Turkish PM greeted by cheers after Israel debate clash

(From The Guardian)
Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, arrived home to a tumultuous reception of cheering crowds early today after storming out of a debate in Davos over Israel's recent offensive in Gaza.
Hours after clashing with the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, in angry scenes at the normally sedate world economic forum, he was welcomed at Istanbul's Ataturk airport by thousands of supporters waving Turkish and Palestinian flags and chanting "Turkey is proud of you". Sympathisers also left bouquets of flowers at his official residence.
The outpouring of support displayed the domestic political capital Erdogan gained from his performance at the Swiss resort, where he told Peres: "When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill." He then walked off the stage, declaring that he would never return to Davos, after claiming he had not been allowed to speak by the debate moderator, the Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.
Erdogan also accused Peres of raising his voice and claimed the Israeli statesman had been allowed more speaking time than himself and the panel discussion's two other participants, the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, and Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League.
Peres had earlier made an impassioned defence of Israeli actions in Gaza, asking Erdogan: "What would you do if you were to have in Istanbul every night a hundred rockets?" Erdogan responded by saying: "President Peres, you are older than me and your voice is very loud. The reason for you raising your voice is the psychology of guilt … I know very well how you hit and killed children on the beaches."
The prime minister's wife, Emine – who this month organised a Women For Peace In Palestine lunch for the wives of Islamic dignitaries – also became involved, bursting into tears after telling reporters that "everything Peres said was a lie".
Erdogan's outburst was his most high-profile in a series of outspoken attacks on Israel's Gaza operations. He had previously called the offensive – in which around 1,300 Palestinians died – a "crime against humanity" and demanded Israel's expulsion from the UN.
His stance has shocked Israeli officials — used to considering Turkey as their closest regional ally — but played to the pro-Palestinian sentiments of the overwhelmingly Muslim Turkish public. Mass demonstrations in favour of Hamas have been staged in Istanbul and other cities.
Such sympathies have prompted suggestions that Erdogan's rhetoric has been mainly for domestic political consumption and aimed at wooing voters at forthcoming municipal elections in March. Jewish groups have also voiced fears that the government's fierce anti-Israeli criticism is fuelling antisemitism The row with Peres overshadowed a dispute between the government and the International Montetary Fund that had seen Erdgoan accuse the fund of setting unacceptable conditions, after negotiations were suspended over a proposed loan to help Turkey weather the economic recession.
On arriving at Ataturk airport, he depicted his Davos walk-out in nationalist terms, telling journalists: "This was a matter of the esteem and prestige of my country. I could not have allowed anyone to poison the prestige and in particular the honour of my country."
He also denied his comments were aimed at the Israeli people or Jews in general. A world economic forum spokesman said Peres spoke with Erdogan on the phone after the debate and expressed his respect for Turkey.
However, some observers believe Erdogan has sacrificed Turkish foreign policy, especially Turkey's self-appointed role as a regional mediator.
Before the Gaza hostilities Turkey had been mediating in negotiations between Israel and Syria. There are also fears that the pro-Israel lobby in the US will back moves to recognise the massacres of Armenians by Ottoman forces in the first world war as genocide, a move Turkey vehemently opposes.

TJC

How Sweden is Governed

Dear all,

The Swedish Government now has published a new arabic text on how Sweden is Governed. See it as a supplement to J&D:

http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c6/11/92/90/b7a2e966.pdf

/SK

Video: 'Idealist' tried to halt Saddam's Kurdish slaughter

Video: 'Idealist' tried to halt Saddam's Kurdish slaughter  »  Kurdish refugees fleeing Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons attacks in 1988   (CNN) - Years before the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was slaughtering Iraq's Kurds with bombs, bullets and gas. The Reagan White House saw it as a ruthless attempt to put down a rebellion by a minority ethnic group fighting for independence and allied with Iraq's enemy, Iran. But Peter Galbraith thought it was something worse. "A light went off in my head, and I said, 'Saddam Hussein is committing genocide,'" said Galbraith, who was on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time. Galbraith was one of the first Westerners to witness the effects of the slaughter. During a fact-finding trip for the Senate in 1987, he saw something troubling. "When we crossed from the Arab part of Iraq into the Kurdish part of Iraq, the villages and towns that showed on our maps just weren't there," he said. Bulldozing Kurdish villages was just the first phase of Hussein's war against the Kurds. In 1988, it escalated with chemical weapons. Watch CNN video   http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2008/12/01/sbm.iraq.kurds.cnn.cnn

