Tuesday, September 22, 2009
sms lebaran
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Call for Papers IIJ Special Issue on Data Mining
The Internetworking Indonesia Journal (IIJ)
Indonesian Journal of ICT and Internet Development
(http://www.
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Deadline extended to 30 September 2009
Introduction to the Special Issue
The information age today is characterized by information overload, something which is clearly evident everywhere within the digital society. The form of information varies greatly, ranging from structured transactional data and semi structured web pages to unstructured multimedia data. Data mining is an important field since it helps us analyze that information at a higher rate than our natural abilities, thereby aiding us in absorbing that information in a meaningful fashion. This Special Issue on Data Mining aims to cover a broad range of topics, and solicits research paper submissions in the broad field of data mining. Topics of interest include – but are not limited to – the following:
• Text Mining
• Web Mining
• Data preprocessing
• Visual mining
• Multimedia data mining
• Mining frequent pattern
• Classification and prediction
• Cluster analysis
• Stream data mining
• Sequence data mining
• Graph mining
Special Issue dates:
Submission Extended Deadline: 30 September 2009
Acceptance Notification: 14 November 2009
Camera‐ready due: 12 December 2009
Guest Editors
The Special Issue solicits Research Papers in the area of data mining, though other papers are welcome for the future issues of the journal. Submission and correspondence for the special issue should be made via email to either the Guest Editors or the journal editors. Submissions will be reviewed anonymous and externally.
• Moch Arif Bijaksana, M Tech, Data Mining Center, Telkom Institute of Technology (IT Telkom) Email: arifbijaksana@gmail.com
• Dr. Anto Satriyo Nugroho, Center for Information & Communication Technology, Agency for the Assessment & Application of Technology (PTIK‐BPPT) Email: asnugroho@gmail.com
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About the IIJ
The Internetworking Indonesia Journal is a semi‐annual electronic journal devoted to the timely study of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Internet development in Indonesia. The journal seeks highquality manuscripts on the challenges and opportunities presented by information technology and the Internet in Indonesia. The IIJ specially encourages submission by postgraduate students in the field of ICT.
Focus & Scope
The Internetworking Indonesia Journal aims to become the foremost publication for practitioners, teachers, researchers and policy makers to share their knowledge and experience in the design, development, implementation, and the management of ICT and the Internet in Indonesia.
Submission Guidelines
The journal accepts a variety of manuscripts in either English or Bahasa Indonesia. Please review the descriptions below and identify the submission type best suited to your intended submission:
• Research Papers: Research papers report on results emanating from research projects, both theoretical and practical in nature.
• Short papers: Short research papers provide an introduction to new developments or advances regarding on‐going work.
• Policy Viewpoint: Policy Viewpoints explore competing perspectives in the Indonesian policy debate that are informed by academic research.
• Teaching Innovation: Teaching Innovation papers explore creative uses of information technology tools and the Internet to improve learning and education in Indonesia.
• Book Reviews: A review of a book, or other book‐length document, such as a government report or foundation report. (3 pages max.)
Manuscript Language
The Internetworking Indonesia Journal accepts and publishes papers in Bahasa Indonesia and English.
Manuscript Submission
Manuscripts should be submitted according to the IEEE Guide for authors, and will be refereed in the standard way. Manuscript pages should not exceed 7 pages of the IEEE 2‐column format preferably in a MS‐Word file format. Links to the IEEE style files can be found at www.InternetworkingIndonesia.
Manuscripts submitted to the journal must not have been previously published or committed to another publisher under a copyright transfer agreement, and must not be under consideration by another journal. Authors of accepted papers are responsible for the Camera Ready Copy (CRC) in the IEEE 2‐column format (MS‐Word file).
Authors are advised that no revisions of the manuscript can be made after acceptance by the Editor for publication.
The benefits of this procedure are many, with speed and accuracy being the most obvious. We look forward to working with your electronic submission which will allow us to serve you more efficiently.
Co‐Editors
Thomas Hardjono, PhD (MIT Kerberos Consortium, MIT, USA)
Budi Rahardjo, PhD (ITB, Indonesia)
Kuncoro Wastuwibowo, MSc (PT. Telkom Indonesia)
Editorial Advisory Board
Prof. Edy Tri Baskoro (ITB, Indonesia)
Mark Baugher, MA (Cisco Systems, USA)
Lakshminath Dondeti, PhD (Qualcomm, USA)
Prof. Svein Johan Knapskog, PhD (NTNU, Norway)
Prof. Merlyna Lim, PhD (Arizona State University, USA)
Prof. Bambang Parmanto, PhD (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
Prof. Wishnu Prasetya, PhD (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)
Prof. Jennifer Seberry, PhD (University of Wollongong, Australia)
Prof. Willy Susilo, PhD (University of Wollongong, Australia)
Prof. David Taniar, PhD (Monash University, Australia)
Open Access Publication Policy
The Internetworking Indonesia journal provides open access to all of its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. This follows the philosophy of the Open Journal Systems (see the Public Knowledge Project at pkp.sfu.ca). The journal will be published electronically and there are no subscription fees. Such access is associated with increased readership and increased citation of an author's work.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
automatic multi-document summarization evaluation: ordering
ROUGE, Pyramid tidak melihat hal itu secara jelas.
jabatan tetap: abdullah dan khalifah
Friday, March 20, 2009
Israel troops admit Gaza abuses
Israel troops admit Gaza abuses
 Israel frequently claims to possess the most moral army in the world |
An Israeli military college has printed damning soldiers' accounts of the killing of civilians and vandalism during recent operations in Gaza.
One account tells of a sniper killing a mother and children at close range whom troops had told to leave their home.
Another speaker at the seminar described what he saw as the "cold blooded murder" of a Palestinian woman.
The army has defended its conduct during the Gaza offensive but said it would investigate the testimonies.
The Israeli army has said it will investigate the soldiers' accounts.
The testimonies were published by the military academy at Oranim College. Graduates of the academy, who had served in Gaza, were speaking to new recruits at a seminar.
 |  The climate in general [was that] lives of Palestinians are much, much less important than the lives of our soldiers  Soldier testimony  |
"[The testimonies] conveyed an atmosphere in which one feels entitled to use unrestricted force against Palestinians," academy director Dany Zamir told public radio.
Heavy civilian casualties during the three-week operation which ended in the blockaded coastal strip on 18 January provoked an international outcry.
Another speaker at the seminar described what he saw as the "cold blooded murder" of a Palestinian woman.
