new this week on peacepalestine

["mary" <humdrum2 at libero.it>]

New this week on Peacepalestine http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/

 

Gaza Hospitals' Agony; Medicine stopped by sanctions - an Italian reportage "Nonetheless, nothing like Shifa hospital, the biggest one (with its 600 beds and 2,000 patients coming here each day) not only in Gaza but even amongst those under PA jurisdiction in the Territories, can display the distress imposed by the sanctions’ regime.

 

What results from this is the proof of the theorem, already demonstrated many times and in other different parts of the Middle East, according to which sanctions against governments are actually detrimental to the civilian population and, after all, by striking the weakest, they only strenthen those rulers one would allegedly like to oust."

Sam Bahour - Why Palestinian Strife is Escalating "Neighborhood shopkeepers, who regularly provided customers with lines of credit, have mostly stopped this age-old practice. Palestinians recognize that they are caught between a rock and a hard place. They elected Hamas to oust a corrupt government and after years of a "peace process" that only made their lives worse, with the dramatic expansion of Jewish-only settlements and roads on their land.

Now, they are being punished by the international community that prefers the old corrupt government."

 

Halliburton Solves Global Warming "The SurvivaBall is designed to protect the corporate manager no matter what Mother Nature throws his or her way," said Fred Wolf, a Halliburton representative who spoke today at the Catastrophic Loss conference held at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Amelia Island, Florida. "

This technology is the only rational response to abrupt climate change," he said to an attentive and appreciative audience. Most scientists believe global warming is certain to cause an accelerating onslaught of hurricanes, floods, droughts, tornadoes, etc. and that a world-destroying disaster is increasingly possible.

For example, Arctic melt has slowed the Gulf Stream by 30% in just the last decade; if the Gulf Stream stops, Europe will suddenly become just as cold as Alaska. Global heat and flooding events are also increasingly possible. In order to head off such catastrophic scenarios, scientists agree we must reduce our carbon emissions by 70% within the next few years. Doing that would seriously undermine corporate profits, however, and so a more forward-thinking solution is needed.

 

Ernesto Paramo - The Man who would deliver his people to Israel "Many observers always suspected that Abbas was an instrument of Israeli policy and the man Ariel Sharon hand-picked to take charge of a Fatah government in Palestine that would be subservient to his designs for a greater Israel. However, it seems that Abbas is now confident enough that the Hamas government will not survive for long and that the Palestinian people will be so hurt that they will not complain if he brings back, again, the corrupt oligarchs of the Fatah old guard to run a government of “National Salvation”, that he no longer sees any need for any more pretence."

Nakba 58 years later, two accounts "In addition to the refugee problem, Israel has little to be proud of when it comes to its neighbors, the Palestinians. Crammed into demeaning cantons, each city severed from the next, fighting off poverty, unemployment and international condemnation for resisting 39 years of Israeli military occupation, the Palestinians are clear proof that Israel is a country based on racism and double standards. As it oppresses, occupies and aims to annihilate the national cause of an entire people, it portrays itself to the world as a democracy and a peace-loving nation under fire.

Even Israelis themselves have truly come to believe this fallacy. On May 3, as Israelis marked the beginning of independence celebrations, Acting Knesset Speaker Shimon Peres said Israeli citizens can look back on their past with satisfaction. Peres was also quick to add the Palestinians into the mix as well."

 

"I turn, first and foremost, to our neighbors the Palestinians. This evening too we are proffering beautiful days of peace, the squeeze of a handshake of peace rather than a squeezing of the trigger," he said."    Johara Baker

 

"For a few moments I could see the settlement and what can I describe other than that I found the sky lit up as if it were Doomsday. And then it came to me. I knew what was taking place. And as I stood, still feeling the terror that had seized me, I realized the painful truth that my last moments were in vain. In that moment I did not know whether to laugh at the intensity of my stupidity or to weep from the pain I had felt from what I saw."     Fadi Abu Sada

How Palestine Became Israel - Deir Yassin Day 2006 "How Palestine Became Israel was a compilation of four pieces: In Our Own Little World and Friday Morning by Carmey, The Water Urn by Issa Abu Srour, and Far Away from a Nearby Village by Abdel Fattah Abu Srour, who won the playwrights competition.

The production opened to a packed house with Ahmad Masoud and the al-Zaytouna Dabke Group but then, somewhat primed for a nostalgic evening of song and dance, we heard a little more than we had bargained for"