by Susan Abulhawa

With 400 Palestinians killed and over 10,000 wounded (most of them severely), the Israeli lobby is requesting a new pile of American tax dollars ($450 million) for 'emergency aid.' Part of this money is being requested to compensate Israel for withdrawing from a 20 year occupation of Southern Lebanon.

Excuse me!

Israel invaded Lebanon, used the world banned cluster bombs to kill 20,000 civilians (stories that would make your skin crawl), destroyed the countries infrastructure and occupied its people for two decades. Now they want to be compensated for finally obeying international law and getting out of land where they have no business being? If anyone ought to be compensated, it's the Lebanese people. At any rate, its not the responsibility of the American tax payer to pay up.

Israel is an outlaw state in violation of numerous UN Resolution and various tenets of international laws. Congress should stop behaving as though we're some kind of Israeli colony bowing to her every whim.

Israel, whose population is 0.1% of the total world population gets roughly one-third of all US foreign aid. In addition to the $5,000,000,000 in aid, Israel enjoys the benefits of a whole lot more US tax payer money. For example, there are special "gifts" like the Arrow Missile and Levi Fighter, totaling $1.3 billion. Tax payers must also pay interest on money borrowed for Israel's grants-- about $500 million per year. Private donations to Israel are tax-deductible and total about $1 billion annually. This does not include the Israeli bonds sold in the US for $500 million each year.

Despite US restrictions on using money to build illegal settlements on Palestinian land, Israel has spent hundreds of millions of our dollars importing Jews from across the world, confiscating Palestinian land and demolishing their homes to make way for brand new settlements for the new arrivals.

That's not all. The US also pays Egypt $2.1 billion/year for signing a peace treaty with Israel and is asked to pay umpteen billions of tax payer dollars every time Israel notions that is will consider a pull-back from occupied territories. For example, during peace talks with Syria, Israel demanded that the US foot a bill of $17 billion for its withdrawal from the Golan Heights, where it has illegally been occupying Syrian land and stealing Syrian resources for over 33 years. Basically, the US taxpayers have to pay Israel in order for Israel to obey international law and respect the sovereignty of other nations.

At the same time Congress cut the welfare budget by $5.3 billions, aid to Israel that year was $5.2 billion. Indeed, as filmmaker Tom Hayes said: "from the mouths of America's poor onto the necks of Palestinians."

The so called "peace process" is sure to cost us yet more tens of billions of dollars in payment for Israel's insatiable appetite for Arab soil and its unrelenting thievery of other's resources. Try getting an iota of that money for your state. You're lucky if you can hold onto school lunch programs.

Of course, some of that money trickles back to the US in the form of campaign funding. These campaign "donations" account for Israel's power over US foreign policies.

So, what has Israel done for us?

Israel has spied on the US. By the way, a contribution to the 'free Jonathan Pollard' fund is tax deductible. According to the CIA, Israel commits industrial espionage against American businesses. They have exported sensitive US technology to other countries, some of which are potentially hostile to the U.S., in direct contravention of U.S. law.

In 1967 Israel attacked the USS Liberty killing 34 American crewmen and wounding 171. Despite thirty three years of unrelenting pleas from the survivors of that ship, Congress will not afford our servicemen the decency of an investigation and has refused to hold a Congressional hearing for an act of aggression against Americans in a time of peace despite astounding evidence. Maybe they will when there are no more survivors to speak and the only testimonies will come from Israeli-chosen "witnesses."

Israel has a healthy economy and gets piles of money and other aid from Germany every year. If this US-Israel marriage is indeed in our best interest then why do they need such a strong well-funded lobby in our Congress?

Continuing to be the lone veto that keeps the international community from investigating Israel's breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention cannot possibly be in our best interest. Patting Israel on the back while the rest of the world condemns it's flagrant violations of human rights does not mesh with the principles on which this country was founded.

Retired Navy Admiral, Thomas Moorer, was quoted in a book by Paul Findley, former congressman from Illinois, as saying "I've never seen an president- I don't care who he is- stand up to [the Israelis]. It just boggles your mind*.If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms
http://www.mediamonitors.net/susan3.html

The point would to to educate the uninformed. You can speculate all you wish as to my motives. It amuses me.

