Dennis Kucinich on the Responsibility to Speak Out About Gaza

AP/Lefteris Pitarakis

This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: The former congressman says, “You can’t just stay silent when you see a massacre of people going on.” Also: Washington, D.C., will decide whether to legalize marijuana.

Listen to the show (Dennis Kucinich interview begins at 15:45):

(Trouble listening? Right-click to download the podcast here.)

Guests, in order of appearance: Michael Cindrich, Dennis Kucinich.

Subscribe to Truthdig Podcasts

Subscribe directly:


If you don't have iTunes,
copy this address:


Visit the Podcast Archives

Be the Change! Donate Today!

Get truth delivered to your inbox every week.
Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Top 5 Ways the U.S. Is Israel’s Accomplice in War Crimes in Gaza

By Juan Cole

Shutterstock

This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s Web page.

The U.S. State Department became a little testy with Israel on Sunday over the 6th school shelling by the Israeli military, which killed 10, saying

“The United States is appalled by today’s disgraceful shelling outside an UNRWA school in Rafah sheltering some 3,000 displaced persons, in which ten more Palestinian civilians were tragically killed,” reads the statement from State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki. “We once again stress that Israel do more to meet its own standards and avoid civilian casualties.”

As for the standard Israeli military pretext for such war crimes, that Hamas was hiding out in the school or firing from the school, no reporter on the ground has seen any evidence of any such activity by Hamas in schools where there are people.  Then the Israeli military obfuscates things by saying that Hamas was “in the area.”  Since Gaza is so small, I suppose they are in the area of almost everything.  But the State Department didn’t let Tel Aviv off the hook this time:  “The suspicion that militants are operating nearby does not justify strikes that put at risk the lives of so many innocent civilians.”

The Holy Land Is Crying Out

Free the Holy Land Five!

This is a track from David Rovics album, Meanwhile In Afghanistan, which can be downloaded for free or by donation here: davidrovics.com/meanwhile-in-afga…tan/new-album.php

The Holy Land Five are still in U.S. prison for feeding helpless Palestinians. David Rovics sings about them: I love this song, David Rovics! "The Holy Land is crying out, leaving little room for doubt; from ruined homes, the kids ask you--what in the world will you do?" ~Cynthia McKinney

You can visit our Gaza article archive here.  

Poll:  Does the United States' support of Israel make Americans less safe?

Be the Change! Donate Today!

Get truth delivered to your inbox every week.
Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Gaza attack: 'We were striking a legitimate target' - video

Israel spokesman Mark Regev says an airstrike on a school in Gaza, which killed ten people, was targeted by Hamas terrorists and his government is investigating why civilians died.



You can visit our Gaza article archive here.  

Poll:  Does the United States' support of Israel make Americans less safe?

Be the Change! Donate Today!

Get truth delivered to your inbox every week.
Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:

Delivered by FeedBurner

A Leading Voice of U.S. Jewry: End the Occupation

Henry Siegman, former executive director of the American Jewish Congress, tells Democracy Now!, "I think that sending rockets that are going to kill civilians is a crime. But for Palestinians to try, in any way they can, to end this state of affair—and to expect of them to end their struggle and just focus on less than 2 percent to build a country is absurd. That is part of—that’s propaganda, but it’s not a discussion of either politics or morality."

Amy Goodman/Nermeen Shaikh

Democracy Now!

July 30, 2014

Henry Siegman, former director of the American Jewish Congress

Democracy Now!, Creative Commons License 3.0

Given his background, what American Jewish leader Henry Siegman has to say about Israel’s founding in 1948 through the current assault on Gaza may surprise you. From 1978 to 1994, Siegman served as executive director of the American Jewish Congress, long described as one of the nation’s "big three" Jewish organizations along with the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League. Born in Germany three years before the Nazis came to power in 1933, Siegman’s family eventually moved to the United States. His father was a leader of the European Zionist movement that pushed for the creation of a Jewish state. In New York, Siegman studied the religion and was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi by Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, later becoming head of the Synagogue Council of America. After his time at the American Jewish Congress, Siegman became a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He now serves as president of the U.S./Middle East Project. In the first of our two-part interview, Siegman discusses the assault on Gaza, the myths surrounding Israel’s founding in 1948, and his own background as a German-Jewish refugee who fled Nazi occupation to later become a leading American Jewish voice and now vocal critic of Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories.

