Gaza Is A Concentration Camp

I. Rep. Ron Paul:

In an interview with Iranian television in 2009, Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul referred to Gaza as a "concentration camp."

During the interview the Texas congressman criticized then-US President George W. Bush's policy, saying "it's our money and our weapons. But I think we encouraged it. Certainly the president has said nothing to diminish it. He justifies it on moral grounds. 'They have a right to do this' - without ever mentioning the tragedy of Gaza.

"To me, I look at it like a concentration camp - and people are making homemade bombs and like they're the aggressors (Palestinians)?"

Addressing Israel-US relations, Paul said, "I think if we weren't in the Middle East, there would be a much greater motivation for Israel to deal with all the people…Maybe they would be talking to the Arab League every single day to work out problems. But they don't have the motivation because they know we'll back them up."

"is that Israel is more trouble than it is worth, specifically to the America taxpayer."

II. Arthur Silber writes:

"is one of overwhelming, oppressive and suffocating unreality. It is as if everyone knows, but will never acknowledge, that we may speak only in code, and that we may only utilize the safe, empty phrases that we have agreed are 'acceptable' -- phrases and language that are safe precisely because they have been drained of all correspondence to facts. It is as if everyone realizes, but will never state, that we are engaged in an elaborate charade, a pageant of gesture and indication, where substance and specific meaning have been banned. ... [T]he truth is not merely unpleasant, an uninvited guest who makes conversation difficult and awkward. Truth is the enemy;truth is to be destroyed."

Gaza is a concentration camp. It is not like a concentration camp. It is not a metaphorical or figurative concentration camp. It is a concentration camp. Our culture, our political leaders, and the cacophony of voices in the media have all agreed that this truth must never be spoken.


Israel controls most of Gaza's land borders, just as Israel controls the air space above it and the waters that border Gaza on the west. The sole exception is the small border with Egypt, and Israel subjects that border to attacks whenever it chooses. In essence, nothing is permitted in or out of Gaza without Israel's permission. When Israel imposes severe restrictions on what and who is allowed to enter and leave Gaza, the consequences are catastrophic, as Uri Avnery explained a few years ago:

The blockade on land, on sea and in the air against a million and a half human beings is an act of war, as much as any dropping of bombs or launching of rockets. It paralyzes life in the Gaza Strip: eliminating most sources of employment, pushing hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation, stopping most hospitals from functioning, disrupting the supply of electricity and water.

Israel imposes conditions on Gaza and its inhabitants that necessarily result in a slow, long, lingering death. Unjustified but quick murder, murder which occurs in an instant, is a terrible crime. How are we to describe the crime that sentences a huge number of people to death, but does so in a manner that ensures the unendurable pain will last for years, that pain and deprivation can never be forgotten, that agony becomes the increasingly overwhelming component of a human being's existence?

I speak here of the necessary, inevitable final consequence of the policy Israel has chosen with deliberation and great care. 

Israel's policy is that of a monstrous sadist, a sadist who finds hideous pleasure in subjecting its victims to pain that lasts a lifetime.

We are forbidden to say this.

Because we may never say this, some of those determined to remain in a state of almost perfect ignorance will be heard to complain: "But surely nothing justifies the violence of the Palestinians themselves, or their firing rockets into Israel!"Gaza is a concentration camp. The inhabitants of Gaza actin defense of their lives, to the extent the hell to which they are condemned can be called "life" at all. That is: "When you leave people no choice but to engage in violence, they'll engage in violence." This, too, must never be acknowledged.

The torture that Israel inflicts on Gaza is of a rare, uncommon refinement; this is torture that is endlessly inventive, forever finding new ways of prolonging the suffering of its victims. Consider:

In 2010, Israel relaxed its economic siege following an international outcry over its deadly raid of a Turkish-flagged humanitarian flotilla, allowing Gazans to legally import more consumer goods. Hamas took the opportunity to transform the tunnels, which were previously used for only basic consumer goods, into a government-sanctioned trade route for raw construction materials and cheap Egyptian petrol, fueling the economic boom of 2011 and 2012.

The rapid, subterranean inflow through the tunnels spurred a bustling construction sector that accounted for 27 percent of job growth in the Gaza Strip in 2011, private sector groups say.

The economy improved so much that, according to a September poll released by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, just 9 percent of Palestinians believe the blockade on Gaza is the most serious problem facing Palestinian society today. ...

Devastated by the economic siege, during which 30 percent of Gaza’s businesses closed, the economy grew a staggering 20 percent in 2011, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Per capita gross domestic product also increased by 19 percent in 2011.

“The role the [Hamas] government is playing is a positive one. It facilitated the entrance of construction materials, and allowed them to be delivered at reasonable prices,” Nasser Al Helow, a Gazan business mogul with real estate investments and an import business, said in July.

“This affected unemployment and stimulated other economic sectors,” he said.

