* The Guardian, Friday 16 January 2009
Have a look at the signatories
The massacres in Gaza are the latest phase of a war that Israel has been waging against the people of Palestine for more than 60 years. The goal of this war has never changed: to use overwhelming military power to eradicate the Palestinians as a political force, one capable of resisting Israel’s ongoing appropriation of their land and resources. Israel’s war against the Palestinians has turned Gaza and the West Bank into a pair of gigantic political prisons. There is nothing symmetrical about this war in terms of principles, tactics or consequences. Israel is responsible for launching and intensifying it, and for ending the most recent lull in hostilities.
Israel must lose. It is not enough to call for another ceasefire, or more humanitarian assistance. It is not enough to urge the renewal of dialogue and to acknowledge the concerns and suffering of both sides. If we believe in the principle of democratic self-determination, if we affirm the right to resist military aggression and colonial occupation, then we are obliged to take sides… against Israel, and with the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
We must do what we can to stop Israel from winning its war. Israel must accept that its security depends on justice and peaceful coexistence with its neighbours, and not upon the criminal use of force.
We believe Israel should immediately and unconditionally end its assault on Gaza, end the occupation of the West Bank, and abandon all claims to possess or control territory beyond its 1967 borders. We call on the British government and the British people to take all feasible steps to oblige Israel to comply with these demands, starting with a programme of boycott, divestment and sanctions.
Ciao Anis, Ciao Adam,
Here my last article published yesterday in the newspaper Il Manifesto
permalink: http://guerrillaradio.iobloggo.com/archive.php?eid=1772
The sea no longer yields its generous fruits, there’s nothing left of the ripples reflecting the sky, and death was the only dowry left by the war ships plowing through its ghostly liquid. We still try to create routes of salvation, make a breakthrough to this tormented land, now confiscated and imprisoned, every inch of it raped and reduced to a cemetery for a dead without rest. For a few days now, even funerals have become targets of the Israeli air force, as if the murdered Palestinians deserved an additional punishment in death as well.
If a humanitarian passage is struggling to make its way and come in aid of a people at the end of their tether, the “Spirit of Humanity”, one of our Free Gaza Movement boats, will be there for them. It sailed from Larnaca, Cyprus just today and will bring tons of medicine (from the European Campaign to End the Siege) to Gaza’s port aside from about forty doctors, nurses, journalists, European Parliamentaries, and human rights activists representing 17 different nations in all. Truly human beings, like myself, like many in Italy who vent their indignation, who are ready to risk their lives rather than lounge passively in their living rooms in front of a TV which reveals only a tiny fraction of the massacre being inflicted upon us. (The SPIRIT OF HUMANITY passengers were threatened by the Israeli Navy, told they would be shot and the boat returned to Cyprus this morning.)
On December 27th my friends tried to come with “Dignity”, but they were attacked by the Israeli Navy, which tried to sink them. They launched an SOS and had to flee to Lebanon with engine failure and a leak in the hull. On that occasion it was only by pure chance that no one was badly hurt, so we hope human rights as well as the lives of the activists will be spared tomorrow. There are terrifying natural catastrophes in this world, such as earthquakes and hurricanes, which are inevitable.
But Gaza has an unnatural humanitarian catastrophe under way, perpetuated by Israel, damaging a people long reduced to abject poverty and submission. This is a desperate people without bread or milk to feed its children. They no longer shed any tears when mourning, as their eyes are also on a strict, imposed diet. The entire world cannot ignore this tragedy and if they continue to do so, we don’t want to be included in this world. Every day we invoke someone above us to stop the genocide, but for tomorrow all we ask is for our small boat to land in Gaza with its cargo of compassion, peace, love and empathy. May the Palestinians also receive the same rights that Isrealis, or any other people on earth enjoy. The sea as anchor of hope, or as a destination of destruction.
According to the Ma’an press agency, with Reuters echoing their statement, the United States are about to ship 3000 tons of weapons to Israel, via cargo ships sailing from Greece. Weapons and enormous amounts of explosives and fuses, and all that’s needed to raze thousands of houses to the ground in the Gaza Strip.
There are 120 thousand homeless from Gaza to Jabalia already, but most, including many of my friends haven’t moved and have nowhere to flee. Journalists, doctors and gravediggers: for 16 days non-stop now, these have been the busiest professions in Gaza. The circling vultures beyond the bomber planes stir up more hatred, especially those seated where the late lamented Arafat used to sit.
