Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Today, the official ceremony ushering in Barack H. Obama II as the new president of the United States took place at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.. A 21-gun salute, as well as the playing of four ruffles and flourishes and "Hail to the Chief", marked the moment he assumed power from his predecessor, George W. Bush.
President Barack Obama being sworn in at the inauguration
Bush's second term as President of the United States, which began on January 20, 2005, expired with the swearing-in of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, at noon EST (UTC-5), under the provisions of the Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Bush performed his final official act this morning, welcoming Barack Obama and Michelle to the White House for coffee before the swearing-in, shortly before 10am EST, and then accompanied them there by motorcade to attend the ceremony. Last week, Bush had made his farewells to the nation in a televised address, saying that the inauguration turns a page in race relations. "Obama's story — his black father was from Kenya, his white mother from Kansas — represents "the enduring promise of our land," said Bush.
Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday called on Obama to seek "understanding, co-operation and peace" among nations. "I offer cordial good wishes, together with the assurance of my prayers that Almighty God will grant you unfailing wisdom and strength in the exercise of your high responsibilities," the Pontiff said.
[edit] Oaths of office
The National Mall gates at the inaugural ceremony opened early, with official introductions beginning around 11:30am EST. On the west front lawn of the U.S. Capitol, Senator Dianne Feinstein provided the call to order and welcoming remarks, shortly after followed by invocation by the Rev. Rick Warren and a musical performance by Aretha Franklin.
Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden, Jr., a Democrat, who was elected Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, took his oath of office, succeeding Dick Cheney. Biden took his oath at 11:57am EST from Associate Justice John Paul Stevens.
U.S. service members prepare for the 56th United States presidential inauguration rehearsal in the west steps of the United States Capitol Washington, D.C., Jan. 11, 2009.Image: Master Sgt. Cecilio Ricardo, U.S. Air Force.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Glover Roberts, Jr. then administered the oath of office to Obama, under Article II, Section 1, Clause 8. "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God," Obama swore, using the 1861 President Lincoln Inaugural Bible.
First Lady Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama and daughters Malia Ann and Sasha, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi were among the record-setting crowd of over 2 million people, including more than a million people that filled the National Mall. Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in a wheelchair, having pulled a muscle in his back while moving, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
Obama has decided to follow tradition and use his full name, including his middle name Hussein, regardless of its past and present use by detractors as an effort to slander his image. The advanced scheduled program stated that the inaugural address was to be delivered by "the President of the United States, The Honorable Barack H. Obama."
[edit] Obama's inaugural address
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Obama succeeds Bush as 44th president of the United States
The President delivered his inaugural address in front of Capitol Hill with the theme "A New Birth of Freedom," commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, said Feinstein.
Obama focused on the restoration of public confidence and personal "responsibility," reassuring recession-weary Americans they can rebound from hard times. He conveyed to the world his desire to fix a battered U.S. image overseas. He asked the nation to reject the "culture of anything goes" and to restore a national value system that honors responsibility and accountability. Elizabeth Alexander recited a poem, followed by the benediction by Rev. Joseph E. Lowery. The National Anthem was thereafter played by The United States Navy Band "Sea Chanters."
Over 200 million viewers worldwide had watched inauguration videos and live streams provided online by a number of news organizations and online video broadcasting companies over the internet. The event was also available live to select iPhone users.
After the ceremony
Obama's presidential limousine, a 2009 Cadillac
Following his speech, President Obama escorted former President George W. Bush at 12:53pm EST as they left for a departure ceremony. Bush drove off, ending his 8 years as president, with Obama waving goodbye from the courtyard of the US Capitol.
At 2:35pm EST in the Capitol's Statuary Hall, at the inaugural luncheon attended by Obama, it is reported that Ted Kennedy had a stroke. Paramedics arrived and took the senator to a hospital.
A parade extended for over two hours in the afternoon. It included 15,000 people, 240 horses, dozens of marching bands, two drum and bugle corps, and one mariachi band from Espanola, New Mexico.
Just after 4pm EST, Obama and his wife joined the celebrating crowds on Pennsylvania Avenue. After a short time waving to the masses, they returned to the Presidential Limousine, a 2009 Cadillac, which transported them to the White House. The First Limo has replaced President Bush’s Cadillac DTS Presidential Limousine that rolled out in 2004.
Mr and Mrs Obama plan to attend a total of ten official inaugural balls, including the Neighbourhood Ball, the Obama Home States (Illinois and Hawaii) Ball, the Biden Home States (Pennsylvania and Delaware) Ball and the Youth Ball. American R&B singer-songwriter Beyonce has been planned to perform the first dance song. The Obamas will return to the White House, their new home, following the last ball.
Thursday 22 January 2009
Jerusalem: next page plse...
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama pledged on Wednesday to pursue Middle East peace, telephoning Israeli and Palestinian leaders after Israel completed a troop withdrawal from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
In a call to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Obama reiterated that he and his administration would work to achieve Middle East peace, a Palestinian official said.
Palestinian leaders later said they would only resume peace talks with Israel if the Jewish state commits to a comprehensive freezing of all settlement activity and undertakes to give up all occupied land captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
A statement from Olmert's office said the prime minister updated Obama on the situation in the Gaza Strip and added that he hoped efforts by Israel, Egypt, the U.S. and European countries to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza would succeed.
The statement added that Olmert undertook that "Israel would invest in efforts to provide for the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip and would work to improve the economic situation in the West Bank."
In Washington, the White House said Obama had also spoken to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah and that the U.S. president would actively engage in peace efforts.
"He used this opportunity on his first day in office to communicate his commitment to active engagement in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace from the beginning of his term, and to express his hope for their continued cooperation and leadership," spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.
Israel left the Gaza Strip devastated by its 22-day offensive. It completed its pullout earlier on Wednesday.
"We've redeployed on our side of the frontier and we will follow events closely," said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Olmert. "If Hamas breaks the ceasefire, we of course reserve the right to act to protect our people."
PRESSURE
Under international pressure to end the deadliest Israeli-Palestinian fighting in decades, Israel and Hamas declared separate ceasefires on Sunday, opening the way for more aid to be brought into the rubble-strewn enclave where thousands are homeless.
Reconstruction, if it can be launched in light of the West shunning Hamas as a "terrorist" group, may cost close to $2 billion, according to Palestinian and international estimates.
Diplomatic efforts led by Egypt were focusing on reaching a long-term Israel-Hamas truce deal, far short of an accord on Palestinian statehood sought by the United States and other international peace brokers.
Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said in Damascus that Israel had failed to achieve its goals in Gaza.
"This battle has proved that force alone will not provide security for the Zionist entity (Israel)," Meshaal said.
He said that Arab countries seeking to help rebuild Gaza should donate money to the group's leader in the territory, Ismail Hanieyh, whom he described as the head of the legitimate Palestinian government, shunning Abbas's Fatah administration which holds sway in the occupied West Bank.
Israel's attacks in an offensive it began on December 27 killed some 1,300 Palestinians. Gaza medical officials said the Palestinian dead included at least 700 civilians.
Israel said hundreds of militants died and that it dealt Hamas a strong blow that had boosted the Jewish state's power of deterrence and drawn international pledges to help prevent the Islamist group from replenishing its rocket arsenal.
Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians, hit by cross-border rocket fire, were killed in the conflict.
Israel's Haaretz daily, reporting what it said were details of an army probe into its soldiers' use of white-phosphorous shells, said 200 were fired in the fighting, including 20 in a built-up area in the northern Gaza Strip.
Two Palestinian children were killed and 14 people suffered severe burns on January 17 when Israeli shells landed in a U.N.-run school in the northern Beit Lahiya area, medical officials said.
TROOP WITHDRAWAL
Calling the troop withdrawal a "victory for Palestinian resistance," Hamas demanded a lifting of the blockade Israel tightened on the Gaza Strip after the Islamist group seized control of the territory from the Fatah movement in 2007.
Israel said at the start of the military campaign it never intended for its army, which quit the Gaza Strip in 2005 after 38 years of occupation, to remain there permanently.
Most Israeli forces pulled out before Obama was sworn in on Tuesday, in a move analysts saw as an attempt to avoid any early tensions with his administration.
Looking to reconstruction efforts, Israel has told the United Nations and aid groups they must apply for project-by-project approval and provide guarantees none of the work will benefit Hamas, Western and Palestinian officials said.
Israel, the officials said, is also preventing the Western-backed Palestinian Authority from transferring cash to the Gaza Strip to pay its workers and others hard-hit by war.
The restrictions threatened to undercut the ability of Abbas's government to reassert a presence in the enclave.
Hamas officials and an Israeli envoy planned to meet separately with Egyptian mediators in Cairo on Thursday to discuss ways to make the ceasefire "durable" and a reopening of border crossings, an official close to the talks said.
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Doug Hamilton in Gaza, Adam Entous in Jerusalem and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Editing by Charles Dick)
In a call to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Obama reiterated that he and his administration would work to achieve Middle East peace, a Palestinian official said.
Palestinian leaders later said they would only resume peace talks with Israel if the Jewish state commits to a comprehensive freezing of all settlement activity and undertakes to give up all occupied land captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
A statement from Olmert's office said the prime minister updated Obama on the situation in the Gaza Strip and added that he hoped efforts by Israel, Egypt, the U.S. and European countries to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza would succeed.
The statement added that Olmert undertook that "Israel would invest in efforts to provide for the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip and would work to improve the economic situation in the West Bank."
In Washington, the White House said Obama had also spoken to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah and that the U.S. president would actively engage in peace efforts.
"He used this opportunity on his first day in office to communicate his commitment to active engagement in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace from the beginning of his term, and to express his hope for their continued cooperation and leadership," spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.
Israel left the Gaza Strip devastated by its 22-day offensive. It completed its pullout earlier on Wednesday.
"We've redeployed on our side of the frontier and we will follow events closely," said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Olmert. "If Hamas breaks the ceasefire, we of course reserve the right to act to protect our people."
PRESSURE
Under international pressure to end the deadliest Israeli-Palestinian fighting in decades, Israel and Hamas declared separate ceasefires on Sunday, opening the way for more aid to be brought into the rubble-strewn enclave where thousands are homeless.
Reconstruction, if it can be launched in light of the West shunning Hamas as a "terrorist" group, may cost close to $2 billion, according to Palestinian and international estimates.
Diplomatic efforts led by Egypt were focusing on reaching a long-term Israel-Hamas truce deal, far short of an accord on Palestinian statehood sought by the United States and other international peace brokers.
Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said in Damascus that Israel had failed to achieve its goals in Gaza.
"This battle has proved that force alone will not provide security for the Zionist entity (Israel)," Meshaal said.
He said that Arab countries seeking to help rebuild Gaza should donate money to the group's leader in the territory, Ismail Hanieyh, whom he described as the head of the legitimate Palestinian government, shunning Abbas's Fatah administration which holds sway in the occupied West Bank.
Israel's attacks in an offensive it began on December 27 killed some 1,300 Palestinians. Gaza medical officials said the Palestinian dead included at least 700 civilians.
Israel said hundreds of militants died and that it dealt Hamas a strong blow that had boosted the Jewish state's power of deterrence and drawn international pledges to help prevent the Islamist group from replenishing its rocket arsenal.
Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians, hit by cross-border rocket fire, were killed in the conflict.
Israel's Haaretz daily, reporting what it said were details of an army probe into its soldiers' use of white-phosphorous shells, said 200 were fired in the fighting, including 20 in a built-up area in the northern Gaza Strip.
Two Palestinian children were killed and 14 people suffered severe burns on January 17 when Israeli shells landed in a U.N.-run school in the northern Beit Lahiya area, medical officials said.