Iron Dome Fake - A Massive Hoax - Missiles Blowing Up in the Air

Israeli expert says Iron Dome defence is a hoax

Iron Dome firing an interceptor missle

An Israeli scientist and award-winning security expert has called the Iron Dome missile defence system "the biggest hoax the world has seen", Addustour news website has reported.

According to Dr Motty Scheffer, "Today, there is no missile which can intercept other missiles or rocket-propelled grenades, and the Iron Dome is a light audio system which blocks Israeli public opinion and, of course, itself. In fact, all the explosions that we have seen in the atmosphere are self-destruction. The Iron Dome did not launch any rocket that could intercept at least one missile fired from Gaza."

Sheffer added that the concept of open areas is a myth created to amplify the Iron Dome's ability as a missile interceptor. He made an indirect accusation against the dome's operating staff of misleading the public: "The missiles which were intercepted by the Iron Dome and did not reach the ground are hypothetical missiles produced and destroyed in the Dome's computer control room; as of this moment, nobody has seen an intercepted missile fall to the ground."

The scientist made his comments after the challenge raised by Hamas's military wing, the Izzaddin Al-Qassam Brigades on Saturday, which fired J80 missiles at Tel Aviv and defied the Iron Dome and its experts to intercept them. The J80s have been fitted with a jamming system to get through Israel's missile defences.

He claimed that the parts that we are shown on the ground belong to the Iron Dome itself. "The Iron Dome is a plot created by interest groups who are afraid of peace, including the security industry and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu." (Source)

Related Article:  The evidence that shows Iron Dome is not working

You can visit our Gaza article archive here.  

Poll:  Does the United States' support of Israel make Americans less safe?

Be the Change! Donate Today!

Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Who Broke The Ceasfire? The Truth About Ceasefire Violations Between Israel and Gaza

A Palestinian woman reacts upon seeing her destroyed home after it was hit by Israeli shelling in Gaza. Photograph: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

As reported by theguardian on Friday:

The humanitarian truce in Gaza has collapsed after two hours with fierce fighting in the south of the enclave, reports of a missing Israeli soldier and a formal Israeli announcement that it would resume its military operation.

Israeli tank fire on the southern town of Rafah was reported to have killed at least 40 Palestinians on Friday, turning what was intended to be the first day of calm into one of the deadliest days in Gaza so far. Hamas launched rockets towards Israel, while fierce small-arms fire and artillery shelling erupted at Beit Hanoun and Gaza’s northern end.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) later said it feared one of its soldiers may have been abducted in an early morning attack by Palestinian militants at a tunnel near Gaza. Israel Radio named him as Second Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, 23, from Kfar Saba. A senior Hamas member, Musa Abu Marzouk, said the soldier was an officer taken prisoner near Rafah before the ceasefire came into effect.

Palestinian fishermen who had ventured tentatively out into the Mediterranean earlier in the morning rushed to get back to port, while air raid sirens could be heard along the neighbouring Israeli coast.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israel’s military coordinator in the Palestinian territories told the UN envoy, Robert Serry, that as far as Israel was concerned the ceasefire – announced on Thursday night after lengthy behind-the-scenes negotiations – was over. Israel claimed that the truce was first broken by an ambush by Palestinian militants on Israeli forces near Rafah.

The following article by John Glaser, originally published at Antiwar on February 6, 2014, provides significant insight and information about recent ceasefire violations between Israel and Gaza.

Facebook Censors Author Naomi Wolf On Gaza

Counter Current

Jews, Muslims and citizens of the world in general have been following author Naomi Wolf and her comments about the War on Gaza. Since she walked out of her synagogue recently, when they refused to denounce the killing of civilians in Gaza, as a result of recent IDF operations, she has gained a lot of support from fellow dissidents who want to hear what she has to say.