By Randall Kuhn
The Washington Times
1-18-9

"Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico." Within hours scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Barak's comparisons almost verbatim. In fact, in this very paper on January 9 House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an opinion piece by saying "America would never sit still if terrorists were lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana." But let's see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy.

Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters, but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the baseball players.

What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns, creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I may be called anti- Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I'm Jewish and the scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza. But this analogy is just getting started.

What if the United Nations kept San Diego's discarded minorities in crowded, festering camps in Tijuana for 19 years? Then, the United States invaded Mexico, occupied Tijuana and began to build large housing developments in Tijuana where only whites could live. And what if the United States built a network of highways connecting American citizens of Tijuana to the United States? And checkpoints, not just between Mexico and the United States but also around every neighborhood of Tijuana? What if we required every Tijuana resident, refugee or native, to show an ID card to the U.S. military on demand? What if thousands of Tijuana residents lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their children, their sense of self worth to this occupation? Would you be surprised to hear of a protest movement in Tijuana that sometimes became violent and hateful? Okay, now for the unbelievable part.

Think about what would happen if, after expelling all of the minorities from San Diego to Tijuana and subjecting them to 40 years of brutal military occupation, we just left Tijuana, removing all the white settlers and the soldiers? Only instead of giving them their freedom, we built a 20-foot tall electrified wall around Tijuana? Not just on the sides bordering San Diego, but on all the Mexico crossings as well. What if we set up 50-foot high watchtowers with machine gun batteries, and told them that if they stood within 100 yards of this wall we would shoot them dead on sight? And four out of every five days we kept every single one of those border crossings closed, not even allowing food, clothing, or medicine to arrive. And we patrolled their air space with our state- of-the-art fighter jets but didn't allow them so much as a crop duster. And we patrolled their waters with destroyers and submarines, but didn't even allow them to fish.

Would you be at all surprised to hear that these resistance groups in Tijuana, even after having been "freed" from their occupation but starved half to death, kept on firing rockets at the United States? Probably not. But you may be surprised to learn that the majority of people in Tijuana never picked up a rocket, or a gun, or a weapon of any kind. The majority, instead, supported against all hope negotiations toward a peaceful solution that would provide security, freedom and equal rights to both people in two independent states living side by side as neighbors. This is the sound analogy to Israel's military onslaught in Gaza today.

Maybe some day soon, common sense will prevail and no corpus of misleading analogies about Tijuana or the crazy guy across the hall who wants to murder your daughter will be able to obscure the truth. And at that moment, in a country whose people shouted We Shall Overcome, Ich bin ein Berliner, End Apartheid, Free Tibet and Save Darfur, we will all join together and shout "Free Gaza. Free Palestine." And because we are Americans, the world will take notice and they will be free, and perhaps peace will prevail for all the residents of the Holy Land.

Randall Kuhn is an assistant professor and Director of the Global Health Affairs Program at the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He just returned from a trip to Israel and the West Bank.

http://www.rense.com/general84/whn.htm

The inversion of history and the scope of amnesia know no limits. What about the fact that the Israeli government drove Palestinians from their lands in 1947-48 with tens of thousands pushed into the Gaza strip. No problem to Congress.

Then the fact that the Israeli government cruelly occupied, in violation of UN resolutions, the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 and only removed its soldiers and colonists from Gaza (1.5 million people in a tiny area twice the size of the District of Columbia) in 2005. To Congress, the Palestinians deserved it.

Then when Hamas was freely elected to run Gaza, the Israeli authorities cut off the tax revenues on imports that belonged to the Gaza government. This threw the Gazans into a fiscal crisis-they were unable to pay their civil servants and police.
From the post above

by Ralph Nader

In the long sixty-year tortured history of the Palestinian expulsion from their lands, Congress has maintained that it is always the Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority, and now Hamas who are to blame for all hostilities and their consequences with the Israeli government.

The latest illustration of this Washington puppet show, backed by the most modern weapons and billions of taxpayer dollars annually sent to Israel, was the grotesquely one-sided Resolutions whisked through the Senate and the House of Representatives.

While a massive bombing and invasion of Gaza was underway, the resolution blaming Hamas for all the civilian casualties and devastation-99% of it inflicted on Palestinians-zoomed through the Senate by voice vote and through the House by a vote of 390 to 5 with 22 legislators voting present.

There is more dissent against this destruction of Gaza among the Israeli people, the Knesset, the Israeli media, and Jewish-Americans than among the dittoheads on Capitol Hill.