TROOP WITHDRAWAL
Calling the troop withdrawal a "victory for Palestinian resistance," Hamas demanded a lifting of the blockade Israel tightened on the Gaza Strip after the Islamist group seized control of the territory from the Fatah movement in 2007.
Israel said at the start of the military campaign it never intended for its army, which quit the Gaza Strip in 2005 after 38 years of occupation, to remain there permanently.
Most Israeli forces pulled out before Obama was sworn in on Tuesday, in a move analysts saw as an attempt to avoid any early tensions with his administration.
Looking to reconstruction efforts, Israel has told the United Nations and aid groups they must apply for project-by-project approval and provide guarantees none of the work will benefit Hamas, Western and Palestinian officials said.
Israel, the officials said, is also preventing the Western-backed Palestinian Authority from transferring cash to the Gaza Strip to pay its workers and others hard-hit by war.
The restrictions threatened to undercut the ability of Abbas's government to reassert a presence in the enclave.
Hamas officials and an Israeli envoy planned to meet separately with Egyptian mediators in Cairo on Thursday to discuss ways to make the ceasefire "durable" and a reopening of border crossings, an official close to the talks said.
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Doug Hamilton in Gaza, Adam Entous in Jerusalem and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Editing by Charles Dick)
Hamas : Really cared the people ..?..
just pawns...
It was 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 17, in a complex of apartment buildings at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, and Israel had just declared it would impose a unilateral ceasefire to begin at 2 a.m. The incessant sorties of Israeli jet bombers stopped almost immediately, but then suddenly there was a terrific whoosh, louder even than a bomb explosion. It was another of Hamas's homemade Qassam rockets being launched into Israel—and the mobile launchpad was smack in the middle of the four buildings, where every apartment was full, most of them with newly made refugees.
On this occasion, fortunately, there was no Israeli retaliation. At places all over Gaza, however, Palestinian civilians have not been so lucky. Israel blames Hamas for using housing areas, hospitals, schools and mosques to launch attacks into Israel or against its soldiers, provoking defensive counter-fire that it says is responsible for most of the civilian casualties. Hamas retorts that Israel was using indiscriminate force with complete disregard for civilians in the way, especially in its efforts to assassinate Hamas leaders. There are plenty of examples to support both their contentions.
In eastern Jabaliya, just north of Gaza City, an entire neighborhood—at least 50 homes—had been bombed by the Israelis, then occupied with tank units, and then methodically demolished house-by-house, some of them with bulldozers, others with high explosives. In several hours of interviews, every one of the residents interviewed in eastern Jabaliya insisted that there had been no provocation from the area, no resistance fighters, and no rocket launchings. "They are punishing us because they can't reach the resistance to punish them," said Majdi Qatari, a lawyer whose home was one of those destroyed, leaving 13 people homeless. Near him, Najah Abd Rabo shook her head and said Israeli actions were beyond comprehension. "They were claiming there are tunnels under here," she said. Hamas fighters use tunnels, often short ones that are little more than bunkers, to pop out and launch attacks and then get back in, hiding from Israel's ubiquitous surveillance drones, reemerging in a house or backyard as an unarmed civilian. "There aren't any tunnels around here, we are not resistance," she said. Yet not more than 20 feet away from Najah, there was just such a tunnel, which Israeli troops had unearthed. Right in the middle of the road, it had a convincingly camouflaged roof that matched the rest of the road. Inside it was shored up with timbers and concrete.
Down the road from the non-existent tunnel was Khalid Abd Rabo, who claimed that Israeli troops fired on his daughters and mother as they left his home under a white flag, killing Suad, 9, and Amal, 2, and gravely wounding Samer, 4, who has since been evacuated to Belgium for treatment. "The children died before my eyes," he said. "Four days later they came back and destroyed the house." Khalid, who had been a policeman with the anti-Hamas Fatah party, said the Israeli troops fired at them from only 22 yards away. His mother was wounded; he could not explain why they spared him. Surrounded by neighbors, he had no criticism of Hamas, but later on one of his relatives took a journalist aside and said that Hamas's actions had brought retaliation on such communities, while accomplishing nothing militarily. "We blame Israel but we also blame Hamas, because Hamas was not able to defend the people," he said, asking that his name not be used for fear of reprisal by Hamas militants.
Hamas officials accuse the Israelis of reflexively blaming them for provoking attacks, and even when they are retaliating, using excessive force. "I don't understand how Palestinians would use other Palestinians as a human shield," said Ahmed Yousef, Hamas's deputy foreign minister. "They consider all Palestinians collateral damage."
The most notorious of attacks killing civilians was the bombing of a UNRWA-run school, Faqhourah School, which was being used to house people newly homeless from the fighting. Forty-three persons were killed in the attack, and some of them lay dying while troops denied them medical assistance. At least two other UNRWA schools were hit by Israeli bombs. UNRWA head John Ging said the Israeli excuse that the schools were being used as firing positions against them is implausible. "These people had already fled the fighting, some of them lost everything they had. Do you think they'd tolerate someone setting up positions there?" In addition, he said, UNRWA staff strictly controlled access to the schools and would not have allowed armed men in.
Isreali Defense Forces spokesperson Avital Leibovich, head of the IDF's foreign-press branch, counters that the military has documentary evidence including aerial surveillance tapes of the northern part of Gaza City "in which you can see schools next to [Hamas] training camps, launching sites in or near schools or from the streets themselves …When fire is opened at us and soldiers are in a life or death situation, we protect ourselves and Hamas is accountable for casualties if it chooses to put a launching site near schools and hospitals." She also gave NEWSWEEK a copy of what she said was a Hamas map which paratroopers recovered during ground operations inside Gaza. "It shows how a neighborhood was taken and divided into three war zones. Hamas centers were scattered over the neighborhood including a gas depot with explosive charges … On the map, you can see the Football Association and Technical School are surrounded by 45 Hamas positions, from which Hamas fired."
Many Gazans have no problem with the idea of Hamas attacking Israelis, but complain that they made a disappointing job of it this time. Only 10 Israeli soldiers were killed in the three-week-long operation, compared to more than 200 dead Hamas fighters, according to independent Palestinian figures. And thousands of rockets fired into southern Israel killed just three civilians there. "There's nothing in Gaza but buildings," said a former Fatah military commander, who gave the name Mahmoud Barbakh. "No fighter can fight except in the streets, we can't fight Israel in the open." Yet Hamas did precious little fighting, he said, while ticking off half a dozen cases of Fatah militants who were deliberately shot in the legs by Hamas during the Israeli war, some for violations of Hamas orders putting them under house arrest.
One of the most notorious incidents during the war was the Jan. 15 shelling of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society buildings in the downtown Tal-al Hawa part of Gaza City, followed by a shell hitting their Al Quds Hospital next door; the subsequent fire forced all 500 patients to be evacuated. Asked if there were any militants firing from the hospital or the Red Crescent buildings, hospital director general Dr. Khalid Judah chose his words carefully. "I am not able to say if anyone was using the PRCS buildings [the two Palestine Red Crescent Society buildings adjacent to the hospital], but I know for a fact that no one was using the hospital." In the Tal-al Hawa neighborhood nearby, however, Talal Safadi, an official in the leftist Palestinian People's Party, said that resistance fighters were firing from positions all around the hospital. He shrugged that off, having a bigger beef with Hamas. "They failed to win the battle." Or as his fellow PPP official, Walid al Awad, put it: "It was a mistake to give Israel the excuse to come in."
placeAd2(commercialNode,'bigbox',false,'')
Perhaps a doctor at Shifa Hospital summed it up best. "Hamas doesn't care about anything," he said, "and the Israelis will kill anyone to get to Hamas." Today Hamas threw a victory parade. A few hundred young men with green flags marched through the middle of Gaza City, one of them riding on a cart at the head of the procession and holding aloft a chunk of metal, purportedly from an Israeli tank. No one lined the streets to cheer them on. No one poured out from his or her home to join the parade. Most Hamas critics in Gaza are afraid to openly say what they think, but sometimes actions (or the absence of them) speak louder than words.
With reporting by Joanna Chen/Jerusalem
It was 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 17, in a complex of apartment buildings at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, and Israel had just declared it would impose a unilateral ceasefire to begin at 2 a.m. The incessant sorties of Israeli jet bombers stopped almost immediately, but then suddenly there was a terrific whoosh, louder even than a bomb explosion. It was another of Hamas's homemade Qassam rockets being launched into Israel—and the mobile launchpad was smack in the middle of the four buildings, where every apartment was full, most of them with newly made refugees.
On this occasion, fortunately, there was no Israeli retaliation. At places all over Gaza, however, Palestinian civilians have not been so lucky. Israel blames Hamas for using housing areas, hospitals, schools and mosques to launch attacks into Israel or against its soldiers, provoking defensive counter-fire that it says is responsible for most of the civilian casualties. Hamas retorts that Israel was using indiscriminate force with complete disregard for civilians in the way, especially in its efforts to assassinate Hamas leaders. There are plenty of examples to support both their contentions.
In eastern Jabaliya, just north of Gaza City, an entire neighborhood—at least 50 homes—had been bombed by the Israelis, then occupied with tank units, and then methodically demolished house-by-house, some of them with bulldozers, others with high explosives. In several hours of interviews, every one of the residents interviewed in eastern Jabaliya insisted that there had been no provocation from the area, no resistance fighters, and no rocket launchings. "They are punishing us because they can't reach the resistance to punish them," said Majdi Qatari, a lawyer whose home was one of those destroyed, leaving 13 people homeless. Near him, Najah Abd Rabo shook her head and said Israeli actions were beyond comprehension. "They were claiming there are tunnels under here," she said. Hamas fighters use tunnels, often short ones that are little more than bunkers, to pop out and launch attacks and then get back in, hiding from Israel's ubiquitous surveillance drones, reemerging in a house or backyard as an unarmed civilian. "There aren't any tunnels around here, we are not resistance," she said. Yet not more than 20 feet away from Najah, there was just such a tunnel, which Israeli troops had unearthed. Right in the middle of the road, it had a convincingly camouflaged roof that matched the rest of the road. Inside it was shored up with timbers and concrete.
Down the road from the non-existent tunnel was Khalid Abd Rabo, who claimed that Israeli troops fired on his daughters and mother as they left his home under a white flag, killing Suad, 9, and Amal, 2, and gravely wounding Samer, 4, who has since been evacuated to Belgium for treatment. "The children died before my eyes," he said. "Four days later they came back and destroyed the house." Khalid, who had been a policeman with the anti-Hamas Fatah party, said the Israeli troops fired at them from only 22 yards away. His mother was wounded; he could not explain why they spared him. Surrounded by neighbors, he had no criticism of Hamas, but later on one of his relatives took a journalist aside and said that Hamas's actions had brought retaliation on such communities, while accomplishing nothing militarily. "We blame Israel but we also blame Hamas, because Hamas was not able to defend the people," he said, asking that his name not be used for fear of reprisal by Hamas militants.
Hamas officials accuse the Israelis of reflexively blaming them for provoking attacks, and even when they are retaliating, using excessive force. "I don't understand how Palestinians would use other Palestinians as a human shield," said Ahmed Yousef, Hamas's deputy foreign minister. "They consider all Palestinians collateral damage."
The most notorious of attacks killing civilians was the bombing of a UNRWA-run school, Faqhourah School, which was being used to house people newly homeless from the fighting. Forty-three persons were killed in the attack, and some of them lay dying while troops denied them medical assistance. At least two other UNRWA schools were hit by Israeli bombs. UNRWA head John Ging said the Israeli excuse that the schools were being used as firing positions against them is implausible. "These people had already fled the fighting, some of them lost everything they had. Do you think they'd tolerate someone setting up positions there?" In addition, he said, UNRWA staff strictly controlled access to the schools and would not have allowed armed men in.
