Jane
Moderate Poster
Joined: 23 Aug 2005
Posts: 312
Location: Otley, West Yorks, England
|
 Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2006 5:47 am Post subject: |
 |
|
| Quote: | MASSACRE OF CANA
Mr THOMPSON (Rockdale) [4.20 p.m.]: Tomorrow, 18 April, is the first anniversary of what is now known as the massacre of Cana. Just 12 months ago Israeli shells rained down on a United Nations camp at Cana in south Lebanon where hundreds of women, children and elderly Lebanese civilians were sheltering. More than 100 innocent people were killed in the incident. The carnage occurred after more than two weeks of shelling and bombardment of Lebanon by Israeli ground, air and naval forces. Throughout that period more than 200 Lebanese civilians were killed and substantial parts of more than 40 villages, towns and city suburbs were destroyed. More than 500,000 people were displaced as a result of the attacks, having to flee their homes and live as refugees in tents, public buildings and schools.
Code named "The Grapes of Wrath", the Israeli operation was not limited to military targets. Residential areas, power stations, roads, a hospital and even an ambulance were wiped out in indiscriminate attacks. As always, it was the innocent civilian population that bore the brunt and took the consequences of the military action. As I said at the outset, this occurred only 12 months ago. Next Sunday I intend to join with the Australian Lebanese Solidarity Committee at a commemorative function in Hurstville where I will once again offer my condolences to the people of Lebanon for the tragic loss of so much innocent life. Many of my constituents came to Australia from Lebanon as refugees from conflict. Many still have family, friends and relatives in Lebanon, and many of them have lost loved ones. The tragedy at Cana was felt personally by them, as it was by all Lebanese Australians and for that matter the wider Australian and world community.
A United Nations report on the incident suggested that the bombardment of the United Nations camp at Cana was not merely a terrible mistake but a deliberate act. The whole world was a witness to the horror and I know I will never forget the radio report I heard in which a British Broadcasting Corporation radio journalist graphically described the tragedy in the immediate aftermath of the shelling - the terrible toll of human life and the unconscionable suffering inflicted on innocent people. It is a fact that for about 20 years Israeli forces have occupied part of southern Lebanon even though the United Nations, through resolution 425, has branded the occupation illegal and demanded withdrawal of those forces. I can understand that while Israeli troops continue to occupy Lebanese territory efforts will be made to dislodge them. No-one condones terrorism - certainly I do not - but I firmly believe it is the legitimate right of people to fight against occupation of their land by a foreign power, particularly so when the world body, the United Nations, brands the occupation as illegal.
I know that if a foreign power occupied part of Australia, I would vigorously support efforts to get rid of that power and re-establish Australian sovereignty over Australian land. I do not believe the position in Lebanon is any different. I know that the people of my electorate agree that there has been too much killing and too much destruction. That is why they and I support United Nations resolution 425, which demands the unconditional and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon. I have tried very hard to be totally objective in my assessment of the situation in southern Lebanon, but no matter which way I look at it the one constant issue remains as the prime cause of conflict and barrier to peace - that is, the continuing occupation of southern Lebanon.
As I said earlier, many of my constituents came from south Lebanon and they have an obvious concern for their old homeland and for their family and friends who are still there. It is on their behalf particularly that I will continue to demand that United Nations resolution 425 be implemented and that the human rights of all people be respected. If the killings, destruction and human rights abuses are to be stopped, Israeli forces must withdraw completely from Lebanon. Then and only then will true peace have a chance to take root, and to grow and flourish to the benefit of all. |
| Quote: | Cana: 102 Faceless Dead
Indignation of an Israeli Writer: Ari Shavit
We killed 190 people in Lebanon, most of whom were refugees, during the month of April, 1996. Many of them were women, old people and children. We killed 9 civilians, one a 2 year old girl and one, a centenarian, in Sahmour, on April 11th. We killed 11 civilians, including 7 children, in Nabatyeh, on April 18th. In the UN Camp in Cana, we killed 102 people. We made sure to inflict death from a distance. In a very secular manner, without the archaic idea of sin, without the tediluvian worry to consider man in the image of God, and without the primitive proscription, "You shall not kill!"
