,” Gunness continued. “We had guarantees.”

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Eva Bartlett

Where a family's home once stood.

Seven minutes

When I'd met the extended Abed Rabu family, before the ground invasion began, they had just had their house bombed by an F-16. Their area has been occupied by Israeli tanks and soldiers since the ground invasion began. Medical workers cannot reach the injured there, and those who have managed to escape testify to imprisonment in their houses, abuse, point-blank shooting (to death), and a number of dead not yet known. It's an area Israel views as strategic, lying just hundreds of meters from the eastern border to Israel, a key entry point for invading troops. Past invasions have meant entire families and neighbors being locked into a room of a house for a day or days. Supposition among journalists and those with two cents here is that Israel's intense bombardment of, and destruction of houses in, the area is to both decimate any resistance and to create an alternate "road" for tanks and troops to roll in on, meaning houses in their path are leveled to the ground.

That day, Abu Mahmoud Abed Rabu had related the events of his house demolition. "A person called me saying he was a spokesperson for the Israeli army and that we had seven minutes to leave the house before it was bombed. I begged for 10, told him seven wasn't enough to collect possessions and get our children out safely. He said seven," Abed Rabu explained. His family made it out in time, avoiding the death sentence that has been given so many here, without warning.

He said he'd just stood away from the house and watched as it was bombed, watched 20 years of his life be erased, with everything inside it. "I'm just a working man, not Fatah, not Hamas. Just a man. Why did they bomb my house?" he asked. "There were four families in here, at least 25 children," he added.

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Roland Michel Tremblay

Beyond you, a whole word needs to be saved. We are at war. This war is illegal. Our leaders are being prosecuted for war crimes against humanity. This genocide has been accomplished by soldiers who were following orders. It has screwed their mind up, they can no longer live with their own conscience. So, when they decided they had enough of killing people and faced being killed for no reasonable justification, and that they simply walked away and decided to face either the electric chair or a seven year hard labor sentence, we have to consider them the real heroes of this war. We need to give them amnesty. We would have done the same, just to be able to live with our own conscience.

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Stephen Lendman

In his January 8 article, "Gaza Under Fire," John Pilger quotes the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko saying: "When the truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie." America's dominant media suppress facts, sacrifice accuracy, and conceal the greater lie that:

-- all Israeli aggression is collaboratively planned months in advance with Washington;

-- American aid makes it possible - billions of dollars annually, the latest weapons and technology, and Security Council vetoes to assure no anti-Israeli resolutions with teeth are passed;

-- six months of preparation preceded Israel's terror bombings followed by invasion, occupation, and repeated war crimes on the ground;

-- Hamas "rockets" were pretext (not cause) to abet Israel's overall strategy - with initial measures planned years ago and implemented in steps; Gaza 2008 - 09 is the latest with much more to come unless stopped;

-- grievous international law violations are being willfully committed;

-- innocent men, women and children are slaughtered;

-- civilians and legitimate resistance are called "terrorists;"

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Link: http://detainthis.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/ap-is-lying-to-push-for-war-on-iran-again/

Imagine that a world leader was quoted as publicly saying: "Judging from recent trends, the neocon regime is not likely to survive in this region."

Now, imagine that a major news organization published a report based on that statement. What do you suppose the headline would say?

A) World leader: Neocon regime survival not feasible
-or-
B) World leader: Not feasible for US to exist

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Martin Fletcher article-interview Najwa Sheikh Ahmed Times in London

Najwa Sheikh Ahmed, 36, lives in the Gaza Strip with her husband Taher, and their four young children - Mustafa, 8, Ahmed, 7, Salma 2 and Mohammed, five months. Here she talks about her family's daily battle for survival in Nusierat Camp:

Day 19 of the Israeli war against Gaza, and it seems like life has stopped. We can't go to work.

Our children can't go to school. It's not safe to go to the markets. Nothing is normal any more. All the time we hear the Israel war machine. There are always F16s and Apache helicopters in the sky... Each night we go to sleep not knowing if we will see tomorrow.

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Mike Cowie

Yes, ‘n’ how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, ‘n’ how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn’t see?
--Bob Dylan, “Blowin’ In The Wind”

What’s going on in Gaza right now is so incredibly tragic and unjust, not to mention unbelievably brutal and barbaric.

But I’m not here to discuss how it is we came to this horrific situation. No, that has been written about much more eloquently by others, people such as Avi Shlaim, an Oxford professor of international relations and an Israeli himself. I’d strongly recommend that everyone read his recent piece, “How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe.” It’s a definite must-read for anyone wanting to really understand this conflict and the whole long, sordid tale of Israel’s brutal treatment of the Palestinian people.

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