Isreali Defense Forces spokesperson Avital Leibovich, head of the IDF's foreign-press branch, counters that the military has documentary evidence including aerial surveillance tapes of the northern part of Gaza City "in which you can see schools next to [Hamas] training camps, launching sites in or near schools or from the streets themselves …When fire is opened at us and soldiers are in a life or death situation, we protect ourselves and Hamas is accountable for casualties if it chooses to put a launching site near schools and hospitals." She also gave NEWSWEEK a copy of what she said was a Hamas map which paratroopers recovered during ground operations inside Gaza. "It shows how a neighborhood was taken and divided into three war zones. Hamas centers were scattered over the neighborhood including a gas depot with explosive charges … On the map, you can see the Football Association and Technical School are surrounded by 45 Hamas positions, from which Hamas fired."
Many Gazans have no problem with the idea of Hamas attacking Israelis, but complain that they made a disappointing job of it this time. Only 10 Israeli soldiers were killed in the three-week-long operation, compared to more than 200 dead Hamas fighters, according to independent Palestinian figures. And thousands of rockets fired into southern Israel killed just three civilians there. "There's nothing in Gaza but buildings," said a former Fatah military commander, who gave the name Mahmoud Barbakh. "No fighter can fight except in the streets, we can't fight Israel in the open." Yet Hamas did precious little fighting, he said, while ticking off half a dozen cases of Fatah militants who were deliberately shot in the legs by Hamas during the Israeli war, some for violations of Hamas orders putting them under house arrest.
One of the most notorious incidents during the war was the Jan. 15 shelling of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society buildings in the downtown Tal-al Hawa part of Gaza City, followed by a shell hitting their Al Quds Hospital next door; the subsequent fire forced all 500 patients to be evacuated. Asked if there were any militants firing from the hospital or the Red Crescent buildings, hospital director general Dr. Khalid Judah chose his words carefully. "I am not able to say if anyone was using the PRCS buildings [the two Palestine Red Crescent Society buildings adjacent to the hospital], but I know for a fact that no one was using the hospital." In the Tal-al Hawa neighborhood nearby, however, Talal Safadi, an official in the leftist Palestinian People's Party, said that resistance fighters were firing from positions all around the hospital. He shrugged that off, having a bigger beef with Hamas. "They failed to win the battle." Or as his fellow PPP official, Walid al Awad, put it: "It was a mistake to give Israel the excuse to come in."
placeAd2(commercialNode,'bigbox',false,'')
Perhaps a doctor at Shifa Hospital summed it up best. "Hamas doesn't care about anything," he said, "and the Israelis will kill anyone to get to Hamas." Today Hamas threw a victory parade. A few hundred young men with green flags marched through the middle of Gaza City, one of them riding on a cart at the head of the procession and holding aloft a chunk of metal, purportedly from an Israeli tank. No one lined the streets to cheer them on. No one poured out from his or her home to join the parade. Most Hamas critics in Gaza are afraid to openly say what they think, but sometimes actions (or the absence of them) speak louder than words.
With reporting by Joanna Chen/Jerusalem
Sunday 18 January 2009
oh ya?
it need two habds to clap,...so what does hamas side says...
AP – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, left, shakes hands with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, right, …
JERUSALEM – Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire Saturday in its 22-day offensive that turned Gaza neighborhoods into battlegrounds and dealt a stinging blow to the Islamic militants of Hamas. But Israeli troops will stay in the Palestinian territory for now and Hamas threatened to keep fighting until they leave.
In announcing the cease-fire, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel had achieved its goals and more.
"Hamas was hit hard, in its military arms and in its government institutions. Its leaders are in hiding and many of its men have been killed," Olmert said.
Israel launched the offensive on Dec. 27 to stop years of rocket fire from Gaza at southern Israeli towns. But the rockets did not stop coming throughout the assault. Militants fired about 30 rockets into Israel on Saturday, eight of them around the time Olmert spoke.
More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive, about half civilians, according to Palestinian and U.N. officials. At least 13 Israelis have also died.
GAZA CITY, (AFP) – The skies over Gaza remained calm on Sunday morning for the first time in 22 days as Israel unilaterally halted the onslaught which has killed more than 1,200 Palestinians and levelled vast swathes of the Hamas-run enclave.
A nervous peace reigned in the impoverished territory of 1.5 million people in the absence of any immediate reports of a breach of the ceasefire, begun at 2:00 am (0000 GMT).
An army spokesman confirmed that the order to stand down had gone into effect.
However, the duration of the ceasefire is still in doubt after Hamas said it would not accept the presence of a single Israeli soldier in the territory, while Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said the ceasefire should be followed by a full pull-out.
Egypt will host an international summit on Sunday afternoon attended by several European leaders and UN chief Ban Ki-moon, to seek a lasting truce between Israel and Hamas.
Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, said on Saturday his country "will continue its efforts as soon as there is a ceasefire to restore the truce and lift the blockade" imposed by Israel on crossing points into Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced after a meeting of his security cabinet he was calling an immediate end to offensive operations but added that troops would stay in Gaza for the time being with orders to return fire if attacked.
"At two o'clock in the morning (0000 GMT Sunday) we will stop fire but we will continue to be deployed in Gaza and its surroundings," Olmert said in a speech after the vote.
"We have reached all the goals of the war, and beyond," he added.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak acknowledged there was "no guarantee" that Hamas would stop firing rockets but said the army would hit back "severely."
"The army will stay as needed and if Hamas continues to fire, the army will fire back severely and will be ready to follow and intensify its operations as necessary," he said.
AP – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, left, shakes hands with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, right, …
JERUSALEM – Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire Saturday in its 22-day offensive that turned Gaza neighborhoods into battlegrounds and dealt a stinging blow to the Islamic militants of Hamas. But Israeli troops will stay in the Palestinian territory for now and Hamas threatened to keep fighting until they leave.
In announcing the cease-fire, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel had achieved its goals and more.
"Hamas was hit hard, in its military arms and in its government institutions. Its leaders are in hiding and many of its men have been killed," Olmert said.
Israel launched the offensive on Dec. 27 to stop years of rocket fire from Gaza at southern Israeli towns. But the rockets did not stop coming throughout the assault. Militants fired about 30 rockets into Israel on Saturday, eight of them around the time Olmert spoke.
More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive, about half civilians, according to Palestinian and U.N. officials. At least 13 Israelis have also died.
GAZA CITY, (AFP) – The skies over Gaza remained calm on Sunday morning for the first time in 22 days as Israel unilaterally halted the onslaught which has killed more than 1,200 Palestinians and levelled vast swathes of the Hamas-run enclave.
A nervous peace reigned in the impoverished territory of 1.5 million people in the absence of any immediate reports of a breach of the ceasefire, begun at 2:00 am (0000 GMT).
An army spokesman confirmed that the order to stand down had gone into effect.
However, the duration of the ceasefire is still in doubt after Hamas said it would not accept the presence of a single Israeli soldier in the territory, while Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said the ceasefire should be followed by a full pull-out.
Egypt will host an international summit on Sunday afternoon attended by several European leaders and UN chief Ban Ki-moon, to seek a lasting truce between Israel and Hamas.
Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, said on Saturday his country "will continue its efforts as soon as there is a ceasefire to restore the truce and lift the blockade" imposed by Israel on crossing points into Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced after a meeting of his security cabinet he was calling an immediate end to offensive operations but added that troops would stay in Gaza for the time being with orders to return fire if attacked.
"At two o'clock in the morning (0000 GMT Sunday) we will stop fire but we will continue to be deployed in Gaza and its surroundings," Olmert said in a speech after the vote.
"We have reached all the goals of the war, and beyond," he added.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak acknowledged there was "no guarantee" that Hamas would stop firing rockets but said the army would hit back "severely."
"The army will stay as needed and if Hamas continues to fire, the army will fire back severely and will be ready to follow and intensify its operations as necessary," he said.
Saturday 17 January 2009
it ok.....
whatever,...
The debate over the controversial practice of child marriage in Saudi Arabia was pushed back into the spotlight this week, with the kingdom's top cleric saying that it's OK for girls as young as 10 to wed.
Saudi cleric Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh says it's OK for a girl aged 10 or 12 to get married.
"It is incorrect to say that it's not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger," Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, the kingdom's grand mufti, said in remarks quoted Wednesday in the regional Al-Hayat newspaper. "A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married. Those who think she's too young are wrong and they are being unfair to her."
The issue of child marriage has been a hot-button topic in the deeply conservative kingdom in recent weeks.
In December, Saudi judge Sheikh Habib Abdallah al-Habib refused to annul the marriage of an 8-year-old girl to a 47-year-old man.
The judge rejected a petition from the girl's mother, whose lawyer said the marriage was arranged by her father to settle a debt with "a close friend." The judge required the girl's husband to sign a pledge that he would not have sex with her until she reaches puberty.
Al-Sheikh was asked during a lecture Monday about parents forcing their underage daughters to marry.
"We hear a lot in the media about the marriage of underage girls," he said, according to the newspaper. "We should know that Shariah law has not brought injustice to women."
Don't Miss
Saudi judge refuses to annul marriage of girl, 8
Christoph Wilcke, a Saudi Arabia researcher for Human Rights Watch, recently told CNN that his organization has heard many other cases of child marriages.
"We've been hearing about these types of cases once every four or five months because the Saudi public is now able to express this kind of anger, especially so when girls are traded off to older men," Wilcke said.
Wilcke explained that while Saudi ministries may make decisions designed to protect children, "It is still the religious establishment that holds sway in the courts, and in many realms beyond the court."
Last month, Zuhair al-Harithi, a spokesman for the Saudi government-run Human Rights Commission, said his organization is fighting against child marriages.
"The Human Rights Commission opposes child marriages in Saudi Arabia," al-Harithi said. "Child marriages violate international agreements that have been signed by Saudi Arabia and should not be allowed." He added that his organization has been able to intervene and stop at least one child marriage from taking place.
Wajeha al-Huwaider, co-founder of the Society of Defending Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia, told CNN in December that achieving human rights in the kingdom means standing against those who want to "keep us backward and in the dark ages."
She said the marriages cause girls to "lose their sense of security and safety. Also, it destroys their feeling of being loved and nurtured. It causes them a lifetime of psychological problems and severe depression."
The Saudi Ministry of Justice has not made any public comment on the issue.
The debate over the controversial practice of child marriage in Saudi Arabia was pushed back into the spotlight this week, with the kingdom's top cleric saying that it's OK for girls as young as 10 to wed.
Saudi cleric Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh says it's OK for a girl aged 10 or 12 to get married.
"It is incorrect to say that it's not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger," Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, the kingdom's grand mufti, said in remarks quoted Wednesday in the regional Al-Hayat newspaper. "A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married. Those who think she's too young are wrong and they are being unfair to her."
The issue of child marriage has been a hot-button topic in the deeply conservative kingdom in recent weeks.
In December, Saudi judge Sheikh Habib Abdallah al-Habib refused to annul the marriage of an 8-year-old girl to a 47-year-old man.
The judge rejected a petition from the girl's mother, whose lawyer said the marriage was arranged by her father to settle a debt with "a close friend." The judge required the girl's husband to sign a pledge that he would not have sex with her until she reaches puberty.
Al-Sheikh was asked during a lecture Monday about parents forcing their underage daughters to marry.
"We hear a lot in the media about the marriage of underage girls," he said, according to the newspaper. "We should know that Shariah law has not brought injustice to women."
Don't Miss
Saudi judge refuses to annul marriage of girl, 8
Christoph Wilcke, a Saudi Arabia researcher for Human Rights Watch, recently told CNN that his organization has heard many other cases of child marriages.
"We've been hearing about these types of cases once every four or five months because the Saudi public is now able to express this kind of anger, especially so when girls are traded off to older men," Wilcke said.