The army has defended its conduct during the Gaza offensive but said it would investigate the testimonies.
The Israeli army has said it will investigate the soldiers' accounts.
The testimonies were published by the military academy at Oranim College. Graduates of the academy, who had served in Gaza, were speaking to new recruits at a seminar.
| The climate in general [was that] lives of Palestinians are much, much less important than the lives of our soldiers Soldier testimony |
"[The testimonies] conveyed an atmosphere in which one feels entitled to use unrestricted force against Palestinians," academy director Dany Zamir told public radio.
Heavy civilian casualties during the three-week operation which ended in the blockaded coastal strip on 18 January provoked an international outcry.
Correspondents say the testimonies undermine Israel's claims that troops took care to protect non-combatants and accusations that Hamas militants were responsible for putting civilians into harm's way.
'Less important'
The Palestinian woman and two of her children were allegedly shot after they misunderstood instructions about which way to walk having been ordered out of their home by troops.
"The climate in general... I don't know how to describe it.... the lives of Palestinians, let's say, are much, much less important than the lives of our soldiers," an infantry squad leader is quoted saying.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
text similarity
Apa persamaan dan perbedaannya?
Friday, February 20, 2009
koheren
logically connected; consistent:
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
jangan panggil anak kita: "adik"
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
ada2 saja
Beritanya:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/02/20092421331637844.html
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Syahid dan calon mujahid
Palestinian boy Mohammed Kutkut, 14, right, covers his face as he sits next to the name sign of his killed friend Ahed Qaddas in the Fakhoura boys school in Jebaliya, northern Gaza strip, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2009. Three friends of his class where killed when the Israeli army shelled Jebaliya in the past weeks. Tens of thousands of children have flocked back to schools throughout the Gaza Strip, days after Israel ended its fierce military operation against the territory's rulers.
(AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Gaza-strip-Israeli-army/photo//090124/481/1a73e9431252455bb47357af4f6123d9//s:/ap/20090124/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians/im:/090124/481/26494899836f4b2795cdde07d8627891/
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
UKM Palestina
Sunday, January 18, 2009
simon peres, pemenang hadiah nobel, presiden israel. Pembantai orang Gaza.
Sebagai preseiden bisanya adalah komandan perang.
Alangkah hina dinanya sang pemenang hadiah nobel perdamaian...
Di bawah dari media Zionis. Peres malah menyalahkan Hamas.
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Last update - 13:07 07/01/2009
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1053469.html
Peres: We don't want Gaza cease-fire, we want terror to cease
By Haaretz Service
President Shimon Peres reiterated Wednesday that Israel has no desire to extend or prolong its conflict in Gaza, but rather is seeking to end terror attacks against its civilians emanating from the strip. Israel has no territorial ambitions in Gaza, Peres told Britain's Sky News channel.
"We are not looking for a cease-fire, but a cease of terror," said Peres, adding that Israel is carefully reviewing a cease-fire plan put together by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Advertisement "No nation has ever had such a confrontation," Peres said, stressing that the 11-day assault on Hamas militants in Gaza is intended to prevent Israel from "being under siege from terrorists."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday that he supports the proposal by Mubarak.
The Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate said that Israel is carefully considering the humanitarian conditions in Gaza, but blamed Hamas for the suffering of the 1.5 million Palestinians who live there.
"We want Hamas to understand there is a cost to what they are doing," said Peres referring to the constant barrage of rockets that militants fire on Israel's southern communities.
He warned that a defeat by Hamas would have disasterous implications for the entire Western world. But, Peres said, "If the terrorists learn a lesson, we will all be victorious."
Britain, France, Germany offer to combat Gaza arms smuggling
Teman utama Israel: AS.
Jika senjata msuk Gaza dinamai: penyelundupan.
Jika senjata masuk ke Israel dinamai: impor senjata.
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Britain, France, Germany offer to combat Gaza arms smuggling
11 hours ago
BERLIN (AFP) — Britain, France and Germany Saturday announced they had offered to help prevent arms smuggling into the conflict-torn Gaza Strip, as London said it was ready to provide naval support in the effort.
In a joint letter to the Israeli and Egyptian governments published in Berlin Saturday, the three countries said they were ready to take a number of steps to "contribute to an end to the arms smuggling to Gaza".
They would also continue to work with the governments in Egypt and Israel "to implement these measures," according to a German version of the text.
"Germany, France and the United Kingdom, along with other partners, support efforts by the Israeli and Egyptian governments to reach a lasting truce in Gaza," said Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in their letter to Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Britain, France and Germany expect a lasting truce in Gaza to be followed by "a new dynamic for a lasting peace in the Middle East", they added.
The leaders' letters were handed over by their respective countries' embassies in Israel and Egypt.
Olmert was expected to announce later Saturday a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza, where a three-week-old Israeli offensive aimed at ending rocket attacks from the Islamist movement Hamas has left more than 1,200 Palestinians dead.
In London Brown told reporters, "We are prepared to provide British naval support to stop arms trafficking."
"We will do everything that we can to prevent the arms trafficking that is at the root of some of the problems that have caused the conflict," he added..
"Britain is prepared to give naval resources so that we can monitor and stop arms traffic and arms getting into Gaza. I believe that will help get a solution to this crisis.
"We are prepared to do anything we can to help also with the crossings to make sure that there is proper protection and therefore proper monitoring as well."
He added: "Other countries are agreeing also that they will provide the support that is necessary to stop arms getting into Gaza.
"At the same time, we're prepared to provide European support for monitoring at the crossings."
However, German government spokesman Thomas Steg said the details had not been worked out yet.
"They will be discussed and fixed in the coming days with France and Britain and the other parties concerned on the ground."
Merkel, Sarkozy and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will attend a meeting Sunday hosted by Egypt in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh where European leaders and UN chief Ban Ki-moon have been invited, officials said.
Diplomatic sources said invitations had also been sent to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Sarkozy will meet with Israel's Olmert in Jerusalem after co-chairing the summit with his Egyptian counterpart, while Merkel was to meet the Israeli prime minister in Tel Aviv the same day, French and German officials said.
The French government also said it would send medical aid, trauma surgeons and a bomb disposal squad to Egypt on Sunday so as to be ready to deploy an 80-strong team of rescue workers into Gaza once fighting there subsides.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Friday signed a US-Israeli deal aimed at halting the arms smuggling in a bid to clinch a ceasefire there.
