london demo dec 28

jhvh self destructs

Israel gives Gazans New Year surprise
Press TV, Iran, 27 Dec 2008

Bodies lie outside the Hamas police headquarters following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City. At least 180 Gazans have been killed and 800 others have been wounded. World silence on the collective punishment of the native people of Gaza has prompted a devastating Israeli attack on the coastal strip. After the Egypt-mediated truce between Israel and Hamas expired on Tuesday, the two sides clashed along the border fence in northern Gaza. Three Palestinians were killed during the attacks. Hamas responded by firing mortar shells and rockets into the Israeli occupied territories. Hamas commented that it was attempting “to avenge the killing of the three” members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades. The six Qassam rockets fired from Gaza into western Negev caused no casualties and no property damage, Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported on the result of the Hamas retaliation.

The first major air strike after the termination of the cease-fire came on Saturday with Israeli warplanes carrying out massive attacks on Hamas security compounds inside the Gaza Strip, killing at least 180 people and wounding 800 others. Israeli F16 bombers and apache helicopters carried out at least 30 simultaneous raids on at least 30 separate targets in Gaza City. Footage from Gaza showed smoke from one of the strikes rising on the skyline; witnesses have reported hearing at least 15 massive explosions. Sirens wailed through the streets, and women frantically looked for their children while relatives mourned their loved ones. TV footage showed bodies of more than a dozen security men lying on the ground in one area. One of the men was uttering the Muslim declaration of faith (Shahadatain) as his last words. Hamas radio reported that police chief Tawfiq Jabber was among the dead.

As Israeli tanks reportedly move closer to the impoverished region, Tel Aviv officials say the massive bombardment has just started. Military spokesman Avi Benayahu told army radio on Saturday that strikes on the Hamas-run territory are ‘just beginning’:

This is only just the beginning of an operation launched after a security cabinet decision. It could take time. We have not fixed a timeline and we will act according to the situation on the ground.

This is not the first time Israel mars world celebrations with its intensification of collective punishment on the people of Gaza.

provocateurs in gaza

Medics: Palestinian rocket accidentally kills 2 Gaza sisters

A rocket apparently fired by Palestinians on Friday struck a house in the Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinian sisters aged five and 13, Palestinian medics said. Hamas police said they were investigating the cause of the blast in Beit Lahiya village in northern Gaza, which medics said seemed to be due to a rocket aimed at Israel that had misfired. Gaza militants frequently fire rockets at Israel from the same area. The incident came amid rising tensions with Israel, with officials threatening stepped-up military action against Gaza militants to stop rocket shootings from the coastal territory. (Reuters)

welch club at play

Lebanese sappers defused 13 rockets pointing at N. Israeli cities. The rockets were disarmed shortly before their timing devices would have launched them against Nahariya and Maalot. DEBKAfile‘s military sources quote Israeli northern command officers as reporting that on the night of Dec 25, eight rocket launchers were found ready to fire that night in Wadi Hamoul, 5 km from the Israeli border. This dry river bed was used by Hizballah to bombard Nahariya and Maalot in the 2006 Lebanon War. The cluster was made up completely of the latest Iranian launchers capable of double-loading, so that eight launchers could fire 16 rockets. Not all were fully loaded. The Lebanese sappers found 13 rockets with a range of 20-22 km. Three of the launchers were ready to fire 107-mm RAAD rockets and five were loaded with 122-mm Grad Katyushas. Israeli military sources are certain that Hizballah handed the rockets to Hamas terrorists at the Ain Hilwa camp in south Lebanon and guided them to the exact launching site for hitting the two Israeli towns. Their point was to demonstrate that Hamas could hit Israel with rockets not just from Gaza but also from a second front in Lebanon in the event of an Israeli military operation against Hamas. – DEBKAfile, Dec 26 2008