Wilcke explained that while Saudi ministries may make decisions designed to protect children, "It is still the religious establishment that holds sway in the courts, and in many realms beyond the court."
Last month, Zuhair al-Harithi, a spokesman for the Saudi government-run Human Rights Commission, said his organization is fighting against child marriages.
"The Human Rights Commission opposes child marriages in Saudi Arabia," al-Harithi said. "Child marriages violate international agreements that have been signed by Saudi Arabia and should not be allowed." He added that his organization has been able to intervene and stop at least one child marriage from taking place.
Wajeha al-Huwaider, co-founder of the Society of Defending Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia, told CNN in December that achieving human rights in the kingdom means standing against those who want to "keep us backward and in the dark ages."
She said the marriages cause girls to "lose their sense of security and safety. Also, it destroys their feeling of being loved and nurtured. It causes them a lifetime of psychological problems and severe depression."
The Saudi Ministry of Justice has not made any public comment on the issue.
i dun care....
am not responsible just irresponsible..
or both...
a leader love his people more...?
DOHA (Reuters) - Hamas said on Friday it would not accept Israeli conditions for a ceasefire and would continue to fight until Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip ends.
Khaled Meshaal, leader of the Palestinian Islamist group, called on leaders at the opening of an emergency meeting on Gaza in Doha to cut all ties with the Jewish state.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal speaks during a meeting with supporters in Damascus in this September 13, 2008 file photo. (REUTERS/Khaled al-Hariri/Files)
"Despite all the destruction in Gaza, I assure you: we will not accept Israel's conditions for a ceasefire," Meshaal told the meeting in Doha, which was attended by the presidents of Syria, Iran and Lebanon. Heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Egypt were absent.
The meeting in Qatar conflicted with another meeting by Arab foreign ministers in Kuwait to discuss the three-week-old Israeli offensive that has highlighted deep splits in the Arab world over Gaza, where the death toll has exceeded 1,100.
.............
GAZA (Reuters) - Israel called off its three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, saying Hamas was "badly beaten," but the Islamist group vowed to fight on in a war that has killed 1,200 Palestinians in the coastal enclave.
Within minutes of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announcing that a unilateral ceasefire would start three hours later at 2 a.m. (0000 GMT) on Sunday, several missiles struck southern Israel.
or both...
a leader love his people more...?
DOHA (Reuters) - Hamas said on Friday it would not accept Israeli conditions for a ceasefire and would continue to fight until Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip ends.
Khaled Meshaal, leader of the Palestinian Islamist group, called on leaders at the opening of an emergency meeting on Gaza in Doha to cut all ties with the Jewish state.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal speaks during a meeting with supporters in Damascus in this September 13, 2008 file photo. (REUTERS/Khaled al-Hariri/Files)
"Despite all the destruction in Gaza, I assure you: we will not accept Israel's conditions for a ceasefire," Meshaal told the meeting in Doha, which was attended by the presidents of Syria, Iran and Lebanon. Heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Egypt were absent.
The meeting in Qatar conflicted with another meeting by Arab foreign ministers in Kuwait to discuss the three-week-old Israeli offensive that has highlighted deep splits in the Arab world over Gaza, where the death toll has exceeded 1,100.
.............
GAZA (Reuters) - Israel called off its three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, saying Hamas was "badly beaten," but the Islamist group vowed to fight on in a war that has killed 1,200 Palestinians in the coastal enclave.
Within minutes of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announcing that a unilateral ceasefire would start three hours later at 2 a.m. (0000 GMT) on Sunday, several missiles struck southern Israel.
Thursday 15 January 2009
only one planet...
yours or mine...
Editor's Note: Larry Schweiger is President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Wildlife Federation. The federation is a nonprofit organization that seeks to protect wildlife habitats and advocate for solutions to global warming.
Larry Schweiger says global warming is the defining issue of the 21st century.
(CNN) -- Nature can be amazingly resilient, capable of adapting to constantly changing ecological conditions. And yet, this resiliency is limited and rapidly reaching the breaking point.
In the lifetime of a child born today, 20 percent to 30 percent of the world's plant and animal species will be on the brink of extinction -- in part because of global warming -- if we fail to act.
Like it or not, global warming is the defining issue of the 21st Century. Climate scientists have issued warnings that we must act now to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases that cause global warming.
Dr. James Hansen of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned that the next two years are a "last chance" to act before we tip our climate system too far out of balance, creating a fundamentally "different planet."
Unchecked, we are heading to a full-blown climate crisis as the planet encounters several key tipping points including:
• Widespread damage to forests caused by expanded wildfire and insect infestation. A four-fold increase in the number of forest fires and a six-fold expansion of acres burned in the Western United States has been linked to global warming and drier conditions. Fires in Russia last summer consumed 29 million acres. Insect infestations have killed millions of acres of forests in North America as larvae increasingly survive warmer winters.
• Persistent drought. By the 2020s, 75 to 250 million people in Africa risk losing access to clean water, and some African countries are expected to see a 50 percent decline in crop yields.
• Flooding caused by rising sea levels will put hundreds of millions of people, including many Americans, at risk.
The acceleration of the Arctic ice melt is a powerful warning that we are rapidly running out of time. The last two summers have seen dramatic, record-shattering declines in the Arctic ice cap.
Not too long ago, scientists were concerned that global warming could completely melt the Arctic ice cap within a century. Today, some scientists are predicting that this may happen in five years. Polar bears are drowning and other sea life is struggling with the decline of Arctic ice.
Don't Miss
Shark fin soup alters an ecosystem
Commentary: James Bond and dead monkeys
In Depth: Commentaries
Arctic ice melt presents multiple dangers, including the release of methane. Vast quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide, are stored in permafrost.
Melting of even a small fraction of this permafrost -- on land or the ocean floor -- and the subsequent release of methane could cause a runaway greenhouse effect. Scientists recently documented openings in the Arctic Ocean sea floor off the Siberian coast where millions of tons of methane are escaping.
This rapid ice melt is now creating an international fight for the oil that lies beneath the ice. The irony of this should not be lost. Oil is a top culprit in polluting our atmosphere with heat-trapping gases. Rather than fighting for more of the very resource that has created this climate crisis, countries should be working together to do everything possible to prevent further melting.
Fortunately, America is ready to act. President-elect Barack Obama has stated that we are entering "a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change." He recognizes the economic opportunity to create jobs and reduce our dependency on oil by investing in the clean energy technologies that will safeguard our planet.
We need a green shovel to dig our way out of our economic hole. The investments in clean energy that forestall a climate meltdown will aid our recovery from the global financial meltdown.
Overwhelming numbers of Americans are ready. According to election polling, more than three-quarters of voters are demanding a shift toward clean energy in order to revitalize America's economy.
And yet, the clean energy revolution will not be a sufficient response to the climate crisis. We must also protect the nature of tomorrow in the face of this threat. Safeguarding wildlife and protecting natural resources in a warming world requires bold approaches to natural resource management that will transform the way we approach wildlife conservation.
The eyes of the world are upon America and what we do this coming year. In 2009, we need to enact a federal program to promptly cap and reduce the pollution causing global warming at the pace scientists tell us is needed. We must use the financial resources from this program to invest in clean energy technologies, safeguard America's natural resources and protect communities from the threats of a destabilized climate.
With renewed U.S. leadership, we can secure an effective global agreement on climate change that engages every nation around the world in the effort to protect our planet, and ourselves.
Conflicts over natural resources are accelerating, and we must address the imperative of balancing human needs with the natural world. We can no longer afford to separate the two -- we all depend on healthy natural resources for the food we eat, the water we drink, the houses we build -- no matter where we live.
After all, we have only one planet. And good planets are hard to find.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Larry Schweiger.
Editor's Note: Larry Schweiger is President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Wildlife Federation. The federation is a nonprofit organization that seeks to protect wildlife habitats and advocate for solutions to global warming.
Larry Schweiger says global warming is the defining issue of the 21st century.
(CNN) -- Nature can be amazingly resilient, capable of adapting to constantly changing ecological conditions. And yet, this resiliency is limited and rapidly reaching the breaking point.
In the lifetime of a child born today, 20 percent to 30 percent of the world's plant and animal species will be on the brink of extinction -- in part because of global warming -- if we fail to act.
Like it or not, global warming is the defining issue of the 21st Century. Climate scientists have issued warnings that we must act now to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases that cause global warming.
Dr. James Hansen of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned that the next two years are a "last chance" to act before we tip our climate system too far out of balance, creating a fundamentally "different planet."
Unchecked, we are heading to a full-blown climate crisis as the planet encounters several key tipping points including:
• Widespread damage to forests caused by expanded wildfire and insect infestation. A four-fold increase in the number of forest fires and a six-fold expansion of acres burned in the Western United States has been linked to global warming and drier conditions. Fires in Russia last summer consumed 29 million acres. Insect infestations have killed millions of acres of forests in North America as larvae increasingly survive warmer winters.
• Persistent drought. By the 2020s, 75 to 250 million people in Africa risk losing access to clean water, and some African countries are expected to see a 50 percent decline in crop yields.
• Flooding caused by rising sea levels will put hundreds of millions of people, including many Americans, at risk.
The acceleration of the Arctic ice melt is a powerful warning that we are rapidly running out of time. The last two summers have seen dramatic, record-shattering declines in the Arctic ice cap.
Not too long ago, scientists were concerned that global warming could completely melt the Arctic ice cap within a century. Today, some scientists are predicting that this may happen in five years. Polar bears are drowning and other sea life is struggling with the decline of Arctic ice.
Don't Miss
Shark fin soup alters an ecosystem
Commentary: James Bond and dead monkeys
In Depth: Commentaries
Arctic ice melt presents multiple dangers, including the release of methane. Vast quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide, are stored in permafrost.
Melting of even a small fraction of this permafrost -- on land or the ocean floor -- and the subsequent release of methane could cause a runaway greenhouse effect. Scientists recently documented openings in the Arctic Ocean sea floor off the Siberian coast where millions of tons of methane are escaping.
This rapid ice melt is now creating an international fight for the oil that lies beneath the ice. The irony of this should not be lost. Oil is a top culprit in polluting our atmosphere with heat-trapping gases. Rather than fighting for more of the very resource that has created this climate crisis, countries should be working together to do everything possible to prevent further melting.
Fortunately, America is ready to act. President-elect Barack Obama has stated that we are entering "a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change." He recognizes the economic opportunity to create jobs and reduce our dependency on oil by investing in the clean energy technologies that will safeguard our planet.
We need a green shovel to dig our way out of our economic hole. The investments in clean energy that forestall a climate meltdown will aid our recovery from the global financial meltdown.
Overwhelming numbers of Americans are ready. According to election polling, more than three-quarters of voters are demanding a shift toward clean energy in order to revitalize America's economy.
And yet, the clean energy revolution will not be a sufficient response to the climate crisis. We must also protect the nature of tomorrow in the face of this threat. Safeguarding wildlife and protecting natural resources in a warming world requires bold approaches to natural resource management that will transform the way we approach wildlife conservation.
The eyes of the world are upon America and what we do this coming year. In 2009, we need to enact a federal program to promptly cap and reduce the pollution causing global warming at the pace scientists tell us is needed. We must use the financial resources from this program to invest in clean energy technologies, safeguard America's natural resources and protect communities from the threats of a destabilized climate.
With renewed U.S. leadership, we can secure an effective global agreement on climate change that engages every nation around the world in the effort to protect our planet, and ourselves.
Conflicts over natural resources are accelerating, and we must address the imperative of balancing human needs with the natural world. We can no longer afford to separate the two -- we all depend on healthy natural resources for the food we eat, the water we drink, the houses we build -- no matter where we live.
After all, we have only one planet. And good planets are hard to find.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Larry Schweiger.
Sunday 4 January 2009
Listen....
an interview .., with a Jew.