The memorandum of understanding "provides a series of the steps that the US and Israel will take to stem the flow of weapons and explosives into Gaza," Rice said. "The MOU we sign today is ... a vital component for the cessation of hostilities," Livni added.
Rice, who blamed Hamas for sparking Israel's military offensive, said at a signing ceremony in Washington that the deal aims to ensure that "Gaza can never again be used as a launchpad" for rocket and other attacks.
Killed by Israel, Eaten by Dogs
Killed by Israel, Eaten by Dogs
GAZA CITY - "Oh, God! I have never seen such a terrible scene," cried Kayed Abu Aukal.
The emergency doctor could not believe himself seeing the remains of what was days back Shahd, a full-fleshed 4-year-old Palestinian girl.
She died when an Israeli shell was fired at the backyard of her home in the Jabalya refugee camp northern Gaza strip, where she was playing.
When her parents attempted to rush to the rescue of their kid, who fell to the ground amid a pool of her blood, rains of Israeli bullets kept them a distance.
For the next five days Shahd's which was left lying in the open left for dogs to tear out.
"The dogs did leave one single part of the poor baby's body intact," said a tearful Abu Aukal.
"We have seen heart-breaking scenes over the past 18 days. We picked up children whose bodies were torn or burnt, but nothing like this."
For five days Shahd's brother, Matar, and cousin, Mohamed, tried in vain to reach her body. They were fired at by the Israeli occupation forces every time.
Seeing the body of the little angel torn to piece by the assaulting dogs, the two made one final attempt, and it was their last.
They were showered by Israeli bullets before they could reach Shahd's body, joining a long list of more than 920 Palestinians killed by Israel since December 27.
Deliberate
Omran Zayda, a young neighbor, said the Israelis knew very well what they were doing.
"They chased her family and prevented them from reaching to her body, knowing that the dogs would eat it," he said.
"They are not just killing our children, they are intentionally doing so in the most heinous and inhuman ways."
Zayda said words, and even cameras, can not describe the horrific scene.
"You can never imagine what the dogs have done to her innocent body," he said, fighting back his tears.
Many Palestinians insist Shahd was not the first or only such case.
In Jabalya, when Abd Rabu's family was trying to bury three of its dead, the Israeli forces started firing at them, witnesses said.
They then released their dogs at the bodies, deserted by mourners who sought shelter from the Israeli gunfire, they added.
"What happened was awful and unthinkable," Saad Abd Rabu, the deceased uncle, told IOL.
"Our sons died before our eyes and we were even prevented from burying them," he cried.
"The Israelis just released their dogs at their bodies, as even they have not done enough."
Friday, January 16, 2009
UN accuses Israel over phosphorus
UN accuses Israel over phosphorus
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7831424.stmThe head of the UN aid agency in Gaza has accused the Israeli military of firing what was believed to be white phosphorus shells at its compound.
John Ging told the BBC that in spite of discussions with the Israeli liaison, "three rounds that emitted phosphorus" hit a corner of the Gaza City facility.
Israel's military said all weapons it used complied with international law.
Phosphorus shells are legal to use as a battlefield obscurant, but are banned from use where civilians may be harmed.
Human Rights Watch says it has observed "dozens and dozens" of white phosphorus shells being fired by Israel at the Gaza Strip - a heavily populated civilian area where its use is prohibited.
Palestinian medical officials said they had treated large numbers of casualties with unusual burns that were extremely painful to treat and could be consistent with exposure to white phosphorus (WP).
The Israeli military has declined to comment on specific munitions used during the 20-day offensive, but said any its weapons were used in compliance with international law.
There is no way independently to explain the contradiction between both sides' reports, as Israel has prevented international journalists from entering Gaza since its offensive began on 27 December.
'Relentless bombardment'
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Ging, director of operations in Gaza for the UN Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), said the area surrounding its compound had been under "relentless artillery and tank bombardment all night and all day".
Some rounds, Mr Ging said, had struck a part of the compound where about 700 residents of nearby blocks of flats were taking shelter. Three people were injured in the bombardment.
"Then an hour later, in spite of our protests and real-time discussions with the Israeli liaison, three rounds that emitted phosphorous struck the other corner of the compound," he added.
The compound is Unrwa's main distribution hub in Gaza and Mr Ging said the shells set alight part of a warehouse in which there were stored thousands of tonnes of food and medicine, and the workshop area.
The fires then threatened to engulf five fuel tankers, which had been due to be sent out that morning, but could not leave because it was too dangerous outside.
"When the fires broke out, five of our brave staff dashed down there and moved the trucks out of the area, so we avoided a massive explosion," he said.
Mr Ging told CNN the fire was very difficult to extinguish because the smoke from WP becomes toxic if water is used.
Following the incident, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon - in Israel to push for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip - expressed his "outrage" and demanded a full explanation from the Israeli government.
"The defence minister said to me it was a grave mistake and he took it very seriously. He assured me that extra attention will be paid to UN facilities and staff and this will not be repeated," Mr Ban said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the compound had been targeted after militants had opened fire from there.
"It is absolutely true that we were attacked from that place, but the consequences are very sad and we apologise for it," he said. "I don't think it should have happened and I'm very sorry."
'Indiscriminate'
White phosphorus sticks to human skin and will burn right through to the bone, causing death or leaving survivors with painful wounds which are slow to heal.
The international convention on the use of incendiary weapons says it should not be used where there is a possibility of hitting civilians. An Israeli military spokesman said it was investigating the reports, but reiterated earlier assurances about the legality of its weaponry.
White phosphorus is permitted on the battlefield to make smoke screens to allow troops to move undetected, and also to impede infrared anti-tank weapons.
But its use in the densely populated areas of central Gaza City would be "unlawful", as it dispersal would be indiscriminate and could put civilians at risk, says Human Rights Watch military analyst Marc Garlasco.
"The Israeli military may be using legal weapons, but it is using the weapons in an illegal manner," Mr Garlasco told the BBC News website.
He said he had observed dozens and dozens WP shells used by the Israeli army over Gaza since 27 December, both ground-burst shells and air-burst, scattering distinctive burning lumps of phosphorus which left white smoke trails.
"We are absolutely certain this is white phosphorus, this is the singular, unique visual signature of white phosphorus on the battlefield. Not only have I seen it for myself but I have checked with US artillery," Mr Garlasco added.
Mr Garlasco also examined a press photograph which showed a burning lump of matter in the UN compound. He said it "definitely appeared" to be WP, but that the photo was not detailed enough to say with complete certainty.