Our solid alibi is that we are responsible for nothing, that the responsibility falls on Hezbollah. A most doubtful alibi. For when we decided to launch a massive attack on the civilian region of South Lebanon (while Israel ran no vital risk), we decided, ipso facto, to spill the blood of X number of civilians. When we decided to drive half a million people out of their homes and to shell those who remained behind (while in Israel, we did not have one single victim), we decided, in fact, to execute several dozen of them. This alibi allowed us to make such cruel decisions without seeing ourselves as rotten.
We killed them because the increasingly wider gap between the sacrosanct character that we attribute to our own lives and the more limited character we give to theirs, allowed us to kill. We believe, in the most absolute manner, with the White House, the Senate, the Pentagon, and the New York Times on our side, that their lives do not have the same weight as ours. We are convinced that with Dimona (Israel's atomic site), Yad Vashem and the Shoah Museum in our hand, we have the right to compel 400,000 people to evacuate their homes in 8 hours. And we have the right, at the end of 8 hours,to consider their homes as military targets. And we reserve the right to rain 16,000 shells on their villages and their populations. And we reserve the right to kill without any guilt feelings.
But all this cannot alleviate the gravity of the massacre, Israeli style, and our responsibility for its execution. For it is perpetrated, in general, in places to which we give free range to immoderate violence.
The shelling of Cana was executed according to the rules, orders and objectives of operation, "Grapes of Wrath." There is something wrong in these rules, orders and objectives. Something that is no longer human. Something that touches on the criminal. And all of us, without exception, were an integral part of this machine. The public supported the media, who supported the government, who supported the Chief of Staff, who supported the inquiry officer, who supported the officers, who supported the soldiers who fired the three shells that killed 102 in Cana.
Nothing can prevent Cana from becoming an integral part of our biography. Because, after Cana, we did not denounce the crime, we did not want to subject the affair to the eyes of the law, we merely wanted to deny the horror and go on with our current affairs. That is how Cana is part of ourselves -- like one of the features of our face.
As the massacre perpetrated by Baruch Goldstein (in the Cave of the Patriarchs on Muslims while praying) and the crime committed by Yigal Amir [assassin of PM Y. Rabin] were manifestations of rotten seeds in the heart of the national-religious culture, the massacre of Cana is no less extreme a grain of rottenness in the heart of secular Israeli culture: its cynicism, brutality, instrumentalism, egocentrism of the powerful; this tendency to blur the frontier between good and evil, between permitted and prohibited; this tendency not to require justice, not to care about truth.
The manner in which contemporary Israel has functioned during and after Cana shows that modern, rational Israeli life conceals
Israel’s Barbarism in Lebanon/Gaza Protested
William Hughes
“Hell is empty, all the devils are here.”
- William Shakespeare
Washington, D.C. - Close to 400 protesters showed up for a spirited demonstration on Tuesday, July 25, 2006, at the Israeli Embassy, 514 International Drive, NW, in the nation’s capital. They were there, despite the sweltering heat, to express their strong opposition to the ongoing barbaric conduct of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in Lebanon, as well as in Gaza. The IOF has given new meaning to the term “collective punishment” by their reckless, disproportionate and murderous treatment of the Lebanese and Palestinian civilian populations. It is a war crime under the provisions of the 4th Geneva Convention, (Article 33), to deliberately target a protected population for punishment.
[More:]
Many of the protesters wore black. They carried 50 coffins draped in black, too. They began at 5:30 PM, at Van Ness and Connecticut Avenues, with a march done in silence. It then proceeded around the neighborhood and ended up in front of the Israeli Embassy. The event was sponsored by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Code PInk, Pax Christi USA, the Council for the National Interest, along with many other groups. (1)
I talked with Jamilah Shami at the rally. She’s with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s D.C. Chapter. She said: “We’re here to bring attention to what is taking place in Lebanon and Palestine. Israel is bombing on both sides and innocent people are being killed and, unfortunately, with our tax dollars and with our government’s okay. Every other nation, every other person is calling for an immediate cease fire, except the U.S. It’s not reigning in Israel. And they have the power to do so.” The Rev. Philip Wheaton, an Episcopal priest from D.C., told me: “I’m really concerned about Israel. They are being led down the worst possible path by Zionism. And they can’t win by power and might.” He added that if they didn’t get off the road that they are presently traveling, “that they will only increase the anti-Israel spirit around the world and it’s very serious. Jews in this country have to understand that if they want to do something serious for Judaism, then they have to stop this madness.”