Avrum Burg is the scion of one of Israel's founding families — his father was the deputy speaker of the first Knesset, and Burg himself later became speaker of the legislature, and a member of Israel's cabinet. His position at the heart of the Israeli establishment makes all the more remarkable his critique of the Jewish State, which he claims has lost its sense of moral purpose. In his new book The Holocaust Is Over: We Must Rise from Its Ashes (Palgrave/MacMillan), he argues that an obsession with an exaggerated sense of threats to Jewish survival cultivated by Israel and its most fervent backers actually impedes the realization of Judaism's higher goals.
He discussed his ideas with TIME.com's Tony Karon.
TIME: You argue that the Jewish people are in a state of crisis, partly because of the extent to which the Holocaust dominates contemporary Jewish identity. Can you explain?
Burg: I, like many others, believe that a day will come very soon when we will live in peace with our neighbors, and then, for the first time in our history, the vast majority of the Jewish people will be living without an immediate threat to their lives. Peaceful Israel and a secure Diaspora, all of us living the democratic hemisphere. And then the question facing our generation will be, can the Jewish people survive without an external enemy? Give me war, give me pogrom, give me disaster, and I know what to do; give me peace and tranquility, and I'm lost. The Holocaust was a hellish horror, but we often use it as an excuse to avoid looking around seeing how, existentially, 60 years later, in a miraculous way, are living in a much better situation.
In your book, you raise the question of the purpose of Jewish survival over thousands of years, insisting that Jews have not simply survived for the sake of survival. What is this higher purpose?
Both my parents were survivors — my father ran away from Berlin in September 1939; my mum survived the 1929 massacre in Hebron. So, my family knows something about trauma. Still, my siblings and I were brought up in a trauma-free atmosphere. We were brought up to believe that the Jewish people did not continue in order to continue, or survive in order to survive. A cat can survive — so it's a circumcised cat, so what? It's not about survival; survival for what?
Look at the Exodus: After 400 years of very aggressive oppression and enslavement, all of a sudden the outcry was "Let my people go," and that continues to resonate against slavery everywhere to this day. Then we come to the Sinai covenant, which is a key moment not just for Jewish theology, but for Christian belief as well: The Ten Commandments is the first human-to-human constitution, setting out the relations among humans on the basis of laws. And then you come to the Prophets, and its amazing that they're calling so clearly for a just society. And then, in the Middle Ages, you listen to Maimonides say he's waiting for redemption of the world without oppression between nations. So, in the Jewish story over so many centuries, there has always been a higher cause, not just for the Jews, but for all of humanity.
Even in the Holocaust, the lesson is "Never Again." But this doesn't mean just never again can genocide be allowed to happen to the Jews, but never again can genocide be allowed to happen to any human being. So, the Holocaust is not just mine; it belongs to all of humanity.
You suggest that there's been a turning inward from the universal purpose and meaning of the Jewish experience...
Both the internal and the external hemispheres of the Jewish experience are essential. I cannot envisage my Judaism without the input I got from the external world, be it philosophy, aesthetics, even democracy, which was introduced to the Jews in the last 200 years because of our interface with the the world. On the other hand, I can't imagine my Western civilization and Western culture without the Jewish input, without Jesus Christ, who was born, was crucified and passed away as a Mishnaic rabbinical Jew. I cannot image Christian Europe opening up to modernity without a Maimonides reintroducing Greek philosophy. I cannot imagine modern times without a Spinoza, and Mendelson. I cannot imagine the 20th century without Marx and Freud. So, this conversation between Jews and the world is not just a conversation of pogroms and slaughter and Holocaust; it's also a couple of thousand years of a conversation that enriched me and enriched them, and I don't want to give that up.
Your book argues that the centrality of the Holocaust in Israeli identity is dysfunctional...
The Holocaust is a very real trauma for many people in Israel, and nobody can argue with that. But ... when I hear someone like Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a very intelligent person, say of [Iran's President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, "It's 1938 all over again," I say, is it?! Is this the reality? Did we have such an omnipotent army in 1938? Did we have an independent state in 1938? Did we have the unequivocal support in 1938 of all the important superpowers in the world? No, we did not. And when you compare Ahmadinejad to Hitler, don't you diminish Hitler's significance?
The sad thing is that whenever a head of state begins a visit to Israel, he doesn't go to a university or to the high-tech sector or the beautiful cultural places we have in Israel; first you should get molded into the Israeli reality at [the Holocaust memorial] Yad Vashem. And I do not think that Yad Vashem should be the showcase or the gateway through which everybody should first encounter Israel. Part of the program, yes; but the starting point? This is not the way to baptize people into an encounter with Judaism.
You argue that the purpose of the Yad Vashem visit is to silence criticism...
It's an emotional blackmail that says to people, this is what we have experienced, so shut up and help us... When the sages created the national holiday of Tisha Be'av, they made it the single day on which we commemorate all the traumas of our history, from the destruction of the first temple to the Spanish expulsion. These events did not all happen on this exact date; the founders of Jewish civilization confined the memory of the traumas of our history to one day, to allow us the rest of the year to get on with being Jewish, rather than letting sorrow take over our entire existence...
Look where we were 100 years ago and look where we are today — no other people made this transformation. Imagine we did not keep the shadow of the trauma looming over ourselves daily, what could we have been? How come 25% of the Nobel laureates in certain fields are of Jewish origins, and 10% of the arms deals around the world are done by Israelis? Why is my brother or sister in America a great poet or composer or physician whose achievements raise up all of humanity, and I who live here on my sword became a world expert on arms and swords? Is that really my mission, or is that an outcome of the black water with which I water my flowers? To make our contribution to humanity, we have to free ourselves of the obsession with the trauma.
Many Jews, in Israel and in America, see Israel as surrounded by deadly threats, and would see the benign and peaceful world you describe as a dangerous fantasy. What do you say to your critics?
I have very low expectations of new thinking and insight emerging from the mainstream Israeli and Jewish establishment. Their role is to maintain the status quo. Israel is bereft of forward thinking. We are experts at managing the crisis rather than finding alternatives to the crisis. In Israel you have many tanks, but not many think tanks. One of the reasons I left the Israeli politics was my growing feeling that Israel became a very efficient kingdom, but with no prophecy. Where is it going?
My idea of Judaism can be represented through a classic Talmudic dilemma: You are walking along by the river and there are two people drowning. One is Rabbi [Meir] Kahane, and the other is the Dalai Lama. You can only save one of them. For whom will you jump? If you jump for Rabbi Kahane because genetically he's Jewish, you belong to a different camp than mine, because I would jump for the Dalai Lama. As much as he's not genetically Jewish, he's my Jewish brother when it comes to my value system. That's the difference between me and the Jewish establishment in Israel and America.
But how can this new thinking you're advocating help Israel solve its security problems?
Many people say to me, "What about Gaza? Don't have so much compassion for them, don't tell the Israelis to be nice there, tell [the Palestinians] to be nice there. And I say Gaza is a nightmare, and it's a stain on my conscience. And I'm very troubled by the attitude of Israelis against Israeli Arabs. It's a shame. It's a black hole in my democracy. But I say sometimes that I'm too close to the reality; I don't have the perspective; I don't have the bigger picture. But if enough of my kids and enough of my youth will go to volunteer, be it in Darfur or be it Rwanda, or be it in the squatter camps of South Africa, they will sharpen their sensitivities. And they will come back and say, listen, if we can do so much good out there, let's do something over here. And I see my own kids, when they come back from India and from Latin America, how changed they are as people. I see my son, after one and a half years in Latin American. He came home, and five days later, was called for 30 days "miluim" service [with his military unit] in the West Bank. And he was sitting in the worst junction in the West Bank. And he says, "When I look around me 360 degrees, nobody loves me. Settlers, Kahanes, rabbis, mullahs, Hamas, Palestinians, you name it — they all hate me. And he told me, "Here I was sitting on a corner one day; it was my break time, and I was drinking coffee with a friend of mine, and out of the valley climbed an old Arab. He was very bent forward and frail, and walked slowly to us and said 'Here is my ID.' And we told him, you don't have to give us your ID; we didn't ask for it. And he said 'No, here it is, I want you to look at it. Look at it, I'm okay, I'm kosher, I'm kosher.' I checked it and let him pass, and then I began crying and crying."
So, I asked my son, why did you cry, what happened? And he said, "You don't understand that for a year and a half, I was in Latin America, going to small villages and sitting with this kind of man, listening to their oral tradition, to the beauty of their history, to the wisdom of their culture. And they shared it with me. And now here I am, the policeman, here I am the bad guy, here I am the occupier. And I can't talk to this man. You know how much he could tell me under different circumstances?" And I say, that's an example for me.
Avrum Burg is the scion of one of Israel's founding families — his father was the deputy speaker of the first Knesset, and Burg himself later became speaker of the legislature, and a member of Israel's cabinet. His position at the heart of the Israeli establishment makes all the more remarkable his critique of the Jewish State, which he claims has lost its sense of moral purpose. In his new book The Holocaust Is Over: We Must Rise from Its Ashes (Palgrave/MacMillan), he argues that an obsession with an exaggerated sense of threats to Jewish survival cultivated by Israel and its most fervent backers actually impedes the realization of Judaism's higher goals.
He discussed his ideas with TIME.com's Tony Karon.
TIME: You argue that the Jewish people are in a state of crisis, partly because of the extent to which the Holocaust dominates contemporary Jewish identity. Can you explain?
Burg: I, like many others, believe that a day will come very soon when we will live in peace with our neighbors, and then, for the first time in our history, the vast majority of the Jewish people will be living without an immediate threat to their lives. Peaceful Israel and a secure Diaspora, all of us living the democratic hemisphere. And then the question facing our generation will be, can the Jewish people survive without an external enemy? Give me war, give me pogrom, give me disaster, and I know what to do; give me peace and tranquility, and I'm lost. The Holocaust was a hellish horror, but we often use it as an excuse to avoid looking around seeing how, existentially, 60 years later, in a miraculous way, are living in a much better situation.
In your book, you raise the question of the purpose of Jewish survival over thousands of years, insisting that Jews have not simply survived for the sake of survival. What is this higher purpose?
Both my parents were survivors — my father ran away from Berlin in September 1939; my mum survived the 1929 massacre in Hebron. So, my family knows something about trauma. Still, my siblings and I were brought up in a trauma-free atmosphere. We were brought up to believe that the Jewish people did not continue in order to continue, or survive in order to survive. A cat can survive — so it's a circumcised cat, so what? It's not about survival; survival for what?
Look at the Exodus: After 400 years of very aggressive oppression and enslavement, all of a sudden the outcry was "Let my people go," and that continues to resonate against slavery everywhere to this day. Then we come to the Sinai covenant, which is a key moment not just for Jewish theology, but for Christian belief as well: The Ten Commandments is the first human-to-human constitution, setting out the relations among humans on the basis of laws. And then you come to the Prophets, and its amazing that they're calling so clearly for a just society. And then, in the Middle Ages, you listen to Maimonides say he's waiting for redemption of the world without oppression between nations. So, in the Jewish story over so many centuries, there has always been a higher cause, not just for the Jews, but for all of humanity.
Even in the Holocaust, the lesson is "Never Again." But this doesn't mean just never again can genocide be allowed to happen to the Jews, but never again can genocide be allowed to happen to any human being. So, the Holocaust is not just mine; it belongs to all of humanity.
You suggest that there's been a turning inward from the universal purpose and meaning of the Jewish experience...