The reasons for such near-unanimous support for Israeli actions-no matter how often they are condemned by peace advocates such as Bishop Desmond Tutu, United Nations resolutions, the World Court and leading human rights groups inside and outside of Israel, are numerous. The pro-Israeli government lobby, and the right-wing Christian evangelicals, lubricated by campaign money of many Political Action Committees (PACs) certainly are key.

There is also more than a little bigotry in Congress against Arabs and Muslims, reinforced by the mass media yahoos who set new records for biased reporting each time this conflict erupts.

The bias is clear. It is always the Palestinians' fault. Right-wingers who would never view the U.S. government as perfect see the Israeli government as never doing anything wrong. Liberals who do not hesitate to criticize the U.S. military view all Israeli military attacks, invasions and civilian devastation as heroic manifestations of Israeli defense.

The inversion of history and the scope of amnesia know no limits. What about the fact that the Israeli government drove Palestinians from their lands in 1947-48 with tens of thousands pushed into the Gaza strip. No problem to Congress.

Then the fact that the Israeli government cruelly occupied, in violation of UN resolutions, the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 and only removed its soldiers and colonists from Gaza (1.5 million people in a tiny area twice the size of the District of Columbia) in 2005. To Congress, the Palestinians deserved it.

Then when Hamas was freely elected to run Gaza, the Israeli authorities cut off the tax revenues on imports that belonged to the Gaza government. This threw the Gazans into a fiscal crisis-they were unable to pay their civil servants and police.

In 2006, the Israelis added to their unrelieved control of air, water and land around the open-air prison by establishing a blockade. The natives became restless. Under international law, a blockade is an act of war. Primitive rockets, called by reporters "wildly inaccurate" were fired into Israel. During this same period, Israeli soldiers and artillery and missiles would go into Gaza at will and take far more lives and cause far more injuries than those incurred by those rockets. Civilians-especially children, the infirm and elderly-died or suffered week after week for lack of medicines, medical equipment, food, electricity, fuel and water which were embargoed by the Israelis.

Then the Israeli bombing followed by the invasion during the past three weeks with what prominent Israeli writer Gideon Levy called "a brutal and violent operation...far beyond what was needed for protecting the people in its south." Mr. Levy observed what the president of the United Nations General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann called a war against "a helpless and defenseless imprisoned population."

The horror of being trapped from fleeing the torrent of the most modern weapons of war from the land, air and seas is reflected in this passage from Amira Hass, writing in the leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz:

"The earth shaking under your feet, clouds of choking smoke, explosions like a fireworks display, bombs bursting into all-consuming flames that cannot be extinguished with water, mushroom clouds of pinkish-red smoke, suffocating gas, harsh burns on the skin, extraordinary maimed live and dead bodies."

Ms. Hass is pointing to the use of new anti-civilian weapons used on the Gazan people. So far there have been over 1100 fatalities, many thousands of injuries and the destruction of homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, pharmacies, granaries, farmer's fields and many critical public facilities. The clearly marked UN headquarters and UN school were smashed, along with stored medicines and food supplies.

Why? The Congressional response: "Hamas terrorists" everywhere. Sure, defending their Palestinian families is called terrorism. The truth is there is no Hamas army, airforce and navy up against the fourth most powerful military in the world. As one Israeli gunner on an armored personnel carrier frankly said to The New York Times: "They are villagers with guns. They don't even aim when they shoot."

Injured Gazans are dying in damaged hospital corridors, bleeding to death because rescuers are not permitted to reach them or are endangered themselves. Thousands of units of blood donated by Jordanians are stopped by the Israeli blockade. Israel has kept the international press out of the Gazan killing fields.
What is going on in Gaza is what Bill Moyers called it earlier this month - "state terrorism." Already about 400 children are known to have died. More will be added who are under the rubble.

Since 2002, more than 50 Arab and Muslim nations have had a standing offer, repeated often, that if Israel obeys several UN resolutions and withdraws to the 1967 borders leaving 22 percent of the original Palestine for an independent Palestinian state, they will open full diplomatic relations and there will be peace. Israel has declined to accept this offer.

None of these and many other aspects of this conflict matter to the Congress. Its members do not want to hear even from the Israeli peace movement, composed of retired generals, security chiefs, mayors, former government ministers, and members of the Knesset. In 60 years these savvy peace advocates have not been able to give one hour of testimony before a Congressional Committee.

