Crime: Ongoing Gaza Massacre Latest

[Plato]

Thanks, hardly surprising, but I think it's more about the message than the (initial) result. Still, I guess you have to be a British national anyway to be able to sign, right?

[Southpark Fan]

Parliament will consider this for a debate

Parliament considers all petitions that get more than 100,000 signatures for a debate - https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/105446

Waiting for 2 days for a debate date.

Expectations are low of course; we can be assured the inaction and impotent lip service taking place concerning pedophiles in high places will show its ugly head here. The point is there are people out there aware of and outraged over both issues.

[Southpark Fan]

In a symbolic move aimed at demonstrating support for Palestinian statehood, Iceland’s capital city council voted on Tuesday in favor of boycotting all Israeli made products.

The crowd said yaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!

First they jail banker scum and now this. One country doing things right.

http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150917/1027158433.html


Same Ol' Story: Hillary Clinton the Israeli Pincushion Stands in Opposition to Boycott Effort Against Israel



More Same Ol'Story: Canadian Govt Threatens Hate Crime Charges For Those Who Boycott Israel


More pear shaped Stevie.

***
UK Gov Response to Petition:

Government responded

Under UK and international law, visiting heads of foreign governments, such as Prime Minister Netanyahu, have immunity from legal process, and cannot be arrested or detained.

▼Read the response in full

The British Government has invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as head of the Israeli Government, to visit the UK in September. Under UK and international law, certain holders of high-ranking office in a State, including Heads of State, Heads of Government and Ministers for Foreign Affairs are entitled to immunity, which includes inviolability and complete immunity from criminal jurisdiction.

We recognise that the conflict in Gaza last year took a terrible toll. As the Prime Minister said, we were all deeply saddened by the violence and the UK has been at the forefront of international reconstruction efforts. However the Prime Minister was clear on the UK’s recognition of Israel’s right to take proportionate action to defend itself, within the boundaries of international humanitarian law. We condemn the terrorist tactics of Hamas who fired rockets on Israel, built extensive tunnels to kidnap and murder, and repeatedly refused to accept ceasefires. Israel, like any state, has the right to ensure its own security, as its citizens also have the right to live without fear of attack.

The UK consistently urged Israel to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties, to exercise restraint, and to help find ways to bring the situation to an end. The UK continues to urge the parties to give priority to reaching a durable solution for Gaza which addresses the underlying drivers of conflict, and to take the necessary practical steps to ensure Gaza’s reconstruction and economic recovery.

We welcome the fact that Israel is conducting internal investigations into specific incidents during Operation Protective Edge. Where there is evidence of wrongdoing those responsible must be held accountable whatever their position in society. Both parties must also demonstrate robust and credible internal investigations which are in line with international standards. We have also encouraged the Israeli authorities, as we do all countries, to cooperate with the independent Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) regarding the preliminary examination into the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 13 June, 2014, whilst noting that Israel is not a State Party to the ICC.

The UK is a close friend of Israel and we enjoy an excellent bilateral relationship, built on decades of cooperation between our two countries across a range of fields. Our priority for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains the achievement of a two-state solution, based on 1967 borders. We continue to believe that negotiations will be necessary in order to achieve this, and that both parties need to focus on steps that are conducive to peace. The UK Government will reinforce this message to Mr Netanyahu during his visit.

[Southpark Fan]

Perfect example of a psychopath and its twisted self centred, mind.

"Dore Gold, director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, expressed optimism that the refugee influx will shift Europe to the right, making it more sympathetic to Israel's 'security' justification for its ongoing colonization of Palestine.

'Israel always faced the problem in the past that its national security perspective was completely out of sync with how Europeans were viewing the emergence of the European community and the borderless world that was emerging,' the American-born hardliner told The Jerusalem Post. 'In the European models that existed 25 or 30 years ago, it is kind of difficult to hear an Israeli argument. But now things may be beginning to change a little,' posited Gold. 'The European perspective is beginning to sound a little bit more like Israel's perspective on security issues, compared to what it was in the past.'"

This is hardly the first time a top Israeli politician reveled in the great misfortune of an "ally," hoping it will engender tighter identification with Israel. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, The New York Times reported the following:

"Asked tonight what the attack meant for relations between the United States and Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister, replied, 'It's very good.' Then he edited himself: 'Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.' He predicted that the attack would 'strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we've experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror.'"

Sharing Israel's perspective seems to have a self-reinforcing quality. The US response to the 9/11 attacks that Netanyahu welcomed — 14 years of widespread, non-stop war and intervention in the Muslim world — is what caused the European refugee crisis that Dore Gold welcomes today.