If you (or I) were a Palestinian

_{Haaretz, Last update - 06:21 02/01/2009}

Yossi Sarid / If you (or I) were Palestinian

_{By Yossi Sarid}

This week I spoke with my students about the Gaza war, in the context of a class on national security. One student, who had expressed rather conservative, accepted opinions - that is opinions tending slightly to the right - succeeded in surprising me. Without any provocation on my part, he opened his heart and confessed: "If I were a young Palestinian," he said, "I'd fight the Jews fiercely, even by means of terror. Anyone who says anything different is telling you lies." 

His remarks sounded familiar - I had already heard them before. Suddenly I remembered: About 10 years ago they were uttered by our defense minister, Ehud Barak. Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy had asked him then, as a candidate for prime minister, what he would do had he been born Palestinian and Barak replied frankly: "I would join a terror organization." 

This is not my own answer; terrorism by individuals or organizations or states is always aimed at exacting casualties in a civilian population that has not drawn any blood. Not only is terror blind - consuming both the saint and the sinner - it also expands the circle of the hot-headed, whose blood rises to their brains: Our blood is on their heads, their blood is on our heads. And when an account of the blood of the innocent is opened, who can pay it in full, and when? 

I hate all the terrorists in the world, whatever the purpose of their struggle. However, I support every active civil revolt against any occupation, and Israel too is among the despicable occupiers. Such revolt is both more just and more effective, and it does not extinguish one's spark of humanity. And perhaps I'm just too much of an old codger to be a terrorist. 

But, and pay attention to this but, if a normative young person has a spontaneous answer that is different from mine, and that answer also escaped the mouth of an Israeli lieutenant general, then every individual must see himself as though his son is running with the wrong crowd. If things were the other way around, our son-whom-we-loved would be a damned terrorist, almost certainly, because he is of the third and fourth generation of refugeehood and oppression, and whence cometh salvation? He has nothing to lose but his chains. 

Whereas we, his mother and father, would be weeping for the departing son because he will never return to see the land of his birth and us, except in his photograph on the wall as a shahid, a martyr. Would we detain him before he carries out his plan? Would we be able to hold him back if we wanted to? Would we not understand what he is feeling? What Ehud Barak understood in his day - would that be impossible for us to understand? 

Young people who have no future will easily give up their future, which they can't see on the horizon. Their past as guttersnipes and their present as cursed unemployed idlers lock the opening to their hope: Their death is better than their life, and their death is even better than our life, as their oppressors - that is how they feel. From the day they are born to the day they leave this earth, they see their land ahead, to which they will not come as free people. 

There are no good and bad peoples; there are only leaderships that behave responsibly or insanely. And now we are fighting those whom a goodly number of us would be like, had we been in their place for 41 and a half years. 

 

   During the recent war on Gaza the Israelis were keen on winning the media war beforehand arguing that their military offensive is allowed since it is in self-defence   against Hamas terrorist operations targeting south Israel inhabitants.

      The various declarations of the Israeli foreign minister Tsipi Liveny were all made in this sense and such was the viewpoint of most of the  western  media.

To justify the war on Gaza this way was aimed at reviving the horrible image of the 11 September terror acts in order to win the public opinion of the west or at least keep westerners silent regarding the savage killing of hundreds of innocent children and women.

 The western media position is reflected through the USA media coverage of the war on Gaza. When it is a question of Israel's interests the American media has accustomed the entire world of putting aside the professionalism and ethics principles. During three consecutive weeks the American well known TV channels, radios and newspapers have been reiterating that Israel was bombing Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas rockets lunching against Israeli civilians in the south.  CNN- FOX NEWS_ CNBC not to mention others have sent their Great War reporters to the region but unfortunately they did not even step the ground of the battle field that is Gaza city.

 We have seen  famous war reporter  Nick Robinson  who had before  covered  for  CNN  the wars of Iraq  ,Lebanon  and Afghanistan , standing in the outskirts of the strip reporting things that had nothing to do with reality  ,  general images of the offensive, too much talk about "Hamas terrorism  "and of course to end the intervention  he showed  images of rockets' debris  on south Israel to be the last image to be kept in  TV viewers minds , a way to make them legitimise the attack.  .

