Defend The Palestinian People! No U.S. Aid To Israel 

“CUTTIN THE GRASS” Again in GAZA

“CUTTING THE GRASS” is a racist term used by the Israeli security establishment as a way to “manage” Palestinian resistance by periodically launching limited attacks on Gaza to kill numbers of fighters, degrade to ability of Hamas and other armed factions to confront the occupation and to demonstrate Israeli military technology and “deterrence.”  It is a strategy for limiting, rather than ending the conflict.  Short VIDEO here

 

Standout/Flyering

SATURDAY, July 26

11:30am-1pm

Roxbury Crossing

(Near Roxbury Community College)

 

“LET GAZA LIVE”

Stop the Bombing! 

End the Blockade!

 

 

There are news reports of a possible temporary cease-fire agreement in the making; however, this standout will take place anyway, since ending the siege/blockade of Gaza remains the central political and humanitarian demand.

 

Israel has created a massive humanitarian disaster in Gaza.  At least 800 Palestinians have been killed and thousands more injured.  According to the UN, three-quarters of the dead are civilians, including hundreds of children and women.  Tens of thousands have been made homeless.

 

Yet our Congress has unanimously passed resolutions blaming only the victims and calling the firing of ineffective mortars and rockets from Gaza “an unprovoked attack” on Israel.  This ignores decades of Israeli Occupation and a brutal 8-year Israeli siege of Gaza that has left 1.8 million Palestinians penned up and blockaded in an area only slightly larger than the city of Boston, with no place to run, no place to hide from Israeli bombs.

 

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE - and Senators Markey and Warren - to say that this is unacceptable!  Israel must be held accountable and our government should stop supplying the $billions, the planes and the bombs it is using to destroy Gaza.

 

TELL THE US STATE DEPT to demand the bombing stop and the Israeli blockade of Gaza ended!

Congressional Switchboard:  (202) 224-3121

(Find your Member of Congress at

www.govtrack.us/congress/members)

US State Department:  (202) 647-3672

*   *   *   *

STAND WITH GAZA RALLY

FRIDAY, July 25

5:30pm, Copley Square

 

As the U.S.-made bombs fall on Gaza, indiscriminately killing Palestinians, many of them children, the death toll has reached over 800. The UN estimates the casualties to be overwhelmingly civilian, including scores of women and children, as Israel has now launched a ground attack of tanks and troops against the tiny Gaza Strip – to supplement its ongoing slaughter from the air and sea.

 

We heed the Urgent call from Gaza civil society: Act now!

“We Palestinians trapped inside the bloodied and besieged Gaza Strip call on conscientious people all over the world to act, protest and intensify the boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel until it ends this murderous attack on our people and is held to account.”

 

We call for:

An End to the Bombings and Killings

An End to U.S. aid to Israel

Support for the Palestinian call for BDS

 

LETTER FROM GAZA

“The heroes in the ambulances and in all of Gaza’s hospitals are working 12-24hrs shifts, grey from fatigue and inhuman workloads (without payment [at] all in Shifa for the last four months); they care, triage, try to understand the incomprehensible chaos of bodies, sizes, limbs, walking, not walking, breathing, not breathing, bleeding, not bleeding humans. HUMANS! Now, once more treated like animals by ‘the most moral army in the world [sic]… “And as I write these words to you, alone, on a bed, my tears flow, the warm but useless tears of pain and grief, of anger and fear. This is not happening! And then, just now, the orchestra of the Israeli war-machine starts its gruesome symphony again: salvos of artillery from the navy boats just down on the shores, the roaring F16, the sickening drones (Arabic ’Zennanis’, the hummers), and the cluttering Apaches. So much made and paid in and by US. “Mr. Obama - do you have a heart?   More

 

ISRAEL PROVOKED THIS WAR

Israel’s assault on Gaza, as pointed out by analyst Nathan Thrall in the New York Times, was not triggered by Hamas’ rockets directed at Israel but by Israel’s determination to bring down the Palestinian unity government that was formed in early June, even though that government was committed to honoring all of the conditions imposed by the international community for recognition of its legitimacy.   More

 