Really? These wankers think this is a great thing? These dudes should be rotting in a jail cell.

***
Watch how the chosen scum snap to attention to help out a young 18 year old girl shot down on the street. The cockroach who shot her must be tried for first degree murder.



Not. I know people freeze up when something happens, but this is pathetic.

Settlers gawk as Palestinian woman lies dying at checkpoint

On Yom Kippur, there is one story from Israel and Palestine: the killing of 18-year-old Hadeel Hashlamoun at a Hebron checkpoint after she was confronted by soldiers pointing guns.

Below is the shocking video of Hashlamoun's form being roughly dragged on the ground after her shooting. News accounts state that she was then still alive; she did not die for several hours, at a hospital. Israeli settlers observe her with detachment and even smiles. One of these settlers wears a blue t-shirt with the words in Hebrew on it (visible at 1:41):

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[Southpark Fan]

In a bizarre announcement no doubt designed to coincide with Russia's bombing campaign against ISIS, Israel now claims they suddenly "uncovered" the "first suspected ISIS cell" in Israel well over one year since the ISIS show began, during which time ISIS has remarkably never attacked Israel.

Unfortunately for Israel it's well known throughout the world that not only is Israel one of the primary players behind ISIS but that ISIS will show up anywhere in the world, except Israel. ISIS has not even once attacked Israel as it has with other countries like Iraq and Syria, both which happen to be on Israel's list of countries they (Israel) wanted to break up for the so-called "greater Israel" plans long ago declared.

Despite the fact that Israel is a stone's throw away from where ISIS originated and an attack on Israel would be more efficient, more realistic and much more meaningful from an "ISIS" point of view, no such attack has ever been done. Instead, we've been asked to believe all this time that ISIS would prefer to travel all the way to the United States, thousands of miles across the ocean to attack American cities. This, according to Western mainstream media and politicians, was such a sure thing that many politicians and Middle East "experts" were warning Americans by the end of 2014 of the inevitable ISIS attacks coming soon. Criminal Leon Panetta even boldly came out and stated that ISIS was a "30 year war." The goal back then was to make ISIS seem greater than god. That this god of terrorism refused to attack next door neighbor Israel remained a mystery. But now that Russia is destroying Israel's ISIS with real air attacks posing a threat to Israeli plans in the Middle East we see that this whole ISIS mystery is about to change.

In this new story strikingly contradictory of literally everything that is known about ISIS, the Israeli propaganda machine is claiming, almost comically, not only that they have uncovered the first suspected ISIS cell in Israel but that the perpetrators have been arrested. Amazing how all this time no one was aware of this secret ISIS operation until now that Russia is bombing ISIS. ISIS apparently completely evaded Israeli intelligence, surveillance, security, military operations, police and all and successfully set up a cell smack in the middle of Israel without anyone realizing it until now. Isn't this timing an amazing coincidence? Worse than that a close examination of the story reveals this is all based on conversations and claims that the cell was "on behalf" of ISIS. The story couldn't get any more vague:

Two of the suspects, Muhammad Sharif, 22, and Ahmed Mahajna, 19, both from the northern Israeli town of Yafia near the Arab-majority city of Nazareth, had contacted two Israeli-Arabs from the same town who had traveled to Iraq to fight for ISIS, the Shin Bet said, according to The Times of Israel.

The two Israeli-Arab ISIS militants in Syria, Muhammad Kilani and Muhammad Kananneh, told the men to establish the ISIS cell in Israel with the third suspect, 23-year-old Muhammad Jazalah. Israeli media reports said the three men already had connections to radical Islamists before setting up the suspected ISIS cell.

All three of the suspects charged with plotting terrorist attacks admitted to security forces that they had planned to launch attacks on behalf of ISIS. They also confessed to purchasing weapons, training with them and gathering intelligence on military and police sites in the country.

So were these guys actually ISIS or just a convenient story of claims being made by men in order to support state propaganda? It's not like Israel has done this before right?