Maybe members of Congress may wish to weigh the words of the founder of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, years ago when he said:

"There has been anti-Semitism the Nazis Hitler Auschwitz but was that their [the Palestinian's] fault? They only see one thing: We have come here and stolen their country."

Doesn't that observation invite some compassion for the Palestinian people and their right to be free of Israeli occupation, land and water grabs and blockades in the 22 percent left of Palestine?


http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/17-1

Israel was also accused of using phosphorous against civilian targets in Lebanon during the 2006 war. It initially denied the charge, but finally confirmed it following investigation by the same team of Italian journalists, and in the face of overwhelming evidence.

"While the international community might be horrified by the use of phosphorous, this is overlooking the issue that hundreds of half-ton bombs are being dropped on Gaza on civilian targets on a daily basis," Sourani told IPS.

Gaza's death toll has risen to over 900, while nearly 4,000 Palestinians have been wounded. The UN reports that half of the deaths are civilian, and half of the civilian casualties are women and children.

Two-thirds of Gaza's 1.5 million people are living without electricity, and some 750,000 without water, according to UN estimates. - With The Daily Star
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=98974

Inter Press Service


RAMALLAH, Occupied West Bank: "There is no doubt that Israel is using phosphorous bombs over Gaza. Israel is flagrantly violating the Fourth Geneva Convention," says Raji Sourani, head of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza. "This is not the first time we have documented Israel using this kind of prohibited weapon against Gaza's civilian population," Sourani told IPS by phone from Gaza.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirmed Sourani's assessment in a statement it released on Friday. Its researchers said they had seen "multiple air-bursts of artillery-fired white phosphorous over Gaza city."
Israel was also accused of using phosphorous against civilian targets in Lebanon during the 2006 war. It initially denied the charge, but finally confirmed it following investigation by the same team of Italian journalists, and in the face of overwhelming evidence.

"While the international community might be horrified by the use of phosphorous, this is overlooking the issue that hundreds of half-ton bombs are being dropped on Gaza on civilian targets on a daily basis," Sourani told IPS.

Gaza's death toll has risen to over 900, while nearly 4,000 Palestinians have been wounded. The UN reports that half of the deaths are civilian, and half of the civilian casualties are women and children.

Two-thirds of Gaza's 1.5 million people are living without electricity, and some 750,000 without water, according to UN estimates. - With The Daily Star

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=98974

War - every war - is the realm of lies. Whether called propaganda or psychological warfare, everybody accepts that it is right to lie for one's country. Anyone who speaks the truth runs the risk of being branded a traitor.

The trouble is that propaganda is most convincing for the propagandist himself. And after you convince yourself that a lie is the truth and falsification reality, you can no longer make rational decisions.

An example of this process surrounds the most shocking atrocity of this war so far: the shelling of the UN Fakhura school in Jabaliya refugee camp.

Immediately after the incident became known throughout the world, the army "revealed" that Hamas fighters had been firing mortars from near the school entrance. As proof they released an aerial photo which indeed showed the school and the mortar. But within a short time the official army liar had to admit that the photo was more than a year old. In brief: a falsification.

Later the official liar claimed that "our soldiers were shot at from inside the school." Barely a day passed before the army had to admit to UN personnel that that was a lie, too. Nobody had shot from inside the school, no Hamas fighters were inside the school, which was full of terrified refugees.

http://www.issuesandalibis.org/

group of Britain's most prominent Jews has called on Israel to cease its military operations in Gaza immediately, warning that its actions, far from improving the country's security, will "strengthen extremism, destabilise the region, and exacerbate tensions inside Israel".

Describing themselves, as "profound and passionate supporters" of Israel - and supporting its right to defend itself against the "war crime" of Hamas rocket attacks - they added that the current tactics threatened to undermine international support for Israel.

The intervention, in a letter published in today's Observer, came as fears grew that Israel was to launch a "new phase" of its military offensive inside the Gaza strip. Yesterday warplanes dropped leaflets warning Gazans "not to be close to terrorists, weapons warehouses and the places where the terrorists operate". The two-week-old campaign has already killed more than 800 Palestinians, while 13 Israelis have died, three of them civilians killed by Hamas rockets.