They now itch to come and take over the throne on Gaza’s ashes, or what will remain of it. The death toll is now at 923, with 4,150 wounded, including 255 horrendously butchered Palestinian children. The death toll on the Israeli side is still thankfully at 4. Rumour has it that Olmert had informed his side that hitting the 1,000 civilian death mark was the limit before putting a halt to this brutal attack and infanticide. It’s a bit like what happens at the Vucciria markets in Palermo, where beef quarters are hung to drip blood out in the open, and you haggle for the meat – so much per kilo.
Few Palestinians now miss Ismail Haniyeh’s appearances on the small screen, here in the Gaza Strip. You can’t speak of a truce without simultaneously establishing a stop to the siege in advance. Continuing to keep Gaza under siege now that it’s been reduced to a heap of rubble, not allowing the provisions and medicine to come through, preventing the sick and injured from getting out means condemning them to a more prolonged agony. These in brief were the words spoken by Hamas’s leader, spoken from an underground bunker God knows where. These words find an echo in Gazan public opinion. This was the speech of a leader who could have fled and taken refuge elsewhere, but who on the contrary decided to risk having a bomb drop on his head like everyone else.
This current prose piece of mine was just interrupted by the usual intimidating phone call ordering us to evacuate the building before a bombing. I find myself in the building where the main international media agencies operate, among others Al Jazeera, Ramattan and Reuters (it was just bombed this morning and one journalist was injured. Israel clearly knew the location of the office provided by Reuters in Jerusalem).
We were forced to unplug our PCs, rush downstairs and crowd the street, where we kept our eyes glued to the sky trying to pick out where the destructive thunder would strike from. There won’t be any cameras or reporters around to document the civilian massacre tonight, as we suspect that the innocent victims will be more numerous than usual.
Still standing in the street, I stare at Alberto and wink at him; he comes closer and I whisperingly ask him whether he thinks it’s plausible that the threatening phone call had been made especially for the two of us, after the discovery of the American website which put a price on our heads:
ALERT THE IDF MILITARY TO TARGET ISM –
#1 ISM TARGET FOR THE ISRAELI AIR FORCE AND IDF GROUND TROOPS: VITTORIO ARRIGONI IS CURRENTLY IN GAZA ASSISTING HAMAS”
The future will pronounce its sentence without appeal: of how hatred like this was the purest of all feelings, and how spite towards what’s different fuelled whole armies and was the feeling that brought masses of people together.
There’s no need for my enemies and those who wish for my martyrdom to dial that number. The Israeli Army knows exactly where to find me tonight – on the Al Quds hospital ambulances in Gaza City.
Stay human
Vittorio Arrigoni
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Oy, so many wild dreams I’ve been having these days, probably because of this war against the mishuggah hamasniks.
Last night, my dream was set in the future, which is very strange because we, the Jewish people, usually fantasize solely about the past.
Oi ever, this dream was set in something like 2020. Ehud’le Barak, Tzipi’le Livni, Shimon’le Peres and Ehud’le Olmert were seeking shelter overseas because of the War Crimes Tribunal. The mishuggenahs in the Hague were blaming them for crimes against humanity, can you believe this narishkeit? When all they did was to kill some arabs.
In my dream, Barak was captured in NYC, schlepping refrigerators and sofas for an Israeli moving company. This is what many Israelis do in Americe once they finish their military service.
Tzipi’le was arrested in Buenos Aires, posing as an art student and running an S & M brothel on the side, Olmert’le was discovered managing a kosher abattoir in Brooklyn, and Peres was found running a euthanasia center in the dungeons of Windsor Castle.
These hamasnik agents captured them all. In my dream, Ehud’le was put in a hand’le suitcase because he is very, very small like Napoleon, and brought back to Goyza to face justice. Barak said in his defence that he was just “following orders” just like this farshluggineh, Adolf Eichmann.
Oi, i was so worried for Ehud’le. I tossed and I turned in my bed. Nu shoin, they were about to execute him and burn him like Eichmann! I knew that for Eichmann we had built a special big oven, but for Ehud’le all they would need is a medium sized microwave, which they would be able to reuse afterwards.
At 6 am, I woke up sweating and read on Ynet that Israel is still alive and is even still killing its neighbours, so I relaxed and made myself a kleine coffee, which I had with a nice apfel shtrudel.
