Israel won a partial reprieve from the economic pain of its Gaza war on Thursday with the lifting of a U.S. ban on commercial flights to Tel Aviv, while the Palestinian are not so lucky, now 700 dead

Israel also came under criticism from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who said there was “  strong possibility”Israel was committing war crimes in Gaza, where 703 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in the fighting:

________

Moshe Feiglin, a deputy speaker of the Israeli parliament and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, urged the Israeli army to kill Palestinians in Gaza indiscriminately and use every means possible to get them to leave:

”[Netanyahu] announces that Israel is about to attack military targets in their area and urges those who are not involved and do not wish to be harmed to leave immediately. Sinai is not far from Gaza and they can leave. This will be the limit of Israel’s humanitarian efforts. … All the military and infrastructural targets will be attacked with no consideration for ‘human shields’ or ‘environmental damage’. …The IDF will conquer the entire Gaza, using all the means necessary to minimize any harm to our soldiers, with no other considerations. … The enemy population that is innocent of wrong-doing and separated itself from the armed terrorists will be treated in accordance with international law and will be allowed to leave. Israel will generously aid those who wish to leave.”

The Conga Line Doesn’t Stretch Into The British Parliament - Israel Called Out For Barbarism

Israel Is Being Called Out For Terrorism, War Crimes And Apartheid

Norwegian surgeon witnesses Israeli war crimes in Gaza

Tuesday, 15 July 2014 13:48

Middle East Monitor

Norwegian professor Mads Frederick Gilbert is utterly shocked as he checks the corpses of martyrs and the bodies of the wounded as they continuously arrive in the Shifa Hospital in Gaza on the seventh day of the bloody Israeli onslaught on the besieged Strip.

Gilbert, 67, a surgeon, murmurs as he walks in the Intensive Care Unit: "This is outrageous, horrific and unbelievable... what's happening is no less than premeditated killing and genocide."

In an interview with Safa News, Gilbert says the Israeli occupation deliberately uses internationally forbidden destructive weapons in its continued onslaught on Gaza.

"Israeli bombs cause injuries that cannot be immediately seen via x-ray," Gilbert said, "After a period of time, the injury starts to bleed."

"The material used in these bombs is uncommon, which explains why we cannot cure the injured parts, and in some cases doctors are forced to amputate them," he says.

Gilbert arrived in Gaza on Thursday via the Rafah border crossing after Israel barred him from entering Gaza via the Beit Hanoun/Erez crossing.

The Norwegian physician has been to Gaza a number of times, the last was during the Israeli offensive in 2012.

An internationally renowned activist and member of the Norwegian socialist party the Red Party, Gilbert specialises in anaesthesia, and heads the Department of Emergency Medicine at the North Norway University Hospital.

"I feel as though I moved from a colourful world, where people enjoy freedom and peace, to the world of Gaza where life, peace and security are simply non-existent," he says while examining all cases that arrive in the hospital

He adds that his visit to Gaza this time is different. "The entire Gaza Strip has become a military target for Israeli warplanes; there is no safe place here. You can hear the air raids everywhere and see fear and anxiety on the faces of all the people and children."

More than 178 Palestinians, including 35 children and 24 women, have been killed by Israeli raids on Gaza since last Monday, July 7.

Gilbert expresses his distress over the volume of bloodletting caused by Israeli airstrikes: "I am very pained by the scenes of the dead and wounded at every corner of the hospital."

The Norwegian professor repeats that Israel "deliberately" targets civilians, "particularly women and children," adding that the majority of the victims are women, children and the elderly.

Gilbert has been subject to an Israeli smear campaign; Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor accused him of spreading lies.

Gilbert responds saying: "Regrettably, the Israeli media machine in Europe portrays the victims as members of Hamas. But we will eventually discover that these are lies and rumours. What crime have women and children committed to be killed and bombed?

"If Israel denies my claims, it should open Gaza for international teams to come and see for themselves and issue reliable medical reports," he said defiantly.

Gilbert is working diligently with other medical teams at the Shifa Hospital to rescue incoming casualties. "Israel is collectively punishing civilians," he stresses.

"The casualties we saw are horrific and abnormal. Most of them are in the head or chest, and there is no room for cosmetic operations because the type of injuries requires amputation," he explains.

Gilbert confirms that the Israeli occupation has breached all international laws and treaties, particularly the Geneva Conventions, through its policies of war and siege, and its usage of internationally banned weapons.

