Interesting Times

Tzipi Livni shrugged off the criticism of Israel's bombing of structures near the Islamic College in Gaza, being heard throughout the academic world.

As easily as she dismisses criticism of the destruction of a school, she also dismisses the creation of a Palestinian state, the Palestinian right of return, international calls to stop settlement building and Olmert's call for return to 1967 borders. And the above shrug was followed by this swift kick:

..."here we have departments of life sciences, while for them it is the department of death sciences." [source]

And you can see Israel's (and America's) "life sciences" in action in the Gaza Strip today! White phosphorus! Depleted uranium! Hellfire missiles! Here's to "life sciences" and the culture of life - Israeli-style! All those Pali's know is death, right? Must be one of Israel's PR talking points because the same thing keeps cropping up in defense of Israel, including this from Barry Rubin: "Israel uses its time not only for military preparations but to educate its children, build its infrastructure, raise its living standards. Hamas doesn't. 'We believe in death,' Hamas says, 'You believe in life.'" So here's to life! Here come the F-16s and drones and helicopters and warships and tanks. LeChaim! 

Israel's foreign minister called the Gaza operation "a necessary war on terror" adding that "We don't sign agreements with terror; we fight terror," during a news conference Monday afternoon in Jerusalem. [source]

But you are terror. You are using military might to terrorize citizens into changing who they support politically. You are sending them the message that they are only allowed to support who you support - agents of Israel who will sell out their own people to give Israel the time and space to continue creating new "facts on the ground" so that no true 2-state solution is possible and Palestinians will have no choice other than to resist and die or give up and go away because Israel will not allow one democratic state for everybody.

Israel's foreign ministry quoted Livni as having said in a statement during a trip to Paris that "there is no humanitarian crisis in the [Gaza] Strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce." [source]

Perhaps she thinks there are no humans in the Gaza Strip. Everyone else knows there has been a humanitarian crisis there for some time due to Israel's grip on it and it is being greatly worsened by this latest assault.

Amid the diplomatic efforts, Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, insisted Monday that Israel was "not only defending its right to defend itself" but was also waging a regional campaign "against extremism and against terror." [source]

So, Israel is carrying out "Operation Cast Lead" to defend its right to defend itself (i.e. its right to exist as a thieving, murdering, racist state) and is using extremism and terror in a campaign against extremism and terror. They admit they are not actually defending themselves as what they are doing will not increase their security at all, but they are defending their right to do what they are doing even though what they are doing doesn?t do any good and actually makes things worse for everyone. Also, they do not see Palestinians as having the same rights to exist and to defend and to do what they are doing even though it won?t do any good. This is pure insanity and what it means is that Israel lost before it even began. Truly. It is self-defeating and self-defeated. It has nullified its own imagined rights by nullifying the exact same rights of others and it has nullified any supposed fight against extremism and terror by using extremism and terror.

"Israel is part of the free world and fights extremism and terrorism. Hamas is not,"

she said."These are the days when every individual in the region and in the world has to choose a side," Livni said. [source]

Israel keeps trying to draw a line between Hamas and Gazans, saying they are not targeting or fighting Gazans, only Hamas, even though Hamas was democratically elected to power. I guess they also have not been starving Gazans, only starving Hamas, and have not been choking the economic development of Gazans, only Hamas (even before there was a Hamas!). Israel (and it?s America) will not allow Hamas or Gaza to be part of the "free world". (Free as in no more outside absolute contol over airspace and seaspace and crossings and economy?) Israel won't even allow them to keep a ceasefire. Yes, Israel broke the truce first and even earlier than mainstream sources are finally acknowledging - on the first day it was supposed to go into effect - but Hamas kept trying to sustain it until the time was up while Israel kept provoking responses from various Gazan groups, creating a miserable "justification" for the massacre they were planning all along.

Israel also tries to draw a line between itself and Hamas - we are legitimate, they are not; our fight is legitimate, theirs is not; our government is legitimate, theirs is not; our terrorism is justifiable, theirs is not. Somebody call "bullshit" already.