White phosphorus claim
Mr Ging said the fire caused by the phosphorus was very difficult to extinguish
UN staff inspect a lump of burning matter at their bombed compound which Human Rights Watch says appears to be white phosphorus, although Israel has denied using it in built-up areas.
Human Rights Watch analyst Marc Garlasco says white phosphorus air-burst shells have a unique visual signature, and they have been fired "dozens of times" over Gaza.
James Zogby - How Israel's Propaganda Machine Works
James Zogby - How Israel's Propaganda Machine Works
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2009/01/15/james-zogby-how-israels-propaganda-machine-works/As in past Mideast conflicts, both the media story line and political commentary here in the U.S. has closely followed Israel's talking points on the war. This has been an essential component in Israel's early success and in its ability to prolong fighting without U.S. pushback. Because it recognizes the importance of the propaganda war, Israel fights on this front as vigorously and disproportionately as it engages on the battlefield.
Here's how they have done it:
1) Define the terms of debate, and you win the debate. Early on, the Israelis work to define the context, the starting point, and the story line that will shape understanding of the war. In this instance, for example, they succeeded by constant repetition, in establishing the notion that the starting point of the conflict was December 19th, the end of the six-month ceasefire (which Israel described as "unilaterally ended by Hamas"). In doing so, they ignored, of course, their own early November violations, and their failure to honor their commitment in the ceasefire to open Gaza's borders. They also ignored their having reduced Gaza into a dependency, a process which began long before and continued after their withdrawal in 2005. Because they know that most Americans do not closely follow the conflict and are inclined to believe, as the line goes, "what they hear over and over again," this tactic of preemptive definition and repetition succeeds.2) Recognize that stereotypes work. Because, for generations, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been defined with positive cultural images of Israel and negative stereotypes of Palestinians, Israel's propagandists have an advantage here that is easy to exploit. Because the story has long been seen as "Israeli humanity confronting the Palestinian problem," media coverage of any conflict begins with how "the problem" is affecting the Israeli people. As Golda Meir once put it, "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children, but we can never forgive them for making us kill their children." And so, it was not surprising that, despite the disproportionate suffering of the Palestinians, media coverage attempted to "balance" the story, giving an extensive treatment, with photos, of anguished and fearful Israelis and the impact the war was having on them. Early on, when media treatment mattered most, Palestinians were reduced, as always, to mere numbers or objectified as "collateral damage."
3) Anticipate and count on your opponent's blunders. Hamas' stupidity played into Israel's strategy. From the outset, Israel could count on the fact that Hamas would launch rockets and issue the kind of threats that Israel could then parley into sympathy in the West. Knowing that these would most certainly come, and could be exploited, was an advantage in their propaganda war.
4) Be everywhere, and say the same thing — and make sure your opponents remain as invisible as possible. Israel begins each war with a host of English-speaking spokespersons (many born in the West) available at any time for every media outlet (it's no accident, for example, that Israel has an "Arab" Consul General in Atlanta - that's where CNN is). The work of their propaganda operation, which spreads multiple spokespersons in venues across the United States with consistent talking points, guarantees success. At the same time, they are able to deny media access to Gaza, only allowing the Western reporters to operate near the war zone under IDF supervision, guaranteeing Israel the opportunity to shape every aspect of the story while removing the possibility of independent verification of the horror unfolding in Gaza.
5) Give no ground. Since half of the story will be determined by what political leaders say and do, the political apparatus in Washington is also pressed into service, ensuring that White House and Congressional leadership will "toe the line." Statements issued by Congress, therefore, reflect the talking points and, together, the Israeli spokespersons, the political commentators, and the Congressional statements serve as echoes of one another.
6) Deny, deny, deny. When events and reality break through, contradicting the Israeli-established narrative, creating stories that run counter to the imposed story line, the propaganda machine works overtime to deny, deny, deny (saying quite boldly, "Who do you believe, me or your lying eyes?"), and/or concoct a counter-narrative that shifts the blame ("We didn't do it, they made us"). In this instance, that means asserting that the death of Palestinian civilians is always the fault of someone else, or that reporters or their opponents are staging the photos of grief (as if to say, "Arabs don't really grieve like we do").
7) The last refuge…. When all else fails, point to a few examples of outrageous anti-Semitism, generalize them, suggesting that that is what motivates critics. It stings, and may be over-used, but it can silence or put critics on the defensive.
James Zogby: Founder and president of the Arab American Institute
When Israel expelled Palestinians: What if it was San Diego and Tijuana instead?
KUHN: When Israel expelled Palestinians:
What if it was San Diego and Tijuana instead?
Randall Kuhn
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
OP-ED:
In the wake of Israel's invasion of Gaza, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak made this analogy: "Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico."
Within hours scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Barak's comparisons almost verbatim. In fact, in this very paper on January 9 House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an opinion piece by saying "America would never sit still if terrorists were lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana." But let's see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy.
OP-ED:
In the wake of Israel's invasion of Gaza, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak made this analogy: "Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico."
Within hours scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Barak's comparisons almost verbatim. In fact, in this very paper on January 9 House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an opinion piece by saying "America would never sit still if terrorists were lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana." But let's see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy.
What if the United Nations kept San Diego's discarded minorities in crowded, festering camps in Tijuana for 19 years? Then, the United States invaded Mexico, occupied Tijuana and began to build large housing developments in Tijuana where only whites could live.
And what if the United States built a network of highways connecting American citizens of Tijuana to the United States? And checkpoints, not just between Mexico and the United States but also around every neighborhood of Tijuana? What if we required every Tijuana resident, refugee or native, to show an ID card to the U.S. military on demand? What if thousands of Tijuana residents lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their children, their sense of self worth to this occupation? Would you be surprised to hear of a protest movement in Tijuana that sometimes became violent and hateful? Okay, now for the unbelievable part.
Think about what would happen if, after expelling all of the minorities from San Diego to Tijuana and subjecting them to 40 years of brutal military occupation, we just left Tijuana, removing all the white settlers and the soldiers? Only instead of giving them their freedom, we built a 20-foot tall electrified wall around Tijuana? Not just on the sides bordering San Diego, but on all the Mexico crossings as well. What if we set up 50-foot high watchtowers with machine gun batteries, and told them that if they stood within 100 yards of this wall we would shoot them dead on sight? And four out of every five days we kept every single one of those border crossings closed, not even allowing food, clothing, or medicine to arrive. And we patrolled their air space with our state-of-the-art fighter jets but didn't allow them so much as a crop duster. And we patrolled their waters with destroyers and submarines, but didn't even allow them to fish.