Today, Naomi revealed that Facebook sent her a warning, suggesting her account could be removed, and explaining that they had censored images she posted from her sources in Gaza.

“We received a warning from [Facebook],” she explains. “Probably due to the graphic nature of the images that were posted by contributors and citizen journalists, of wounded and dying in Gaza.”

Facebook, for their part, did not tell her which specific terms of service her post had violated. She continued, reflecting, “I think of how many horrific Holocaust images I have sat through….”

This act of censorship, she explains, “seems a journalistic/editorial double standard to me. I wrote in a piece in 1995 about abortion, Our Bodies, Our Souls that made the case that ‘the argument that the truth is in poor taste is the very definition of hypocrisy.’”

What do you think? Have you been following Naomi Wolf? Does it seem like her posts violate Facebook terms of service to you?

You can visit our Gaza article archive here.    Poll:  Does the United States' support of Israel make Americans less safe?

Be the Change! Donate Today!

Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Jon Stewart on Israel, Hamas cease-fire - "We cannot be Israel's rehab sponsor and its drug dealer "

On Thursday night’s Daily Show, host Jon Stewart continued to try and make heads or tails of America’s actions in Israel. Despite the fact that Secretary of State John Kerry has repeatedly tried to broker a peace deal between Israel and Hamas, Stewart finds the nation’s actions a little confusing.

Moments after a 72-hour ceasefire was announced between the two countries, Israel asked the United States for more weapons, which the United State was ready to provide.

“Maybe they’re just running out of sh*t to blow up…maybe it’s the opportunity for peace that as we heard earlier, the administration has been working tirelessly towards,” Stewart said.

“Guys! We cannot be Israel’s rehab sponsor…and its drug dealer…It’s not gonna work, just say no!” Stewart bemoaned.


You can visit our Gaza article archive here.  

Poll:  Does the United States' support of Israel make Americans less safe?

Be the Change! Donate Today!

Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Two Jewish Voices Fiercely Debate Gaza Siege | Max Blumenthal vs. ZOA’s Morton Klein

Abby Martin Features a debate on Israel-Palestine you won’t hear on the corporate media.

On this episode of Breaking the Set, Abby Martin remarks on the latest news regarding the conflict in Gaza, highlighting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for 16,000 additional reserve troops as well as the announcement of a 72-hour ceasefire. Abby then features an exclusive debate on the issue between Journalist and Author Max Blumenthal and President of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein asking both guests their opinions on everything from what the appropriate Israeli response should be to Hamas rocket attacks to why the US refuses to allow the UN to investigate Israel for war crimes.

You can visit our Gaza article archive here.  

Poll:  Does the United States' support of Israel make Americans less safe?

Be the Change! Donate Today!

Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Jon Stewart on America’s Favorite Way to Promote Peace in the Middle East

truthdig

If you guessed supplying Middle Eastern countries with money and weapons (that then get “regifted”), you’re spot-on. “The Daily Show” host points out how many U.S. tax dollars and arms each country in the region received, highlighting what a moronic way this is to help the area stabilize.

Meanwhile, Jon Stewart implies that everyone who went to his bar mitzvah is barraging him with criticism due to his questioning Israel’s strikes on Gaza.  Read more

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive

You can visit our Gaza article archive here.  

Poll:  Does the United States' support of Israel make Americans less safe?

Be the Change! Donate Today!

Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:

Delivered by FeedBurner

'Pretty Disturbing': 37 Minutes of State Department Dodging Questions about Gaza

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf condemned the deadly shelling of a United Nations school in Gaza on Wednesday. She called for a "full and prompt" investigation into the incident, but declined to immediately place the blame on Israel.

Artillery shells hit the UN school crowded with refugees, while Israeli airstrikes hit a group of rescue workers and onlookers who had rushed to the scene of a previous attack in a busy shopping area - Read more

Related article:

‘World stands disgraced’: 20 killed in Israeli UN school shelling

You can visit our Gaza article archive here.  