United against the goyim
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria on the Gaza conflict
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has warned that Israel’s campaign against Gaza will fuel extremism and terrorism in the Arab and Muslim world.
“The effect of war is more dangerous than war… sowing seeds of extremism and terror around the region,” Mr Assad said in an exclusive BBC interview.
He also said a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza could only be achieved if conditions set by both sides were met.
Officials say the fighting has killed nearly 1,000 Gazans and 13 Israelis.
Earlier, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pledged to redouble his efforts to secure a durable and sustainable ceasefire.
Speaking in Cairo, at the beginning of a visit to the region, Mr Ban said he hoped an Egyptian diplomatic initiative would show results as soon as possible.
Egyptian officials have been discussing various proposals with a Hamas delegation in Cairo.
‘Sustainable’ ceasefire
In an interview in Damascus with BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen, President Assad said his country, which hosts several exiled Hamas leaders, was doing everything it could to bring about a truce.
“We have been working with many countries, primarily the French,” he said, adding that Hamas had already accepted the need for a “sustainable ceasefire”.
Mr Assad said that for Palestinian militants to stop firing rockets into Israel, the Israelis had to fully respect any ceasefire – which he said they failed to do in the past – and end their blockade of Gaza.
Mr Assad also argued that Israel’s failure to respect past ceasefires and deliver on the peace process justified Palestinian resistance.
“We haven’t achieved peace yet and the Israelis never delivered since the beginning of the peace process in 1991,” he added.
“So when you don’t accept the peace terms, you have to expect resistance.”
He also said that for any future Israeli-Palestinian peace talks to be successful, Hamas would have to be included.
“They are influential. That is most important. So they have to be brought to any action, otherwise it will not succeed,” he added.
Mr Assad said that there was a risk of the war, or at least the “effects of the war”, spreading throughout the region.
“This is like sowing the seeds of extremism around the region, in the Arab and Muslim Worlds,” he said. “Desperation breeds extremism. Extremism will produce terrorism,” he said.
“This is a political crisis combined with a humanitarian crisis. You have to solve them, otherwise you will sow the seeds of extremism.”
The Syrian leader said he hoped President-elect Barack Obama would be “involved seriously and directly in the peace process” as soon he takes office and that he would be welcome to visit Damascus at any time to co-operate on the issue.
Israeli soldiers refuse to serve in Gaza.
The US has denied that a telephone call made by Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, to George Bush, the US president, led to the US abstaining in a UN vote on the Gaza war last week. In a speech late on Monday, Olmert said Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, was left “pretty shamed” at the vote and had to abstain on a resolution she had helped arrange. Sean McCormack, a US state department spokesmen, who was with Rice at the UN last week during debate on the security council resolution, went further and said the remarks were “just 100 per cent, totally, completely untrue”. McCormack said that Washington had no plans to seek clarification from Israel. Mark Regev, a spokesman for Ehud Olmert, said the Israeli leader stood by his remarks. Telephone influence The Israeli prime minister said on Monday that he demanded to talk to Bush last Thursday, minutes before a vote in the UN Security Council on a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
“When we saw that Rice, for reasons we did not really understand, wanted to vote in favour of the resolution … I looked for President Bush,” Olmert said.Bush, who Olmert said was taken off a stage in Philadelphia where he was making a speech, said he was not informed on the resolution and was “not familiar with the phrasing”. “I’m familiar with it. You can’t vote in favour.” Olmert claimed telling the US president. “He [Bush] gave an order to the secretary of state and she did not vote in favour of it, a resolution she cooked up, phrased, organised and manoeuvred for,” Olmert said. Bush was in Philadelphia on Thursday morning and gave a 27-minute speech on education policy that ended about 10 hours before the UN vote and there was no interruption of the public event. The Israeli prime minister described Bush as an “unparalleled friend” of Israel. UN call Fourteen of the security council’s 15 members supported the legally binding resolution, which has until now failed to stop Israel’s offensive in Gaza. Olmert criticised the UN resolution, saying that “no decision, present or future, will deny us our basic right to defend the residents of Israel”. Israel launched its offensive on December 27, in what it said was an attempt to stop Hamas firing rockets into southern Israel from Gaza. After an intensive air campaign in the first week, Israel sent ground forces into Gaza in the second week of fighting and continues to push deeper into the strip. |
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