Food stamps then and now

Maine residents to work for food stamps, governor says

People considered to be ‘ able-bodied’ must work a minimum 20 hours a week or lose benefits, governor says - (Food stamp usage across the U.S. had dipped to 46.6 million people at the end of June, a 2.1 percent drop from the program’s peak of 47.6 million a year earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the program._

July 23, 2014 9:09PM ET

by Massoud Hayoun @mhayoun

Aljazeera America

Maine's Republican governor on Wednesday launched a push to make more “able-bodied” people work for their food stamps.

“People who are in need deserve a hand up, but we should not be giving able-bodied individuals a handout,’’ said Gov. Paul R. LePage.

LePage will reportedly stop seeking a federal waiver — issued at the height of the Great Recession — allowing some food stamp recipients to bypass requirements that they work or volunteer, according to local news channel WCSH.

About 12,000 of the state’s residents receiving $15 million annually in food stamps are considered to be able-bodied by Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), which administers the aid. That means that they are between the ages of 18 and 49, have no dependents and are not pregnant or disabled.

In the next three months, those who are deemed able-bodied must work or volunteer with a community organization for 20 hours a week or lose their aid. 

One in seven Americans receive food stamps. Some have called movements to make people work for food stamps – and a recent congressional bid to cut the program by $800 million – a war on America’s poor. But for LePage, it’s about uplifting a developing post-recession underclass.

“We must continue to do all that we can to eliminate generational poverty and get people back to work,” LePage said. “We must protect our limited resources for those who are truly in need and who are doing all they can to be self-sufficient.”

Over the past six months, Maine's DHHS has worked with the state’s Labor Department to help families receiving food stamps and other assistance get on a “pathway to employment,” the DHHS said in a news release. The effort connects people with employment centers and performs vocational assessments.

“We are committed to helping people use these resources, as well as providing training, to get people back to work as quickly as possible,” said DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew.

Maine’s unemployment rate was 5.5 percent in June, down from 6.7 a year before, according to the state’s Labor Department. 

Israel is vulnerable economically unless it makes peace with the Palestinians by giving up its settler-colonial enterprise

Gaza War Devastates Israeli Tourism Revenue, Points to Fragile Apartheid Future

By Juan Cole | Jul. 23, 2014 |

By Juan Cole

A Hamas rocket hit and destroyed a house in Yahoud, a town only a mile from Ben Gurion Airport in Israel on Tuesday, raising severe alarm in among the international airlines and leading most of them to cancel flights to Tel Aviv. The US Federal Aviation Administration called for a 24 hour moratorium on US flights to Israel, and United Airlines, U.S. Airways and Delta Air lines said they would cease flying there “until further notice.” The European Aviation Safety Agency likewise cautioned European airlines from flying to Israel, and Lufthansa and other major carriers cancelled their flights.

Israel’s Transportation Ministry, in its charming way, stridently denounced the airlines as accomplices of terrorists, saying “there is no reason whatsoever that American companies would stop their flights and hand terror a prize…” In fact, the downing of MH17 over eastern Ukraine is obviously the context for the airlines being spooked. And, if a rocket can land one mile from the airport, it can land on a plane at the airport just as easily.

Israeli tourism brought in $11 billion last year, some 4.5% of its nominal GDP. Tourism employs 100,000 workers, two-thirds of them in the hotel industry. In other words, a full loss of tourism would cost Israel $30 mn a day and could idle nearly 3% of the country’s workforce. (Since El Al is still flying, there hasn’t been a full loss of tourism, but El Al is probably flying many planes that aren’t full and may take an economic hit on that account alone; jet fuel is expensive and nowadays full planes are necessary to avoid losing money).

Here are the major countries of origin for the tourists last year:

US: 623,000
Russia: 603,000 tourists
France 315,000
Germany 254,000
United Kingdom 217,000
Italy 173,000
Ukraine 134,000

A quarter of all visitors described themselves as pilgrims. Over half said they were Christians and a little over a quarter were Jewish.

Some observers assumed that the FAA and EASA decisions were made at the behest of political leaders in the US and Europe and were intended to pressure the Israeli government to wrap up its Gaza War. These allegations were denied by the two agencies. But then they would say that, wouldn’t they? The US State Department has also issued a travel advisory for Israel.

If the airlines cease flying to Israel for a long while, the economic pain would be great, a loss of hundreds of millions to as much as $900 mn. a month. It is likely that the business classes in Israel will begin pressuring PM Binyamin Netanyahu to end the Gaza engagement as soon as possible, given how bad it is for business.