 

 Envoys of various world media were not allowed to enter the Gaza strip .they were obliged to remain in the south of Israel for security reasons according to Israel. The BBC website had even reported that the Israeli army had supplied journalists with videos they themselves produced so as not to portrait to the world the real ugly images of massacres...

 A journalist of  an American electronic paper reported that the  Israelis were  so scared that they didn't  manage to  sleep well and didn't enjoy having long bathes as before " but he forgot to mention that   civilians from  the other side were having blood bathes ……

   This is what we call the negative power of the press, the victim is considered as torturer and the torturer becomes a victim.

 The mass  destruction  caused by the Israeli horrible war machine ,the targeting of mosques ,of  UN rescue headquarters , of schools  and new born babies didn't at all affect the US and the Israeli media and even some European media . They continued portraying the war on Gaza as a battle taking place between two equal forces; much more it even seemed to the public that Hamas was the strongest. In an Israeli newspaper we can read: "don't feel pity for Palestinian civilians, they are like  children  when you feel pity for  them never stop crying"

 

 

   ouarda lebnane

---

Découvrez tout ce que Windows Live a à vous apporter !

Obama a la Swedish transparency sauce!

Could it be that the US is moving closer to that total transparency we all loved while visiting Sweden?.... First day at the office with Barack Obama suggests so!....

"More meaningfully to everyone except those on the White House payroll, Obama also moved to open access to government records. The Bush administration found new ways to limit the public's ability to see what the government was up to almost every day; it was as if the administration was competing with itself for the most imaginative excuse to refuse to release information. (For instance, the Securities and Exchange Commission recently tried to charge $70 an hour to process Freedom of Information Act requests.) Obama instructed the government, instead, to err on the side of openness. "For a long time now, there's been too much secrecy in this city," he said. "The old rules said that if there was a defensible argument for not disclosing something to the American people, then it should not be disclosed. That era is now over." The attorney general and the White House counsel will have to review presidential declarations that material is off-limits to FOIA requests in the future. A working group will also convene, within 120 days, to come up with ways to make government even more transparent."

Tom Tomorrow's salute for the outgoing president

--
Tarek Chemaly
00961 3 947605
www.beirutntsc.blogspot.com

Inauguration day semantics.

On Obama's inauguration day this post was seen as a reaction to an article on the net:
"Yes, we can." takes Kennedy's, It's not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country, and combines it with the ad man's call to drop all consciousness with, "Just do it." to make a potent message somewhere in the middle. Obama is a genius."
Remember, we are not "300 million helpless Arabs" - "Yes we can." Remember that.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Source scandal in Swedish army

A NOTE FROM JOURNALISM UTOPIA:

Swedish daily Svenska dagbladet today reveals a case of trying to find sources within the Swedish armed forces serving in Afghanistan. The sources has spoken to the paper about lack of security for Swedish soldiers in Afghanistan.

It is of course against the constitution and a severe crime in Sweden to try to find the sources. So the military is promising a prompt invistigation and here are todays quotes from Swedish radio:

Håkan Syrén, Chief of Army Staff: "If investigation of sources has occurred it is very problematic. I am very upset. It is completely clear to me and my staff what is written in the constitution. It is totally clear to us that you do not investigate sources."

Sten Tolgfors, Defence Minister: "The allegations are serious. I expect that all authorities that answer to me follow the rules and regulations that are there and that one respects rules on protection of sources and so on. That is the responsibility of the authorities and they have to obey by those rules."

/SK

Lasanthas last article

Dear J&D friends,

I noticed the post from the Guardian that someone posted. For those
who want to read the journalistic will of one of the worlds most
courageous journalists. Here it is:

http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20090111/editorial-.htm

Lasantha was problably the ultimate self sacrificing journalist, way
past what we talked to Erik Fichtelius about.

It is terrifying and inspiring. If only one had a fraction of
Lasanthas courage.