Actually, this is not the first time we've seen these bizarre convenient arrest announcements from Israel. As we observed in Israel's illegal attacks against the people of Palestine in 2014, Israel always seems to arrest key "suspects" who conveniently confess to things that fit the agenda of the moment. We saw this pointedly last year (2014) when Israel claimed to have captured a key Hamas leader who then confessed (contrary to all reports) that Hamas was indeed behind the murder of the three teenagers whose murder was used as the key justification by Israel for the reckless bombing of Palestinians in Gaza. The problem with this story is that "Saleh Al-Arouri," the captured supposed Hamas leader whose story contradicted the claims of Hamas fighters, was also living in an Israeli-friendly region of Turkey, spent many years in an Israeli prison for unclear "terrorism" charges and had long been suspected of working for "both sides." So it shouldn't strike anyone as a coincidence that we're hearing a story of another arrest, this time "ISIS" fighters conveniently caught in a "suspected ISIS cell" in Israel.

This seemingly staged and very convenient scenario comes too late, however, for Israel who was busted earlier this year by Iraqi officials when ISIS militants "advisors" were captured and discovered to be working for Israel and the U.S.. It's too late since even a U.N. report from earlier this year (2015) confirmed Israeli ties to ISIS.

Nevertheless Jack Moore of Newsweek puts the psyop lies in writing hoping Americans digest the propaganda:

Security forces in August dismantled the first suspected Islamic State (ISIS) cell in Israel, the country's Shin Bet security agency said on Thursday, The Times of Israel reported.

Authorities arrested three suspects accused of planning to conduct attacks for the terrorist group on Israeli soil, and another suspect was charged with joining the cell. The four suspects were indicted at Nazareth District Court on Thursday for contact with a foreign agent, membership of an illegal organization, activity in the organization and weapons charges.

In addition to the four suspects, three other people were charged with aiding the alleged ISIS cell.

Two of the suspects, Muhammad Sharif, 22, and Ahmed Mahajna, 19, both from the northern Israeli town of Yafia near the Arab-majority city of Nazareth, had contacted two Israeli-Arabs from the same town who had traveled to Iraq to fight for ISIS, the Shin Bet said, according to The Times of Israel.

The two Israeli-Arab ISIS militants in Syria, Muhammad Kilani and Muhammad Kananneh, told the men to establish the ISIS cell in Israel with the third suspect, 23-year-old Muhammad Jazalah. Israeli media reports said the three men already had connections to radical Islamists before setting up the suspected ISIS cell.

It is clear to see that the propaganda is now free-flowing from Israel and the Western (Zionist) mainstream media outlets. The Zionist-led Western media is the historic master of propaganda both literally and figuratively. This ridiculous new narrative only proves that desperate times really do require desperate measures. No one should underestimate the level of desperation and propaganda coming out of Washington and Israel over the past few days ever since their Syrian strategy started falling apart and their ISIS proxy army started facing death and destruction at the hands of actual bombing campaigns from the new Russian anti-ISIS coalition. For the first time ISIS fighters are actually threatened with being killed. For the first time the people who are supposed to be bombing ISIS are not also secretly supporting them with weapons and supplies while pretending to be against them.

Life at the ISIS camp has changed dramatically as recently resigned former ISIS Czar General John Allen discovered. Seeing the new scenario unfolding Allen went straight for the door, and who wouldn't?

Now is the best time to marvel at U.S.-Israeli propaganda; and it's even more interesting to observe the thoughts and reactions of the people who digest their lies regardless of how disconnected it is from reality. This recent Israeli propaganda is no doubt intended to deceive those who believe their government and media wouldn't lie to them telling them that Israel is against ISIS, and maybe Israel (not Russia, Iran or Iraq) should be the ones in Syria fighting ISIS. This story is likely just a precursor story intended to create the backdrop for a future declaration of Israeli aggression in Syria. The goal is to get Israel in Syria to defend ISIS or as they'll say the "Syrian rebels" one way or another.

Well, so much for ISIS not attacking Israel right? But wait, the supposed ISIS fighters were caught before they could even fire off one round. So the claim can still be made. ISIS has still not attacked Israel. Not one Israeli killed by ISIS yet. With an amazing stroke of luck the attack was prevented almost pre-crime Minority Report style.

Want to know who's really behind ISIS? Take a look around and see who is reacting with the most displeasure to the Russia anti-ISIS bombing campaign. Plain and simple and by all logical reasoning both the U.S. and Israel should be thrilled that Russia is joining them in their supposed year-long losing fight against ISIS. That allows both the U.S. and Israel to save money, save ammunition and resources and should officially peacefully align Russia with both Israel and the United States. Any observer should be asking how is this not happening? Aren't common enemies supposed to come together? The only way to rationalize this is by realizing what we already know, that ISIS is a creation of Israel and the U.S. with the support of its allies and that the creation of ISIS was all about destroying Syria like they did with Libya and Iraq. Should we all stand around and do nothing now that this war crime is fully revealed?

