Another anti-war voice from Israel

As it turned out, Cast Lead was in fact adapted from a Hanukkah poem by Haim Nachman Bialik, national poet of Israel, who poetically lived and died before the nation of Israel was cast across 78% of Palestine. In one of his works, Bialik speaks of a "dreidel cast from solid lead"—a toy that is now being cast across Hamas-controlled portions of remaining Palestinian percentages.



This is from the Socialist Party ex-militant, you know the party that Tommy Sheridan used to be in.

That must be an embarrassment at present. Almost like Galloway on big brother or David Icke, probably not to be mentioned

I was nagging Phil who is my blogging friend doing a phd with former collegues at Keele University, to blog about Gaza and he provided this link. He is a SP member, of course,

he had blogged about Tommy Sheridan, which was as bad as the Green Party putting up an article about the Green New Deal and forgetting to write a condemnation of the ground war....its just wrong....but his post makes up for it today.

I am not especially a fan of the Socialist Party, not that I am against them either and I was quite impressed by their anti-incinerator campaign in North London.

Thought that this statement from their comrades in Israel made some good points.

Other people who I have been nagging....just get it together and do some more press work on Gaza, lives are at stake and every bit of work helps. Afraid I won't be helping you though, too busy blogging!


You can read the whole statement here, this is an extract with some interesting points.



In its best tradition, the military operation was given a sick and cynical name – 'Cast Lead' (from a Hanukah song) – as a reminder that there are elements amongst Israeli’s rulers who see the whole operation as not much more than a game or an adventure. This military adventure has already cost a huge price in blood – already in the first hours the number of dead has risen sharply to several times the number of Israelis killed from all the missiles that have been fired up till today from the Gaza strip.

Unfortunately, this adventure has not ended, the government is boastfully refusing a ceasefire, and on the cards are land incursions and also the opening up of an additional front against the Hezbollah in Lebanon. Already thousands of reserve soldiers have been conscripted by emergency decrees. The attack is certainly likely to get entangled and ignite even more difficult events in the Middle East in the coming weeks, as Barak announced: “It won't be easy and it won't be short.”
The government sabotaged the “Calm”

The Israeli government refused to strengthen the “Calm” (Tahadiya / Regi`a) and turn it into a genuine ceasefire. This would have at least improved the daily lives of Israelis and Palestinians, even without the taking of any real steps towards ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the opposite – during all the months of “Calm”, the government continued its provocative and violating actions – like for example on November 4th, election day in the US, which was used for air bombings. As Barak tells us now, the military operation was planned in detail during those same months. In the West Bank and on the edges of the Gaza strip, routine military operations continued. The government refused to carry out a complete prisoner exchange, which could have also returned the captive soldier Gil`ad Shalit to his family.

Crucially, during the period of “Calm”, the economic and military siege of the Gaza strip continued, with the collaboration of the big powers, of Egypt, of the Fateh movement, and of the rest of the Arab League regimes, most of whom are now hypocritically protesting the killing. Abbas (Abu-Mazen) and Mubarak's dictatorial rule in Egypt, have even surpassed the rest, when they gave implicit support to the attack in an even more pronounced way than some of the Arab rulers had done on the start of the second Lebanon war. Foreign affairs minister, Livni, was invited on a special visit to Cairo two days before the war.

This collaboration has enraged the Arab masses in the Middle East. It increases the hatred of the corrupt regimes in the Arab League, which like the corrupt regime in Israel, do not act in order to serve the wide public of working people and poor, but in order to exploit and repress it. The rage which is now exploding could cut short the rule of the weakening regime of Mubarak in Egypt, and is expected to weaken Abbas even more as he is seen as a puppet of the Israeli Government.