Want to End the Violence in Gaza? Boycott Israel.

by Naomi Klein, the Nation

It’s time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.

In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on “people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.” The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions–BDS for short–was born. Naomi Klein

[read the rest here]

Why Do They Hate the West So Much, We Will Ask

by Robert Fisk at Truthdig

So once again, Israel has opened the gates of hell to the Palestinians. Forty civilian refugees dead in a United Nations school, three more in another. Not bad for a night’s work in Gaza by the army that believes in “purity of arms”. But why should we be surprised?

Irsaeli Intel Targets Israeli Protesters

From the Real News (H/T to After Downing Street)

Obama’s stimulus plan: Another windfall for big business

…Obama’s proposed solution—the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan—will allocate hundreds of billions of dollars in public funds, the bulk of which will flow into the coffers of the very banks and corporations that reaped massive profits from the policies that precipitated the crash of 2008.

In a number of interviews leading up to Thursday’s speech, Obama made a point of stressing that in formulating his stimulus plan he had consulted Republican politicians and economists—that is, the very forces who have been the most ferocious advocates of the “free market” policies that contributed to the crisis…

The modus operandi of Obama’s speech mirrored that employed three months ago to rush through Congress the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), which transferred $700 billion in taxpayer funds to the banks. Barry Grey

[read the rest at the WSWS, here]

The Israeli Nov. 4th Violation of the Cease Fire Did Get Some Press

by Scott Creighton

On Nov. 4th 2008, tucked in between an announcement of Dennis Kucinich’s victory and one about Obama’s, there is a short article about the Israeli attack in Gaza that broke the cease fire agreement.

While we were all watching the election returns and patting ourselves on the back, Israel decided to blatantly break their truce with the Palestinians, and they launched the first airstrike in Gaza since the truce of 2007.

The last few lines of that article seem rather foreboding now.

Hundreds were killed in Ossetia by the Georgian attack and tens of thousands displaced from their homes all while we looked the other way. As recently as this past weekend both candidates were still implying that Russia was the aggressor in this act, and both still vow to do what they can to protect the war-criminal in power in Georgia. Let’s hope the same thing doesn’t happen in Gaza. The Palestinians have been through enough as it is. American Everyman

The Human Cost of Our Distraction.