Support Viva Palestina

Yesterday, we pledged to sponsor a group on route to a gathering in KL in conjunction with the Malaysian convoy for Viva Palestina II, the second brave humanitarian wave to break the brutal siege of Gaza. Will they make it? Knowing the Egyptian authorities can be vindictive and treacherous, we can only pray. We shared our grim feelings and heard a brief tale of the harrowing and bewildering events of the first convoy. It was amazing that it got through even though the multinational team had to endure being pelted by stones and tear-gassed. Egyptian riot police even battled charged them. The activists and aid workers stood their ground and never relented nor did they fight back even under severe provocation. Many were bloodied even the old and the senior citizens among them. They did manage to get through to bring the aid into Gaza and they made their point although it came at a price. They had come from all walks of life to bring a ray of hope to the forgotten Palestinians. We salute them.

Many activists have tried to enter Gaza to bring help and aid but it is such an uphill struggle against unfriendly Egyptian bureaucrats and harsh border guards. If you brought a medical team, sometimes the medicine gets through but the medical doctors and personnel are turned away and vice versa. If you insist then you are threatened or even arrested. One unfortunate medical team leader was harshly treated.

When a friendly ambassador tried to intervene and help, the Interior Minister no less told him off simply that it was an Arab matter and the ambassador did not understand Arab issues. Actually, there is no humane reason to obstruct aid and aid workers from entering Gaza. But for some intriguing and ghastly purpose, Palestinians are being made to suffer openly in the eyes of the world. The Arab regimes are directly and categorically complicit and responsible, and in this case the Egyptian government is the key culprit by perpetuating and collaborating in the inhuman siege and the punishing sanctions imposed upon Gaza. That is as contemptuously Arabian as you can get!

Everyone knows about the steel walls being built sophisticatedly to block the smuggling tunnels, the lifeline of Gazan survival. Underground walls are funded and constructed with US assistance. How could such feats of engineering be so ruthless. Now, if the Egyptians do not want to help the Palestinians then they should not be in the way and be so cruel as to add to the suffering and persistently frustrate relief efforts. But that is the way it is when corruption has made its way into the deepest crevices of authorities and people in power. They only answer the master's call and we all know who their masters are in Tel Aviv and Washington. The latest fatal gassing of Gaza tunnel workers is an example of the extreme measures they take to prolong human suffering. Murder is just an option for corrupt people.

At the same time, the West Bank is being flooded with goods and amenities, semblance of relative peace and comfort. It is deliberately being spruced up to make clear who among the Palestinians are condemned. Those who do not conform shall be evicted and exiled to where else but Gaza, the biggest illegal prison on planet earth. If you are a Palestinian in the territories, you either be grateful for being in occupied West Bank or suffer in the slums of Gaza. In the meantime talk is being spun endlessly around "settlements freeze" as if it is the main issue. This blatant deception is simply an elaborate cover up and scheme to deprive and eliminate physically, economically and emotionally 1.5 million innocent Palestinians from the face of the earth. The real issue is the wanton injustice being perpetuated and perpetrated by Israel, funded and abetted by the USA, and collaborated by corrupt Arab regimes.

So back to the second Viva Palestina convoy, may your journey be safe and may you be successful. You carry the burden and the guilt of the world upon you. We know it ought to be our right and responsibility to wage war to free Gaza and save its inhabitants. It is our right since time immemorial and it is in the UN charter as the right of all nations and peoples to be free and be safe from imposed cruelty. But since everyone is powerless and paralysed by the sheer inhumanity of it all, we better do our bit to remind the world of its guilt in not freeing Gaza and to bring some relief to its people. We do this so that on the Day of Judgement, we can all be accounted with what we did to help. For the ones against us and stopping us, their accounts are not of our concern.

Let us all support Viva Palestina,

ma'a salama fi amanillah.

Gaza: bi idhni-llah (It is the Will of Allah)

Sunday Herald
Inside Gaza
EYEWITNESS: By Ewa Jasiewicz

During a prolonged power cut in that six-day invasion there was no electricity to power a ventilator, and doctors took turns hand pumping oxygen to keep one casualty alive for four hours before they could be transferred. Roads were bulldozed, ambulances were banned from moving, dead people lay in their homes for days, and when permission was finally given for the corpses' collection, medics had to carry them on stretchers along the main street.