With respect to Lebanon, since July 13, 2006, the Israeli Air Force has flown over 4,000 air sorties over cities, like Beirut, Sidon and Tyre, dropping cluster and bunker bombs and laying waste to bridges, roads, homes, apartment buildings, banks, water and electric power plants, reservoirs, hospitals, airports, milk and food factories, clearly marked ambulances, and even striking a Greek Orthodox Church. At least, 400 innocent Lebanese civilians, many of them women and children have been killed, thousands more have been seriously injured. Property damages will be in the mega-billions of dollars. It is now estimated that Israel’s terror tactics have created over 600,000 refugees. Close to 12,000 American have been evacuated. Canadians trying to escape the Israeli-made horror, weren’t so lucky. At least 8 were reported killed by the Israeli air strikes. The Israelis dominate the skies with their jet fighters, since Lebanon has no air force to combat them.
Suzanne Wilder, from Maryland, told me that she was at the rally because she “was upset at the loss of innocent lives.” She felt that the politicians “turn these things to their own benefit and profit. If you want peace in the Middle East, you have to work for justice.” Carol Moore from D.C., said she was there “to protest Israel’s barbaric attack on Lebanon. We’re afraid it’s going to escalate and go to Syria and Iraq. It could even go nuclear.”
Flashback! One of Israel’s evil deeds in Lebanon, which still sticks out in my memory, occurred on April 18, 1996. The IOF bombed a UN shelter in the village of Qana (Cana). This is the same place that the Bible tells us that Jesus (pbuh) performed his first miracle. There were 106 people in the shelter, including two children from Dearborn, Michigan, who were visiting their grandparents. They were all slaughtered. (2) The Israelis, just like they did when they murdered 34 Americans on the USS Liberty, on June 8, 1967, insisted that it was all “a mistake.” This is the same lame excuse that they used when they ran over Rachel Corrie, an Olympia, WA, peace activist, with a bulldozer and snuffed the life out of her on March 16, 2003. The half-demented Ariel Sharon was Prime Minister of Israel then. Now, Ehud Olmert, his successor, must bear the brunt of the responsibility for Israel’s latest serial excesses. The 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when the ex-terrorist, Menachem Begin, was Israel’s P.M, left close to 18,000 Arabs dead. (3) UN Peace Keepers, some of whom were Irish, and knew about the Qana Massacre, said the Israelis were liars. (4)
With respect to Gaza, the IOF hasn’t let up their state-sponsored terrorism tactics there since the Palestinians dared to elect a government dominated by members of Hamas. The Israeli storm troopers have arrested Hamas members of the Palestinian Cabinet and its Parliament, too. According to Amnesty International, the IOF has also killed 150 Palestinians since the beginning of this year. Six more Gazans were killed yesterday, according to the Baltimore Sun. The IOF has also been systematically and maliciously destroying all the important civilian infrastructures of Gaza, the same as they are repeatedly doing daily in Lebanon. Gaza is now an entity of 1.4 million trapped, and desperate souls on the brink of a total humanitarian collapse. (5)
David Barrows of D.C. said: “I’m protesting the merciless slaughter of the Lebanese people...It’s just senseless and ruthless and it just makes you wonder: ‘Why in the world are we supporting Israel?’ I know we shouldn’t and this is real proof of it...Who speaks for the Palestinians? Very few! So, we the American people have to take charge of this renegade, corrupt and criminal government of ours and stop giving the green light to tyranny around the world.” An activist from the D.C. Antiwar Network (DAWN), Malachy Kilbride, shared his thoughts with me. He said: “I’m here to be a witness to what Israel and the U.S. are doing in Lebanon. Israel is perpetrating a war of aggression...I’m angry and I’m not going to be silent like so many in Congress, who won’t stand up to the Israel Lobby.” Lauren Barthel of D.C., one of the organizers of the affair, said she worked on the project “in order to keep the momentum going.” Another worker for the cause was David Kirshbaum, a D.C.-based activist. He said that he “was pleased by the turnout.” He added that the “collective punishment policy of Israel was illegal... and that America funds it.”