The world is awake and aware of U.S.'s and Israel's ISIS and their agenda in Syria. These key new world order players chose this game, not Russia, not Iran or Iraq and now it is entirely possible this could be the impetus for WWIII which in some ways has already begun. It is up to everyone who cares about truth to continue to expose this. The battle between mainstream media and alternative media, I believe, is at its peak and is now defined by this ISIS psyop as much as it is defined by any other story. The story of ISIS and the Intelligence battle it represents, I believe is a measure of how effective the Internet and alternative media can be against Intelligence agencies and their mainstream media outlets. For that reason everyone should pay attention to this story and try to spread the awareness.

Source: http://www.activistpost.com/2015/10/on- ... -cell.html

[Southpark Fan]

"The Israeli government has chosen to provoke the Palestinians, to humiliate them, to be involved in the escalation of violence, because the media spotlight is elsewhere at the moment, " Zemor Olivia, President of EuroPalestine, organizer of the rally told hundreds that gathered in protest.

‘Stop war crimes’: London, Paris protest against Israeli treatment of pro-Palestine demonstrators
18 Oct, 2015 | RT



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Israel, its media coverage, and the anatomy of a pathological society
Eric Draitser | Oct 15, 2015

The video of 13 year old Palestinian Ahmed Manasrah bleeding to death on the pavement of an East Jerusalem neighborhood has been described as "shocking," "disturbing," and "painful to watch." The callous verbal abuse and insults from Israelis watching the child writhe in agony are variously characterized as "heartless" and "cruel"; and indeed they are. "Die you son of a whore. Die! Die!" the Israeli onlookers can be heard shouting in the video which has since gone viral on social media.

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While there has been much discussion of this video, and other similar incidents involving the extrajudicial executions of Palestinian youths accused by Israel of having stabbed Israelis (the veracity of some of these claims is disputed), there is decidedly little examination of the sociological implications. Specifically, it has become taboo to interrogate just what sort of ideological and psychological conclusions can be drawn about Israeli society - a society where such behavior is not an outlier; where, rather than being an anomaly, it is indicative of a significant, if not mainstream, attitude. Such undeniably barbaric treatment is not simple hate, and cannot be explained away or justified. But that is precisely what the corporate media does.


Suffice to say that there are many political analysts, activists, and others who are timid about outright condemnations of Israeli society and Israeli attitudes. They are, with much justification, fearful of being demonized as anti-Semitic, terrified that rather than open dialogue and critical examination, they will have their arguments twisted and portrayed as hateful and racist. While such accusations are sometimes warranted - as in the case of fascist bigots and neo-Nazis for whom "Jew" is synonymous with "evil" - more often than not these are willfully deceptive deflections designed to shield Israeli society from the criticism that it so clearly deserves.

[Southpark Fan]

Looks like Russia has stomped on Israel's moment - the idea of Greater Israel is gone forever. But the daily violence and war crimes continue on their own doorstep.

In recent weeks the world is witnessing another round of violence in Israel/Palestine. Though we are accustomed to seeing the same tragic and violent scenario repeat itself, this time it is different. The current wave of resistance stems from a new generation of Palestinian activists who are not affiliated with a particular organization or faction. Protests include violent and nonviolent demonstrations as well as attacks on Israeli civilians in both the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and Israel.


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The disorganized and sporadic nature of this resistance has caught Israel off guard: whereas the government is accustomed to respond by mobilizing its military and propaganda (aka "Hasbara") outlets against predefined Palestinian targets such as Hamas, it currently lacks someone to hold directly accountable. As such, Israel has resorted to collective punishment of Palestinian society and inflammatory anti-Palestinian rhetoric. The latter has generated an environment whereby civilian/vigilante violence is currently surging in Israel.

Violence in various forms is necessary to maintain and expand the Israeli occupation in the OPT and for the domination of and discriminatory limitations placed on Palestinians who live as citizens within pre-'67 borders of Israel. For this purpose, the Israeli government enacts policies that have two goals: 1) segregation of Israelis and Palestinians and; 2) fragmentation of Palestinian society.

These are aimed at containing Palestinians within predefined territories on the one hand, while denying them the ability to assemble, organize and thus effectively mount protest on the other. Israel has promoted each of these aims individually but also conjointly; the construction of the separation wall effectively creates a barrier between Israeli and Palestinian societies, but also physically dissects Palestinian villages and separates farmers from their land (for example see here). To implement these policies the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and other branches of Israel's security forces use violent tactics including curfews, house demolitions, checkpoints, nightly raids, arrests (often without charge) and other routine and often random violence.

