Right before Yom Kippur, too

A mitzvah this ain't. From Politico -

A White House official told Jewish leaders on a conference call today that the U.S. will use its veto in the U.N. Security Council, if necessary, to block the international body from acting on a report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza, according to two people on the call.

[Jay V edit: it's the 575-page Goldstone report by a fact-finding mission organised by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council.]

The National Security Council's Dan Shapiro said President Obama assured the Israeli Prime Minister yesterday of the U.S stand on the Goldstone Report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, which has been a source of major concern for the Israelis. Shapiro said the U.S. agrees with the Israeli view that the report is one-sided, and would block a referral to the International Criminal Court.

The U.S. pledge comes as the Israeli side was already declaring victory in avoiding a total freeze on settlements, and it's likely to further alienate Palestinian leaders whom the U.S. is simultaneously trying to lure to the negotiating table.

The JTA, which broke the news, has more background on the subject.

Cross posted at Antimedius and Blazing Indiscretions.

"He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.' "

Poem
Mending Wall, by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

This post is motiviated by a comment on a post today at Lenin's Tomb.

Cross posted at Antemedius and Blazing Indiscretions.

We Will Not Go Down by Michael Heart

Be prepared to cry...

Photos from Palestinian Mothers Website

I grieve for the victims of the massacre in Gaza and in all places of war. Please visit Palestinian Mothers to view these and more unfiltered images and to read the latest accounts from Gaza.

Two Ways to Make Peace in Gaza

Here are two ways to make peace happen in Gaza. To expect major results we need big changes.

Boycott Israel: In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups published their plan, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions--or BDS for short. Naomi Klein, in The Nation, explains the campaign and how it works in the article "Israel: Boycott, Divest, Sanction." Boycotts can be controversial, so she also lays out objections to the BDS campaign and addresses them one by one. It is long past time, she says, to apply the same pressures to Israel that brought about justice in South Africa. Her article [linked above] is well worth a look.

Stop U.S. Aid: President George W. Bush's administration alone provided over $21 billion dollars in U.S. security aid, including $19 billion in direct military aid as freebies.

"Israel's intervention in the Gaza Strip has been fueled largely by U.S. supplied weapons paid for with U.S. tax dollars," says the New America Foundation. That much assistance should purchase considerable influence to dissuade Israel from its pattern of claiming self-defense while perpetrating human rights abuses.

Make no mistake about it-Israel's war and siege on the Gaza Strip would not be possible without the jets, helicopters, ships, missiles, and fuel provided by the United States. Pro-Gaza forces in the U.S. must ramp up political pressure to bring justice onto the bargaining table.

This war is stop-able. The future will be changed for the better. The plan is in place. We just need to get to work.

Tattered Shirt

Odd is it that I should think of clothing
While looking at the horrific picture above.

Read the rest...

(Thank you, betmo... for the inspiration)

This is what our government is giving it's unconditional support to.

War on Gaza

A war?

"Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, said Israel is engaged in a 'war to the bitter end' against Hamas in Gaza. A war? Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely crowded refugee camps and slums, to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command and control, no army, and calls it a war. It is not a war. It is murder."

Chris Hedges

Read the rest of his article at the above link.

blogging where i am

i am not a political blogger per se- i mean i certainly have blogged political issues for years but mostly, i try to blog around where i am at at any given time. at present, i am tapped out. i suspect many of us feel that way after living through the last 8 years. frankly, i don't know that any of us ever really recovered from 9/11/01. no, i am not pulling a giuliani- whether it be foreign terrorists- or domestic as i believe, the attacks damaged the american psyche. having said that, i have seen the american spirit be 'misunderestimated' by the neocons time and again- and i won't be sorry to see them out of positions of power come january. gone but not forgotten.

but as life intrudes on politics- i find myself overwhelmed by it. the crushing worry and loss is really taking its toll on me spiritually- and as supportive as my friends are- it's much to handle. i won't go into blow by blow- but finances and personal loss in the family recently- leaves a hole. being the sole support system for my family has emotionally wiped me out. sigh.

and then, i started thinking about all of the families in iraq and gaza and afghanistan and lebanon- displaced and homeless in many cases with loved ones missing or dead or wounded- and i thought how lucky i am to have such things in my life to worry about. apples and oranges i am sure- but human beings are all the same underneath. we all feel the same types of emotions- we all love our families (or hate them), we bleed red, and our hearts break or swell with joy. we are all people and we all share the same planet. and as hopeless and helpless as many american situations are- we have created so much more for those folks.

i haven't written too much about the atrocities in gaza. mainly due to feeling the same white hot anger at the israeli government that i have felt towards the bushco cabal. i had to pick a battle and i chose to deal with the issues i felt i could have the most (little to none) control over the outcome. i guess i don't really care that the israelis believe that israel was given to them by god. i guess i don't care that they demand the right to exist as a jewish state. you see, they lost their credibility the moment that they stopped fighting terrorists and started wholesale genocide against the palestinians. there was a time when hamas and the palestinians committed terrorist acts against civilians in israel- and they were roundly condemned for that.

but that time is over. now, the israeli government- against the wishes of many israelis- have rounded the palestinians up and put them behind walls so that access is limited to them. that way, you see, folks in the outside world can't see the forced starvation and horrible living conditions the arabic folks are living through. only the names of the 'palestinian areas' in israel are different- but forcing people to starve and go without basic necessities of life such as medical help and water/sanitation, etc. and walling them in- well, sounds an awful lot like a detention facility for thousands. forcing these people to only travel in certain areas with identification and under the careful guns of the army- sounds familiar also. yes- i am comparing it to the forced roundups of jews in europe during world war 2. the single biggest reason that so many jews returned to palestine to start with. within a generation- everything that they had lost and learned-- had been lost again. they learned nothing.

so, while i continue to try and quiet the sadness and soothe my psyche- i have the luxury of food to eat, water to drink and wash with, garbage pickup, emergency rooms, bandaids, antibiotics, getting in my car and going where i want with no repercussions- or just staying home in my quiet neighborhood in my quiet home with those who love me and good friends. and i continue to marvel at the ugliness that can be human nature.