Both the internal and the external hemispheres of the Jewish experience are essential. I cannot envisage my Judaism without the input I got from the external world, be it philosophy, aesthetics, even democracy, which was introduced to the Jews in the last 200 years because of our interface with the the world. On the other hand, I can't imagine my Western civilization and Western culture without the Jewish input, without Jesus Christ, who was born, was crucified and passed away as a Mishnaic rabbinical Jew. I cannot image Christian Europe opening up to modernity without a Maimonides reintroducing Greek philosophy. I cannot imagine modern times without a Spinoza, and Mendelson. I cannot imagine the 20th century without Marx and Freud. So, this conversation between Jews and the world is not just a conversation of pogroms and slaughter and Holocaust; it's also a couple of thousand years of a conversation that enriched me and enriched them, and I don't want to give that up.
Your book argues that the centrality of the Holocaust in Israeli identity is dysfunctional...
The Holocaust is a very real trauma for many people in Israel, and nobody can argue with that. But ... when I hear someone like Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a very intelligent person, say of [Iran's President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, "It's 1938 all over again," I say, is it?! Is this the reality? Did we have such an omnipotent army in 1938? Did we have an independent state in 1938? Did we have the unequivocal support in 1938 of all the important superpowers in the world? No, we did not. And when you compare Ahmadinejad to Hitler, don't you diminish Hitler's significance?
The sad thing is that whenever a head of state begins a visit to Israel, he doesn't go to a university or to the high-tech sector or the beautiful cultural places we have in Israel; first you should get molded into the Israeli reality at [the Holocaust memorial] Yad Vashem. And I do not think that Yad Vashem should be the showcase or the gateway through which everybody should first encounter Israel. Part of the program, yes; but the starting point? This is not the way to baptize people into an encounter with Judaism.
You argue that the purpose of the Yad Vashem visit is to silence criticism...
It's an emotional blackmail that says to people, this is what we have experienced, so shut up and help us... When the sages created the national holiday of Tisha Be'av, they made it the single day on which we commemorate all the traumas of our history, from the destruction of the first temple to the Spanish expulsion. These events did not all happen on this exact date; the founders of Jewish civilization confined the memory of the traumas of our history to one day, to allow us the rest of the year to get on with being Jewish, rather than letting sorrow take over our entire existence...
Look where we were 100 years ago and look where we are today — no other people made this transformation. Imagine we did not keep the shadow of the trauma looming over ourselves daily, what could we have been? How come 25% of the Nobel laureates in certain fields are of Jewish origins, and 10% of the arms deals around the world are done by Israelis? Why is my brother or sister in America a great poet or composer or physician whose achievements raise up all of humanity, and I who live here on my sword became a world expert on arms and swords? Is that really my mission, or is that an outcome of the black water with which I water my flowers? To make our contribution to humanity, we have to free ourselves of the obsession with the trauma.
Many Jews, in Israel and in America, see Israel as surrounded by deadly threats, and would see the benign and peaceful world you describe as a dangerous fantasy. What do you say to your critics?
I have very low expectations of new thinking and insight emerging from the mainstream Israeli and Jewish establishment. Their role is to maintain the status quo. Israel is bereft of forward thinking. We are experts at managing the crisis rather than finding alternatives to the crisis. In Israel you have many tanks, but not many think tanks. One of the reasons I left the Israeli politics was my growing feeling that Israel became a very efficient kingdom, but with no prophecy. Where is it going?
My idea of Judaism can be represented through a classic Talmudic dilemma: You are walking along by the river and there are two people drowning. One is Rabbi [Meir] Kahane, and the other is the Dalai Lama. You can only save one of them. For whom will you jump? If you jump for Rabbi Kahane because genetically he's Jewish, you belong to a different camp than mine, because I would jump for the Dalai Lama. As much as he's not genetically Jewish, he's my Jewish brother when it comes to my value system. That's the difference between me and the Jewish establishment in Israel and America.
But how can this new thinking you're advocating help Israel solve its security problems?
Many people say to me, "What about Gaza? Don't have so much compassion for them, don't tell the Israelis to be nice there, tell [the Palestinians] to be nice there. And I say Gaza is a nightmare, and it's a stain on my conscience. And I'm very troubled by the attitude of Israelis against Israeli Arabs. It's a shame. It's a black hole in my democracy. But I say sometimes that I'm too close to the reality; I don't have the perspective; I don't have the bigger picture. But if enough of my kids and enough of my youth will go to volunteer, be it in Darfur or be it Rwanda, or be it in the squatter camps of South Africa, they will sharpen their sensitivities. And they will come back and say, listen, if we can do so much good out there, let's do something over here. And I see my own kids, when they come back from India and from Latin America, how changed they are as people. I see my son, after one and a half years in Latin American. He came home, and five days later, was called for 30 days "miluim" service [with his military unit] in the West Bank. And he was sitting in the worst junction in the West Bank. And he says, "When I look around me 360 degrees, nobody loves me. Settlers, Kahanes, rabbis, mullahs, Hamas, Palestinians, you name it — they all hate me. And he told me, "Here I was sitting on a corner one day; it was my break time, and I was drinking coffee with a friend of mine, and out of the valley climbed an old Arab. He was very bent forward and frail, and walked slowly to us and said 'Here is my ID.' And we told him, you don't have to give us your ID; we didn't ask for it. And he said 'No, here it is, I want you to look at it. Look at it, I'm okay, I'm kosher, I'm kosher.' I checked it and let him pass, and then I began crying and crying."
So, I asked my son, why did you cry, what happened? And he said, "You don't understand that for a year and a half, I was in Latin America, going to small villages and sitting with this kind of man, listening to their oral tradition, to the beauty of their history, to the wisdom of their culture. And they shared it with me. And now here I am, the policeman, here I am the bad guy, here I am the occupier. And I can't talk to this man. You know how much he could tell me under different circumstances?" And I say, that's an example for me.
it alright for the otherside...
kick them..
Baghdad was once one of the great cradles of Jewish culture and wisdom, but now, according to the Christian priest who has been looking after them, there are only eight Jews left in the Iraqi capital, and their situation is "more than desperate." The Rev. Canon Andrew White, the Anglican chaplain to Iraq, says that the small group is in considerable danger. However, the community has been unable to agree to emigrate as a whole. Some of its members, without identifying themselves as Jews, have attempted to leave individually, but have been turned down. White says that only one of the Jews, a woman, still regularly goes to a Baghdad synagogue, though he will give no details.
White provides the group (whose precise number was first reported as part of a related story in the Washington Times) with food and money once a month, some of which they give to local Muslims, he says. "Not because they are forced to," he says, "but because they care about them. These are wonderful people."
He notes that the Iraqi Jews constituted one of the world's oldest Jewish communities, and that the country contains numerous important Jewish sites, such as the graves of the prophets Ezra and Ezekiel. The flourishing Jewish community in Baghdad also produced one version of Judaism's second-holiest book, the Talmud, in about 550 A.D.
The Baghdad Jews have not been able to agree to make an application to go to Israel together, says White. For people who have "spent [their] life in Iraq hearing awful things about Israel," he says, such hesitation would be natural.
White spoke from England several days after giving testimony in Washington before the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. White said that he had to leave Iraq temporarily for the safety of his staff. Earlier this month White reported that he had received a warning by al-Qaeda in Baghdad in April that "those who cure you will kill you." He later realized that it may have been a reference to the abortive July 4 terror attacks in London and Glasgow where medical personnel, including doctors, were among those arrested.
The Jewish population in Iraq began to disappear after 1948, when the founding of Israel resulted in anti-Jewish reprisals throughout the Arab world. Says Felice Gaer, one of the International Religious Freedom panel's commissioners and head of the American Jewish Committee's Jacob Blaustein Institute for Human Rights: "I didn't know about this community until I heard about it from Canon White. I certainly intend to learn more about the situation. It's hard to believe that those who want to provide charitable assistance couldn't reach people anywhere in the world, no less in a country where he U.S. has 160,000 troops."
Both Gaer and White point out that the plight of the remaining Jews is not very different from the hardships faced in Iraq by other religious minorities such as Christians, Mandeans (a gnostic group to whom John the Baptist is a central figure) and Yazidis (whose faith draws from Zoroastrianism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity and other sources). However, the priest says that the Jews have not able to get any material aid from the Iraqi government, and have been advised by officials "to say that they are Christians or to become Christians, because it's a lot safer."
White says the Iraqi government is "scared about admitting that there are Jews there," for fear of Muslim response in the region. For similar reasons, he says that no Jewish organization could provide them with direct aid, although indirect help through a non-Jewish agent might be possible.
"I don't want them to leave at all because the Jewish presence here is very important," White says. "But unless we care for them, I dread for what is going to happen to them. I do not want them to leave, but I think that is the only way."
Baghdad was once one of the great cradles of Jewish culture and wisdom, but now, according to the Christian priest who has been looking after them, there are only eight Jews left in the Iraqi capital, and their situation is "more than desperate." The Rev. Canon Andrew White, the Anglican chaplain to Iraq, says that the small group is in considerable danger. However, the community has been unable to agree to emigrate as a whole. Some of its members, without identifying themselves as Jews, have attempted to leave individually, but have been turned down. White says that only one of the Jews, a woman, still regularly goes to a Baghdad synagogue, though he will give no details.
White provides the group (whose precise number was first reported as part of a related story in the Washington Times) with food and money once a month, some of which they give to local Muslims, he says. "Not because they are forced to," he says, "but because they care about them. These are wonderful people."
He notes that the Iraqi Jews constituted one of the world's oldest Jewish communities, and that the country contains numerous important Jewish sites, such as the graves of the prophets Ezra and Ezekiel. The flourishing Jewish community in Baghdad also produced one version of Judaism's second-holiest book, the Talmud, in about 550 A.D.
The Baghdad Jews have not been able to agree to make an application to go to Israel together, says White. For people who have "spent [their] life in Iraq hearing awful things about Israel," he says, such hesitation would be natural.
White spoke from England several days after giving testimony in Washington before the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. White said that he had to leave Iraq temporarily for the safety of his staff. Earlier this month White reported that he had received a warning by al-Qaeda in Baghdad in April that "those who cure you will kill you." He later realized that it may have been a reference to the abortive July 4 terror attacks in London and Glasgow where medical personnel, including doctors, were among those arrested.
The Jewish population in Iraq began to disappear after 1948, when the founding of Israel resulted in anti-Jewish reprisals throughout the Arab world. Says Felice Gaer, one of the International Religious Freedom panel's commissioners and head of the American Jewish Committee's Jacob Blaustein Institute for Human Rights: "I didn't know about this community until I heard about it from Canon White. I certainly intend to learn more about the situation. It's hard to believe that those who want to provide charitable assistance couldn't reach people anywhere in the world, no less in a country where he U.S. has 160,000 troops."
Both Gaer and White point out that the plight of the remaining Jews is not very different from the hardships faced in Iraq by other religious minorities such as Christians, Mandeans (a gnostic group to whom John the Baptist is a central figure) and Yazidis (whose faith draws from Zoroastrianism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity and other sources). However, the priest says that the Jews have not able to get any material aid from the Iraqi government, and have been advised by officials "to say that they are Christians or to become Christians, because it's a lot safer."
White says the Iraqi government is "scared about admitting that there are Jews there," for fear of Muslim response in the region. For similar reasons, he says that no Jewish organization could provide them with direct aid, although indirect help through a non-Jewish agent might be possible.
"I don't want them to leave at all because the Jewish presence here is very important," White says. "But unless we care for them, I dread for what is going to happen to them. I do not want them to leave, but I think that is the only way."
to the sea....
Exactly what the Islamists want?
GAZA, Jan 4 – Islamic Jihad, the extremist group behind many of the rocket attacks on Israeli towns, has at last got the war it wished for.
Amid reports of heavy losses among their allies in Hamas as Israeli troops poured into Gaza, the question is whether its leaders have bitten off more than they can chew.
It was over a year ago that Abu Hamza, the head of Islamic Jihad’s rocket programme, said the goal was to draw Israel into a ground conflict inside the Gaza Strip so that his men would have the chance to “kill as many Zionists as possible”.