Because humans are hard-wired to feel empathy, violence and discrimination need to be morally and ethically justified. For this purpose, Israeli propaganda focuses on two main points: 1) historically linking contested land to Jewish heritage and; 2) dehumanizing Palestinians and their leaders. While the former attempts to provide an inherent Jewish "right" to the land, the latter serves to instill fear and distrust of Palestinians and thus absolve Israelis of any responsibility for their own crimes and those committed in their name.

Quite predictably, because the current wave of resistance does not present the Hasbara with a clear target, it is in crisis. Unaware or indifferent to their underlying racism, Israeli officials have been endorsing vigilante violence and inciting the masses against Palestinians and their leadership of past and present. Some notable examples include the immediate labeling of protesters as suspect of "violence and terrorism", incendiary remarks by Israeli officials about the current Palestinian leadership, exclusion of Arab-Israeli representatives from official briefings, a call for civilian armament at all times in order to combat "terrorists" and an outrageous claim by Prime Minister Netanyahu claiming that the Mufti of Jerusalem was the impetus behind the Nazi "final solution" for European Jewry.

Segregation and chronic fear lead to an inability to empathize with others' suffering. When a lack of empathy is combined with incitement of fear and encouragement toward vigilante-style aggression, it produces a dangerous cocktail that leads to unbridled violence. During the past few weeks in Israel these sorts of events have become commonplace including several extra judicial killings of suspects (see here for sample) and a mob-crazed lynching(of a man who happened to be innocent).

If we are to judge by the rhetoric coming from Israeli officials, their inflammatory propaganda will only get worse, and with it more of these vicious and tragic acts of violence. It is clear that in addition to the daily violence of occupation, this escalation in anti-Palestinian rhetoric/propaganda will have tragic consequences not only for Palestinians, but also on Israeli society.

[Southpark Fan]

At least 2,617 Palestinians have been shot and injured by Israeli forces using live and rubber bullets in the month of October, a Red Crescent officials says.


Photo: Palestinians wave their national flags as they carry the bodies of five Palestinians who were killed by Israeli security forces
in the West Bank on October 31, 2015. AFP photo

Read More: http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/11/01 ... ts-October

***
100,000 People Face Winter In Tents And Animal Shelters In Gaza
November 2, 2015 | Activist Post

A spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees said this week that close to 100,000 people in Gaza will be spending this winter in tents, animal shelters, and shacks that will not do much at all to keep them out of the elements.

According to the spokesman, some children froze to death in Gaza last year due to inadequate living conditions.

“As the winter approaches, one shudders how these people are going to survive,” the UNRWA spokesman, Christopher Gunness, said in an interview with Reuters last week.

“What these people need is proper homes,” he added.

Many homes in the war-torn area have been demolished by the Israeli military, and a current blockade against shipping materials into the region has prevented anyone from rebuilding.

“The underlying dynamics that saw the war in 2014 are still there. Indeed they’ve probably got worse because in 2014 there weren’t 13,000 families whose homes were uninhabitable. Even if Gaza was reconstructed magically tomorrow morning, unless Gaza is allowed to function economically, then it’s hard to see how the instability is going to go away,” Gunness said.

As we reported earlier this year, it was stated in a recent United Nations report that Gaza could become “uninhabitable” in the next 5 years.

In addition to military checkpoints and constant military patrols, the people of Gaza are separated from the natural resources that they need by a massive wall, and there is a strict blockade preventing them from engaging in trade with other countries, or even from receiving aid. This situation, compounded by relentless military attacks, has resulted in a situation where the area is nearly uninhabitable for the people who live there.

[Southpark Fan]

Israel is the true definition of a parasite.

Israel to request $5 billion in aid. According to the report, Israel is interested in annual aid package of 5 billion dollars for a decade - that is 50 billion dollars.
Yitzhak Benhorin | 11.05.15 | Ynet news

Aid package requested set to include F-35 stealth jets, Arrow 3 missiles and V-22 Osprey helicopters; issue to be discussed during Netanyahu, Obama meeting next Monday. Israel has asked the United States to raise the amount of the annual defense aid from the current 3 billion dollars to 5 billion dollars, an American source revealed to Reuters.

[Southpark Fan]

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[Southpark Fan]

The offshore gas bonanza Israel was counting on might never materialize
Josh Mitnick | December 14, 2015 | Quartz

In 2010, Israel discovered a large natural gas off-shore reserve. Dubbed Leviathan, it was supposed to be a game-changer for the country. Five years later, it’s no longer looking like a sure bet.