Live!, said Israel, at least a little bit, at least for a little while. As in the case of a man dying of thirst, the Gazans eagerly drank the water they so desperately needed. They fiercely seized the brief opportunity they were provided. They lived to the degree they could, and some conditions temporarily improved in significant ways.

But Gaza was still a concentration camp:

Since that initial boom, Egypt closed many of the commercial tunnels in reaction to a deadly militant attack on Egyptian soldiers near the Gaza border. The closures curbed some of the freewheeling economic activity.

Construction imports are now down 45 percent and food imports 30 percent, according to October data released by the Portland Trust, a private sector group in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

Forty-four percent of Gazan refugees are still reliant on food aid, while 60 percent of households are either food-insecure or vulnerable to food insecurity, according to the United Nations Relief Works Agency.

This poverty is likely to deepen in the wake of the ongoing Israeli military offensive. Gaza is still closed to exports through Israeli crossings, which hampers efforts to build a full-fledged economy free from foreign aid.

But a surplus of raw materials already in Gaza because of the boom, an uptick in trade through the Israeli crossings and the ease with which fuel is transported through the tunnels — in thin hoses requiring little solid infrastructure — means the economy has not yet received a knockout blow, economists say.

That "knockout blow" is all too likely to be delivered in the near future.

It is close to impossible to describe sadism of this kind in the required terms. To subject a vast number of human beings to unimaginable suffering, then to hold out the brief promise of life and perhaps even a measurable degree of happiness -- only to snatch all of it away once more ... The scope of this particular evil seeks to protect itself from judgment and condemnation by making itself ungraspable to anyone who is still recognizably human.

As has happened every time before, the world watches -- and the world does nothing. More horrifying is the fact that the most powerful nation on earth, the United States,supports this evil and guarantees that it will not only continue, but very probably get still worse. Any individual who expected a different response from the United States in any respect at all has blinded himself to the nature of the United States generally, and to the significance of the Obama administration more particularly. For the Obama administration has engaged in a worldwide campaign of death for four years, and promises to continue the campaign into the indefinite future. And Obama and his fellow murderers repeatedly proclaim their "right" to murder any innocent human being wherever he may be in the world, for any reason they invent and even for no reason at all. A nation led by a group of serial murderers will hardly object to another country's program of sadism. That Israel's practice of sadism is so remarkably creative -- that it inflicts pain and suffering in an endless variety of ways, over a prolonged period of time -- is likely only to provoke envy on the part of Obama and his fellow murderers, and perhaps the thought that Israel might have some very useful ideas worthy of adoption.

This is evil of an unusual kind, evil that delights in its own cruelty, evil that seeks no end other than the satisfaction of watching its victims suffer for years on end, with a glimmer of hope offered now and then -- but solely for the purpose of making the suffering to come even more painful.

And there is no end in sight.

Part II is via: "Power Of Narrative"

The Turkish-French Connection

Will Turkey's Anger Over France's Move To Criminalise any Denial Of The 1915 Killing Of Armenians As Genocide Sour Ties? 

Inside Story 
Last Modified: 23 Dec 2011 15:32 
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"

The lower house of the French parliament has approved a bill on Thursday that would make it a crime to deny that the killings by Ottoman Turks more than 90 years ago were genocide.

"It's part of the French election campaign and it's unfortunate that Turkish frustrations have [fallen victim to] political aspirations. But I disagree that the new French law is a reflection of what already exists in European law because the French law is penalising or criminalising freedom of thought." - Yusuf Kanli, Turkish columnist

The proposed sentence is one year in prison and a $59,000 fine.

Turkey vehemently rejects the term genocide and has withdrawn its ambassador because of the vote.

The dispute is expected to further harm Turkish-French relations - already strained by French President Nicolas Sarkozy's repeated rejection of Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

In this show we ask: What are the motives of the French move and to what extent is it politically motivated? And why is Turkey so angry?

Inside Story with presenter Mike Hanna discusses with guests: Claire Mouradian, an Armenian specialist at the Institute for Scientific Research; Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, a French political journalist and columnist for the Sunday Telegraph; and Yusuf Kanli, a columnist for the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News.

Algerian War Of Independence From The French

1954-1962 

Submitted By "Sayf Maslul" 
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera" 

24 minutes documentary about the Algerian war. Great vintage footage and interviews of veteran French men who were drafted, of Harkis (Algerians fighting for the French) and european settlers who had to leave Algeria after it became independent again in 1962. Many Algerians in turn immigrated to France and all whop were involved one way or another in the fight bear the scars of the conflict even t More..o this day.

Until 1999 this war was unacknowledged by the French government. It was only after Jacques Chirac recognized it officially that the oppressive silence was lifted and people concerned started to talk about it.

What strikes me the most is to see old men weep. Men are supposed not to let their emotions out but how good is it for a society when mental agony remains a taboo subject? How good can such a man be to his wife and children? To society at large? What values will he transmit to the generation that is following him if essential issues of human rights expressed through war and foreign policy cannot be addressed?