/SK

'We know who is behind my death': Sri Lankan editor continues fight from grave

Dissident's last editorial printed posthumously • Article predicts his murder and blames government, Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, Tuesday 13 January 2009 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/13/sri-lankan-journalist-sunday-leader)

It is being called "the voice from the grave", a remarkable and accusing article written by one of Sri Lanka's best-known journalists and published days after he was murdered in a hail of gunfire.
In a 2,500 word editorial, Lasantha Wickrematunge foresees his own death, hints at the identity of the killers from within the ranks of Sri Lanka's government, and lays out a gripping and detailed account of what he sees as his country's descent into persecution of citizens and flouting of democracy.
"When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me," he wrote. Addressing Sri Lanka's president, Mahinda Rajapakse - a close friend - he says: "In the wake of my death I know you will make all the usual sanctimonious noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry. But like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too. For truth be told, we both know who will be behind my death."
Wickrematunge was shot in the head in Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, by two gunman on a motorcycle as he drove to work on Thursday. More than 4,000 people attended his funeral yesterday, including opposition leaders and human rights activists.
In its 15 years of existence his paper, the Sunday Leader, became well known as the island's best independent newspaper. It took an impartial line on the vicious civil war ravaging the island between the Sinhala-dominated government and the Tamil Tigers fighting for autonomy.
It produced a series of scoops about dissension within the government and, in spite of heavy censorship of all on-the-ground reporting of the war, it regularly exposed atrocities for which the security sources were suspected.
Wickrematunge had suffered three attacks before last week. He was twice assaulted by unknown assailants and his house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. "Countless [Sri Lankan] journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last," said his article, published under the headline "And then they came for me".
The government has made a series of military gains over the Tigers in the last two weeks, capturing their political capital and reopening the main road from Colombo to Jaffna by seizing the important Elephant Pass. In the editorial Wickrematunge said this would not bring victory - a sign he wrote his article very recently. "A military occupation of the country's north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you can placate them by showering "development" and "reconstruction" on them in the post-war era.
"The wounds of war will scar them forever, and you will also have an even more bitter and hateful diaspora to contend with," he wrote.
A member of the Sinhala elite, Wickrematunge said: "Unknown to most of the public, Mahinda and I have been friends for more than a quarter century. Indeed, I suspect that I am one of the few people remaining who routinely addresses him by his first name." He pointed out that he still had frequent late-night meetings with the president where they chatted and even joked.
"You have told me yourself that you were not greedy for the presidency. You did not have to hanker after it: it fell into your lap. You have told me that your sons are your greatest joy, and that you love spending time with them, leaving your brothers to operate the machinery of state. Now, it is clear to all who will see that that machinery has operated so well that my sons and daughter do not themselves have a father."
The editor ends his article appealing to his readers: "If you remember nothing else, remember this: the [Sunday] Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried."
A spokesman for Sri Lanka's high commission in London said last night: "There was condemnation last week by the president of the murder." Asked if the president or government had responded to the dead editor's article in the Sunday Leader, he said: "There has been no reaction."

Iraq is first

Iraq still deadliest place for journalists - CPJ   NEW YORK, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Iraq remained the deadliest country for journalists in 2008 for the sixth consecutive year with 11 journalists killed, according to an annual analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists. All those killed this year were local reporters working for domestic news outlets. That was down from a record 32 deaths in Iraq in each of the prior two years, according to the group. Worldwide, 41 journalists were killed this year in connection to their work, down from 65 deaths last year, the New York-based nonprofit organization said on Thursday. Another 22 deaths are being investigated to see if they were work-related. Conflicts in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and India claimed the lives of of a total of 13 journalists. The group also counted three deaths each in Thailand and in the fighting between Russia and Georgia over the disputed region of South Ossetia.   For the sixth consecutive year, who is to compete with us this year.   A.Y.H

British coverage of the conflict- Peter Wilby

From Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/12/media-reporting-gaza-israel
British media coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict has changed radically over the past five years. From broad sympathy for Israel, the tone has become critical and hostile. This has been evident during the invasion of Gaza, just as it was during the Israeli incursion into Lebanon in 2006. Media attitudes are largely dictated by what makes good drama and, above all, by pictures. The violent death of 700 people in a week – in the midst of shattered homes and schools – is a bigger and more shocking story than the same number of deaths on, say, 30 or 40 separate occasions. The Independent's Robert Fisk said on the BBC that "it is the job of journalists to be impartial on the side of those who suffer most". But as Fisk knows, it isn't like that: journalists are impartial on the side of those who suffer most visibly and dramatically.

Since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000, Palestinian casualties have exceeded Israeli casualties by four to one. But for several years, this was obscured by the attention given to suicide bombings inside Israel, which reached a peak of 55 in 2002. Suicide bombing, always a story, became a bigger one after 9/11, when it was believed Britain faced similar threats. Even in 2002, Palestinians suffered at least twice as many casualties, but not in the same dramatic manner. Now suicide bombings have virtually disappeared – there was only one in 2007 – and rocket attacks from Gaza have killed just 14 Israelis in four years.