The most vile op-ed you will read about Gaza

When your op-ed’s first sentence reads “Let’s state the obvious: No one likes to see dead children,” you should step away from the keyboard, take a look in the closest mirror and think long and hard about exactly the argument you’re about to make. Otherwise, you may end up with an execrable screed like the one New York University law professor Thane Rosenbaum published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday. Rosenbaum argues that the adult residents of Gaza are not innocent civilians, as even Israeli leaders (sometimes begrudgingly) admit, but part of a “citizen army.”    More

 

AIPAC Is the Explanation for America's Morally Bankrupt Israel Policy

U.S. politicians and policymakers continue to back a brutal military campaign whose primary purpose is not to defend Israel but rather to protect its longstanding effort to colonize the West Bank.  America Is Complicit In Israel’s War Crimes… every member of the House and Senate--including progressives like Senator Elizabeth Warren--knows that voting for those supposedly "pro-Israel" resolutions is the smart political move. They understand that even the slightest display of independent thinking on these issues could leave them vulnerable to a well-funded opponent the next time they're up for re-election. At a minimum, they'll have to answer a flood of angry phone calls and letters, and, on top of that, they are likely to be blackballed by some of their Congressional colleagues. The safer course is to mouth the same tired litanies about alleged "shared values" between Israel and the U.S. and wait till the crisis dies down. And people wonder why no one respects Congress anymore.   More

 

America Is Complicit In Israel’s War Crimes

Since 1948, when Israel was created after expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, the U.S. has given Israel $112 billion. That makes Israel the largest cumulative recipient of American aid. The vast majority of it comes in the form of military aid to beef up the Israeli army, one of the most powerful forces in the world. U.S. military aid makes up about a quarter of the Israeli military budget. And a quarter of American military aid is allowed to be spent on Israel’s own defense industry, a unique concession no other country receives. In recent years, the U.S. has given Israel $3.1 billion in military aid and weaponry in the form of F16s, Hellfire missiles, and assault rifles, now being used to kill Palestinian civilians. In addition, the U.S. funds Israeli missile defense systems like the much-praised Iron Dome, which shoots rockets fired from Gaza out of the sky. In the midst of Israel’s attack, a Senate committee passed a bill that would give Israel an additional $620 million for missile defense, including $350 million for Iron Dome.   More

 

U.S. Senate Sets $225 Million for Israel's Iron Dome in Emergency Bill

U.S. Senate Democrats included $225 million for Israel's Iron Dome rocket interception system in an emergency funding bill on Tuesday that also cut $1 billion from President Barack Obama's request for $3.7 billion to deal with thousands of undocumented child immigrants. "Israel is an essential American ally and needs these assets to defend itself," said Maryland Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski, chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, in a statement.  More

 

As Much of the World Frowns on Israel, Americans Hold Out Support

A 2013 Pew poll found vastly more unfavorable feelings toward Israel outside than within the United States, which registered a 27 percent unfavorable view of Israel and a 57 percent favorable view. In contrast, 44 percent of people in Britain had an unfavorable view of Israel. Unfavorable views of Israel were held by 62 percent in Germany, 65 percent in France, 66 percent in China and in the 80 percent to 90 percent range in Arab and Muslim countries.   More

 

But, despite this, polls indicate that a majority believes the US should take no side in this conflict; and support for Israel is becoming more partisan in the US, with Democrats much less sympathetic than Republicans.

 

Israel’s Crumbling Media War

For the first time, perhaps, Americans are witnessing the suffering of Palestinian people in the establishment press. Even while the framework of “Blame Hamas” dominates mainstream media coverage, the humanity of Palestinian people is cracking through the decades-long, well established façade of pro-Israeli propaganda.  And how can it not? When the actual experience of journalists contradicts the propaganda narrative, if they have a heart or a brain, they cannot help but see Zionist propaganda for what it is. This is possibly why Israel kept out foreign journalists during the 2008 Cast Lead operation.   More

 