Although individual Jewish writers and religious figures have expressed their opposition to the conduct of Operation Cast Lead, the letter represents the most significant break with Israel's tactics from a group of UK Jews.

Prominent rabbis, academics and political figures are among the signatories, including Rabbi Dr Tony Bayfield, head of the Movement for Reform Judaism; Sir Jeremy Beecham, former chair of the Labour party; Professor Shalom Lappin of the University of London; Baroness Julia Neuberger; Rabbi Danny Rich, chief executive of Liberal Judaism; Rabbi Professor Marc Saperstein, principal of Leo Baeck rabbinical training college; and lawyer Michael Mitzman, who set up Holocaust Memorial Day Trust for the Home Office.

Their demand comes amid increasing pressure on Israel from the diplomatic community to halt its operations, and rising criticism of the humanitarian impact on Palestinian civilians, including allegations of potentially serious breaches of international humanitarian law. Demonstrations around the world yesterday called for a ceasefire.

"We look upon the increasing loss of life on both sides of the Gaza conflict with horror," reads the letter. "We have no doubt that rocket attacks into southern Israel, by Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups, are war crimes against Israel. No sovereign state should, or would, tolerate continued attacks and the deliberate targeting of civilians. Israel had a right to respond and we support the Israeli government's decision to make stopping the rocket attacks an urgent priority.

"However, we believe that now only negotiations can secure long-term security for Israel and the region."

The letter was written before the escalation of ground fighting in Gaza City itself signalled by Israel yesterday.

"There can be no alternative to a negotiated solution," said Beecham. "Israel should be demonstrating, along with the Palestinian Authority, that there are economic and political benefits to be gained from peaceful engagement rather than violent confrontation."

His sentiments were echoed by Lappin: "Relying on overwhelming military force to respond to terrorist provocations invariably imposes horrendous suffering on innocent Palestinian civilians while entrenching the agents of terror in their midst. We have no alternative but to pursue rational, long term political options that promote moderation and marginalise extremists."

In London violent clashes broke out near the Israeli embassy as tens of thousands marched in protest. Helmeted riot police with batons and shields charged a group of demonstrators who hurled sticks, shoes and traffic cones back at them while chanting "Free Palestine!"

Protesters tried to force entry to the north gate of Kensington Palace Gardens and six climbed an adjoining wall, setting fire to an American flag. The windows of a Starbucks opposite the embassy were smashed.

The police charges created waves of panic. Protester Ahmed Mohammad, 23, claimed he saw women and children get hurt: "It was a peaceful protest until the riot police came. I've seen a mother and little girl pushed to the ground."

Some protesters attempted to throw barriers and other missiles at police.

The Stop the War Coalition, which organised the event, claimed that "at least" 100,000 people had made it "the biggest demonstration of solidarity with the Palestinian people in the history of this country". The Metropolitan Police estimated the total at 12,000.

Earlier, Speakers' Corner at Hyde Park was turned into a sea of Palestinian flags and banners condemning Israel. Speakers included human rights advocate Bianca Jagger, singer Annie Lennox and the Rev Garth Hewitt, canon at St George's Cathedral in Jerusalem.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/11/gaza-israel-letter-british-jews

Warning: contains graphic footage of war injuries Link to this video Video showing injuries consistent with the use of white phosphorus shells has been filmed inside hospitals treating Palestinian wounded in Gaza City.

Contact with the shell remnants causes severe burns, sometimes burning the skin to the bone, consistent with descriptions by Ahmed Almi, an Egyptian doctor at the al-Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.

Almi said the entire body of one victim was burned within an hour. It was the first time he had seen the effects of what he called a "chemical weapon".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/16/phosphorus-bombs-video-israel-gaza

I think a more accurate representation would be the Nazis forceing the Jews into a ghetto and the jews fighting back. My how times have changed

The 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict is part of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and began in Gaza in December 2008. On 27 December (11:30 am local time; 9:30 am UTC) the Israel Defense Forces launched a series of airstrikes codenamed Operation Cast Lead (Hebrew: מבצע עופרת יצוקה‎, Mivtza Oferet Yetzuka). This is the deadliest conflict since Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election in 2006.