What such figures do not reveal, argues the Daily Mail's fiercely pro-Israel columnist Melanie Phillips, is how, in parts of Israel, "traumatised children" are "all but living in bomb shelters". In the same way, Palestinian supporters used to complain that nobody reported how suicide bombings were prompted by the daily misery of military occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. As Israeli opinion sees it, rocket attacks from Hizbullah and Hamas, both allies of Iran, pose far more of an existential threat than suicide bombing did. But no amount of lobbying and PR can get away from a simple truth: Israelis no longer appear as victims.

So, always excepting Phillips, Israel has had little support even from usually reliable quarters. Stephen Glover, while endorsing nearly all arguments in Israel's favour, also insisted in the Mail: "We cannot ... defend what is happening. The disproportionality is too great." In the Mail on Sunday, Peter Hitchens, describing himself as "a consistent hardline supporter of the Jewish state", argued that there was "no important way" in which Israel's bombing and shelling differed from Arab murders of Israeli women and children.

The Daily Telegraph's Middle East correspondent, Tim Butcher, based in Jerusalem, argued that the Israeli attacks were driven by politicians looking ahead to February's elections. This was billed as "a personal view", a newspaper's way of signalling that the editor – or at least the proprietor – doesn't agree. But Butcher's piece – and the accompanying picture of a Palestinian child leaving his bombed home – must have had more impact on readers than a leader headed "Peace in Gaza is in the hands of Hamas". Only Rupert Murdoch's papers tried to show Israel in a more positive light, but they struggled. The day after Israel bombed UN schools, the Sun splashed on "Extremist threat to UK Jews", with a picture of Alan Sugar . The schools were at the bottom of page 9, below further details of the "Hate Hit List".

Earlier, the Sun thought it worth reporting that the British embassy in Tehran had been "stormed". The paper has form on this: the day after Israel killed 56 people in Qana, a Lebanese village, in 2006, it gave 10 paragraphs to the massacre, 11 to the protests (headlined "Hate in the raw") and 41 to Tony Blair's address to News International executives in California. But this time, the Sun ran pictures captioned "Devastation ... mushroom cloud rises after bomb" and "Fireball ... family flee".

Last Tuesday, it had a long report from Sderot – to which numerous journalists were shepherded by Israeli government spin doctors – headed "I felt blast as rockets hit homes of Israelis", along with a tiny picture of a middleaged white man standing in what looked like a patio extension abandoned by cowboy builders. But whatever the effect on readers, it would have been overwhelmed by the picture opposite, showing a father in Gaza grieving over his three dead children.

Newspapers are supposed to be better than TV at putting over context. But they rarely are. This has always been a problem in the Israeli-Arab conflict where, as Jonathan Freedland observed in the Guardian, there is a "Newtonian chain of claimed action and reaction that can stretch back to infinity". Lack of context normally works against Palestinians who are portrayed as "terrorists" and wild "bomb-throwing militants" bent on undermining a well-ordered, western-style state. By banning foreign journalists from entering Gaza, Israel helped turn the context problem against itself. Nearly all the stories and pictures came from local Palestinian reporters and photographers. They were not likely to investigate Israeli allegations that Hamas deliberately based its fighters among civilians and fired mortars from the UN schools. Such stories had to remain as nothing more than Israeli "claims".

Not that the results of any journalistic investigation would have been acceptable to both sides. One side's context is the other side's lies and distortions. As any journalist knows, attempts at fairness and balance in the Middle East are doomed. Allowing the drama of visible events to dictate the coverage is probably the best course after all.

PS: Reminds me so much of Kristina Riegert's assessment of the Domestication of Foreign News (TJC)

Article 19 on Gaza

http://www.article19.org/

/SK

CPJ: Airstrike hits media building in Gaza

New York, January 9, 2009--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Israeli military's bombing today of a Gaza City building that houses the offices of a number of international news organizations.  

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked the rooftop of Al-Johara Tower, an eight-story building located in Al-Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City, which houses more than 20 international news organizations, according to multiple news outlets.

More: http://cpj.org/2009/01/press-under-fire-in-gaza-again.php

/SK

Sri Lanka press murder

The first week of the year has been devastating for the press in Sri
Lanka.