Poll:  Does the United States' support of Israel make Americans less safe?

Be the Change! Donate Today!

Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:

Delivered by FeedBurner

“Gaza is a graveyard,” sing joyful Israeli youths

Abu Abunimah
Electronic Intifada

In her latest post, my colleague Rania Khalek makes reference to “a new racist chant mocking the more than two hundred children slaughtered by Israel’s merciless bombing campaign in Gaza: ‘Tomorrow there’s no school in Gaza, they don’t have any children left.’”

This video shows an Israeli mob actually singing in celebration of children’s deaths in the style of a soccer fans’ song: “In Gaza there’s no studying, No children are left there, Olé, olé, olé-olé-olé.”

How the Term ‘Human Shield’ is Used to Justify State Sponsored Massacres

“Hamas is regularly described as 'Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.' One will be hard put to find something like 'democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus'—blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable.” 
― Noam Chomsky, Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War Against the Palestinians

…we cannot address terrorism of the weak against the powerful without also confronting the unmentionable but far more extreme terrorism of the powerful against the weak.
― Noam Chomsky, Power and Terror: Conflict, Hegemony, and the Rule of Force

Abby Martin breaks through the propaganda rhetoric of ‘Human Shields’, calling out instances such as the second Iraq War and the current conflict in Gaza where the term has been used to demonize the entire demographics and populations subjected to being overthrown.



You can visit our Gaza article archive here.  

Poll:  Does the United States' support of Israel make Americans less safe?

Be the Change! Donate Today!

Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:

Delivered by FeedBurner

How Israel Uses Twitter, Facebook & Tinder to Legitimize Murder | Brainwash Update

Public diplomacy in Israel (also hasbara) (Hebrew: הַסְבָּרָה‎ hasbará, "explaining") refers to public relations efforts to disseminate abroad positive information about Israel.  The term is used by the Israeli government and its supporters to describe efforts to explain government policies and promote Israel in the face of negative press, and to counter what they see as delegitimisation of Israel around the world. Hasbara means "explanation", and is also a euphemism for propaganda. 



You can visit our Gaza article archive here.  Poll:  Does the United States' support of Israel make Americans less safe?


Be the Change! Donate Today!

Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:


Delivered by FeedBurner

The Palestinians’ Right to Self-Defense

By Chris Hedges

  A relative inspects a Palestinian family’s apartment, destroyed by an Israeli strike in Beit Lahiya on July 19. AP/Lefteris Pitarakis

If Israel insists, as the Bosnian Serbs did in Sarajevo, on using the weapons of industrial warfare against a helpless civilian population then that population has an inherent right to self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. The international community will have to either act to immediately halt Israeli attacks and lift the blockade of Gaza or acknowledge the right of the Palestinians to use weapons to defend themselves.

No nation, including any in the Muslim world, appears willing to intervene to protect the Palestinians. No world body, including the United Nations, appears willing or able to pressure Israel through sanctions to conform to the norms of international law. And the longer we in the world community fail to act, the worse the spiral of violence will become.

Israel does not have the right to drop 1,000-pound iron fragmentation bombs on Gaza. It does not have the right to pound Gaza with heavy artillery and with shells lobbed from gunboats. It does not have the right to send in mechanized ground units or to target hospitals, schools and mosques, along with Gaza’s water and electrical systems. It does not have the right to displace over 100,000 people from their homes. The entire occupation, under which Israel has nearly complete control of the sea, the air and the borders of Gaza, is illegal.

