Tuesday 31 March 2009

Limited Palestinian autonomy is not enough Mr Benjamin Netanyahu

So Benjamin Netanyahu is the newly elected Prime Minister of Israel


Described as a hawk even compared to the trio of Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni - all the architects of the abominable holocaust of Gaza over the Christmas period 2008-2009,- Mr Netanyahu in his first speech to Parliament spoke ambiguously of seeking "full peace" with the Arab and Muslim world but then added "Under the permanent status agreement,the Palestinians will have all the authority to rule themselves".

"Authority" is the important word here, implying a Palestinian Authority but never a Palestinian State.

Stephen Gutkin of AP remarks that his comments appeared to hark back to a decades-old notion that peace could be achieved through limited Palestinian autonomy. Gutkin also dismisses the idea that Mr Netanyahu is redy to soften his position on this issue but rather is saying enough "to curry favour with the West". http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090331/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_politics;_ylt=

Every new Prime Minister needs a short time in which to show his true metal. If this Prime Minister has any idea of the well-spring of animosity against Israel that has sprung up around the world in the wake of the latest atrocities in Gaza, he should be wise to consider the implementation of justice toward the Palestinians.

He should stop the ruthless ongoing robbery of Palestinian land, end the occupation, talk to the elected Parliament of Hamas which he refuses to recognize, squarely face up to all past injustices perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians, settle to their satisfaction the burning question of the right to return and recognize Palestine as a sovereign State.

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Friday 27 March 2009

Pat Kenny Quits the Late Late Show

Pat Kenny announced on his Show tonight that he will be quitting the Late Late Show at the end of its present term. The announcement came in two stages. First he said that he would be making an announcement that "some of you, not too many I hope" would be pleased with and some would not be pleased with. Later on, he made the announcement itself and received loud and prolonged applause which he stopped by saying "OK, OK, I get the message. I've just changed my mind" after which there was more applause which he again interrupted by saying "Not really".

During his ten year tenure I was present in the audience only on one occasion. Although the content was mediocre there was a buzz in the auditorium helped on by a warm-up that was just too rehearsed. There was also a portion that was to appear on a later show; obviously this part was not live. Afterwards the host was friendly to all comers for a bit of a chat.

Pat Kenny was never able to fill the shoes of Gay Byrne. He could never relax with a guest and was invariably not listening to a reply but focused on his own next question. His nervousness carried over to the interval after a band or singer had performed. The applause for the performance was always cut out with a hand admonishing the audience to be quiet for his next announcement. By contrast, Gay Byrne would sit back smiling in the direction of the performers for as long as the applause lasted, letting them enjoy their moment of glory and adding his own comments of praise when the applause had died down.

On Radio however he is an able performer just as Gay Byrne was and still is. He is also a genial person to talk to. The TV chat show was just not Pat's medium.

There was no explanation given on the Show for his decision to quit except that he and his family had decided that they wanted to spend Friday nights at home.

Coming so soon after John Bowman's announcement that he will no longer present his own Monday night programme "Questions and Answers" on RTE 1, the question that immediately arose was: Were these two presenters pushed in any way or did they really want to go themselves.

We will wait and see.

Saturday 21 March 2009

Three Published letters on Gaza

(1)ISRAELI BOMBARDMENT OF GAZA
30 December 2008
(published in the Irish Times)

Madam, - Permit me to express outrage at the inhuman attacks by Israel against Gaza that have resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives and injuries to many hundreds more.

Also please permit me to add my condemnation of the lies emanating from Messrs Olmert, Barak, Ms Levine and other Israeli spokespersons, including the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland, concerning the origin of, and the alleged necessity for, this murderous assault even while they continue to escalate it.

I commend the forthright condemnation of Israel's action by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mícheál Martin. It would be even better if, with the full backing of all Opposition parties, the Government shut down the Israeli Embassy because of this atrocity. - Yours, etc,
Justin Morahan

(2)GAZA ATROCITY WILL HAPPEN AGAIN
(published in the Irish Independent)
20 January 2009

"Dear Editor

Hamas and Israel have agreed to a truce that may allow children to sleep in Israel and Gaza. In Israel, there will be no need to run to shelters.

In Gaza, parents can collect the tangled bodies, blasted heads and torn-apart limbs of their own little ones from the hospitals without fear of being themselves blown to similar pieces there, or along the way.

We should be grateful for small mercies. Only the cynical will be unhappy. Only the cynical will be afraid.

And only the cynical will know that this respite is not out of mercy or feelings of humanity but timed accurately by a rogue state that appears to have gone mad with power and patronage.

The cynical know of this because some brave citizens of that rogue state, to whom we should be forever grateful, have spoken openly against its disgraceful treatment of Palestinians in general and in particular of its war crimes these past horrendous weeks in the tiny strip of Gaza.