First the offices of independent TV, MTV was shot to pieces by
unidentified gunmen for their alleged criticism of the Government. And
then on January 8th, the chief Editor of Sunday Leader, Laswaantha
Wichrematunge, was gunned down in broad daylight for the same reason.

More: http://www.freemediasrilanka.org/English/

/Saam

Hopama

Hopama     Poem by Kurdish poet Kamal Mirawdeli To President-elect Obama with hope Yes: "There is nothing false about hope" We will hope against hope But hope we will never drop Maybe it is just an illusion But we share it with exhilaration And soon we know, what we have become A new nation Let us be fully awake and dream Let us be bright and beam All things cannot be what they seem But we dream And toll the death knell of yesterday´s nightmares And defeat our ´finite despair´ with our ´infinite hope´. Our ´No way´ with "Yes, we can´´ Yes we can: you and me Coming all the way up from the deep dark recesses of history Like a bursting summer stream The black Solomon has come through the jungle safe and sound Tamed the lions, tigers, wolves, snakes, and the white eagle, Speaking a universal language understood by the dead and the living, By humans and animals and birds and flowers and green grass and streams and rivers and oceans and skies Language so universally shared is heard by God too Nay, we will never give up this diction, this conviction again Hope breeds hope The white eagle takes the message of the black King To the sun What a small globe! What a sweet hope! Who fails to feel the dawn´s dew? Change we can: I and you.    By Dr Kamal Mirawdeli   A.Y.H

Gaza VS Qnadil

Gaza v Qandil: questioning Turkey's peace-making mission KurdishMedia.com - By Dilshad Hama While the idea of writing about the incocistincies triggered by Israel's Gaza assault stirring in my mind, I was a bit cautious to go ahead. This is because we still live with the (either with me or against me) mindset. We either with Israel against Hamas, or the other way round. My concerns were about the risk of confirming a trade-off between tow situations, condemning the ongoing atrocities in Gaza on the hands of the "Jewish" state and criticising Turkey's critical and peace-making role-play with all its inconsistencies contained, and setting this against turkey's own internal and external policies, one becoming increasingly popular, thanks to the globalised media while the other barely attracting any attention from outside. While I belief that what's going on in Gaza under the offensive of a gigantic military state in the region, Israel, is a mere crime against humanity, meanwhile, I belief that these atrocities are only acceptable in a world that accepts, even affirms- among countless cases- what's happening to Qandil and its defenceless residents under constant Turkish and Iranian bombardments. What is striking however, especially for Kurds is the hysterias reaction of these tow countries (Iran and Turkey) to the Israeli assault on the "Muslims" of Gaza on which they should have been given enough credit, had they themselves not been involved in spreading fear in the hearts of thousands of the "Muslim" population of Iraqi Kurdistan especially those resident in the rural mountainous areas of Qndil and Pishder region and the areas on the Turkish-Iraqi border near Dohuk province. Under the pretext of eradicating PKK terrorism and fighting the separatist activities of PJAk (Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, operating within Iran), both countries have been bombarding from air or shelling from the ground (or both), using their latest technologically developed military might. It seems that, if nothing, Kurds can unite these countries, one secular and the other religious. We might take Iran's reaction and its rhetorical standing by Palestinians for granted, as this is consistent with the religious mission of the Islamic state, for that, I will only focus on Turkey's position in the ongoing crisis between Israel and Hamas. The relationship between Israel and Turkey still considered being of alliance and cooperation. Both being close allies to US, they have been maintaining good relations for a long time, they been particularly maintaining security and economic ties under the nose of some regional Arab and Muslim countries who have been keeping a distance with Israel. However, the AKP party seems to be promising subtle foreign policies shifts from the conventional Turkish foreign policy towards Israel. As the Israeli offensive proves more critical and claims more lives among Palestinians, Rejeb Erdogan's language becomes more critical of Israel culminating so far in his comment (History will be Israel's judgment). Beside his critical comments, Erdogan been out and about in a peace-making mission meeting Arab, Muslim and Israeli leaders discussing ways to end the "Israeli hostilities", for this, he should be given credit despite many questions which he would have to face. There is no doubt that the severity of Israel's offensive and its bloody consequences in Gaza have created a worldwide atmosphere of denouncement and condemnation and turkey's political and public attitude towards Israel's action could partially be analysed in this way. However, the crucial and the most important questions Erdogan and Turkish politicians and public may have to answer, is why this double-standard attitude again? What makes the tow situations mentioned above so different? Bombarding houses, schools and mosques in Gaza under the pretext of protecting Israeli citizens and stopping "unguided rockets" of Hamas on one hand, and bombarding and shelling houses, mosques and schools of the rural areas surrounding mountain Qandil under pretext of attacking PKK hideouts and eradicating terrorism? True, far less innocent people killed in the second case, however, every life counts and every life is valuable, besides, the fear, devastation and fleeing ones own home are characteristics of both Gaza and Qandil assaults. While majority of Kurds full heartedly stand against the mass killing and atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza. I belief that they are entitled to ask their Turkish brothers "in Islam" and neighbours, they should feel the same way towards Kurds whom being victimised by policies lack the basic foundations of morality and reason. If Erdogan and Turkey are truly peace-loving, they should start from within, first, finding a peaceful solution to their fellow Kurds citizen's question then stop devastating the lives of innocent Kurdish population of Qandil and other border areas of Iraqi-Kurdistan. Erdogan's peace-making mission is self-defeating unless he can address the internal injustice in his own country and unless his country refrains from committing the same crimes he is criticising Israel for.   A.Y.H