Today in Gaza everyone is terrified that such events are now repeating themselves, only worse. Gazans now feel collectively abandoned. The past week's massacres, indiscriminate attacks and overflowing hospitals, and the fact that anyone can be hit at any time in any place, has left people utterly terrorised. No-one dares think of what might become of them in these difficult and unpredictable days. As they say in Gaza, "Bi idhn Allah" - "It's up to God".

Ewa Jasiewicz is a journalist and activist. She is currently one of the only international journalists on the ground in Gaza.



Gaza hospital chief says medical supplies still low

AM/ ABC Australia - Wednesday, 31 December , 2008 08:03:00
Reporter: Sara Everingham

ELEANOR HALL: Some of the Palestinians injured in the Israeli air strikes have crossed into Egypt for treatment and Israel has allowed more trucks carrying aid into Gaza.

But doctors in the territory say their hospitals are still struggling to cope.

The director of the Anglican run Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza, Suhaila Tarazi, spoke to Sara Everingham.

SUHAILA TARAZI: Today, we didn't sleep all night. Every hour there is an attack to a building. All surrounding areas were suffered from fear, from injuries and so on. And we are, up 'til this moment, we hear the bombardment of the Israelis to the authority buildings and to certain homes of people.

SARA EVERINGHAM: Have many of the people who have been injured come to your hospital?

SUHAILA TARAZI: Yes, we have received about 80 casualties at the hospital. The first day we have received in two hours' time, 45 cases; 30 of them admitted to the hospital for surgical interference. Two cases were arrived there, one of them a child of six years old and the other person is, was 28 years old…

SARA EVERINGHAM: Now who are these people? From what you can tell, who are they?

SUHAILA TARAZI: They are civilians. Their bad luck was that they were nearby the area that the Israeli hit by F-16.

SARA EVERINGHAM: Israel says it's doing all it can to avoid civilian casualties and that many of the casualties are people working with Hamas.

SUHAILA TARAZI: We didn't, at the hospital we didn't receive such, you know, such cases. But what we have received at the Arab hospital, most of them were civilians.

SARA EVERINGHAM: Israel has said that it's allowed some trucks with aid into Gaza. Has that arrived?

SUHAILA TARAZI: You know, some of them have arrived from Egypt and, you know, donor agencies, USAID and Care International and United Nations. They are working on that to let the aid come in but up 'til now we didn't receive anything. And we are, at the hospital, short of everything - medicine, medical supplies, blood - of everything.

SARA EVERINGHAM: So you haven't received any extra aid?

SUHAILA TARAZI: Even, even, even basic food to eat, to give for our patients, we lack of it. We do not have even, you know, mattresses to put patients on them.

ELEANOR HALL: That's the director of the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza, Suhaila Tarazi, speaking to Sara Everingham.

The Scotsman

Published Date: 03 January 2009

By Ross Lydall

Three children – two brothers and a cousin playing in the street in southern Gaza – were among the latest fatalities of Israeli bombing raids.

Madth Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor at Gaza's Shifa hospital, said of a boy who had both feet blown off: "These injuries are not survivable injuries. This is a murder. This is a child."

Ibrahim al-Maqadna mosque attacked!

Israel launches assault across Gaza's borders

Chris McGreal in Jerusalem

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 January 2009 01.03 GMT

The ground offensive followed a day of heavy air, sea and artillery bombardment that left at least 18 people in Gaza dead, including children, and scores wounded. Twelve were killed when an Israeli missile strike hit a mosque in Beit Lahiya as worshippers were praying inside.

Al Jazeera Sunday, January 04, 2009

05:39 Mecca time, 02:39 GMT

Israeli ground troops enter Gaza

The ground offensive also followed the latest air raids in Gaza on Saturday when an Israeli strike on a northern Gaza town killed at least 11 people, including one child, who were praying in a mosque.

Fears of a humanitarian crisis have also grown in recent days, as the strip, home to 1.5 million people, is already suffering shortages of power, food and medical supplies due to a two-year blockade imposed by Israel on the area.

The International Committee for the Red Cross also said on Saturday its medical emergency team had been prevented for a second day from entering the territory.