Israel's now disgraced leaders rush their last troops from Gaza, hours before the demise of the reviled Presidency of George W Bush sets in, two continents away from the awful action.

There is no doubt about it: a holocaust has been perpetrated on the population of the caged-in population of Gaza and no-one was able to prevent it.

There is also little doubt that a state which has perpetrated such a holocaust weeks before an election in Israel, if it gets away with it now, will repeat the process whenever it feels that it is necessary.

No major international power, neither the EU nor the UN or USA, was willing or able to take any serious action, or even disapprove.

Our own country has so far not seen fit to expel the Israeli ambassador who has been allowed, all through this sad and sorry period, to use the Irish media to express his opinions, repeatedly, ad nauseam, mostly unchallenged and usually in defiance of facts.

I again request our government to take that step.

Justin Morahan"

(3)ISRAELI OFFENSIVE AGAINST GAZA
29 January 2009
(Published in the Irish Times)


Madam, – The letter of January 22nd from Katrina Goldstone and seven others, Jewish or of Jewish descent, was welcome as it was courageous. The recent Israeli attack on Gaza – they accurately describe as a massacre – cannot be justified by Israel’s alleged “security concerns”.

It has long been particularly difficult for Jewish people or people of Jewish extraction to criticise the state of Israel. The point was made tellingly by the (Jewish) president of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner, on January 23rd.

In blaming himself and other Jews in the US for having remained silent on Gaza, he remarked: “Some of our hesitation to act results from the condemnation and opprobrium anyone, but especially Jews, encounter with even mild criticisms of Israel”

We have listened for four weeks to the outpouring of that opprobrium and condemnation against Irish citizens. – Yours, etc,

JUSTIN MORAHAN

NOTE: The last letter above was curtailed by the Editor. The full version is here:

Madam

The letter by Katrina Goldstone and seven of her fellows, Jews or of Jewish descent in Ireland, was welcome as it was courageous. (IT 23 January 2009) The recent attack on Gaza by the State of Israel which they accurately describe as a "massacre" can never be justified, and it is not justified by Israel's alleged "security concerns".

It is refreshing and reassuring to find these eight humane people give the lie to much of the Israeli spin that has been woven without intermission throughout that shocking and shameful episode and beyond.

It appears that for long it has been particularly difficult for Jewish people or people of Jewish extraction to criticise the State of Israel. The point was made tellingly by the (Jewish) President of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner, on 23 January last.

Mr Ratner, in blaming himself and other Jews in the USA for having until then remained silent on Gaza, remarks: "Some of our hesitation to act results from the condemnation and opprobrium anyone, but especially Jews, encounter with even mild criticisms of Israel"
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009/01/23/michael-ratner-on-gaza/.

We have listened for four weeks to the outpouring of that opprobrium and condemnation against Irish citizens and, inevitably, Ms Goldstone and friends were confronted by Drs David Abrahamson, Leonard W Abrahamson and Mr Stephen Molins. (IT, 26January and 27 January.)
The latter two of these eminent gentlemen in particular are able to leap-frog over three weeks of cynical and barbaric killing by Israel in Gaza, giving us patronising lectures instead about their "concern" re media fairness and, outrage of all outrages, how Hamas is to blame for the massacre carried out by Israel in Gaza.

Against such cynicism, the humane Katrina Goldstone and her fellows can, I presume, only gnash their teeth in disbelief

Yours etc
Justin Morahan

Wednesday 4 March 2009

Protest in Senator Tom Harkin's office re Gaza Atrocity

LETTER TO THE SENATOR SUPPORTING PROTESTORS

The following letter was sent to Senator Harkin via e-mail but I got a notice two days later saying that it had not been delivered. Here's hoping that the Senator might be able to read this slightly edited version now.
Story of the occupation and video at:
http://www.desmoinescatholicworker.org/harkinoccupation2.09.html



TO: Senator Tom Harkin, Des Moines, Iowa, USA

Dear Senator

I support the action of the protestors who occupied your office lately in gentle and prayerful protest at your silence on the massacre of so many human beings in Gaza by the Israeli Defence Forces and the many other atrocities perpetrated by Israel on the Palestinian people over more than forty years of occupation with massive help from the US.

Why is the US media hiding the truth about Israel, Gaza and the West Bank from the American people?

From being a victim during the Holocaust years , the Israeli State has turned its own people there into aggressors who use unbelievable cruelty towards Palestinians.

Many in Israel now believe that they are a master race just as in Hitler's Germany Arians were made to believe that they were superior.

Only last year outside Dublin's GPO, when I noticed an altercation between a pro-Palestinian group and a lone young Israeli who had pulled the table cloth from under their leaflets, I heard him say as he walked away: "That's all you can do - abuse people, not engage in dialogue."