A six-month truce between Hamas and Israel ended on 19 December 2008. Hamas blamed Israel for not lifting the Gaza Strip blockade, and Israel blamed Hamas for increased rocket fire directed at southern Israeli towns and communities. Israel's stated objectives in this conflict are to end Palestinian rocket fire and prevent the rearming of Hamas. Hamas demands the cessation of Israeli attacks and an end to the Israeli blockade.

http://www.sfetcu.com/content/Israel%E2%80%93Gaza-conflict-started-December-2008

This twisted propaganda isnt even worth reading let alone responding to.

by Richard Norton-Taylor

Fresh evidence of the firing of white phosphorus weapons by Israeli forces in Gaza has emerged from witnesses heard by the Guardian and first hand accounts by human rights groups of their use against civilians. (Link to video)

Graphic descriptions of attacks by Israeli forces near the Gaza town of Khan Younis are contained in footage shot by Fida Qishta for the International Solidarity Movement and obtained by the Guardian.

A woman described how on Tuesday Israeli forces "started to fire phosphorus bombs against the people, of course, they are civilians ..."

A man added: "A fire broke out and we have to leave out. Fires broke out on the top of the houses. We all jumped out with our women and daughters put off the fire. They were doing that, to help the special forces to occupy the houses. after we put off the fires, they started to shoot towards us. Then they started to raze the houses".

He said the fires were caused by phosphorus bombs and missiles. Israeli artillery also fired white phosphorus shells at Gaza City, Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch, said yesterday.

Three white phosphorus shells were fired at the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza City on Thursday, according to people there.

Phosphorus shells burst in the air billowing white smoke before dropping the phosphate shell. Each shell contain more than 100 wavers which, when ignited, pump out smoke for about 10 minutes.

Contact with the shell remnants cause severe burns, sometimes burning the skin to the bone, consistent with descriptions by Ahmed Almi, the Egyptian doctor at the Al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis after attacks last Tuesday. Almi said after an hour the entire body of one victim was burned.

Chemicals in smoke produced by white phosphorus shells and burning chemical particles can cause severe respiratory problems.

According to the report from the International Solidarity Movement, many patients at the Khan Younis hospital were suffering from serious breathing difficulties after inhaling smoke.

The use of white phosphorous as a weapon - as opposed to its use as an obscurant and infrared blocking smoke screen - is banned by the Third Convention on Conventional Weapons which covers the use of incendiary devices. Though Israel is not a signatory to the convention, its military manuals reflect the restrictions on its use in that convention.

Instead of producing high velocity burning fragments like conventional white phosphorus weapons used to in the past, M825A1 rounds of the kind identified as being fired by Israeli forces produce what he called a "series of large slower burning wedges which fall from the sky", said Neil Gibson, technical adviser to Jane's Missiles and Rockets.

Israel's use of heavy artillery in residential areas of Gaza City violates the prohibition under the laws of war against indiscriminate attacks and should be stopped immediately, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.

"Firing 155mm shells into the center of Gaza City, whatever the target, will likely cause horrific civilian casualties," Garlasco said.



guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/17

Do some research and find that the blockade of gaza came first. those people were being starved out. Stop with the propaganda allready and get real.

Bush made by the same guys who sell toothpaste

How much and what kind of aid does the U.S. provide to Israel?

Israel, with a population of roughly 6.3 million, receives more U.S. aid each year than any other country, and has held that distinction since 1976. Between 1949 and 1996, Israel received $62.5 billion in foreign aid. This is roughly the same amount given to all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean combined during the same time period. Since 1996, the total has grown from $62.5 billion to nearly $100 billion in U.S. foreign aid.
Most of the U.S. aid is for Israel's military and its weaponry. Israel's annual aid package has averaged $3 billion in grants over the last twenty years, about two-thirds of it for military aid.
http://imeu.net/news/article001446.shtml

Washington –APA. US Defense Department failed to send arms to Israel. Pentagon sources told AFP Greece didn’t allow to US arms shipment from its ports, APA reports.

The sources said US arm deal with Israel was reached last summer before the military operations in Gaza. The shipment should be sent from the Greek port of Astakos to the Israel’s Ashdod. On January 12, news agencies reported that US delayed arms shipment to Israel because military operations in Gaza threatened its security, but later Pentagon spokesperson said it was delayed because of Greece’s protest. Now Pentagon is seeking for alternative route for its shipment.
http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=95247

its an argument of semantics I suppose when you fire a missle that has no targeting ability you target civilians but when you drop white phosphorus in a densly packed city with american made F16's your targeting the elected government of Gaza.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNG1dskvVnc