Would you be at all surprised to hear that these resistance groups in Tijuana, even after having been "freed" from their occupation but starved half to death, kept on firing rockets at the United States? Probably not. But you may be surprised to learn that the majority of people in Tijuana never picked up a rocket, or a gun, or a weapon of any kind.
The majority, instead, supported against all hope negotiations toward a peaceful solution that would provide security, freedom and equal rights to both people in two independent states living side by side as neighbors. This is the sound analogy to Israel's military onslaught in Gaza today. Maybe some day soon, common sense will prevail and no corpus of misleading analogies abut Tijuana or the crazy guy across the hall who wants to murder your daughter will be able to obscure the truth. And at that moment, in a country whose people shouted We Shall Overcome, Ich bin ein Berliner, End Apartheid, Free Tibet and Save Darfur, we will all join together and shout "Free Gaza. Free Palestine." And because we are Americans, the world will take notice and they will be free, and perhaps peace will prevail for all the residents of the Holy Land.
Randall Kuhn is an assistant professor and Director of the Global Health Affairs Program at the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He just returned from a trip to Israel and the West Bank.
Gaza under fire
Palestinians mourn their dead in the wake of the Israeli strike on a UN school in Gazahttp://www.newstatesman.com/middle-east/2009/01/pilger-israel-gaza-palestine
Gaza under fire
byJohn Pilger
Every war Israel has waged since 1948 has had the same objective: expulsion of the native people and theft of more land. But why are we in the west silent on this truth?"When the truth is replaced by silence," the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko said, "the silence is a lie." It may appear that the silence on Gaza is broken. The small cocoons of murdered children, wrapped in green, together with boxes containing their dismembered parents, and the cries of grief and rage of everyone in that death camp by the sea can be witnessed on al-Jazeera and YouTube, even glimpsed on the BBC. But Russia's incorrigible poet was not referring to the ephemera we call news; he was asking why those who knew the why never spoke it, and so denied it. Among the Anglo-American intelligentsia, this is especially striking. It is they who hold the keys to the great storehouses of knowledge: the historiographies and archives that lead us to the why.
They know that the horror now raining on Gaza has little to do with Hamas or, absurdly, "Israel's right to exist". They know the opposite to be true: that Palestine's right to exist was cancelled 61 years ago and that the expulsion and, if necessary, extinction of the indigenous people was planned and executed by the founders of Israel. They know, for example, that the infamous "Plan D" of 1947-48 resulted in the murderous depopulation of 369 Palestinian towns and villages by the Haganah (Israeli army) and that massacre upon massacre of Palestinian civilians in such places as Deir Yassin, al-Dawayima, Eilaboun, Jish, Ramle and Lydda are referred to in official records as "ethnic cleansing". Arriving at a scene of this carnage, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, was asked by a general, Yigal Allon: "What shall we do with the Arabs?" Ben-Gurion, reported the Israeli historian Benny Morris, "made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and said, 'Expel them'".
The order to expel an entire population "without attention to age" was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, a future prime minister promoted by the world's most efficient propaganda as a peacemaker. The terrible irony of this was addressed only in passing, such as when the Mapam party co-leader Meir Ya'ari noted "how easily" Israel's leaders spoke of how it was "possible and permissible to take women, children and old men and to fill the road with them because such is the imperative of strategy. And this we say . . . who remember who used this means against our people during the [Second World] War . . . I am appalled."
Every subsequent "war" Israel has waged has had the same objective: the expulsion of the native people and the theft of more and more land. The lie of David and Goliath, of perennial victim, reached its apogee in 1967 when the propaganda became a righteous fury that claimed the Arab states had struck first against Israel. Since then, mostly Jewish truth-tellers such as Avi Shlaim, Noam Chomsky, Tanya Reinhart, Neve Gordon, Tom Segev, Uri Avnery, Ilan Pappé and Norman Finkelstein have undermined this and other myths and revealed a state shorn of the humane traditions of Judaism, whose unrelenting militarism is the sum of an expansionist, lawless and racist ideology called Zionism. "It seems," wrote the Israeli historian Pappé on 2 January, "that even the most horrendous crimes, such as the genocide in Gaza, are treated as discrete events, unconnected to anything that happened in the past and not associated with any ideology or system . . . Very much as the apartheid ideology explained the oppressive policies of the South African government, this ideology - in its most consensual and simplistic variety - allowed all the Israeli governments in the past and the present to dehumanise the Palestinians wherever they are and strive to destroy them. The means altered from period to period, from location to location, as did the narrative covering up these atrocities. But there is a clear pattern [of genocide]."
In Gaza, the enforced starvation and denial of humanitarian aid, the piracy of life-giving resources such as fuel and water, the denial of medicines, the systematic destruction of infrastructure and killing and maiming of the civilian population, 50 per cent of whom are children, fall within the international standard of the Genocide Convention. "Is it an irresponsible overstatement," asked Richard Falk, UN special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories and international law authority at Princeton University, "to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalised Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not."
In describing a “holocaust-in-the making”, Falk was alluding to the Nazis’ establishment of Jewish ghettos in Poland. For one month in 1943, the captive Polish Jews, led by Mordechaj Anielewicz, fought off the German army and the SS, but their resistance was finally crushed and the Nazis exacted their final revenge. Falk is also a Jew. Today’s holocaust-in-the-making, which began with Ben-Gurion’s Plan D, is in its final stages. The difference today is that it is a joint US-Israeli project. The F-16 jet fighters, the 250lb “smart” GBU-39 bombs supplied on the eve of the attack on Gaza, having been approved by a Congress dominated by the Democratic Party, plus the annual $2.4bn in warmaking “aid”, give Washington de facto control. It beggars belief that President-elect Obama was not informed. Outspoken about Russia’s war in Georgia and the terrorism in Mumbai, Obama has maintained a silence on Palestine that marks his approval, which is to be expected, given his obsequiousness to the Tel Aviv regime and its lobbyists during the presidential campaign and his appointment of Zionists as his secretary of state and principal Middle East advisers. When Aretha Franklin sings “Think”, her wonderful 1960s anthem to freedom, at Obama’s inauguration on 20 January, I trust someone with the brave heart of Muntader al-Zaidi, the shoe-thrower, will shout: “Gaza!”