The true significance of the airlines’ decision and that of the aviation regulation agencies lies not in its short term effect on the Israeli economy. Rather, it is a demonstration effect of how Israel is becoming vulnerable. When Netanyahu attacked Gaza in 2012, life and the economy went on normally in Israel. But in 2006 during the Israeli attack on Lebanon, Hizbullah rockets made fully a fourth of Israelis move out of their homes, away from the north, as they went to stay in with friends further south. But the rockets are gaining in range.

In essence, Hamas by targeting the airport (it wasn’t trying to hit a house in Yahoud but rather the runway at Bengurion International) has hit upon a new strategy, of imposing willy nilly an international boycott on Israeli aviation.

The airlines’ decision will likely motivate the Netanyahu government to attempt to disarm Gaza permanently and to attempt to make sure that Hamas can never again put the Tel Aviv airport in danger. But wanting to disarm Hamas and doing it aren’t the same thing. And once Israel leaves Gaza, what will stop Hamas from restocking?

Israel’s Likud government ought to (but won’t) take the opposite lesson from the airlines’ decision. It is that Israel is vulnerable economically unless it makes peace with the Palestinians by giving up its settler-colonial enterprise. It has to stop sending in squatters on Palestinian land and make preparations for pulling the settlers out.

—-

More Precision Bombing by the IDF in Gaza

THIS OFFICE BLOCK WAS SHELTERING PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS WHO HAD FLED THEIR OWN NEIGHBORHOODS BOMBED BY ISRAEL



The Big Story is:

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday evening, and asked him to help restore regular flights to Israel from the US. 

I have it from good sources that 90% of Israel is  endangered by Hamas rockets, missile and IBMS, but by some miracle Hamas rockets are ineffective against civilian flights coming and leaving Israel.

A young Palestinian man looking to help his missing family, which was bombed by the Israelis, is shot by an Israeli sniper and then as he lay wounded is shot again and killed

ISRAEL DW

Growing opposition to Israel in Germany

As pro-Gaza demonstrations with anti-Jewish sentiments spread throughout Europe, a public debate in Germany aims to draw a clear line between criticism of Israeli politics and hatred of Jews.

"Berlin police cower before Jew-haters," proclaimed a headline in the Berlin newspaper "Tagesspiegel" - and this line has been posted numerous times on social networking sites. It was reported that a group of Arabs shouted "Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come out and fight alone" at a recent demonstration and police officers did not interfere.

In many European cities, what began as peaceful protests turned into outpourings of anti-Jewish sentiments and violence against counter-demonstrators. The situation became particularly heated in France, where street fights broke out between protestors and police in front of synagogues over the weekend. In Berlin, meanwhile, state security authorities have launched an investigation against a Muslim preacher from the Al-Nur mosque who posted a video on YouTube calling for murder of Jews.

Germany's special role

Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, Israel's ambassador to Germany since 2012, has expressed indignation and concern over the incidents.

"We have nothing against demonstrations or against freedom of expression - that's the core of democracy," Hadas-Handelsman told DW in an interview. "But when, as happened this weekend, it leads to violence against the police or against pro-Israeli demonstrators, then it is unacceptable. I think Germans should be worried by that, because you also hear anti-Semitic slogans like 'Jews into the gas' - in Germany?"

He added that Germany needed to consider how to deal with anti-Jewish protests of this kind.

Politicians from nearly all German political parties have condemned the hostile displays. However, at this stage, the German government does not see a reason to raise alarm. According to a government spokesperson, everything is being done to protect Jewish institutions.

Islamists drive anti-Israel campaign

The Gaza conflict has stirred up public opinion in Europe, and it has brought Israel-hatred to Germany along with it, according to political scientist Stephan Grigat.

"You don't need great differentiation skills to be able to assert that this is straightforward anti-Semitism, in a drastic form that could also be found on the streets of Germany 70 years ago," said Grigat.

Grigat, who currently teaches at the Jewish Studies Institute at the University of Vienna, does not find the latest developments in Germany surprising. He pointed out that major demonstrations also took place during the confrontation between Israel and Hamas in 2012.

"However, in those years it was mostly people who identified with left-wing politics and who expressed harsh and often inappropriate criticism towards Israel," explained Grigat, adding that the current demonstrators are mostly members of Islamist groups. "Many of the participants openly express support for Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah or Islamic jihad.”