In theory, cheap energy from the gas field could boost the economy and provide enough power generation for decades. Tens of billions of dollars in royalties and tax revenue could pad public coffers.

Most critically, according to prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Leviathan has enough gas to yield Israel’s first-ever energy export deals—offsetting the state’s increasing isolation over its reluctance to hold comprehensive peace talks with the Palestinians. “Our ability to export gas enhances the strength of the state of Israel… It makes Israel much more resilient to international pressures,” he recently told the Knesset’s economics committee.

To that end, Netanyahu and his top aides have traced out a regional energy alliance in which Israeli gas would become a linchpin knitting together an arc of so-called moderates spanning from Amman to Athens. This vision involves Israel exporting gas to Egypt and then on to Europe, as well as a pipeline to transport Israeli and Cypriot gas to Greece. Providing gas to Europe might defuse efforts to boycott goods from West Bank settlements, according to Netanyahu’s advisors. Meanwhile, looking east, Israeli exports to Jordan would bolster the Hashemite Kingdom’s energy shortfall, and block efforts by Iran to become Jordan’s supplier.

“A new Middle East of energy,” joked Alon Liel, a former diplomat, who likened the government’s plan to the half-baked Israeli visions for regional economic interdependence that were floated in the 1990s, at the height of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

But the fate of Leviathan now looks hazy. Though the gas field’s developers, Houston’s Noble Energy and Israel’s Delek Group, signed a tentative deal last year to supply $30 billion worth of gas to liquefaction facilities in Egypt, the prospects of that happening seemed to recede last week. On Dec. 6, hours after an international arbitration court awarded Israel’s electric utility $1.7 billion for a cut-off in Egyptian gas exports that followed the fall of president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, Cairo announced a freeze of negotiations over sending Israeli gas to Egypt. The discovery of a massive gas reserve off the coast of Egypt this past summer also makes Israeli gas less of a long-term necessity.

[Southpark Fan]

This post could be put in many other threads: Syria, Libya, Africa...pick one. I chose Gaza because it is on the back burner right now.

The mainstream western narrative does not pay any attention to the actual daily lives of the people who live in foreign countries. Instead, only they only focus on the tragedies. Just like in the US and Europe, people in the middle east, Africa, and other areas of the world have thriving music scenes, talented artists, brilliant philosophers, exceptional athletes, and children that play games similar to those played by western children. In fact, National Geographic Traveler recently named Iran as the #1 tourist destination in the world.

People who live in other parts of the world have festivals and holidays and favorite foods, they also have sickness, traffic jams, and crime, just as we do.

Now, imagine for a minute if someone in a foreign country who has never been to America were to judge and define the country by the crime and corruption that took place there. What type of perspective would they have? They would see a corrupt and oppressive government with militarized police forces that kill thousands per year. They would also see cities ripped apart with gang violence, also killing thousands per year. They would see extreme poverty in America's ghettos, where children grow up with little hope or opportunity for a better life. They would see a population that is heavily sedated with pharmaceutical drugs and entirely brainwashed by fascist politicians. It would not be fair for someone to judge America this way, but this seems to be the way that many Americans and Europeans judge everyone else.

When the establishment wants to go to war, they will do everything they can to demonize the people that live in the place that they want to attack. They will describe these people as irrational, sub-human, and senselessly violent. They will insist that an aggressive war is in the name of defense, and they will have the media and the schools helping them do it. And it works.

One need only scroll through social media to see how people refer to Muslims as 'it' and completely detach themselves from the reality that this 'it' is someone's son or daughter.

Regardless of the color of our skin, the language we speak or the cultural ideologies we subscribe to, we are all a part of the same human family. In every country throughout the ages, we have been deceived by our oppressors. People of all nationalities struggle and suffer at the hands of authority figures who tell us that other oppressed people in some far away land are the reason for our unhappiness. In reality, the oppressed people of all nations have more in common with each other than they do with the people in charge of their governments. Unfortunately, we have all been lied to and conditioned to be suspicious of our brothers and sisters because of some flag that flies above their heads.

It is true that some places on this earth are more dangerous than others while some are safer or freer than others, but overall, each culture is filled with mostly peaceful people who just want to live their lives. In every corner of the earth there is happiness and hope just like every corner of the earth has corruption and despair. It is important to remember this and to avoid developing an ethnocentric point of view, because that begins a path toward dehumanizing innocent people.

The following video shows footage of Gaza City like you probably have never seen it before:

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