The asymmetry of conquest and terror is clear. Plan D is now "Operation Cast Lead", which is the unfinished "Operation Justified Vengeance". This was launched by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 when, with George W Bush's approval, he used F-16s against Palestinian towns and villages for the first time.
"Why are the academics and teachers silent? Are British universities now no more than “intellectual Tescos”?"
In that same year, the authoritative Jane's Foreign Report disclosed that the Blair government had given Israel the "green light" to attack the West Bank after it was shown Israel's secret designs for a bloodbath. It was typical of new Labour's enduring complicity in Palestine's agony. However, the Israeli plan, reported Jane's, needed the "trigger" of a suicide bombing which would cause "numerous deaths and injuries [because] the 'revenge' factor is crucial". This would "motivate Israeli soldiers to demolish the Palestinians". What alarmed Sharon and the author of the plan, General Shaul Mofaz, then Israeli chief of staff, was a secret agreement between Yasser Arafat and Hamas to ban suicide attacks. On 23 November 2001 Israeli agents assassinated the Hamas leader Mahmoud Abu Hanoud and got their "trigger": the suicide attacks resumed in response to his killing.
Something uncannily similar happened on 4 November last year when Israeli special forces attacked Gaza, killing six people. Once again, they got their propaganda "trigger": a ceasefire sustained by the Hamas government - which had imprisoned its violators - was shattered as a result of the Israeli attacks, and home-made rockets were fired into what used to be called Palestine before its Arab occupants were "cleansed". On 23 December, Hamas offered to renew the ceasefire, but Israel's charade was such that its all-out assault on Gaza had been planned six months earlier, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz.
Behind this sordid game is the "Dagan Plan", named after General Meir Dagan, who served with Sharon during his bloody invasion of Leba non in 1982. Now head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence organisation, Dagan is the author of a "solution" that has brought about the imprisonment of Palestinians behind a ghetto wall snaking across the West Bank and in Gaza, now effectively a concentration camp. The establishment of a quisling government in Ramallah, under Mahmoud Abbas, is Dagan's achievement, together with a hasbara (propaganda) campaign, relayed through mostly supine, if intimidated western media, notably in the US, which say Hamas is a terrorist organisation devoted to Israel's destruction and is to "blame" for the massacres and siege of its own people over two generations, since long before its creation. "We have never had it so good," said the Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Gideon Meir in 2006. "The hasbara effort is a well-oiled machine."
In fact, Hamas's real threat is its example as the Arab world's only democratically elected government, drawing its popularity from its resistance to the Palestinians' oppressor and tormentor. This was demonstrated when Hamas foiled a CIA coup in 2007, an event ordained in the western media as "Hamas's seizure of power". Likewise, Hamas is never described as a government, let alone democratic. Neither is its proposal of a ten-year truce reported as a historic recognition of the "reality" of Israel and support for a two-state solution with just one condition: that the Israelis obey international law and end their illegal occupation beyond the 1967 borders. As every annual vote in the UN General Assembly demonstrates, most states agree. On 4 January, the president of the General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto, described the Israeli attack on Gaza as a "monstrosity".
When the monstrosity is done and the people of Gaza are even more stricken, the Dagan Plan foresees what Sharon called a "1948-style solution" - the destruction of all Palestinian leadership and authority, followed by mass expulsions into smaller and smaller "cantonments", and perhaps, finally, into Jordan. This demolition of institutional and educational life in Gaza is designed to produce, wrote Karma Nabulsi, a Palestinian exile in Britain, "a Hobbesian vision of an anarchic society: truncated, violent, powerless, destroyed, cowed . . . Look to the Iraq of today: that is what [Sharon] had in store for us, and he has nearly achieved it."
Dr Dahlia Wasfi is an American writer on Iraq and Palestine. She has a Jewish mother and an Iraqi Muslim father. "Holocaust denial is anti-Semitic," she wrote on 31 December. "But I'm not talking about the World War II, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [the president of Iran] or Ashkenazi Jews. What I'm referring to is the holocaust we are all witnessing and responsible for in Gaza today and in Palestine over the past 60 years . . . Since Arabs are Semites, US-Israeli policy doesn't get more anti-Semitic than this." She quoted Rachel Corrie, the young American who went to Palestine to defend Palestinians and was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer. "I am in the midst of a genocide," wrote Corrie, "which I am also indirectly supporting, and for which my government is largely responsible."
Reading the words of both, I am struck by the use of "responsibility". Breaking the lie of silence is not an esoteric abstraction, but an urgent responsibility that falls to those with the privilege of a platform. With the BBC cowed, so too is much of journalism, merely allowing vigorous debate within unmovable, invisible boundaries, ever fearful of the smear of anti-Semitism. The unreported news, meanwhile, is that the death toll in Gaza is the equivalent of 18,000 dead in Britain. Imagine, if you can.
Then there are the academics, the deans and teachers and researchers. Why are they silent as they watch a university bombed and hear the Association of University Teachers in Gaza plead for help? Are British universities now, as Terry Eagleton believes, no more than “intellectual Tescos, churning out a commodity known as graduates rather than greengroceries”?
Then there are the writers. In the dark year of 1939, the Third American Writers' Congress was held at Carnegie Hall in New York and the likes of Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein sent messages and spoke up to ensure that the lie of silence was broken. By one account, 2,500 jammed the auditorium. Today, this mighty voice of realism and morality is said to be obsolete; the literary review pages affect an ironic hauteur of irrelevance; false symbolism is all. As for the readers, their moral and political imagination is to be pacified, not primed. The anti-Muslim Martin Amis expressed this well in Visiting Mrs Nabo kov: "The dominance of the self is not a flaw, it is an evolutionary characteristic; it is just how things are."
If that is how things are, we are diminished as a civilised people. For what happens in Gaza is the defining moment of our time, which either grants war criminals impunity and immunity through our silence, while we contort our own intellect and morality, or it gives us the power to speak out. For the moment I prefer my own memory of Gaza: of the people's courage and resistance and their "luminous humanity", as Karma Nabulsi put it. On my last trip there, I was rewarded with a spectacle of Palestinian flags fluttering in unlikely places. It was dusk and children had done this. No one had told them to do it. They made flagpoles out of sticks tied together, and a few of them climbed on to a wall and held the flag between them, some silently, others crying out. They do this every day when they know foreigners are leaving, in the belief that the world will not forget them.