As he passed by me I said to him quietly "I will engage in dialogue with you"

He then told me that he had been in the IDF, had killed "Arabs", was proud of it and was going back to kill more. He said that God and Abraham had given all of Israel to his people. When I countered some of these points, he stood back and said;

"I am superior to you because I am a Jew and you are only a Gentile"

At least 1330 Palestinians were murdered from the sky and on the ground in the tiny cage of Gaza since Christmas Day. Uri Avnery, an Israeli patriot and former member of the Israeli Knesset believes that this time was chosen, partly because George W Bush was still in power, partly because Western politicians were on holidays and they would not interrupt their holidays for Gaza.

GAZA - I fear that you may not even know what has been happening there. I was struck by the words of one of your protestors who said that her money had paid for what had happened to the children who were murdered.

GAZA - the word will always remind you of the protest in your office but the word will in future years ring out as a damning condemnation of all who were in power in the USA at this time and did not lift a finger to prevent this massacre.

GAZA - PLEASE REMEMBER THAT PEOPLE ARE STILL SUFFERING THERE. The US fiddles while Gaza burns.

Also remember that it is a slander to pretend, as some of your supporters have been doing, that these pacifist protestors are supporters of the violence of Hamas.

It is important not to shirk the truth that, whether you or others like it or not, HAMAS is the elected Government of the Palestinian people, elected in democratic elections. For any solution to the problem of Palestine and Israel, HAMAS must be a player.

That does not mean that those of us who say this are supporters of terror. I am a pacifist and abhor terror. I am not a supporter of HAMAS but a supporter of human rights and an advocate against all violence and injustice.

But you support Israel, and I must ask do you also support, either purposely or through default, the continual State terror of that political and military establishment?

With best personal wishes

Justin Morahan
Dublin, Ireland

Monday 2 March 2009

Vanunu Rejects Nomination for Nobel Peace Prize Award

As the fifth anniversary of his "release" from an Israeli prison approaches, Mordechai Vanunu rejects a nomination for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize and writes of his decision to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Oslo.

Mordechai, the nuclear whistle blower, spent seventeen and a half years in Ashkelon prison and was released on 21 April 2004. However, he was immediately served with crippling conditions including a ban on speaking to foreigners and a ban on all travel outside the borders of Israel.
As about 100 international supporters were outside the gates of Ashkelon to greet him he was going to have to break the ban on speaking to foreigners on that very first day, which he did.
I was among the supporters and wrote an account of that memorable day and night on Indymedia Ireland. See https://www.indymedia.ie/article/64579.

The State of Israel has continued to harass him in the following five years and has consistently refused calls from many quarters to allow him to leave Israel as he wishes to do and be truly free. In this they are in direct and open conflict with the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Articles 13 and 19. But, as with the recent invasion of Gaza, Israel appears to be a law unto itself and cares not a jot for what the UN, the EU, the USA or any others within the International community demands of it. These bodies continue to cosset Israel without receiving anything from Israel in return.


Below is a copy of Mordechai's letter

Dear Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Oslo,

I am Vanunu Mordechai, who has been nominated several times to Nobel Peace Prize, also this year’s 2009 award.
I am asking the committee to remove my name from the list for this year’s list of nominations.
My main reason for this is that I cannot be part of a list of laureates that includes Shimon Peres. He is the man who was behind all the Israeli atomic policy.

Peres established and developed the atomic weapon program in Dimona in Israel. Exactly like Dr. Khan did in Pakistan, Peres was the man behind the atomic weapon proliferation to South Africa and other states. He was also, for instance, behind the nuclear weapon test in South Africa in 1978.

Peres was the man who ordered the kidnapping of me in Italy Rome, Sept. 30, 1986, and for the secret trial and sentencing of me as a spy and traitor for 18 years in isolation in prison in Israel.

Until now he continues to oppose my freedom and release, in spite of my serving full sentence 18 years.

From all these reasons I don’t want be nominated and will not accept this nomination. I say
No to any nomination as long as I am not free, that is, as long as I am still forced to be in Israel.

FREEDOM AND ONLY FREEDOM IS WHAT I WANT .

Thank you

VMJC


--
FREEDOM AND ONLY FREEDOM I NEED NOW
Email. vanunuvmjc@gmail.com
http:/www.vanunu.com
VANUNU MORDECHAI J C.
KIDNAPPED IN ROME SEP' 30 TH'-1986.
AFTER 18 YEARS IN ISRAEL PRISON.
Waiting In East Jerusalem.To Be Free,To Leave.
Mobile ( 9 7 2 ) 0 5 2 3 7 4 4 5 6 9.