[video] Security council votes no to Palestinian statehood

Zionism wins again by one vote? US and Australia said no. Go figure.

Jewish Leaders Blast Clinton Over Israel Criticism

In a swift about face from her views as New York’s senator, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now hammering Israel over its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.

As First Lady, Clinton raised eyebrows when she kissed Suha Arafat.

Since she was then seeking a Senate seat the resulting brouhaha caused her to “re-think” her positions.

“I’m a very strong supporter of Israel,” Clinton said back in February 2000.

On Thursday, as Secretary of State she had yet another about face in the form of angry messages demanding Israel speed up aid to Gaza. Jewish leaders are furious.

“I am very surprised, frankly, at this statement from the United States government and from the secretary of state,” said Mortimer Zuckerman, publisher of the New York Daily News and member of the NYC Jewish Community Relations Council.

“I liked her a lot more as a senator from New York,” Assemblyman Dov Hikind, D-Brooklyn, said. “Now, I wonder as I used to wonder who the real Hillary Clinton is.”

Clinton’s decision to hammer Israel comes as the Clintons and President Barack Obama are planning to give the Palestinians $900 million toward the rebuilding of Gaza in the wake of the Israeli offensive that was sparked by Hamas rocket fire.

“We are working across the government to see what our approach will be,” Clinton said.

“I don’t believe that we should be in a position at this point to do anything to strengthen Hamas,” Zuckerman said. “We surely know what Hamas stands for as I say they are the forward battalions of Iran.”

[video] Ron Paul says Israel started Hamas

The state of Gaza Strip has been very quiet since Pres. Obama has taken office, and basically all the tragedies there have been virtually blocked out from the mainstream news outlets. While browsing youtube looking at some nonsense I found this very riveting video from Ron Paul speaking about the creation of Hamas.

Newsweek: Israel Has Fewer Friends Than Ever, Even in America

via Newsweek

As Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton begin to use their uncommon authority and intelligence to implement a new American international agenda, it might behoove them to read a speech given some years ago in Beijing. It read in part: “If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights for one and for all. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely—and the right to be heard. Women must enjoy the rights to participate fully in the social and political lives of their countries if we want freedom and democracy to thrive and endure.”

Secretary Clinton was first lady when she spoke those words at a United Nations conference on women in 1995. Some of the participants wept to hear an influential American commit to a view of the world so many of them shared: that the way for nations to prosper was to pay attention to women’s rights, women’s welfare and women’s concerns.

Obama urges Israel to open Gaza borders

This guy really seems like he’s determined to completely steer this country on a different course. I definitely applaud him for this. He was silent while he awaited his chance to speak his peace, and when he said something it was a statement full of character. Kudos to Obama.

via FT

President Barack Obama urged Israel on Thursday to open its borders with Gaza.

The plea came in a speech that signalled the new US administration’s shift from Bush-era policy on the Middle East and the world as a whole. In a high-profile address on his second day in office, just hours after he signed an executive order to close the centre at Guantánamo Bay, Mr Obama proclaimed that the US would “actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians” in the wake of this month’s Gaza war.

“The outline for a durable ceasefire is clear: Hamas must end its rocket fire: Israel will complete the withdrawal of its forces from Gaza: the US and our partners will support a credible anti-smuggling and interdiction regime, so that Hamas cannot re-arm,” the US president said.

“As part of a lasting ceasefire, Gaza’s border crossings should be open to allow the flow of aid and commerce, with an appropriate monitoring regime, with the international and Palestinian Authority participating.”

President Obama’s first call ‘was to President Abbas’

via Times Online

President Obama placed the Middle East at the forefront of his first hours in office yesterday as he sought to make good on his promise of “ushering in a new era of peace”.

In a flurry of telephone calls from the Oval Office, he reached out to leaders in the region and vowed to engage immediately in pursuit of a permanent Arab-Israeli settlement.

The spokesman for President Abbas revealed that Mr Obama had told the Palestinian leader that their conversation was his first with a foreign statesman since taking office. Mr Obama also spoke to President Mubarak of Egypt, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, and King Abdullah of Jordan.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said that the talks with Middle East leaders underlined a “commitment to active engagement in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace from the beginning of his term”. He added: “In the aftermath of the Gaza conflict, he emphasised his determination to work to help consolidate the ceasefire by establishing an effective anti-smuggling regime to prevent Hamas from rearming, and facilitating, in partnership with the Palestinian Authority, a major reconstruction effort.”

A Gaza War Full of Traps and Trickery

via NY Times

JERUSALEM — The grinding urban battle unfolding in the densely populated Gaza Strip is a war of new tactics, quick adaptation and lethal tricks.

Hamas, with training from Iran and Hezbollah, has used the last two years to turn Gaza into a deadly maze of tunnels, booby traps and sophisticated roadside bombs. Weapons are hidden in mosques, schoolyards and civilian houses, and the leadership’s war room is a bunker beneath Gaza’s largest hospital, Israeli intelligence officials say.

Unwilling to take Israel’s bait and come into the open, Hamas militants are fighting in civilian clothes; even the police have been ordered to take off their uniforms. The militants emerge from tunnels to shoot automatic weapons or antitank missiles, then disappear back inside, hoping to lure the Israeli soldiers with their fire.

In one apartment building in Zeitoun, in northern Gaza, Hamas set an inventive, deadly trap. According to an Israeli journalist embedded with Israeli troops, the militants placed a mannequin in a hallway off the building’s main entrance. They hoped to draw fire from Israeli soldiers who might, through the blur of night vision goggles and split-second decisions, mistake the figure for a fighter. The mannequin was rigged to explode and bring down the building.