Gaza: Call for full arms embargo as weapons ship heads to Israel
Gaza: Call for full arms embargo as weapons ship heads to Israe
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Posted: 15 January 2009
Letter to David Miliband calls for UK support, including rigorous checks on UK licensing after 'UAV' reports
Amnesty International has called for a full arms embargo on all parties involved in the Gaza conflict.
The call came as the organisation revealed that a German cargo ship carrying huge amounts of weaponry - possibly including controversial white phosphorous - has been heading for the Israeli port of Ashdod.
In a letter to Foreign Secretary David Miliband today, Amnesty is urging the UK government to make international representations to help prevent the ship with its 'vast consignment' of weapons docking in Israel. The letter also seeks assurances that no UK licences have been granted for arms, components or related technology that could be or have been used in the conflict in Gaza. Last week Amnesty pointed to evidence that specially-designed engines for pilotless military aerial vehicles (UAVs) used by Israeli forces to target air strikes may be of UK origin.
Amnesty is asking the UN Security Council to act to impose an immediate, comprehensive arms embargo on all parties to the conflict in Gaza to prevent any further flow of arms to the warring parties.
Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa Programme Director Malcolm Smart said:
'The last thing that is needed now is more weapons and munitions in the region, which is awash with arms that are being used in a manner which contravenes international law and is having a devastating effect on the civilian population in Gaza.
'We know that the Wehr Elbe, a German-owned cargo ship, left the USA on 20 December 2008 with a large consignment - 989 containers - of high explosives and other munitions. Hired and now legally controlled by the US Military Sealift Command, it is destined for the Israeli port of Ashdod and was due to transit via Greece, though its latest reported position indicates that the shipment's route may have changed.'
Amnesty understands that tenders for two other arms shipments totalling 325 containers of US munitions were approved by the Pentagon on 31 December, four days after the start of Israel's current attacks on targets in Gaza. These two consignments were due to be shipped to Ashdod, Israel, from Astakos in Greece, but that particular tender has now been cancelled, according to information provided to Amnesty International by the US Military Sealift Command.
Tender documents show that these shipments contain white phosphorous, known for its potential to cause severe burns and an indiscriminate weapon when used as an airburst in densely-populated civilian areas as now alleged in Gaza. The US Department of Defense says it is now looking at other means to deliver the munitions to a US stockpile in Israel. A US-Israel agreement has allowed US munitions stockpiled in Israel to be transferred to the Israeli Defence Force in "an emergency."
Malcolm Smart added:
'The US government should not proceed with these or any other arms shipments to Israel, and the Greek and other governments should not allow their ports or other facilities to be used to ferry arms to Israel or the other parties to this conflict.
'The plight of civilians in Gaza has become increasingly desperate in the six days since the Security Council's near unanimous, but unheeded, call for a ceasefire. Israeli forces continue to carry out unlawful attacks, including attacks which are disproportionate, and stand accused of using weapons such as white phosphorous which pose an unacceptable risk to civilians when deployed in densely-populated areas. Meanwhile, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups persist in firing indiscriminate rockets into civilian areas in Israel.
'In addition to locally produced arms, Israeli forces are carrying out unlawful attacks using foreign weaponry and other military equipment supplied mainly by the USA but also from other countries, while rockets and rocket-making equipment smuggled into Gaza from Egypt are being used against the civilian population in southern Israel.'
Amnesty believes a Security Council arms embargo is needed primarily to prevent new weapons supplies reaching the two sides, but that it could also send a powerful signal to the Israeli authorities and Hamas about the Council's determination to uphold international law.
Malcolm Smart added:
'The Security Council must insist on full accountability for war crimes and other serious violations committed during this conflict. This means taking steps to ensure that alleged violations are thoroughly and impartially investigated, and that any persons found responsible are brought to justice in fair trials.'
Background
Amnesty has identified at least 17 states apart from the US that have supplied arms and related materials to Israel since 2001. The US is by far the largest supplier but significant supplies have also been sent from Germany, France, the UK, Spain, the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic, Canada, Slovenia, Australia, Romania, Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Serbia-Montenegro, and Bosnia-Herzogovina. The Netherlands and Greece have both been major transit countries to Israel, especially for US arms.
To prevent irresponsible transfers of conventional arms being used for serious violations of international law, including international human rights law and international humanitarian law, Amnesty International and hundreds of other NGOs, including the International Action Network on Small Arms and Oxfam International, have been campaigning for the establishment of a global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). Over 150 Member States have voted for a UN process towards the establishment of an ATT, a process that will resume on 23 January in New York.
Israel’s white Phosphor shells
Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa Programme Director Malcolm Smart said:
Thursday, January 15, 2009
SONG FOR GAZA
http://www.michaelheart.com/Song_for_Gaza.html
(Composed by Michael Heart)
Copyright 2009
A blinding flash of white light
Lit up the sky over Gaza tonight
People running for cover
Not knowing whether they’re dead or alive
They came with their tanks and their planes
With ravaging fiery flames
And nothing remains
Just a voice rising up in the smoky haze
We will not go down
In the night, without a fight
You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools
But our spirit will never die
We will not go down
In Gaza tonight
Women and children alike
Murdered and massacred night after night
While the so-called leaders of countries afar
Debated on who’s wrong or right
But their powerless words were in vain
And the bombs fell down like acid rain
But through the tears and the blood and the pain
You can still hear that voice through the smoky haze
We will not go down
In the night, without a fight
You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools
But our spirit will never die
We will not go down
In Gaza tonight
Israels Slaughter in Gaza
palestine childrenComments in Aljazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/200911423552104447.html
| KGB Canada | 15/01/2009 | |
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| Israels Slaughter in Gaza | ||
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| When jewish persecution in world history is considered, one would expect that Jews would be a much more compassionate group of people than those who today call themselves Israelis. Israel's mighty military machine is really a genocidal instrument used to wipe out unarmed innocent babies. Shame on you Israel! History and generations will remember, rest assured! | ||
| Dan United States | 15/01/2009 | |
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| This is crazy. Why support Israel, it's absurd. Yes they have the right to defend themselves. This battle in this war has gone on to long and is not Israel defending it's self. It's Israel killing civilians, aid workers and anybody else in there way. I really think they are doing this before Bush leaves because they know that obama may support them but won't support this. Lets hope the change we voted for stops the bloodshed on 1/20. It needs to stop NOW. | ||
Gaza clinic destroyed in strike
Gaza clinic destroyed in strike
Remains of the clinic (Photo: Christian Aid)
Nobody was hurt, in part because the clinic was closed (Photo: Christian Aid)
The charity Christian Aid says a clinic for mothers and babies in Gaza, which it funds along with the EU, has been destroyed in an Israeli air strike.
