On Monday night, Kathy Kelly, a longtime activist who spent a week in Gaza, came to the Bluestockings bookstore, a center for the next wave of activism on the Lower East Side, and said something I hadn't heard before. As part of the assault, she said, the Israelis had bulldozed orange groves.
The goal, she said, “is to move people off of the land. Get people out of the way. It is analogous to the way this country moved the Indians. If you get in our way we will kill you… The people of Il Tufa [in northeast Gaza] were told to evacuate. Every single house was dynamited. The orange groves were all bulldozed. Every single orange tree was uprooted. That was their livelihood. Later they tried to pull their clothing out from under the rubble… They were trying to salvage some of the oranges, too."
Kelly wanted others in the crowd of 50 to speak. A Palestinian American poet named Fareed Bitar stood up and spoke of his anxieties. He had hardly slept since the assault began. He called his family constantly. He was ashamed to see Senator Schumer and David Paterson at the rally for Israel. He spoke of the issue of human shields. “My uncle is part of the resistance. I want the American audience to actually listen… These Hamas members are part of families. They are heads of families…. We are not hopeless,we are educated people. But we have to have the worst luck in the world.”
His voice was despairing and he seemed to tremble.
Soon after that a woman in a pink scarf went to the front of the bookstore and took a microphone. She introduced herself as Sunshine and spoke directly to the poet.
“You have my solidarity as an American and as an Iranian,” she said strongly. "You have my solidarity and I think you have the solidarity of a lot of people.” Sunshine gave the other people in the room advice: not to let a conversation go by without bringing up Gaza. This makes people uncomfortable at times, she said, but it is essential. “We’re in a culture that’s pretty pro-Zionist in New York. “ That only upped the ante for Sunshine.
A word about the vibe in the room. We were in New York, which is of course a Jewish center. You looked around the room and saw a very diverse crowd. Ryan Senser of JATO, who had helped bring Kelly there, is Jewish, but there were also a lot of people of color, mixed race people, people whose ethnic identity you'd be at pains to place, and who would not identify simply, in any case. As Uri Avnery says, this is the way of history. Denis Halliday formerly of the UN was there–bit of a brogue. Marcelle Hopkins, an Al-Jazeera reporter at the UN, too. A Jewish guy named Ted who's worked with International Solidarity Movement. I pushed through the crowd later to talk to Sunshine. I asked her if her encounter-policy in conversation was since Gaza, and she told me,
No, she's been doing it for a long time, being of Iranian extraction.
Very fair-skinned by the way; I'd never have said, She's Iranian.
(Phil Weiss)
Just because they are only midget nazis doesn't mean they shouldn't be destroyed.
We need an organge revoultion.
The bulldozing of the orange groves was reported on Al Jazeera (English) yesterday with video evidence.
In a similar vein, Newshour on the BBC World Service mentioned a nearly finished sewage plant that was also bulldozed by the IDF.
One wonders what the military objective of either of these acts of wilful destruction.
Purity of arms? No, vandalism, methinks.
"Zionist colonialism inhabits the space between two extinct models – those provided by South Africa and French practice in Algeria. It is not a blend of the two, but rather a distillation of the worst in each."
Dr. Azmi Bishara – Palestinian Israeli, former Knesset member
Israel is a producer of Jaffa oranges, which were a mainstay of the Palestinian economy before the state of Israel was founded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_orange
Wiping out Gaza's orange groves is a form of economic warfare.
Boycott Israeli oranges …
Im sorry, but is this how the children of Holocaust are encouraged to behave by their American paymasters? This just makes Obama's rhetoric about "Israel's security" more ridiculous and unbearable.
It's time for us the good people of this planet to learn to never forgive and never forget. I won't
Just like the bulldozing of homes, it was to remove obstacles to lines of sight.
Not genocide, just war.
As if war weren't bad enough.
Yes, please boycott those oranges. Whenever they come into my goyish neighborhood supermarket, they too quickly sell out.
MURDER as COVER for THEFT is NOT *self-defense*! ~ LT
It always has been about land theft after all, hasn't it?
Zionist lebensraum.
~
Actually, it has always been about recovery of the land, redemption of the land, and protection of the land.
But then your agenda really doesn't look like protection of the Palestinians as it is a criticism of Zionism.
I guess blood makes great fertilizer, eh chris?
~
I wouldn't know. Is that how you fertilize your lawn? I recall other lies about Jews bleeding christian children for one reason or another. Is this what you are intimating?
Don't be shy. You can tell us what you really think.
Unimaginably heartless of the Israeli government, almost as depraved as the White Phosphorus.
See Mondoweiss, where Adam reported on secret war plan of "Ethnic Cleansing"–too "clean" a phrase–Purges three weeks ago:
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/01/ethnic-cleansing-in-northern-gaza.html
January 04, 2009
Ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza?
The mysterious "Badger" over at Missing Links reports today on "The next step in Gaza: Forced evacuations of residential districts." From this morning's New York Times:
The Israeli Army also dropped thousands of leaflets into some residential districts warning inhabitants to evacuate their homes. Because of “the activity of terrorist groups,” the leaflets said in Arabic, the army “is obliged to respond quickly and work from inside your residential area.”
Earlier this year in March, Missing Links shared media reports of an Israeli plan to remove "tens of thousands of Palestinians from the northern Gaza Strip":
The televised report cited high-level security sources as saying Barak intends to plan for the removal of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the northern Gaza Strip, namely from the region that the resistance uses for the launch of these rockets, and to move them toward Gaza City and to confine them there. The Israeli reporter added that Barak is turning to legal advisers in the Defence Ministry, in order to obtain legal authorization for the removal of the Palestinian civilians. Barak is also asking Professor David Friedmann, minister of Israeli Affairs [Justice Minister], who supports toughening of penalties on Gaza to end the launching of rockets, in order to obtain his authorization to begin execution of the plan.
The reporter said that once [or if] the plan becomes operational, it would start immediately: In the first stage there would be a drop of leaflets advising residents to leave their homes, in addition to special radio announcements in Arabic directed to the residents, and in the event residents didn't obey the warnings, the occupation army would begin bombing the inhabited areas, in order to compel them to leave their homes and go to Gaza City.
Has this plan begun?
Posted at 03:10 PM in Adam Horowitz
Interesting notion. Force the civilian population to abandon the prime rocket launching areas so as to spare the lives of potential human shields.
This is a very humane plan of the Israelis and they should be commended.