A top commander repeated that sentiment – previously lacking from Hamas’ rhetoric as they pursued the often conflicting strategies of resistance and governing – last week.
Abu Bilal, commander of Islamic Jihad’s forces in the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza, admitted that his group’s rocket attacks are mostly ineffectual against Israel, except psychologically, and that the group, which operates independently of the dominant Hamas movement, was literally praying for an invasion.
“We can’t do anything (to hurt the Israelis) but fire the rockets and hope they enter Gaza,” he said. “We are praying for the tanks to come so we can show them new things. We have made many preparations for the coming battle and all of our fighters wait for the chance to kill them.”
Now his men will get that chance and their bravado will be tested by an Israeli military that not only wants to redeem its image after the bruising battle for south Lebanon in 2006, but has also been training almost exclusively for this mission for two years.
When pressed for an explanation about the surprises his group claims to have prepared, Abu Bilal refused to elaborate. But in the past two years, numerous Islamic Jihad and Hamas members have slipped out of Gaza through tunnels to Egypt to train alongside Hezbollah members in Iran and Lebanon, according to sources close to both groups.
It is thought that lessons learned in the war in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, when Hezbollah militants shocked Israel with their ability to ambush tank units with advanced weaponry supplied by Iran, have been transferred to both Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in the Gaza Strip through this training.
What is not so clear is whether they have managed to gain access to the same sophisticated anti-tank weaponry Hezbollah used with such efficiency in Lebanon, confronted as they will be by large amounts of Israeli armour.
And while they have studied Hezbollah’s tactics, the question is how applicable they will be to terrain that lacks the rugged hills and valleys used to great effect by Hezbollah as cover for hiding its weaponry from Israeli fighter jets.
What they do have on their side is one of the densest urban environments on earth, and the initial reports from the ground, just hours into the Israeli operation, suggest that the militants of Gaza hope to draw the Israelis into an urban fight that might help offset the Israeli advantages in technology, armour and firepower.
Israeli officials have been vague about what the incursion will include, leaving their goals as simple as “to hit Hamas hard”. A massive operation to reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip would be bloody and, in all likelihood, unsuccessful.
But for the past week, Israeli officials have implied the long-term goal is to damage Hamas’s military capability so thoroughly it is forced to accept a ceasefire on Israeli terms.
Thus they are under no political pressure to achieve anything other than to kill more fighters and end the rocket-firing capabilities of the militants – not to end Hamas as an entity, as they tried to do to Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. – The Observer
GAZA, Jan 4 – Islamic Jihad, the extremist group behind many of the rocket attacks on Israeli towns, has at last got the war it wished for.
Amid reports of heavy losses among their allies in Hamas as Israeli troops poured into Gaza, the question is whether its leaders have bitten off more than they can chew.
It was over a year ago that Abu Hamza, the head of Islamic Jihad’s rocket programme, said the goal was to draw Israel into a ground conflict inside the Gaza Strip so that his men would have the chance to “kill as many Zionists as possible”.
A top commander repeated that sentiment – previously lacking from Hamas’ rhetoric as they pursued the often conflicting strategies of resistance and governing – last week.
Abu Bilal, commander of Islamic Jihad’s forces in the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza, admitted that his group’s rocket attacks are mostly ineffectual against Israel, except psychologically, and that the group, which operates independently of the dominant Hamas movement, was literally praying for an invasion.
“We can’t do anything (to hurt the Israelis) but fire the rockets and hope they enter Gaza,” he said. “We are praying for the tanks to come so we can show them new things. We have made many preparations for the coming battle and all of our fighters wait for the chance to kill them.”
Now his men will get that chance and their bravado will be tested by an Israeli military that not only wants to redeem its image after the bruising battle for south Lebanon in 2006, but has also been training almost exclusively for this mission for two years.
When pressed for an explanation about the surprises his group claims to have prepared, Abu Bilal refused to elaborate. But in the past two years, numerous Islamic Jihad and Hamas members have slipped out of Gaza through tunnels to Egypt to train alongside Hezbollah members in Iran and Lebanon, according to sources close to both groups.
It is thought that lessons learned in the war in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, when Hezbollah militants shocked Israel with their ability to ambush tank units with advanced weaponry supplied by Iran, have been transferred to both Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in the Gaza Strip through this training.
What is not so clear is whether they have managed to gain access to the same sophisticated anti-tank weaponry Hezbollah used with such efficiency in Lebanon, confronted as they will be by large amounts of Israeli armour.
And while they have studied Hezbollah’s tactics, the question is how applicable they will be to terrain that lacks the rugged hills and valleys used to great effect by Hezbollah as cover for hiding its weaponry from Israeli fighter jets.
What they do have on their side is one of the densest urban environments on earth, and the initial reports from the ground, just hours into the Israeli operation, suggest that the militants of Gaza hope to draw the Israelis into an urban fight that might help offset the Israeli advantages in technology, armour and firepower.
Israeli officials have been vague about what the incursion will include, leaving their goals as simple as “to hit Hamas hard”. A massive operation to reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip would be bloody and, in all likelihood, unsuccessful.
But for the past week, Israeli officials have implied the long-term goal is to damage Hamas’s military capability so thoroughly it is forced to accept a ceasefire on Israeli terms.
Thus they are under no political pressure to achieve anything other than to kill more fighters and end the rocket-firing capabilities of the militants – not to end Hamas as an entity, as they tried to do to Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. – The Observer
no more talk.....
picking on neighbours instead of.....
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Thousands of Israeli troops backed by columns of tanks and helicopter gunships launched a ground offensive in Gaza on Saturday night, with officials saying they expected a lengthy fight in the densely populated territory after eight days of punishing airstrikes failed to halt militant rocket attacks on Israel.
The incursion set off fierce clashes with Palestinian militants and Gaza's Hamas rulers vowed the coastal strip would be a "graveyard" for Israelis forces.
"This will not be easy and it will not be short," Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on national television about two hours after ground troops moved in.
Army ambulances were seen bringing Israeli wounded to a hospital in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba. The military said a total of 30 soldiers were injured in the opening hours of the offensive along with "dozens" of militants.
The night sky over Gaza was lit by the flash of bullets and balls of fire from tank shells. Sounds of explosions were heard across Gaza City, the territory's biggest city, and high-rise buildings shook from the bigger booms.
Troops with camouflage face paint marching single file. As the ground troops moved in, Israel kept pounding Gaza with airstrikes. F-16 warplanes hit three targets within a few minutes, including a main Hamas security compound.
Gaza residents said troops were seen before dawn Sunday in the town of Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza City, and the sound of intense fighting could be heard just east of the city, toward the border with Israel.
In the city itself, the Hamas-run Al Aqsa radio station was in flames from a missile strike. Staff had evacuated the building about a week earlier, at the start of the Israeli offensive, and continued broadcasting from another location.
"We have many, many targets," Israeli army spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovich told CNN. "To my estimation, it will be a lengthy operation."
Israeli leaders said the operation, known as Cast Lead, was meant to quell militant rocket and mortar fire on southern Israel. They said it would not end quickly but that the objective was not to reoccupy Gaza or topple Hamas. The depth and intensity will depend in part on parallel diplomatic efforts that so far haven't yielded a truce proposal acceptable to Israel, the officials said.
In the airborne phase of Israel's onslaught, militants were not deterred from bombarding southern Israel with more than 400 rockets — including dozens that extended deeper into Israel than ever before. They fired six rockets into Israel in the first few hours after the ground push began, the military said.
One rocket scored a direct hit on a house in the southern city of Ashkelon earlier Saturday and another struck a bomb shelter there, leaving its above-ground entrance scarred by shrapnel and blasting a parked bus.
"I don't want to disillusion anybody and residents of the south will go through difficult days," Barak said. "We do not seek war but we will not abandon our citizens to the ongoing Hamas attacks."
Israel called up tens of thousands of reservists and the country's north was on high alert in the event Palestinian militants in the West Bank or Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon decide to exploit the broad offensive in Gaza to launch attacks against Israel on other fronts. Israel and Hezbollah fought a 34-day war in the summer of 2006.
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said U.S. officials have been in regular contact with the Israelis as well as officials from countries in the region and Europe.
"We continue to make clear to them our concerns for civilians, as well as the humanitarian situation," Johndroe said.
The U.N. Security Council held emergency consultations on the escalation in Gaza. But late Saturday, the United States blocked approval of a council statement demanded by Arab nations that calls for an immediate cease-fire.
U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said the United States saw no prospect of Hamas abiding by last week's council call to end the violence. Therefore, he said, a new statement "would not be adhered to and would have no underpinning for success, would not do credit to the council."
Israel's bruising air campaign against Gaza over the past eight days began days after a six-month truce expired. Gaza health officials say the air war has killed more than 480 Palestinians in an attempt to halt Hamas rocket attacks that were reaching farther into Israel than ever before. Four Israelis have been killed by rockets.
Israel is taking a risk by wading into intense urban warfare in densely populated Gaza that could exact a much higher toll on both sides and among civilians.
This sort of urban warfare has not gone well in past campaigns where Israel sent ground forces into Arab population centers in the Palestinian territories or in Lebanon wars in 1982 and 2006. Israeli forces have either gotten bogged down or sustained heavy casualties, without quelling violent groups or halting attacks for good.
The decision to expand the operation, while continuing to batter Gaza from the air and sea, was taken after Hamas refused to stop attacking Israel, government officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because discussions leading up to wartime decisions are confidential.
Before the ground incursion began, heavy Israeli artillery fire hit east of Gaza City, in locations where the military said Hamas fighters were deployed. The artillery shells were apparently intended to detonate Hamas explosive devices and mines planted along the border area before troops marched in.
Hamas has long prepared for Israel's invasion, digging tunnels and rigging some areas with explosives. The group remained defiant as the ground war began.
"You entered like rats," Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan told Israeli soldiers in a statement on Hamas' Al Aqsa TV, broadcast shortly after the start of the invasion. "Your entry to Gaza won't be easy. Gaza will be a graveyard for you, God willing," he said.
"Gaza will not be paved with flowers for you. It will be paved with fire and hell," Hamas warned Israeli forces.
A text message sent by Hamas' military wing, Izzedine al-Qassam, said "the Zionists started approaching the trap which our fighters prepared for them." Hamas said it also broadcast a Hebrew message on Israeli military radio frequencies promising to kill and kidnap the Israeli soldiers.
"Be prepared for a unique surprise, you will be either killed or kidnapped and will suffer mental illness from the horrors we will show you," the message said.
Hamas has also threatened to resume suicide attacks inside Israel.
Before the ground invasion, defense officials said about 10,000 Israeli soldiers had massed along the border in recent days.
Israel initially held off on a ground offensive, apparently in part because of concern about casualties among Israeli troops and because of fears of getting bogged down in Gaza.
An inner Cabinet of top ministers met with leading security officials for four hours Saturday before deciding to authorize the ground invasion.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the meeting that Israel's objective was to bring quiet to southern Israel but "we don't want to topple Hamas," a government official quoted the prime minister as saying. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not supposed to share the information.
The immediate aim of the ground operations was to take control of sites militants use as rocket-launching pads, the military said. It said large numbers of troops were taking part but did not give specifics.
Israeli airstrikes intensified just as the ground operation was getting under way, and 28 Palestinians were killed. Palestinian health officials said civilians were among the dead, including a woman, her son and her father who died after a shell hit their house.
One raid hit a mosque in Beit Lahiya, killing 13 people and wounding 33, according to a Palestinian health official. It was not immediately clear why the mosque was hit, but Israel has hit other mosques in its air campaign and said they were used for storing weapons.
Israeli artillery joined the battle for the first time earlier on Saturday. Artillery fire is less accurate than attacks from the air using precision-guided munitions, raising the possibility of a higher number of civilian casualties.