Finkelstein: Israel Seeking Arab Obeisance

By Press TV

January 02, 2009 "Press TV -- -The following is a full-length exclusive text interview with lecturer, author and renowned Palestine-Israel scholar Gary Norman Finkelstein in New York.

Press TV: Nearly a week of violence in Gaza. What do you make of the situation there?

Finkelstein: It is hard to make any definite judgments about the military situation. The goals of the Israeli government it seems to me are pretty clear. Number one Israel wants to reestablish what it calls its deterrence capacity. That is a technical term that the Israelis use. It basically means to restore the fear of Israel among the Arab states in the region.

After the defeat inflicted by Hezbollah and the inability of Israel to launch an attack on Iran it was almost inevitable that they would attack Hamas, because Hamas is defying the Israeli will. According to the Israeli papers, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was planning the attack before the last ceasefire and they were just waiting for a provocation from the Palestinians.

On November 4, the Israelis broke the ceasefire with Hamas knowing full well--and if you review the Israeli papers, they say so knowing full well that when they killed six militants in Gaza the Palestinians would retaliate and then Israel would have the pretext to invade. Therefore, the first goal was to restore the fear of Israel among Arabs by inflicting a bloodbath in Gaza.

Press TV: Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that Israel has affected almost what it called the infrastructure of terrorism presumably meaning Hamas. This while apparently heavy civilian casualties have been incurred inside Gaza. How do you see the imbalance in the loss of life in Gaza? How successful do you think that Israel has been in wiping out Hamas or the resistance if you will?

Finkelstein: Well the purpose was to inflict massive casualties immediately. The Israelis, after their attack on Lebanon in 2006, realized that their error was that they did not unleash the full might of their air force in the first few days. In in the first two days of Lebanon war, they killed about 55 Lebanese and then they targeted the Dahia suburb of Beirut. After the war, they began talking about the Dahia strategy which meant to obliterate anything which went against their rule. And what you saw in the first couple of days in Gaza was the application of the Dahia strategy to commit a bloodbath and slaughter of such huge dimensions that they thought it would deter the Arabs in the future from defying Israeli rule.

Press TV: Speaking of deterrence, Hamas said that it would retaliate. How great a response do you think Hamas can give Israel? Could one expect something like the one Israel received from Hezbollah in 2006?

Finkelstein: I think it is impossible to predict those things. But, it is clear that Israel is faced with a dilemma. In the case of Lebanon during the first few days they apparently destroyed (Hezbollah's) long-range and medium-range missiles, but they couldn't destroy the short-range rockets being used against the Israel unless they invaded. They tried to invade, but they couldn't and the rocket attacks continued. And now they have the same problem in Gaza.

In order to end the rocket attacks they have to invade and clear all the areas where the rocket launchers are located one by one. But, if they invade there is the possibility of them being caught in a guerrilla war which they plainly cannot win in Gaza. So they are not sure at this moment how to proceed.

Press TV: Israeli foreign minister (Tzipi Livni) also says that Israel wants to negotiate peace with what she calls moderate Palestinians. On the other hand, we see Mahmoud Abbas saying that peace talks are meaningless under the current situation wherein Israel is targeting all Palestinians, so where does that leave Israel?

Finkelstein: Well we have to be clear what Israel means by moderate Palestinians. The Hamas leadership in recent years has signaled that it is willing to negotiate a two-state settlement according to the June 1967 border and also the resolution of the refugee question. That means that Hamas has signaled to do what the international community has wanted Israel to do over the past 30 years.

Israel rejects such a two-state settlement because it wants to continue its control of the West Bank. So for Israel a moderate Palestinian means the one who rejects all the terms proposed by the international community, a Palestinian who rejects the position of Hamas. For Israel a moderate Palestinian is a Palestinian who is willing to do whatever Israel wants: is a Palestinian who is willing follow Israeli orders.

Press TV: Observers say that a ceasefire is the best Israel can achieve from this. How is the war affecting Israel?

Finkelstein: It is hard to say that whether Israel is in a position for a ceasefire. If Israel accepts the ceasefire I don't think Hamas would accept it if the Gaza blockage continues. It was due to the continuation of the Gaza blockade that Hamas rejected renewal of the truce with Israel. If the blockade is not lifted it is just a slow death for the Palestinians. If Israel agrees to lift this blockade along with a ceasefire then it will in effect have given in to the conditions that it refused last week. So it's really unclear that Israel would propose a ceasefire that Hamas would accept and vice versa.

