There were flag waving fireworks displays in Marietta GA, where they make the Lockheed F-16s. Some of those F-16s took part in another fireworks display last weekend over Gaza. The fireworks in Marietta smelled like gunpowder and burnt paper. What do white phosphorus, high explosives, depleted uranium, burning libraries and schools smell like?

Posted by: crone | Jul 13 2014 20:34 utc | 103

Alexno
Yes some 170 palestinians killed 1200 hurt.
Gee seems like west will accept genocide and MSM reporting netanyahu propaganda.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 13 2014 21:27 utc | 105

re 105. I do my bit. I’ll do more when I have the idea as to what is effective.

Posted by: Alexno | Jul 13 2014 21:55 utc | 107

Israel’s real purpose in Gaza operation? To kill Arabs
Since the first Lebanon war over 30 years ago, Israel’s main strategy has been killing Arabs. The current atrocious war in Gaza is no different.
By Gideon Levy | 02:42 13.07.14
The goal of Operation Protective Edge is to restore the calm; the means: killing civilians. The slogan of the Mafia has become official Israeli policy. Israel sincerely believes that if it kills hundreds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, quiet will reign. It is pointless to destroy the weapons stores of Hamas, which has already proved capable of rearmament. Bringing down the Hamas government is an unrealistic (and illegitimate) goal, one that Israel does not want: It is aware that the alternative could be much worse. That leaves only one possible purpose for the military operation: death to Arabs, accompanied by the cheering of the masses.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.604653?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Posted by: okie farmer | Jul 14 2014 6:32 utc | 109

Greenwald speaks out in the Guardian
As Israel continues to pound Gaza with meager efforts to avoid civilian casualties, the US’ role in funding Israel’s military and providing political protection at the UN has come into focus. Could Israel engage in such aggression against the Palestinians if the US were not providing arms, money, and UN vetoes?
This question was addressed by Glenn Greenwald in the Guardian who notes US complicity in the bloodshed. Contrary to US media coverage, which paints America as some neutral outsider, Greenwald notes “Israeli aggression is possible only because of direct, affirmative, unstinting US diplomatic, financial and military support for Israel and everything it does.”
http://news.firedoglake.com/2014/07/14/as-israels-attacks-on-gaza-intensify-us-role-questioned/
Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder says Israel is using our taxes to ‘drop bombs on children’ and take land
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/vedder-israel-children.html/comment-page-1#comment-684927
History does repeat in some ways
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/about/01/persecution.asp
Nazi anti-Jewish policy functioned on two primary levels: legal measures to expel the Jews from society and strip them of their rights and property while simultaneously engaging in campaigns of incitement, abuse, terror and violence of varying proportions. There was one goal: to make the Jews leave Germany.

Posted by: crone | Jul 14 2014 15:01 utc | 111

This has been talked about in Arabic circles for weeks but for some reason, the Western press didn’t make anything of it. Last week, EI wrote it up and the total value of their thievery was about $3.5 million; an excerpt from the article with interesting graphics:
“… On 7 July, the Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights published a report compiling all incidents of confiscated private property and money. In addition to taking the equivalent of $370,000 in cash, the Israeli army seized 93 computers, as well as telephones, cars and buses worth a total value of $2.9 million.
Euro-Mid Observer is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with offices throughout the Middle East.
“Organized robbery”
Euro-Mid Observer’s investigation found that the confiscations occurred without a judicial warrant and without proper notification to the families. “In other words,” the report states, “they were conducted like an organized robbery.”
In nearly sixty separate incidents, Palestinians reported having their houses ransacked, with valuable gold, cash, jewelry, electronics and vehicles seized, according to the report.
On 2 July, Israel announced that the campaign, dubbed Operation My Brother’s Keeper, was “completed” after the bodies of the three Israeli teens were found in Halhoul, near Hebron.
The report’s findings suggest that pillage is yet another war crime that Israel appears to have committed during the campaign.
International law prohibits the destruction or theft of property in a military conflict. Euro-Mid Observer reports that the seizure of money and private property is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the pillage of or reprisal against civilians, particularly people under military occupation. Euro-Mid Observer also asserts that the widespread confiscation of property violates the Geneva Convention’s prohibition against collective punishment.”
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/israeli-army-confiscates-35-million-worth-palestinian-property

Posted by: crone | Jul 14 2014 16:36 utc | 113

@114 I see the Palestinians are now using model aeroplanes. It costs the US taxpayer $1million to shoot one down.

Posted by: dh | Jul 14 2014 17:30 utc | 115

The Leveretts have a very good summary.
http://goingtotehran.com/
This is an excerpt:
By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, originally published in The National Interest
Secretary of State John Kerry’s failed efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian “final status” deal highlight American foreign policy elites’ rhetorical attachment to a negotiated “two-state” solution as the only acceptable basis for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, though, underscores a fundamentally different reality: the two-state solution is dead. And no matter how much Israel and its supporters object, the reigning paradigm for addressing the conflict is shifting ineluctably from a two-state model to a one-state model.
The two-state solution is the illusory end product of a U.S.-conceived “peace process” that has always been about things other than actually achieving peace—just as, contrary to the conventional trope, the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship” is not really about “shared values.” From Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948 to 1967—when memories of the Holocaust were fresh and Israel was arguably at its most democratic—America provided it no appreciable military or economic assistance; indeed, Washington barely gave it food aid. During the same period, there was plenty of fighting between Israel and various Arab parties—yet America did not initiate any kind of “peace process.”

Posted by: bevin | Jul 14 2014 23:25 utc | 117