The dubious pretext for the Israeli assault on Lebanon was the supposed capture of two of their soldiers by Hezbollah, an indigenous political party, with militia capabilities, located near the Lebanon/Israel border. Just suppose two U.S. soldiers were employed to border duty with Canada and then imagine them “captured” by guerrillas associated with a Separatist Movement in Quebec. What would you think if that happened and the response of our Washington-based government, instead of negotiating with our neighbor to the North, was to go ahead and bomb Ottawa, British Columbia, Montreal and Toronto? That would be sheer lunacy! And, this is exactly what the lawless Tel Aviv government has done in the case of Lebanon. Its conduct cannot be justified in any form or by any legal or moral standard. This is the same kind of M.O. used by the Israelis to let loose their Terror, Mayhem and Death Machine on the hapless Gazans. The Hezbollah fighters, however, continue to inflict telling casualties on the Israeli invaders, despite all of their superior weaponry. One Zionist observer, a professor, was quoted as saying of Hezbollah’s tenacity, “As long as they don’t lose...that’s a victory!” (6)
Some of the speakers at the rally in front of the Israeli Embassy were: Radney Wood, Noura Erakat, Rami Elamine, Pilar Saad and the anti-Zionist Orthodox Rabbi, Dovid Feldman.
Incredibly, the mostly cowardly U.S. Congress has given its legislative endorsement to Israel’s outrages. It was pushed by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Arlen Specter (R-PA), to take the despicable action, along with prodding by the powerful Israeli Lobby in this country. (7) The Bush-Cheney Gang’s complicity in Israel’s wrongs was even more precise. It gave them a “green light” and is reportedly sending the IOF more lethal military weapons for it to use, in violation of U.S. law, in order for Olmert’s regime to kill additional Palestinian and Lebanese civilians with impunity. ( Like the warmongering Neocons, Zionist Israel, to date, has never suffered any real consequences for its rampant militarism. (9) It remains above the Law. The stain, however, on our Republic from all of this evildoing runs red with the blood of the innocents, both Arab and Israeli alike. As for Zionist Israel, a day of retribution is coming as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow for this arrogant mocker of human life and of human dignity. |
'
| Quote: | The marriage in Cana'
John Chapter 2 verses 1-11
Two days later there was a wedding in the town of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine had given out, Jesus’ mother said to him, "They have no wine left." "You must not tell me what to do," Jesus replied. "My time has not yet come". Jesus' mother then told the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."
The Jews have rules about ritual washing, and for this purpose six stone water jars were there, each one large enough to hold about a hundred litres. Jesus said to the servants, "Fill these jars with water". They filled them to the brim, and then he told them, "Now draw some water out and take it to the man in charge of the feast."
They took him the water, which now had turned into wine, and he tasted it. He did not know where this wine had come from (but, of course, the servants who had drawn out the water knew); so he called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone else serves the best wine first, and after the guests have had plenty to drink, he serves the ordinary wine. But you have kept the best wine until now!"
Jesus performed this first miracle in Cana in Galilee; there he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him. |
Little by little the night turns around
Counting the leaves which tremble at dawn
Lotus's lean on each other in union
Over the hills where a swallow is resting
Set the controls for the heart of the sun
Over the mountain watching the watcher
Breaking the darkness waking the grapewine
One inch of love is one inch of shadow
Love is the shadow that ripens the wine
Set the controls for the heart of the sun
The heart of the sun...
Witness the man who arrives at the wall
Making the shape of his question to heaven
Whether the sun will fall in the evening
Will he remember the lesson of giving?
Set the controls for the heart of the sun
The heart of the sun...
Will we make it, I ask myself?
_________________
Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
http://www.wytruth.org.uk/ |
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Chat
Usergroups
Calendar
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