In an interview, the reporter, Ron Ben-Yishai, a senior military correspondent for the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, said soldiers also found a pile of weapons with a grenade launcher on top. When they moved the launcher, “they saw a detonator light up, but somehow it didn’t go off.”

Gaza war tourism – Keren Levy: I’m a little bit fascist

[note:] Don’t mind the Yiddish in the beginning. The translation comes through in due time for you to hear an Israeli lady say she hopes the army wipes the city of Palestine off of the face of the Earth. Despicable fail.

[video] Kissinger: Perfect Time for Obama to Usher in “New World Order”

Somebody has got to watch these ‘Sly Foxes.’  While the house is burning keep ya eye on the chicken coup because that’s where you’ll find those conniving foxes.  This “Deacon of Death” Henry Kissinger continuosly openly refers to Obama ushering in the purported “New World Order” style of government that conspiracy theorists have been theorizing about for so long. I understand that some of these scenarios are so outlandish that they don’t deserve any decent time on a respectable site such as this, but when you see the board being laid out, step-by-step in accordance with these sinister plots you’ve been hearing about for over a decade, you gotta sit up and take notice.  To make matters worst, Kissinger is repeatedly thumbing his nose and referring to these plans in open because as far as they’re concerned they’ve already got this thing wrapped up.  See you at the inauguaration!!

Israeli troops and tanks slice deep into Gaza

 

via My Way News

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) – Thousands of Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships surrounded Gaza’s largest city and fought militants at close range Sunday, the first full day of an overwhelming ground offensive in the coastal territory.

Israel said it has inflicted a heavy blow against Hamas as it expands a weeklong offensive meant to stop rocket fire on southern Israel. But spiraling civilian casualties among Palestinians fueled an international outcry, even as the U.S. blocked approval of a U.N. Security Council statement Saturday night calling for an immediate cease-fire.

Israel’s ground forces moved in after nightfall Saturday following hours of intense, fiery artillery shelling to clear the way, and Hamas warned that its fighters would turn Gaza into an Israeli “graveyard.”

On Sunday, Israeli soldiers fought primarily in open areas in the launching zones used by Gaza’s militants to send rockets raining down on Israeli cities. As the troops in three brigade-size formations moved in, residents of those Israeli cities began cautiously emerging from bomb shelters in hopes that the rocket fire would taper off.

(AP) A Palestinian girl cries during the funeral of a relative that was killed in an Israeli air strike … Full Image

Backing up the troops, mobile artillery units fired shells that exploded in veils of white smoke over Gaza’s urban skyline. Tanks pushed south of Gaza City as deep as the abandoned settlement of Netzarim, which Israel left along with other communities when it pulled out of Gaza in 2005.

That effectively cut off Gaza City, the territory’s largest population center with some 400,000 residents, from the rest of Gaza to the south.

Israel’s military chief said Hamas fighters were trying to draw soldiers deeper into Gaza’s sprawling, densely packed urban areas, where the military said militants were shielding themselves behind civilians.

Mayor Bloomberg Travels to Israel Amidst War

Is Bloomberg sending the right message by siding with Israel in the middle of conflict?

via ABC

NEW YORK — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is heading to Israel along with police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and New York Rep. Gary Ackerman.

Spokesman Andrew Brent says the mayor “is going in order to show his support for Israel.”

The trip comes as Israel launches a ground offensive in Gaza following eight days of punishing airstrikes that failed to halt militant rocket attacks on Israel.

Bloomberg is scheduled to spend Sunday meeting with the mayors of Sderot and Ashkelon and with New Yorkers who have moved to Israel. He’s expected to be back in New York by Monday morning

The mayor has already voiced his support for Israel in recent days, saying he believes Israel has a right to defend itself.

[pics] Realities of the War on the Gaza Strip

These pics here show that we are never really shown the reality of war because many people would not be able to stomach the realities. We here of 100’s of bombs being dropped but never are we shown the death to innocent children that occurs. This conflict has been going on for at least 50 years and does not seem to be ending anytime soon.

via Reuters

A Palestinian holds the body of a girl killed after an Israeli air strike on the home of senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan in Gaza January 1, 2009. REUTERS/Ismail Zaydah

Palestinians stand at the scene after an Israeli air strike on the home of senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan in Gaza January 1, 2009.

Bombs fall as an explosion is seen after an Israeli air strike in the northern Gaza Strip January 1, 2009.

[video] US Military Aid Underpins Gaza Offensive

Bush’s Role in Palestinian Civil War

Amidst the political turmoil that is ravaging Palestine as it descends into all-out war with Israel, Vanity Fair has a compelling piece detailing the American involvement in these tragic turn of events.  For those who are always questioning how America always ends up in the middle of Middle Eastern conflicts this article details how Bush and Condelezza Rice assisted in the rampant instability that is erupting into chaos in this region of the world.  Meddling in other people’s affairs and pushing their own agenda on the world, this article will take you step by step into the backward planning process that has left this administration with the distinction of being the worst ever in office.  This debacle once exposed will rank up there with historic blunders like the Bay of Pigs, Iran-Contra and the Iraq invasion.  And they have the nerve to be harping on frivilous issues this election cycle like a candidates choice of dress or supposed “inexperience.”  If Americans only had a clue.  To read this compelling article in its entirety CLICK HERE.