Violence, even when employed in self-defense, is a curse. It empowers the ruthless and punishes the innocent. It leaves in its aftermath horrific emotional and physical scars. But, as I learned in Sarajevo during the 1990s Bosnian War, when forces bent on your annihilation attack you relentlessly, and when no one comes to your aid, you must aid yourself. When Sarajevo was being hit with 2,000 shells a day and under heavy sniper fire in the summer of 1995 no one among the suffering Bosnians spoke to me about wanting to mount nonviolent resistance. No one among them saw the U.N.-imposed arms embargo against the Bosnian government as rational, given the rain of sniper fire and the 90-millimeter tank rounds and 155-millimeter howitzer shells that were exploding day and night in the city. The Bosnians were reduced, like the Palestinians in Gaza, to smuggling in light weapons through clandestine tunnels. Their enemies, the Serbs—like the Israelis in the current conflict—were constantly trying to blow up tunnels. The Bosnian forces in Sarajevo, with their meager weapons, desperately attempted to hold the trench lines that circled the city. And it is much the same in Gaza. It was only repeated NATO airstrikes in the fall of 1995 that prevented the Bosnian-held areas from being overrun by advancing Serbian forces. The Palestinians cannot count on a similar intervention.

The number of dead in Gaza resulting from the Israeli assault has topped 650, and about 80 percent have been civilians. The number of wounded Palestinians is over 4,000 and a substantial fraction of these victims are children. At what point do the numbers of dead and wounded justify self-defense? 5,000? 10,000? 20,000? At what point do Palestinians have the elemental right to protect their families and their homes?

Article 51 does not answer these specific questions, but the International Court of Justice does in the case of Nicaragua v. United States. The court ruled in that case that a state must endure an armed attack before it can resort to self-defense. The definition of an armed attack, in addition to being “action by regular armed forces across an international border,” includes sending or sponsoring armed bands, mercenaries or irregulars that commit acts of force against another state. The court held that any state under attack must first request outside assistance before undertaking armed self-defense. According to U.N. Charter Article 51, a state’s right to self-defense ends when the Security Council meets the terms of the article by “tak[ing] the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”

The failure of the international community to respond has left the Palestinians with no choice. The United States, since Israel’s establishment in 1948, has vetoed in the U.N. Security Council more than 40 resolutions that sought to curb Israel’s lust for occupation and violence against the Palestinians. And it has ignored the few successful resolutions aimed at safeguarding Palestinian rights, such as Security Council Resolution 465, passed in 1980.

Resolution 465 stated that the “Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 is applicable to the Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem.” The resolution went on to warn Israel that “all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity and that Israel’s policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”

Read More>>

You can visit our Gaza article archive here.  Poll:  Does the United States' support of Israel make Americans less safe?

Be the Change! Donate Today!

Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:


Delivered by FeedBurner

The Most Moral Army in the World

Dr. Mads Gilbert MD PhD
Courtesy:  The Deen Show

Letter from Norwegian hero doctor, Dr. Mads Gilbert MD PhD, who is in Gaza right now

Dearest friends -

The last night was extreme. The "ground invasion" of Gaza resulted in scores and carloads with maimed, torn apart, bleeding, shivering, dying - all sorts of injured Palestinians, all ages, all civilians, all innocent.

The heroes in the ambulances and in all of Gaza's hospitals are working 12-24hrs shifts, grey from fatigue and inhuman workloads (without payment all in Shifa for the last 4 months), they care, triage, try to understand the incomprehensible chaos of bodies, sizes, limbs, walking, not walking, breathing, not breathing, bleeding, not bleeding humans. HUMANS!

Now, once more treated like animals by "the most moral army in the world" (sic!).

CrossTalk: Gaza's Grief

How much longer will Israel's latest invasion of Gaza last? Does it enhance Israel's security? Can Israel and Palestine live in peace or is it a war without end? CrossTalking with Nora Lester Murad, Flynt Leverett and Martin van Creveld.



You can visit our Gaza article archive here.  

Poll:  Does the United States' support of Israel make Americans less safe?


Be the Change! Donate Today!

Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:


Delivered by FeedBurner

132 Children Killed by ‘Operation Protective Edge’ Since July 7th

The Pontiac Tribune

The name, age, sex and location of 132 of the 155 Palestinian children killed have been collected by the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights.

Over 3300 have been injured, including 822 children and 572 women, with some losing limbs and others disabled for life.

The casualties listed below are victims of Israeli military attacks on Gaza since Tuesday July 8th.

Israeli casualties follow, at the end of the list.