From his perspective, there is a perfidious tactic behind the Islamists' campaign: "They use photos of dead civilians in Gaza to attach the 'Israel the child killer' image to their propaganda crusade in typical anti-Semitic fashion."

Another new factor in the latest protests is the "pronounced aggression" - and the fact that it is possible to mobilize several thousand people in a short time.

Different from other conflicts?

Grigat has also observed a growing anti-Israel stance in mainstream German society. And he finds that the term "Israel-criticism" alone reveals a lot about the negative sentiment. After all, he said, nobody speaks of "Japan-criticism" or "Sweden-criticism" when they do not approve of something the Japanese or Swedish government does.

"This expression shows what all this is really about: not reasonable criticism of individual decisions made by the Israeli government, but plain resentment of the existence of the Jewish state," said Grigat.

Whoever demonstrates in the street to show solidarity with the Palestinian victims should ask themselves why they don't do the same during other conflicts, added Grigat. "You really need to ask the question why 200 dead Palestinians are enough to send 10,000 people into the streets but nobody seems interested when 100,000 people are killed in Syria.”

There is also a heated debate on social media sites about the concerns about dead and injured Palestinians. Many have observed, similarly to Grigat, that the Gaza crisis has been exploited by some for political purposes. One Twitter user wrote: "When I was against the war in Iraq, I shouted, 'Stop the war in Iraq.' If you are against the war in the Middle East, why are you calling 'Down with Israel’?"

But another Twitter user posed the question, "At what point can you call it genocide without being accused of anti-Semitism?" A third user said "I can very well oppose anti-Semitism during German protests and Israel's attacks against Gaza at the same time.”

Jewish criticism of Israeli politics

Rolf Verleger, a Jew and former board member of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, places most of the blame for the current mood on the Israeli government. In a recent interview on German radio, he pointed out that the Gaza Strip had come to resemble a giant prison and said it should be possible for a person to express criticism of Israel's Gaza policy without being branded an anti-Semite.

He also cannot understand it when German politicians are reluctant to criticize Israel based on German history. "What do my murdered ancestors have to do with the injustice perpetrated in the Middle East right now?" asked Verleger. "You can't just permit injustice to continue because of horrible things that happened in the past.”

More protests likely

Many Germans see things the same way. In a recent survey by the "Stern" magazine, more than half of respondents place the blame for the conflict on both Israel and Hamas - and 86 percent believe that Germany should not publically stand on the Israeli side.

In the meantime, pro-Gaza demonstrations are set to continue in Germany and other European countries. They have a good chance of reaching a high point on Quds Day, which is used each year as an occasion for anti-Israel demonstrations around the world as it calls for the "liberation" of Jerusalem from "Zionist occupiers."

The World Gets a Clear Picture of The Israeli Killing Machine Against Gaza

Pulverized by Israel, Palestinians hold out for favorable cease-fire in Gaza

Support for Hamas is growing in Gaza after weeks of Israeli bombardment. Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that the US supports an Egyptian cease-fire proposal rejected by Hamas.

The Israeli military said its forces had struck almost 3,000 targets in Gaza over the past two weeks – almost half since the start of the ground offensive four days ago.

Twenty-seven soldiers have been killed in fighting, the IDF said in a statement. The Palestinian death toll in Gaza was climbing steadily towards 600, a third of whom are children, according to the UN children's agency Unicef.

Photos from The Atlantic

Why Israel is losing the latest war in Gaza.

The Inescapable Truth Of The Great Israeli Lie:



OOrah to the Existential Mutherfuckers



Knock Knock - The civilized World is getting a look at what Israel has been doing to Gaza

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power,
have the right to rise up
and shake off the existing government
and form a new one that suits them better.
This is a most valuable—a most sacred right—
a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.
Nor is this right confined to cases in which
the whole people of an existing government
may choose to exercise it.
Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize
and make their own so much of the territory as they inhabit.
More than this, a majority of any portion of such people
may revolutionize, putting down a minority,
intermingled with or near about them,
who may oppose their movement.
Such minority was precisely the case
of the Tories of our own revolution.
It is a quality of revolutions not to go
by old lines or old laws,
but to break up both and make new ones.”

Abraham Lincoln - Congress- January 12, 1848 

“Israel doesn’t target civilians”? They are just inept? - Israeli ambassador gets his ass handed to him by a real reporter from the UK

THE UNCONDITIONAL LOVE AND FEALTY FROM THE CONGA LINE



AND IF YOU NEED PROOF THAT THERE ARE FAIR MINDED ISRAELIS AGAINST THIS BUTCHERY