An artillery shell hit a house in Beit Lahiya, killing two people and wounding five, said members of the family living there. Ambulances could not immediately reach them because of a resulting fire, they said.
Resident Abed al-Ghoul said the Israeli army called by phone to tell them to leave the house within 15 minutes.
The ground operation sidelined intense international diplomacy to try to reach a truce. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was to visit the region next week, and President George W. Bush favors an internationally monitored truce.
Israel has already said it wants international monitors. It is unclear whether Hamas would agree to such supervision, which could limit its control of Gaza.
In Hamas' first reaction to the proposal for international monitors, government spokesman Taher Nunu said early Saturday that the group would not allow Israel or the international community to impose any arrangement, though he left the door open to a negotiated solution.
"Anyone who thinks that the change in the Palestinian arena can be achieved through jet fighters' bombs and tanks and without dialogue is mistaken," he said.
Hamas began to emerge as Gaza's main power broker when it won Palestinian parliamentary elections three years ago. It has ruled the impoverished territory of 1.4 million people since seizing control from the rival Fatah forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in June 2007.
Israel occupied Gaza for 38 years before pulling out thousands of soldiers in settlers in late 2005
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Thousands of Israeli troops backed by columns of tanks and helicopter gunships launched a ground offensive in Gaza on Saturday night, with officials saying they expected a lengthy fight in the densely populated territory after eight days of punishing airstrikes failed to halt militant rocket attacks on Israel.
The incursion set off fierce clashes with Palestinian militants and Gaza's Hamas rulers vowed the coastal strip would be a "graveyard" for Israelis forces.
"This will not be easy and it will not be short," Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on national television about two hours after ground troops moved in.
Army ambulances were seen bringing Israeli wounded to a hospital in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba. The military said a total of 30 soldiers were injured in the opening hours of the offensive along with "dozens" of militants.
The night sky over Gaza was lit by the flash of bullets and balls of fire from tank shells. Sounds of explosions were heard across Gaza City, the territory's biggest city, and high-rise buildings shook from the bigger booms.
Troops with camouflage face paint marching single file. As the ground troops moved in, Israel kept pounding Gaza with airstrikes. F-16 warplanes hit three targets within a few minutes, including a main Hamas security compound.
Gaza residents said troops were seen before dawn Sunday in the town of Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza City, and the sound of intense fighting could be heard just east of the city, toward the border with Israel.
In the city itself, the Hamas-run Al Aqsa radio station was in flames from a missile strike. Staff had evacuated the building about a week earlier, at the start of the Israeli offensive, and continued broadcasting from another location.
"We have many, many targets," Israeli army spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovich told CNN. "To my estimation, it will be a lengthy operation."
Israeli leaders said the operation, known as Cast Lead, was meant to quell militant rocket and mortar fire on southern Israel. They said it would not end quickly but that the objective was not to reoccupy Gaza or topple Hamas. The depth and intensity will depend in part on parallel diplomatic efforts that so far haven't yielded a truce proposal acceptable to Israel, the officials said.
In the airborne phase of Israel's onslaught, militants were not deterred from bombarding southern Israel with more than 400 rockets — including dozens that extended deeper into Israel than ever before. They fired six rockets into Israel in the first few hours after the ground push began, the military said.
One rocket scored a direct hit on a house in the southern city of Ashkelon earlier Saturday and another struck a bomb shelter there, leaving its above-ground entrance scarred by shrapnel and blasting a parked bus.
"I don't want to disillusion anybody and residents of the south will go through difficult days," Barak said. "We do not seek war but we will not abandon our citizens to the ongoing Hamas attacks."
Israel called up tens of thousands of reservists and the country's north was on high alert in the event Palestinian militants in the West Bank or Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon decide to exploit the broad offensive in Gaza to launch attacks against Israel on other fronts. Israel and Hezbollah fought a 34-day war in the summer of 2006.
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said U.S. officials have been in regular contact with the Israelis as well as officials from countries in the region and Europe.
"We continue to make clear to them our concerns for civilians, as well as the humanitarian situation," Johndroe said.
The U.N. Security Council held emergency consultations on the escalation in Gaza. But late Saturday, the United States blocked approval of a council statement demanded by Arab nations that calls for an immediate cease-fire.
U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said the United States saw no prospect of Hamas abiding by last week's council call to end the violence. Therefore, he said, a new statement "would not be adhered to and would have no underpinning for success, would not do credit to the council."
Israel's bruising air campaign against Gaza over the past eight days began days after a six-month truce expired. Gaza health officials say the air war has killed more than 480 Palestinians in an attempt to halt Hamas rocket attacks that were reaching farther into Israel than ever before. Four Israelis have been killed by rockets.
Israel is taking a risk by wading into intense urban warfare in densely populated Gaza that could exact a much higher toll on both sides and among civilians.
This sort of urban warfare has not gone well in past campaigns where Israel sent ground forces into Arab population centers in the Palestinian territories or in Lebanon wars in 1982 and 2006. Israeli forces have either gotten bogged down or sustained heavy casualties, without quelling violent groups or halting attacks for good.
The decision to expand the operation, while continuing to batter Gaza from the air and sea, was taken after Hamas refused to stop attacking Israel, government officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because discussions leading up to wartime decisions are confidential.
Before the ground incursion began, heavy Israeli artillery fire hit east of Gaza City, in locations where the military said Hamas fighters were deployed. The artillery shells were apparently intended to detonate Hamas explosive devices and mines planted along the border area before troops marched in.
Hamas has long prepared for Israel's invasion, digging tunnels and rigging some areas with explosives. The group remained defiant as the ground war began.
"You entered like rats," Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan told Israeli soldiers in a statement on Hamas' Al Aqsa TV, broadcast shortly after the start of the invasion. "Your entry to Gaza won't be easy. Gaza will be a graveyard for you, God willing," he said.
"Gaza will not be paved with flowers for you. It will be paved with fire and hell," Hamas warned Israeli forces.
A text message sent by Hamas' military wing, Izzedine al-Qassam, said "the Zionists started approaching the trap which our fighters prepared for them." Hamas said it also broadcast a Hebrew message on Israeli military radio frequencies promising to kill and kidnap the Israeli soldiers.
"Be prepared for a unique surprise, you will be either killed or kidnapped and will suffer mental illness from the horrors we will show you," the message said.
Hamas has also threatened to resume suicide attacks inside Israel.
Before the ground invasion, defense officials said about 10,000 Israeli soldiers had massed along the border in recent days.
Israel initially held off on a ground offensive, apparently in part because of concern about casualties among Israeli troops and because of fears of getting bogged down in Gaza.
An inner Cabinet of top ministers met with leading security officials for four hours Saturday before deciding to authorize the ground invasion.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the meeting that Israel's objective was to bring quiet to southern Israel but "we don't want to topple Hamas," a government official quoted the prime minister as saying. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not supposed to share the information.
The immediate aim of the ground operations was to take control of sites militants use as rocket-launching pads, the military said. It said large numbers of troops were taking part but did not give specifics.
Israeli airstrikes intensified just as the ground operation was getting under way, and 28 Palestinians were killed. Palestinian health officials said civilians were among the dead, including a woman, her son and her father who died after a shell hit their house.
One raid hit a mosque in Beit Lahiya, killing 13 people and wounding 33, according to a Palestinian health official. It was not immediately clear why the mosque was hit, but Israel has hit other mosques in its air campaign and said they were used for storing weapons.
Israeli artillery joined the battle for the first time earlier on Saturday. Artillery fire is less accurate than attacks from the air using precision-guided munitions, raising the possibility of a higher number of civilian casualties.
An artillery shell hit a house in Beit Lahiya, killing two people and wounding five, said members of the family living there. Ambulances could not immediately reach them because of a resulting fire, they said.
Resident Abed al-Ghoul said the Israeli army called by phone to tell them to leave the house within 15 minutes.
The ground operation sidelined intense international diplomacy to try to reach a truce. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was to visit the region next week, and President George W. Bush favors an internationally monitored truce.
Israel has already said it wants international monitors. It is unclear whether Hamas would agree to such supervision, which could limit its control of Gaza.
In Hamas' first reaction to the proposal for international monitors, government spokesman Taher Nunu said early Saturday that the group would not allow Israel or the international community to impose any arrangement, though he left the door open to a negotiated solution.
"Anyone who thinks that the change in the Palestinian arena can be achieved through jet fighters' bombs and tanks and without dialogue is mistaken," he said.
Hamas began to emerge as Gaza's main power broker when it won Palestinian parliamentary elections three years ago. It has ruled the impoverished territory of 1.4 million people since seizing control from the rival Fatah forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in June 2007.
Israel occupied Gaza for 38 years before pulling out thousands of soldiers in settlers in late 2005
Thursday 1 January 2009
mine,mine,mine....
even God's name....
Malaysia bans Malay-language edition of Catholic paper: editor
A Catholic newspaper in Malaysia has been ordered by the government to cease its Malay language edition until courts resolve a ban on the paper's use of the word "Allah", its editor said Thursday.
Herald newspaper editor Father Lawrence Andrew said the move was part of a series of restrictions put in place by the conservative Muslim government when it renewed the paper's licence on Tuesday.
The Herald, circulated among the country's 850,000 Catholics, nearly lost its publishing licence last year for using the word "Allah" as a translation for "God," with authorities saying it should only be used by Muslims.
"The Constitution says Malay is the national language so why can't we use the national language in Malaysia?" he told AFP.
He called the ban "unacceptable" and said he intended to take action.
Andrew said the ban did not make any sense because a large proportion of Catholics in Malaysia are Bumiputera who mainly speak Malay.
The term "Bumiputera", or "Son of the soil", refers to ethnic Muslim Malays and the indigenous inhabitants in peninsular Malaysia and on Borneo island who are mostly Christian.
"More than 50 percent of our congregation are Bumiputera and two of our bishops are Bumiputera," he added.
The issue will be decided by the courts next month, while home ministry officials told the New Straits Times daily Thursday they will be monitoring the paper's actions closely.
Religion and language are sensitive issues in multiracial Malaysia, which experienced deadly race riots in 1969.
About 60 percent of the nation's 27 million people are ethnic Malay Muslims, who dominate the government. The rest of the population are mostly ethnic Chinese and Indians -- practising Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism.
Malaysia bans Malay-language edition of Catholic paper: editor
A Catholic newspaper in Malaysia has been ordered by the government to cease its Malay language edition until courts resolve a ban on the paper's use of the word "Allah", its editor said Thursday.
Herald newspaper editor Father Lawrence Andrew said the move was part of a series of restrictions put in place by the conservative Muslim government when it renewed the paper's licence on Tuesday.
The Herald, circulated among the country's 850,000 Catholics, nearly lost its publishing licence last year for using the word "Allah" as a translation for "God," with authorities saying it should only be used by Muslims.
"The Constitution says Malay is the national language so why can't we use the national language in Malaysia?" he told AFP.
He called the ban "unacceptable" and said he intended to take action.
Andrew said the ban did not make any sense because a large proportion of Catholics in Malaysia are Bumiputera who mainly speak Malay.
The term "Bumiputera", or "Son of the soil", refers to ethnic Muslim Malays and the indigenous inhabitants in peninsular Malaysia and on Borneo island who are mostly Christian.
"More than 50 percent of our congregation are Bumiputera and two of our bishops are Bumiputera," he added.
The issue will be decided by the courts next month, while home ministry officials told the New Straits Times daily Thursday they will be monitoring the paper's actions closely.
Religion and language are sensitive issues in multiracial Malaysia, which experienced deadly race riots in 1969.
About 60 percent of the nation's 27 million people are ethnic Malay Muslims, who dominate the government. The rest of the population are mostly ethnic Chinese and Indians -- practising Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism.
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