The clinic, which was run by the Near East Council of Churches, was struck by a missile after a 15-minute warning was sent to the building's owners.
lengkapnya di
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7825215.stm
Hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of medical equipment was destroyed by the strike, which happened on Saturday.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Gaza diary: Are we not human?
| Gaza diary: Are we not human? |
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| By Mohammed Ali in Gaza City http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/war_on_gaza/2009/01/200917111341829322.html |
Monday, January 12, 2009
Israel is NOT a normal country
Chris
United Kingdom 11/01/2009
Israel and the U.S. are suffering from collective delusion Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian territory, illegally colonising Palestinian land, illegally restricting the freedom of movement and economic development of the occupied territories. Israel is NOT a normal country exerting its rights to self defence. Israel is an oppressive regime committing crimes against humanity. Everyone who denies this is delusional!!!!
Friday, January 9, 2009
Isrelis are war criminals!
Israelis admit militants not in UN school
= = = =
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/09/africa/09mideast.php
UN and Red Cross add to outcry on Gaza
JERUSALEM: International aid groups lashed out at Israel on Thursday over the war in Gaza, saying that access to civilians in need is poor, relief workers are being hurt and killed, and Israel is woefully neglecting its obligations to Palestinians who are trapped, some among rotting corpses in a nightmarish landscape of deprivation.
minuman bir nyampur
Saya barusan belanja di Alfa Mart di dekat rumah. Biasanya tidak begitu memperhatikan pengaturan barang. Tidak sengaja saya lihat tadi di lemari pendingin minuman kaleng ditaruh bercampur antara yg beralkohol (bir) dengan yg tidak. Maka hati2lah.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
The Jews Face a Double Standard
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123137495711862883.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
8 Januari 2009
The Jews Face a Double Standard
Why doesn't Israel have the same right to self-defense as other nations?
The world-wide protests against Israel's ground incursion into Gaza are so full of hatred that they leave me with the terrible feeling that these protests have little to do with the so-called disproportionality of the Israeli response to Hamas rockets, or the resulting civilian casualties.
My fear is that the rage we see in the protesters marching in the streets is far more profound and dangerous than we would like to believe. There are a great many people in the world who, even after Auschwitz, just can't bear the Jewish state having the same rights they so readily grant to other nations. These voices insist Israel must take risks they would never dare ask of any other nation-state -- risks that threaten its very survival -- because they don't believe Israel should exist in the first place.
Just look at the spate of attacks this week on Jews and Jewish institutions around the world: a car ramming into a synagogue in France; a Chabad menorah and Jewish-owned shops sprayed with swastikas in Belgium; a banner at an Australian rally demanding "clean the earth from dirty Zionists!"; demonstrators in the Netherlands chanting "Gas the Jews"; and in Florida, protestors demanding Jews "Go back to the ovens!"
How else can we explain the double-standard that is applied to the Gaza conflict, if not for a more insidious bias against the Jewish state?
At the U.N., no surprise, this double-standard is in full force. In response to Israel's attack on Hamas, the Security Council immediately pulled an all-night emergency meeting to consider yet another resolution condemning Israel. Have there been any all-night Security Council sessions held during the seven months when Hamas fired 3,000 rockets at half a million innocent civilians in southern Israel? You can be certain that during those seven months, no midnight oil was burning at the U.N. headquarters over resolutions condemning terrorist organizations like Hamas. But put condemnation of Israel on the agenda and, rain or shine, it's sure to be a full house.
Red Cross officials are all over the Gaza crisis, describing it as a full-blown humanitarian nightmare. Where were they during the seven months when tens of thousands of Israeli families could not sleep for fear of a rocket attack? Where were their trauma experts to decry that humanitarian crisis?
There have been hundreds of articles and reports written from the Erez border crossing falsely accusing Israel of blocking humanitarian supplies from reaching beleaguered Palestinians in Gaza. (In fact, over 520 truck loads of humanitarian aid have been delivered through Israeli crossings since the beginning of the Israeli counterattack.) But how many news articles, NGO reports and special U.N. commissions have investigated Hamas's policy of deliberately placing rocket launchers near schools, mosques and homes in order to use innocent Palestinians as human shields?
Many people ask why there are so few Israeli casualties in comparison with the Palestinian death toll. It's because Israel's first priority is the safety of its citizens, which is why there are shelters and warning systems in Israeli towns. If Hamas can dig tunnels, it can certainly build shelters. Instead, it prefers to use women and children as human shields while its leaders rush into hiding.
And then there are the clarion calls for a cease-fire. These words, which come so easily, have proven to be a recipe for disaster. Hamas uses the cease-fire as a time-out to rearm and smuggle even more deadly weapons so the next time, instead of hitting Sderot and Ashkelon, they can target Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
The pattern is always the same. Following a cease-fire brought on by international pressure, there will be a call for a massive infusion of funds to help Palestinians recover from the devastation of the Israeli attack. The world will respond eagerly, handing over hundreds of millions of dollars. To whom does this money go? To Hamas, the same terrorist group that brought disaster to the Palestinians in the first place.
The world seems to have forgotten that at the end of World War II, President Harry Truman initiated the Marshall Plan, investing vast sums to rebuild Germany. But he did so only with the clear understanding that the money would build a new kind of Germany -- not a Fourth Reich that would continue the policies of Adolf Hitler. Yet that is precisely what the world will be doing if we once again entrust funds to Hamas terrorists and their Iranian puppet masters.
In less than two weeks, Barack Obama will be sworn in as president of the United States. But there is no "change we can believe in" in the Middle East -- not where Israel is concerned. The double-standard continuously applied to the Jewish state proves that, for much of the world, the real lessons of World War II have yet to be learned.
Mr. Hier, a rabbi, is the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance.
"warung kejujuran" di kampus. saat test
Yang nyontek adalah jawaban yang mirip dengan tetangganya.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Mahmud Abbas
victims of Zionist Israel brutality & stupidity
Psioterapis Corrie Vaw Wijk dari Belanda yang bekerja untuk sukarelawan Palang Merah Internasional memberi perawatan kepada gadis Palestina, Jamela Habbash (15), yang kehilangan kaki akibat serangan misil Israel pekan lalu di Rumah Sakit Al-Shifa, Gaza, Kamis (8/1-2009). --Kompas--