Ola interviewed by SVT

I gave my colleague, former Middle East Correspondent Bengt Norborg, Olas telephone number today and the interview with her was the lead story for the Gaza package on the nine o'clock evening news in Sweden:



Ola's qoute "you can smell blood on the streets" was a headline on the SVT website:

http://svt.se/svt/play/video.jsp?a=1364039

And Ola's final qoute on the Arab nations played into the interview with the Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt. Watch the whole package (Ola, Al Jazeeras report translated, a story on the egyptian peace plan, FM Carl Bildt in the studio and then a story on Palestinians in Israel). Flash player required:

http://svt.se/svt/play/video.jsp?a=329793

Ola, you are very courageous and we are all deeply humbled by your ability to keep your spirit high in the worst conditions imaginable. Our thoughts are with you and your family.

/Saam

Ari Shavit: Israel must double, triple, quadruple its medical aid to Gaza

Published in Haaretz, January 7, 2009.

ANALYSIS / Israel must double, triple, quadruple its medical aid to Gaza
By Ari Shavit

A few days ago, Physicians for Human Rights began soliciting $700,000 in donations for hospitals in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli humanitarian organization also provided a detailed list of the medical equipment Gaza lacks, including portable monitors, respirators, ultrasound and X-ray machines, wheelchairs, needles, dressings, catheters, oxygen, medical gases, endo-tracheal tubes, screws and plates for shattered limbs, and surgical gloves. According to PHR, Gaza also has a severe shortage of intensive-care beds, which cost about $50,000 apiece. Moreover, many Palestinian ambulances are out of commission.

As of Tuesday, dozens of people had responded to the call. Some NIS 400,000 has been raised, mainly from Palestinian-Israelis. However, the campaign is still about $600,000 short. And every day, the needs are growing. Every day, Palestinian doctors are forced to operate on wounded Palestinians without surgical gloves, without anesthesia and without other basic medical and sanitary equipment.

What Israel's government should do, this very morning, is give PHR the missing $600,000. However, the government should not make do with that. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak must double, triple and quadruple the donation. The defense establishment must immediately provide a fund of $10-20 million that will inject new life into Gaza's collapsing hospitals.

Money alone, however, is not enough. The Israel Defense Forces must seize the humanitarian initiative and erect a field hospital at the Kerem Shalom or Kissufim or Erez border crossings. The army should announce that first, the hospital will care for children: Any wounded Gazan child who is not receiving appropriate treatment in Gaza will receive excellent treatment at the Israeli hospital. If the experiment proves successful and is not abused, it can be expanded to offer emergency treatment to women, the elderly and anyone else not involved in terror.

The Israeli offensive in Gaza is justified. It was launched following incessant and intolerable provocations by Hamas. Nevertheless, the fighting in Gaza is causing humanitarian disasters. However unintentionally, it is nevertheless also hurting innocents. Therefore, the Israeli government has an obligation to complement the aerial operation and the ground operation with a humanitarian one. Israel must offer support from afar to Gaza's nurses, doctors and clinics. It must offer support from up close to every bleeding innocent in Gaza. It must immediately rescue the wounded families, ensure freedom of movement for ambulances and grant absolute immunity to clinics, medical warehouses and hospitals.

