August 2014 Archives
Israel announced Sunday it will expropriate 400 hectares (988 acres) of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, angering the Palestinians and alarming Israeli peace campaigners.
The move to seize the land, in the Bethlehem area in the south of the territory, is the biggest of its kind in three decades...
Unlike the American media perception of US foreign policy goofily stumbling from one good-intentioned mishap to the next, the average person in the Middle East views the American military as a sociopathic power hell-bent on annihilation...
The U.S. has opposed Islamists in all eight of the turbulent lands stretching from Libya to Pakistan, yet has not managed to forge a solution in any of them. Are U.S. policies the problem, or is the region's upheaval beyond the reach of any outside power?
Credit: Alyson Hurt/NPR
Nobody disputes the brutality and extremism of ISIS, but that is a completely different question from whether the U.S. should take military action against it. To begin with, the U.S. not only ignores, but actively supports, all sorts of brutal and extreme parties in the region...
Update: Missouri Governor Jay Nixon's deployment of the National Guard to occupy Ferguson is as illegal as it is provocative. From Oscar Grant to Michael Brown - the murder of our youth must STOP. Bring your signs, sounds, banners, outrage and your love for the heroic people who have refused to subside in silence.
TWO LOCATIONS: Monday August 18, 4:00 PM onward Downtown OAKLAND Oscar Grant Plaza (formerly known as Frank Ogawa Plaza) 14th and Broadway SAN FRANCISCO Powell and Market
Today in Ferguson right after 18-year-old Michael Brown's memorial service, the people marched again. Ever since the day Michael was murdered by a Ferguson cop, the people have refused to stop protesting and resisting. They have turned the eyes of the world to this police murder and their demand for justice. And with the whole world watching, the protesters have been violently assaulted by a military-style police force that makes Ferguson look like a war zone, time after time -- but the people in Ferguson keep holding their heads high, and they keep resisting. | ||
On Saturday August 16, several thousand protesters marched into the Port of Oakland toward the berth where a weekly Israeli cargo ship docks to offload its goods. The weekly docking of a Zim Lines cargo ship at the Oakland port was the focus (Zim Integrated Shipping Services is the Israeli international maritime shipping line). A community picket line at its berth was called for 5 AM Saturday, to meet the longshoremen arriving for the day shift to offload its cargo. Billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Israel have failed to quash the sovereignty of the Palestinian state.
"U.S. complicity with Israel's action extends beyond the provision of military assistance. The U.S. has refused to take any action to halt Israel's war crimes and has blocked efforts in the UN to condemn them. The U.S. was also the sole country in the UN Human Rights Council to vote against an international investigation into Israel's actions as it is well aware that the investigation will reveal that war crimes are being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza." -- Diana Buttu, human rights attorney, Ramallah-based analyst, and former advisor to Mahmoud Abbas
Palestinians look at destroyed houses after returning to the Shejaia neighbourhood, which witnesses said was heavily hit by Israeli shelling and air strikes during the Israeli offensive, in the east of Gaza City August 5, 2014. Photo by Mohammed Salem, Reuters.
Since July 7, Israel has
killed at least 1822 Palestinians in Gaza, including at least 377 children. Approximately
9400 others have been injured.
On Sunday (August 3), an
Israeli missile strike outside of a United Nations school in Rafah in southern
Gaza killed at least 10 civilians, including at least one child, and wounded
dozens of others. Condemning the attack, UN officials said that they had
informed the Israeli military of the exact GPS coordinates of the school, where
approximately 3000 Palestinians were taking shelter, 33 times in an attempt to
prevent it from being bombed, the final time just an hour before the attack. UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the Israeli attack a "moral outrage and a
criminal act," while a US State Department spokesperson declared "the United
States is appalled by today's disgraceful shelling," adding, "The
suspicion that militants are operating nearby does not justify strikes that put
at risk the lives of so many innocent civilians." The incident was the third time
an Israeli attack killed civilians taking refuge in a UN school in 10 days.
Approximately 30 people were killed in the two previous incidents. It was the
seventh time a UN shelter has been hit by Israeli fire during the current
assault.
Also on Sunday, 10 members of
the al-Ghoul family, including three children and two women, were killed, and
20 others injured by an Israeli missile attack on their home in Rafah. The dead
included a baby who was less then three weeks old.
Also on Sunday, eight members
of the Najim family were killed, and 30 others wounded, by an airstrike on a
home in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. The victims had returned to
Jabalia after the Israeli army announced on Saturday that residents of northern
Gaza could go back to their homes. The dead included Bilal Abd al-Karim Najim,
Abd al-Karim Najim, Ahmad Abd al-Karim Najim, Raghad Najim, and Suha Najim.
According to the August 3 UN
daily Gaza emergency report: "Gaza's medical services and facilities are
nearing collapse, with hospitals and clinics overwhelmed. Critical supplies of
medicines and disposables are almost depleted and the destruction of power
supplies has left hospitals dependent on unreliable back-up generators. The
status of hospitals and medical facilities as protected objects under
international law continues to be violated with more attacks reported since the
last situation update." According to medical officials in Gaza, cases of viral
meningitis have increased from five to 53 per day, while Israeli attacks are preventing
the collection of decomposing bodies, posing a significant health risk.