This conflict bears striking similarities with the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. People, men, fight to free their country from foreign occupation. As simple as that. They are "irregulars" because they are not part of a state-ruled army but what if their leader is corrupt and a traitor, then who will fight to free their country? Are they supposed to accept the occupation? Of course not! But by joinint the resistance they become "unlawful combatants" and are not protected by the Geneva convention. The French used this reasoning, just like Busk Jr did after the invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

History repeats itself, nothing new under the sun.

Fear Rules

By Paul Craig Roberts
June 10, 2009
Courtesy Of "Information Clearing House"

The power of irrational fear in the US is extraordinary. It ranks up there with the Israel Lobby, the military/security complex, and the financial gangsters. Indeed, fear might be the most powerful force in America.

Americans are at ease with their country’s aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, which has resulted in a million dead Muslim civilians and several million refugees, because the US government has filled Americans with fear of terrorists. “We have to kill them over there before they come over here.”

Fearful of American citizens, the US government is building concentration camps apparently all over the country. According to news reports, a $385 million US government contract was given by the Bush/Cheney Regime to Cheney’s company, Halliburton, to build “detention centers” in the US. The corporate media never explained for whom the detention centers are intended.

Most Americans dismiss such reports. “It can’t happen here.” However, In northeastern Florida not far from Tallahassee, I have seen what might be one of these camps. There is a building inside a huge open area fenced with razor wire. There is no one there and no signs. The facility appears new and unused and does not look like an abandoned prisoner work camp.

What is it for?

Who spent all that money for what?

There are Americans who are so terrified of their lives being taken by terrorists that they are hoping the US government will use nuclear weapons to destroy “the Muslim enemy.” The justifications concocted for the use of nuclear bombs against Japanese civilian populations have had their effect. There are millions of Americans who wish “their” government would kill everyone that “their” government has demonized.

When I tell these people that they will die of old age without ever seeing a terrorist, they think I am insane. Don’t I know that terrorists are everywhere in America? That’s why we have airport security and homeland security. That’s why the government is justified in breaking the law to spy on citizens without warrants. That’s why the government is justified to torture people in violation of US law and the Geneva Conventions. If we don’t torture them, American cities will go up in mushroom clouds. Dick Cheney tells us this every week.

Terrorists are everywhere. “They hate us for our freedom and democracy.” When I tell
America’s alarmed citizens that the US has as many stolen elections as any country and that our civil liberties have been eroded by “the war on terror” they lump me into the terrorist category. They automatically conflate factual truth with anti-Americanism.

The same mentality prevails with regard to domestic crime. Most Americans, including, unfortunately, juries, assume that if the police make a case against a person and a prosecutor prosecutes it, the defendant is guilty. Most Americans are incapable of believing that police or a prosecutor would frame an innocent person for career or bureaucratic reasons or out of pure meanness.

Yet, it happens all the time. Indeed, it is routine.

Frame-ups are so routine that 96% of the criminally accused will not risk a “jury of their peers,” preferring to negotiate a plea bargain agreement with the prosecutor. The jury of their peers are a brainwashed lot, fearful of crime, which they have never experienced but hear about all the time. Criminals are everywhere, doing their evil deeds.

The US has a much higher percentage of its population in prison than “authoritarian” countries, such as China, a one-party state. An intelligent population might wonder how a “freedom and democracy” country could have incarceration rates far higher than a dictatorship, but Americans fail this test. The more people that are put in prison, the safer Americans feel.

Lawrence Stratton and I describe frame-up techniques in The Tyranny of Good Intentions. Police and prosecutors even frame the guilty, as it is easier than convicting them on the evidence.

One case that has been before us for years, but is resolutely neglected by the corporate media, whose function is to scare the people, is that of Troy Davis.

Troy Davis was convicted of killing a police officer. The only evidence connecting him to the crime is the testimony of “witnesses,” the vast majority of whom have withdrawn their testimony. The witnesses say they testified falsely against Troy Davis because of police intimidation and coercion.

One would think that this would lead to a new hearing and trial. But not in America. The Republican judicial nazis have created the concept of “finality.” Even if the evidence shows that a wrongfully convicted person is innocent, finality requires that we execute him. If the convicted person is executed, we can assume he was guilty, because America has a pure justice system and never punishes the innocent. Everyone in prison and everyone executed is guilty. Otherwise, they they wouldn’t be in prison or executed.

It is all very simple if you are an American. America is pure, but other countries, except for our allies, are barbaric.

The same goes for our wars. Everyone we kill, whether they are passengers on Serbian commuter trains or attending weddings, funerals, or children playing soccer in Iraq, is a terrorist, or we would not have killed them. So was the little girl who was raped by our terrorist-fighting troops and then murdered, brutally, along with her family.

America only kills terrorists. If we kill you, you are a terrorist.

Americans are the salt of the earth. They never do any wrong. Only those other people do. Not the Israelis, of course.

And police, prosecutors, and juries never make mistakes. Everyone accused is guilty.

Fear has made every American a suspect, eroded our rights, and compromised our humanity.