airplanes made in hollywood

WASHINGTON (JTA) Dec 23 2008 — A posthumous pardon was granted to a man who provided planes and weapons to Israel’s armed forces during its 1948 War of Independence. Charles Winters, a Protestant from Miami who died in 1984 and was buried in Israel, served 18 months in prison for violating the Neutrality Act, which prevents US citizens from providing assistance to parties in foreign conflict in which the US has not taken sides. Winters, a Boston native who exported produce, helped provide three WW2 B-17s that had been used to export fruit and vegetables, piloting one of the planes himself. The three planes became the first three heavy bombers in the Israeli Air Force. Two of Winters’ partners, Herman Greenspun and Al Schwimmer, were convicted of violating the Neutrality Act but never served prison time. They were pardoned in 1961 and 2000, respectively. Winters’ cause was taken up by film director Steven Spielberg, the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County in Florida and a bipartisan Florida congressional delegation, among others. Rep. Ron Klein (D-Fla.), who led that effort, said the “raw guts and bravery” of the actions of Winters, Greenspun and Schwimmer “proved essential to the state of Israel at a critical moment, when it was beseiged by enemies on all sides. The story of Mr. Winters is one we should all remember when we are called to stand up for causes, regardless of the consequences.” Gary Walk, the immediate past chair of the Palm Beach County federation’s Jewish Community Relations Council, called Winters’ actions “heroic and courageous. The pardon clears the name of an honorable man whose noble actions helped establish a strong Jewish state.”

essential reading

THE GODS ON WAR
Robert de Grimston
Process Church of the Final Judgment
http://feastofhateandfear.com/archives/robert_07.html

just a thought

It seems to me that I am better off regarding myself as an animal that thinks, than I am regarding myself as being a soul inhabiting a body. I may have a soul, or even several, as in the egyptian book of the dead, but I myself, the consciousness speaking to you, am the animal that thinks.

shake a shoe for god

LONDON (AP) Dec 19 2008 — Protesters are shaking their shoes at the US Embassy in London in a show of support for a jailed Iraqi journalist who threw his own footwear at President George W. Bush during a news conference in Iraq. Journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi became an instant folk hero after the incident on Sunday. It was a vivid demonstration of Iraqis’ dismay over the US-led invasion and occupation of the country. Britain’s Stop The War Coalition said Friday that the act “expressed the unreported feelings of millions in Iraq and beyond that the Bush occupation has been a disaster.” The coalition organized the small protest, which drew a crowd of about 50 in front of the embassy to protest el-Zeidi’s arrest.

here we go

Sterling slide is worst since 1931
Edmund Conway, Angela Monaghan, Daily Telegraph, Dec 19 2008

Sterling dipped closer to parity against the euro, with the single currency now worth more than 95p for the first time ever. The pound’s fall came amid fast-growing disquiet about the fate of the UK economy and consumer sentiment next year. The pound has now fallen by 23% against a basket of other currencies, according to figures from the Bank of England.

The fall is sharper than the devaluations in :
1992 – after leaving the Exchange Rate Mechanism
1976 – when the International Monetary Fund was forced to intervene
1949 – when a host of countries slumped against the dollar.

The devaluation is only matched by the moment in :
1931 – when, under Ramsay MacDonald, the UK was forced to abandon the gold standard, plunging by more than 24% against the dollar.

The parallel is significant, since many economists have attributed the gold standard exit as one of the main reasons the UK enjoyed a relatively mild depression in the 1930s, while the US suffered mass unemployment and saw its economy shrink by a third.

they’re really losing it

Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned Wednesday that if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, it could try to attack the United States. Speaking at a conference of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, the defense minister said the world should press Iran to stop it from building nuclear weapons. “If it built even a primitive nuclear weapon like the type that destroyed Hiroshima, Iran would not hesitate to load it on a ship, arm it with a detonator operated by GPS and sail it into a vital port on the east coast of North America,” Barak told the audience. Indicating the possibility of a military strike, Barak said, “We are not taking any option off the table, and we recommend to the world not to take any option off the table, and we mean what we say.” – AP via Haaretz