Reaping What We Have Sown In Gaza
Those who rejected Fatah and Yasser Arafat’s peace proposal for two states have now been given Haniyeh, Hamas and BDS. Those who turned Gaza into an internment and punishment camp for 1.8 million human beings should not be surprised that they tunnel underneath the earth. Those who sow trangling, siege and isolation reap rocket fire. Those who have, for 47 years, indiscriminately crossed the Green Line, expropriating land and constantly harming civilians in raids, shootings and settlements – what right do they have to roll their eyes and speak of Palestinian terror against civilians?  More

 

IS HAMAS WINNING?

http://www.lobelog.com/is-hamas-winning/

Despite the pounding Gaza is getting, Hamas seems to have gotten the issue of lifting the siege on the table, as even the US keeps saying that the “underlying issues” must be dealt with, and even when the EU is scolding Hamas, they are also calling Israel’s acts “criminal.”   More

 

Some Israeli reservists refuse to serve in Gaza

To us, the current military operation and the way militarization affects Israeli society are inseparable. In Israel, war is not merely politics by other means — it replaces politics. Israel is no longer able to think about a solution to a political conflict except in terms of physical might; no wonder it is prone to never-ending cycles of mortal violence. And when the cannons fire, no criticism may be heard.  More

 

Gaza continues to be legally occupied territory:

While Israel has argued that it ceased occupying Gaza in 2005 when it unilaterally redeployed its troops outside of Gaza and withdrew its settlers from Gaza, Gaza continues to be occupied in accordance with international law and in the views of the international community, including the U.S.[i], the EU, and the U.N.[ii]. Israel’s continued responsibility as the occupying power in Gaza results from several factors.  First, Israel continues to exert effective control over Gaza including control of the borders, airspace, waterways, population registry, currency, the movement of people, trade, electrical supply, water supply, and more. Second, Israel maintains and exerts a right to conduct regular military operations in Gaza, giving it effective military control over the territory. Under international law[iii], effective control is the key measures of occupation.  More

 

Since 2005, when Israel decided to remove its settlers and troops from inside Gaza, in order to maintain its siege from outside and strengthen its colonization of the West Bank, there have been almost continuous restrictions on the entry of food and other humanitarian necessities.  Israeli politicians joked, in the infamous words of Dov Weissglass, chief aide to former Israeli President Ariel Sharon: “the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet but not to make them die of hunger… It's like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won't die…"

 

Israel’s Incremental Genocide in the Gaza Ghetto 

The present genocidal wave has, like all the previous ones, also a more immediate background. It has been born out of an attempt to foil the Palestinian decision to form a unity government [4] that even the United States could not object to… Ever since June 1967, Israel searched for a way to keep the territories it occupied that year without incorporating their indigenous Palestinian population into its rights-bearing citizenry. All the while it participated in a “peace process” charade to cover up or buy time for its unilateral colonization policies on the ground.  With the decades, Israel differentiated between areas it wished to control directly and those it would manage indirectly, with the aim in the long run of downsizing the Palestinian population to a minimum with, among other means, ethnic cleansing and economic and geographic strangulation.  More

 

Israel controls two out of three sides of Gaza on the land and its naval patrols maintain a sea blockade; Israel’s (and US) ally Egypt keeps the third land side mostly closed and in any case honors the agreement with Israel to limit Rafah access to foot traffic alone.  So all goods coming in and out of Gaza are controlled by Israel.

 

Whenever a temporary truce was negotiated (and scrupulously maintained by Hamas), the pattern has been for Israel to renege on the terms and break the ceasefire with fresh attacks when it deemed them useful.  And contrary to the Israeli claims that this was “to protect its citizens,” the pattern reveals that the most dangerous time for Israeli civilians is when Israel is launching an attack on Gaza.

 

Reigniting Violence: How Do Ceasefires End?

…we found that this pattern -- in which Israel is more likely than Palestine to kill first after a conflict pause -- becomes more pronounced for longer conflict pauses. Indeed, of the 25 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than a week, Israel unilaterally interrupted 24, or 96%, and it unilaterally interrupted 100% of the 14 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than 9 days… Thus, a systematic pattern does exist: it is overwhelmingly Israel, not Palestine, that kills first following a lull. Indeed, it is virtually always Israel that kills first after a lull lasting more than a week.   More