Some thoughts on the slaughter.

Statement by Prof. Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
By: RIchard Falk
The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war.

The IAF, bullies of the clear blue skies
By: Gideon Levy
Our finest young men are attacking Gaza now. Good boys from good homes are doing bad things. Most of them are eloquent, impressive, self-confident, often even highly principled in their own eyes, and on Black Saturday dozens of them set out to bomb some of the targets in our "target bank" for the Gaza Strip.

Party to Murder
By: Chris Hedges
Can anyone who is following the Israeli air attacks on Gaza—the buildings blown to rubble, the children killed on their way to school, the long rows of mutilated corpses, the wailing mothers and wives, the crowds of terrified Palestinians not knowing where to flee, the hospitals so overburdened and out of supplies they cannot treat the wounded, and our studied, callous indifference to this widespread human suffering—wonder why we are hated?

From the ashes of Gaza
By Tariq Ali
The assault on Gaza, planned over six months and executed with perfect timing, was designed largely, as Neve Gordon has rightly observed, to help the incumbent parties triumph in the forthcoming Israeli elections. The dead Palestinians are little more than election fodder in a cynical contest between the right and the far right in Israel

If Gaza falls . . .
By: Sara Roy
Israel’s siege of Gaza began on 5 November, the day after an Israeli attack inside the strip, no doubt designed finally to undermine the truce between Israel and Hamas established last June. Although both sides had violated the agreement before, this incursion was on a different scale. Hamas responded by firing rockets into Israel and the violence has not abated since then.
How can keeping food and medicine from the people of Gaza protect the people of Israel? How can the impoverishment and suffering of Gaza’s children – more than 50 per cent of the population – benefit anyone? International law as well as human decency demands their protection. If Gaza falls, the West Bank will be next.

Chomsky on the eve of his 80th birthday.

stuff

Mormon Homophobia
By SHELDON RAMPTON
The question remains, of course, whether Hamlin is right that supporters of gay rights should refrain from "directly targeting people in their private life" by protesting and arguing with individual Mormons who have participated in the church's anti-gay campaigns. Certainly protesters should refrain from belligerence, threats and intimidation. However, the only way Mormon attitudes are going to change on this issue is through confrontation.

Unilever to sell stake in plant based in West Bank settlement
By Toni O'Loughlin in Jerusalem
"International law prohibits the confiscation of occupied land not for military purposes,"

Change.

One thing has changed as a result of the election of Obama. That change is that people who used to enjoy my attacking the President are no longer interested. The criticism was welcomed when the other team had the ball but now that it has changed hands criticism is not accepted.
Pretty fucking sad.