Only a bold and sweeping humanitarian initiative can show the world, and also ourselves, that we are indeed committed to universal moral values. Only an immediate and generous humanitarian initiative will prove that even during the brutal warfare that has been forced on us, we remember that there are human beings on the other side.

Bradley Burston: A Jew's prayer for the children of Gaza

Published in Haaretz Jan 7, 2009

By Bradley Burston
Tags: Israel News, Gaza, IDF

If there has ever been a time for prayer, this is that time.

If there has ever been a place forsaken, Gaza is that place.

Lord who is the creator of all children, hear our prayer this accursed day. God whom we call Blessed, turn your face to these, the children of Gaza, that they may know your blessings, and your shelter, that they may know light and warmth, where there is now only blackness and smoke, and a cold which cuts and clenches the skin.

Almighty who makes exceptions, which we call miracles, make an exception of the children of Gaza. Shield them from us and from their own. Spare them. Heal them. Let them stand in safety. Deliver them from hunger and horror and fury and grief. Deliver them from us, and from their own.

Restore to them their stolen childhoods, their birthright, which is a taste of heaven.

Remind us, O Lord, of the child Ishmael, who is the father of all the children of Gaza. How the child Ishmael was without water and left for dead in the wilderness of Beer-Sheba, so robbed of all hope, that his own mother could not bear to watch his life drain away.

Be that Lord, the God of our kinsman Ishmael, who heard his cry and sent His angel to comfort his mother Hagar.

Be that Lord, who was with Ishmael that day, and all the days after. Be that God, the All-Merciful, who opened Hagar's eyes that day, and showed her the well of water, that she could give the boy Ishmael to drink, and save his life.

Allah, whose name we call Elohim, who gives life, who knows the value and the fragility of every life, send these children your angels. Save them, the children of this place, Gaza the most beautiful, and Gaza the damned.

In this day, when the trepidation and rage and mourning that is called war, seizes our hearts and patches them in scars, we call to you, the Lord whose name is Peace:

Bless these children, and keep them from harm.

Turn Your face toward them, O Lord. Show them, as if for the first time, light and kindness, and overwhelming graciousness.

Look up at them, O Lord. Let them see your face.

And, as if for the first time, grant them peace.

_____________
With thanks to Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman of Kol HaNeshama, Jerusalem.

Robert Fisk: Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask Wednesday, 7 January 2009 AP A child injured in the Israeli bombardment of a UN school yesterday is taken to Shifa hospital in Gaza City

The perfect analogy by Gary Kamiya in Salon.com

Jan. 6, 2009 | As Israel continues its Gaza assault, which has now
resulted in more than 500 dead and 2,300 wounded Palestinians, with
five Israelis killed, the following thought experiment is worth
performing.
America's founding sin, its dispossession of its native inhabitants,
has not taken place in the 19th century, but continuously during the
last 60 years. America has not completed its ethnic cleansing, has
walled off millions of exiles and must contend with an armed
resistance movement. Washington, despite international demands and
U.N. insistence that it do so, refuses to resolve the issue by
returning a portion of the land it had taken. Approximately 1.5
million of those native Americans, most of them refugees from their
ancestral homes who have never been allowed to return, are imprisoned
in a tiny, squalid area whose exits, water, heat, fuel, medicine and
food are controlled by Washington. In their despair and their
disillusionment with their corrupt leadership, those people elect a
radical, rejectionist movement (which Washington had helped to foster,
to undercut the native's original leadership) that denies America's
right to exist and has a history of viciously striking at U.S.
citizens using any means it can, including suicide bombers and crude
homemade rockets that have killed two dozen Americans in seven years.
To punish these people for choosing a government it considers a
terrorist organization, Washington imposes a harsh blockade, with a
top American official joking that the U.S. is going to put the natives
"on a diet." The rejectionist government agrees to a cease-fire with
the expectation that the blockade will be lifted. When the blockade is
not lifted, and following a U.S. raid into their territory, the
rejectionists begin firing the rockets again. Washington then launches
a carefully planned aerial assault on the tiny, largely defenseless
area, raining bombs down on one of the most densely populated places
on earth, killing militants and civilians alike and bombing houses
filled with women and children. It then launches a ground invasion of
the area. Throughout, America paints itself as an innocent victim,
which has been forced with a heavy heart to take surgical,
conscientious military actions against terrorist fanatics who threaten
its very existence.

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