Here is what Israel?s attitude and actions lead to (bearing in mind that Israel started all this with it's longstanding campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians so that it could have a "democratic" of-the-Jews, by-the-Jews and for-the-Jews state on Palestinian land):

"We salute the resistance men," al-Zahar said in a televised address from an undisclosed location in Gaza.

"They [Israeli forces] shelled everyone in Gaza ... they shelled children and hospitals and mosques and in doing so, they gave us legitimacy to strike them in the same way," he said.

He is right to salute the resistance men, but he is wrong that what Israel has done gives Hamas (or anyone) legitimacy to do the same. Our Creator does not give us that right and it is not for us to claim what has not been given us by our Creator. Those who are obedient to their Creator, and those who have any shred of goodness in them, do not kill children and other civilians (with or without "targeting" them) even if they are in the "wrong place at the wrong time". They do not harm places of worship or hospitals or cultivated fields and groves or drinking water. They find other ways to fulfill their right and obligation to fight those who oppress them and have turned them out of their homes (which Israel has done and continues doing to Palestinians).

Israel is claiming that they have the right to kill civilians by virtue of the fact that they do not target civilians. What?! Palestinian freedom fighters, please, do not fall into the trap that has been laid for you and similarly claim you have the right to target Israel's civilians by virtue of the fact that Israel kills yours. If you do, there will be no "side" for us (who support the right of Palestine to exist and the right of Palestinians to defend themselves and the right of Palestinians to return) to "choose" (according to Tzipi's instructions) because both sides will be the same and all will be lost.

The Global War OF Terror which terrorist nations evoke in place after place to destroy all resistance to their hegemony will eventually be defeated by truth and justice and integrity (not the empty words and pretentious masks but the real deal), God willing, and that is the side we must choose, that is the side we must be on, whatever illusion of success the terrorists may enjoy meanwhile. We are not terrorists and we cannot allow them to turn us into terrorists.

It is too bad for Tzipi Livni that she has made the wrong choice, that she has chosen to support and encourage the terrorist actions of a terrorist state. If one must effectively, in all but name, become a terrorist in order to fight, and possibly win, the so-called War on Terror (created by terrorists for terrorists) then perhaps it is better to be killed, better to die refusing to become the enemy than to have to live with oneself as the enemy. But only for those of conscience. Those without can do whatever they like and rarely are they strongly opposed or called by their true names - sociopaths, psychopaths, terrorists. Our governments and militaries and corporations are headed by them; they get where they are because they are not afraid to do "whatever it takes".

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met with Tony Blair, envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East, in Jerusalem on Monday and told him that "the Quartet has set clear conditions for the recognition of Hamas, and the organization is not acting according to them."

Hamas has also set clear conditions for the recognition of Israel which Israel is not acting according to nor is even willing to acknowledge or discuss because that wouldn't give Israel what it wants which is, not peace and not partners in peace, but Eretz Yisrael and complete domination of the Middle East and beyond.

Livni added that "facing the Hamas terror that Israel is fighting, and with the moderates in the region, Israel wants to hold a dialogue. In order for there to be a political horizon here, we must fight the terror." In response Blair [responding with a one-liner of his own] said, "Peace can come only when there is quiet in the region, and we will do whatever it takes to bring this quiet." [source]

"Whatever it takes". Even genocide. "Whatever it takes". As long as it doesn't involve granting Palestinians the same rights as Israelis - the right to exist, the right of self-defense, the right of real sovereignty, the right of return. "Whatever it takes" is only ok for Israel and whoever else the US and UK grant permission; it does not apply to the struggle of Palestinians. They are required to play by entirely different rules.

 Strange. The more our mealy-mouthed leaders talk, the more we may feel like throwing more than our shoes at their heads. Is it not time for a Global Intifada? Is it not past time? The sham Global War On Terror and its "same old" pseudo-justifications repeated ad nauseum demand it.

How will we respond?

Rise up. Shake off. Dare to be different.