Obviously great progress. Especially as the ones that are identified as contributing to BOTH world and Palestinian society are the sober ones, the DON'T include a rhetorical condemnation of Israel in every breath.

The Gazans are uniquely ILL-SERVED by the presence of fanatics (militias) that expose civilians to the repurcussions of their criminality. And, they are ill-served by the leadership of Hamas and others that encourages and allows the shelling of Israeli civilians, pretending that that is somehow "resistance" or "peace-seeking".

We, the Israeli organizations signed below, deplore the decision by the Israeli government to cut off vital supplies of electricity and fuel (and therefore water, since the pumps cannot work), as well as essential foodstuffs, medicines and other humanitarian supplies to the civilian population of Gaza. Such an action constitutes a clear and unequivocal crime against humanity.

Prof. John Dugard, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, called the Israeli government’s actions "serious war crimes" for which its political and military officials should be prosecuted and punished. The killing of more than 40 civilians this past week violates, he said, "the strict prohibition on collective punishment contained in the Fourth Geneva Convention. It also violates one of the basic principles of international humanitarian law that military action must distinguish between military targets and civilian targets." Indeed, the very legal framework invoked by the Israeli government to carry out this illegal and immoral act – declaring Gaza a "hostile entity" within a "conflict short of war" – has absolutely no standing in international law.

We call on the Secretary General of the UN, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, to lead the Security Council to a decisive decision to end the siege on Gaza when it meets in emergency session on Wednesday.

We call on the governments of the world, and in particular the American government and the European Parliament, to censure Israel’s actions and, in light of recent attempts to revive the diplomatic process, to end all attacks on civilians, including the continuing demolition of Palestinian homes at an alarming rate.

We call upon the Jews of the world in whose name the Israeli government purports to speak, and upon their rabbis and communal leaders in particular, to speak out unequivocally against this offense to the very moral core of Jewish values.

And we call upon the peoples of the world to let their officials and leaders know of their repudiation of this cruel, illegal and immoral act – an act that stands out in its cruelty even in an already oppressive Israeli Occupation.

We condemns attacks on all civilians, and we acknowledge the suffering of the residents of Sderot. Still, those attacks do not justify the massive disproportionality of Israeli sanctions over a million and half civilians of Gaza, in particular in light of Israel’s oppressive 40 year occupation. Such violations of international law by a government are especially egregious and must be denounced and punished if the very system of human rights and international law is to be preserved.

The Israeli government’s decision to punish Gaza’s civilian population, with all the human suffering that entails, constitutes State Terrorism against innocent people. Only when Israeli policy-makers are held accountable for their actions and international law upheld will a just peace be possible in the Middle East.

The Alternative Information Center * Bat Tsafon * Gush Shalom * The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) * Physicians for Human Rights * Coalition of Women for Peace

On civilians only.

And please remember that Sderot was originally a Palestinian village. Those Palestinians were driven into the camps of Gaza in 1948.

A key reason for coded remarks by Hillary Clinton about Barack Obama's youth in Indonesia is that having lived in an Islamic country, he likely regards muslims as human beings, rather than as a billion-strong mass of faceless fundamentalists, terrorists, and Jew haters (a common enough stereotype in American politics and journalism).

Consequently, Obama is being subjected to loyalty tests that other candidates are not. Within hours of yesterday's Gazan prison break, Obama fired off a letter to the U.S. ambassador to the UN, seeking to head off anticipated harsh criticism of Israel for its lockdown of Gaza. Shmuel Rosner of Haaretz had it within minutes yesterday, and quotes it again today:

"I urge you to ensure that a Council resolution won't pass that does not 'fully condemn' the Qassam attacks on Israel," Obama wrote. "We all are worried about the consequences of the blockade on Palestinian families. Nonetheless, we must understand why Israel is forced to do this."

Rosner goes on: "Obama's letter was not meant to respond to the urgent needs of the voters, but to continue the necessary process of recent weeks: combating the rumors that he would be a president who does not support Israel, and even worse, rumors claiming he is Muslim, and that he doesn't tend to pledge his allegiance to his country, and so on and so forth."

http://tinyurl.com/2p53gw

Uh huh. I can't prove it, but I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that the Lobby drafted the letter, presented it for Obama's signature as a non-negotiable demand, and then forwarded it to Rosner and other journalists as soon as the ink was dry enough to stick it in the fax machine.

It's sad to see Obama rationalizing that Israel was "forced" to indulge in a blockade of Gaza in response to rocket attacks on Sdedot perpetrated by a few militants. Viewing those 1.5 million people as human beings would preclude such measures. In fact, it would preclude most of U.S. middle eastern policy across the board. The horror, the horror!

Dare I say the exact same feeling:
link to americangoy.blogspot.com

I tried posting this at HuffPo on this article but these sorts of observations never seem to make the cut. (See: link to huffingtonpost.com
) The site will allow the comments on essays about Bush run into the thousands, but if it involves anything that might make Zionist uncomfortable, they keep a pretty tight grasp of the reins. Their rationale is most likely to prevent blatant anti-Semitism from flooding the comments but I know for a fact that comments that deal with the politics exclusively and are not racist diatribes get scrubbed whereas they’ll include a few exclamations of “crank up the ovens!” or the like to supposedly confirm the wisdom of their gatekeeper logic. Many of us working to keep truth in the forefront will be happy to see that many other HuffPo commenters see what is going on at HuffPo. The ultimate example of this is how they close the comments sections when Alan Dershowitz tries to smear Dr. Norman Finkelstein. I was going to provide examples where they closed Dershowitz comments at 19 and 23 respectively because they were on the whole quite supportive of Dr. Finkelstein and quite derisive of Mr. Dershowitz’ “scholarship” but when I went to check, they scrubbed those few comments that originally made it up while still keeping the comments closed (see: link to huffingtonpost.com
)

[begin unposted HuffPo comment]

“Even though many readers of HuffPo see it as bending over backwards to avoid upsetting Zionist sensibilities, Pamela Gellar of "Atlas Shrugs" has the HuffPo link posted as proof of left-wing anti-Semitism (as opposed to actually taking Israel to task for its criminal behavior). See here: link to atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com

It should be noted that I was/am banned from "Atlas Shrugs" right around the time I caught her using comment shills in her postings. This was established in that a commenter responded to something specifically that was only mentioned in a personal email to Ms. Gellar and not in the public comments. I was banned shortly after pointing this out publically. I mention this because she is going on about how the time stamps on the HuffPo comments are supposedly before the article even went up.”

[end post]

The details of my identity have been outed some time ago thanks to some particularly annoying and unbalanced brownshirts at the LA Jewish Journal forum but I have always maintained this particular handle as it creates a body of work of my particular views (and their evolution over time). I do not hide from them in the least but have experienced harassment by those who seek any advantage they can in silencing voices they disagree with. It is encouraging however, to read other voices that see things in a more clear light. I hope the momentum continues to build.