Press TV: Israel says that its war is with Hamas, but it has prevented the flow of international aid into Gaza and prevented journalists from covering what is going on there. There is a saying Persian if you cannot help then don't prevent help from others.

Finkelstein: Well we have to be clear that Israel's war is not with Hamas but with the international community, including Iran. Israel is defying the international community, including Iran on the two-state settlement.

Gaza and the Ultimate Self Sacrifice

It is like an orchestration, as if on cue, after Mumbai and the further intimidation of Muslim nations comes the vicious atrocities by Israel in Gaza. What is Gaza but one of the most densely populated enclaves in the world and one of its poorest regions. Gaza has transformed from a strip of land to cater for Palestinian refugee camps to being one of its largest prisons.

Ironically, it is not surrounded in total by Israel but its western borders are closed and guarded stringently by Egypt in supine loyalty as the most subservient Arab collaborator to the Israeli cause.

The throwing of the pair of shoes at Bush is a sign of anger, frustration and desperation as well as symbolizing the impotence of the Arab world. Arab leaders are time and again proving to be cowards. They adopt treacherous positions only by playing up to their suppressed population. They use their equally pesky armies to crush their own political opposition, and dissidents. They are good at oppressing their own. Arabs in general hold themselves in utter contempt while others simply look down upon them in sheer dismissal.

Israel has attacked Gaza, blitzkrieg style, simply to wipe out any idea or inkling of a Palestinian independent state. Israel plotted at first by co-opting Fatah through its Oslo accords. It was caught off guard by Hamas’s democratic election victory. Israel again plotted to crush the Hamas in Gaza using its collaborator Dahlan with the complicity of Mahmud Abbas but it failed. It then launched a malicious siege and subjecting Gaza to a horrifying total blockade of all forms of food, medicine, fuel and aid. But Gaza and the Hamas did not collapse and the Palestinians remain defiant. Israel instigated the powerful clans but Hamas defeated them to run scurrying into Israel. The Palestinians in Gaza remained faithful to Hamas.

So they deceitfully attacked to destroy all of Hamas’s security forces and governing structure at the same time causing whatever civilian casualties without any regard for humanity. Israel simply wants to leave behind an ungovernable piece of territory through military means because even under severe economic and food shortage, Gaza enjoyed peace and security under Hamas. Israel is desperate and vehemently evil. It just cannot allow peace even under harsh living conditions.

What then is the solution, how can anyone help?

Egypt must open its borders and allow all aid, free flow of goods and supplies into Gaza through its Rafah crossing. Egypt must allow refugees to leave for safety and allow refugee camps in its side of the border thereby ensuring hinterland support for the survival of Gaza.

Richard Falk, the UN rapporteur who was evicted from Israel and all relevant UN personnel must be allowed back into Gaza through Rafah. They shall certainly be followed by the various news agencies and their train of journalists. This shall certainly stop the Israeli attacks.

International and Muslim humanitarian volunteers and aid such as the Red Cross and the Red Crescent must be allowed to reach Gaza again through Egypt.

Muslim UN, WHO, IMF and World Bank bureaucrats should go to Gaza and do assessments or hold those photo-op meetings or sessions.

Last but not least, in fact, they should be the first to go to Gaza now, are the obsequious Arab and Muslim world leaders must be there whether as working visits or to convene those Arab League, OIC or whatever necessary summits. This shall certainly put a stop to the whole massacre. From the whole picture of the Palestinian struggle, the only way to victory is a total willingness to sacrifice and that is what is lacking in the Arab and Muslim world.

Some say that when Yasser Arafat was holding up in his severely damaged HQ in Muqatta’ in Ramallah under Israeli siege, basically imprisoned for months before his death, Arafat should have came out fighting and observed the self sacrifice instead of groveling and humiliatingly appealing for help from pathetic world leaders. It certainly would have made a difference to the Palestinian cause and history but fate did not honour him in death.

The Arab leaders do know that Israel does not dare to invade after the Lebanon fiasco. But the Arab leaders are themselves perplexed as to whose side they are really on!


If all else fails, the Arab people have to rise up and remove their leaders, then lead the fight as Hezbollah has shown before.