Thursday, July 3, 2003

Israeli-Palestinian Peace Group QUOTE OF THE DAY "I will never apologize for the United States of America! I don't care what the facts are!" - - George Herbert Walker Bush, 1988 (Referring to the USS Vincennes downing an Iranian civil airliner) KNOW YOUR HISTORY - JULY 3rd: 1988 -- US Navy kills 290 civilians - The USS Vincennes (one of the Navy's ultra-sophisticated computer-supported Aegis cruisers) "accidentally" blows an Iranian airliner out of the sky. Says it mistook it for an F-14 jet fighter. The Pentagon refuses to discipline anybody & claims the passenger plane was outside its commercial air corridor & descending toward the ship. But on 5 July it is revealed it was well within its corridor & ascending. In a final "spin", acting President Ronnie Reagan calls the incident an "understandable accident." Reliable reports say the Soviet downing of KAL 007 was also inadvertent, but Reagan insists there is "no comparison". RHINO HERE: Today, once again, I wade into the most controversial of political waters; the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I call your attention to 2 recent significant events. First, a visit to the Gaza Strip by British Labour MP Oona King, who is Jewish, & who upon her return to the UK said that the Gaza was "the same in nature" as the infamous Polish Warsaw ghetto. Two articles excerpted below tell that tale. Then RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is written by Uri Avnery, an Israeli author, activist & head of the Israeli peace movement known as, "Gush Shalom." It's the transcript of a keynote speech Avnery gave at a recent historic meeting of 300 peace activists, half of them Palestinian & half Israelis. The meeting culminated in the founding of a new organization to be known as the "Joint Israeli-Palestinian Action Group for Peace". For more info on the historic meeting, go to: Israeli-Palestinian meeting welcomes Hudna MPs COMPARE GAZA TO WARSAW GHETTO The Guardian (UK),  June 19, 2003 Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip was today compared to the Nazis' creation of the Warsaw ghetto by MPs who recently returned from the region. The controversial comparison, drawn by Oona King and Jenny Tonge, will anger the pro-Israel lobby and the visiting Israeli finance minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, who met Tony Blair at Downing Street this morning... READ IT ALL AT: http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,980744,00.html ISRAEL CAN HALT THIS NOW By Oona King (A Labour MP), The Guardian, Comment (UK), June 12, 2003 The no man's land separating Israel from the Gaza Strip gives way to what can only be described as desecrated land. Razor wire and crushed buildings line the route. Torn slabs of concrete look like tattered cardboard on a rubbish heap. In front of us two Israeli tanks block our path. Behind us, the border will shortly be sealed to prevent Palestinian reprisals for the helicopter attack launched hours earlier against the extremist Hamas leader, Abdul-Aziz al-Rantissi - who is still alive. A Palestinian woman and her young child, on their way to hospital, are dead, and 35 are injured... READ THE REST AT: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,975423,00.html 7:37:34 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - We Are The Patriots "We Are The Patriots" By: Uri Avnery Today an important event took place in Ramallah. Three hundred personalities, half of them Palestinians, half of them Israelis, took part in the founding conference of the first wholly integrated joint peace organization - the Joint Israeli-Palestinian Action Group for Peace. This followed the publication, two months ago, of a joint political statement signed by 1500 Palestinian and Israeli personalities. The occupation forces tried to prevent the Israelis from reaching Ramallah, some of them had to walk two kilometers in the heat to evade the checkpoints. I was invited to give one of the keynote speeches. I would like - however immodestly - to publish it here in full: Dear Friends, Today we come together, Israelis and Palestinians, Palestinians and Israelis, to create something completely new: a Joint Action Group for peace.   Not for a hudna (truce), not for some temporary compromise, not just another little step in an endless step-by-step process, but for a real peace, for a just peace, for a peace with dignity, for a peace between equals. What we are trying to do is completely new. We do not want to set up just another framework for cooperation between enemies, but a completely integrated task force. Not an Israeli movement with a Palestinian tail, nor a Palestinian movement with an Israeli tail. But an organization in which we all, Israelis and Palestinians, shall be full partners, united by a common vision of a free Palestine and a free Israel living together, side by side. Of all the people I have met in the long fight for peace, the one whom I miss most at this meeting is Issam Sartawi, who was murdered 20 years ago. He would be sitting here. His spirit is with us. Sartawi was a patriot, an ex-Fedai, who believed that the only way for the Palestinian people to achieve their national aims is to win the hearts of the Israeli people. In the same way, I believe that the only way for Israel to find a secure and prosperous future is to win the hearts of the Palestinian people.... TO READ THIS ARTICLE, YOU MUST CLIK THE LINK BELOW, THEN CHOOSE, "We Are The Patriots" http://www.amin.org/eng/index.html "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. 6:08:49 AM    comment

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