Stephen Lendman

One in four Israelis lives below the poverty line.

An October 2007 Haaretz editorial titled "Democracy or hypocrisy" contrasted the "occupying Land of Israel to the democratic Israel" in calling for a "debate about Israel's control over the lives of Palestinians deprived of civil rights," saying its democracy is flawed and not addressing it is hypocrisy.

Throughout history, regimes rhetorically embraced democracy as cover for more despotic policies, no different today throughout the world in countries like India, Pakistan, America and Israel practicing what Michael Parenti calls "democracy for the few," (the) "shadier sides of US political life (in which) proponents of the existing social order have tried to transform practically every deficiency into a strength."

He asked, "Who gets what, when, how and why?" Why do so few benefit at the expense of the many? Why are peace, social justice, and real democracy illusions in a nation embracing the opposite of what they represent? Why instead do poverty, racism, sexism, exploitation, rapacious capitalism, and imperialism, in fact, define how America and Israel are governed?

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Thalif Deen

A Haitian woman is helped from the rubble of a damaged building on
Wednesday in Port-au-Prince after a huge earthquake measuring 7.0 rocked
the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti, toppling buildings and causing
widespread damage and panic (AFP photo )

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 13 (IPS) - The major earthquake that struck Haiti Tuesday, causing death and destruction in the capital of Port-au-Prince, may also turn out to be a veritable disaster for the United Nations, which has over 9,000 personnel, including peacekeepers, international staffers and local civilians, scattered throughout the country.
The world body is bracing itself for the worse case scenario, with the possibility of over 100 deaths in its own extended family.

Alain LeRoy, under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, described the devastation in Haiti as potentially "one of the most tragic and horrible tragedies in the history of U.N. peacekeeping".

The U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which was established in June 2004, had around 3,000 troops and police personnel posted in and around the capital, with the remaining 6,000 outside Port-au-Prince, which took the deadliest blow.

The Christopher Hotel, which was doubling as the headquarters of the United Nations in Haiti, collapsed during the quake with possibly more than 100 to 150 U.N. personnel trapped under the rubble.

U.N. Under-Secretary-General for the Department of Field Support Susan Malcora would only confirm 16 U.N. fatalities, including 11 Brazilians, three Jordanians, one Argentine, and one Chadian, with 56 injured.

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Stephen Lendman

Adalah is the legal center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel advocating on their behalf in a nation affording rights only to Jews. In September 2009, its report titled "Prohibited Protest" exposed how Israel's law enforcement authorities restricted free expression protests against Operation Cast Lead.

It shows how police, the State Prosecutor's Office, General Security Services (GSS or Shabak), the courts, and even academic institutions used or supported arrests and imprisonments to stop Israeli Arabs and supportive Jews from protesting against the war.

Researchers collected data from the police spokesman, political and social activist testimonies, Adalah legal complaints during and after the war, an analysis of court decisions on detainee arrests, and general information reported by the media and various other Israeli human rights organizations.

Israel's law enforcement apparatus acted repressively, "far beyond any reasonable criterion." For example, on December 30, 2008, after 200 Arab demonstrator arrests, the commanding officer of the Northern District of the Police, Maj. Gen. Shimon Koren, declared that while protests could take place, police would show zero tolerance for law breakers.

Yet wherever peaceful ones occurred, authorities reacted harshly with violence and arrests to keep nonviolent resistance from spreading. This time against war. Earlier against both Intifadas, and always on Nakba Day, Land Day, against the Separation Wall and home demolitions, and other legitimate demonstrations of dissent.

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Dahlia Wasfi, MD

Our nation seems to have already forgotten about the November 5, 2009, shootings at Ft. Hood in Killeen, Texas. Just Tuesday (1/12/10), the Pentagon ordered 3100 troops based in Ft. Hood to Afghanistan without any significant outcry. In the immediate aftermath of the shootings, it was difficult to believe that such a tragedy had occurred; after all, our occupations had been going so well until that point. Just ask the Iraqi people. Wait, scratch that. Ok, ask the Afghan people. Never mind. Just ask U.S. veterans. Oh boy. If we ask the people who are living the horrors, then maybe what happened at Ft. Hood isn’t so shocking at all. What is surprising is that we haven’t seen more of the same.

In the first ten months of 2009, ten soldiers based at Ft. Hood killed themselves; that was the second-highest for the nation, behind the sixteen suicides at Kentucky’s Ft. Campbell. In January 2009 alone, twenty-four soldiers across the country killed themselves. "This is terrifying," an Army official said. "We do not know what is going on." Well, let me help you out, random Army official. When you issue illegal orders for people to go commit atrocities overseas (because that’s the best word to sum up what’s happening in Iraq and Afghanistan), and they fail to refuse said orders in compliance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice, you end up with people in trouble, people with PTSD.

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Bridget Chappell

Anan Subih's children in their damaged home.

The brutal killing of three Palestinian men by Israeli military forces in Nablus last week on 26 December 2009 sparked grief and outrage across Palestine and brought the northern West Bank city to a standstill as thousands mourned the lethal attack. However, their voices are drowned out yet again by a well-played hand of Israel's propaganda machine and repeated by the mainstream media.

On the eve of the one-year anniversary of Israel's winter invasion of Gaza, a force of several hundred Israeli soldiers entered Nablus and invaded the homes of Ghassan Abu Sharkh, Raed Sarakji and Anan Subih where they were executed in cold blood in front of family members. A statement by the Israeli military alleged that an operation was carried out to arrest the men suspected of involvement in the killing of an Israeli settler, Meir Avshalom Hai, two days earlier.

The portraits of the targeted men -- armed perpetrators of another injustice -- painted by the military's statements have exploded throughout Israel's media and beyond, subsequently footnoted by Israeli police's forensic results, reporting a match between a rifle seized in the invasions and the weapon used to kill Hai, a rabbi and resident of the Shave Shomron settlement.

This postmortem revelation, which has not been verified by independent sources, raises alarming questions of Israel's "shoot first, ask questions later" policy. It also echoes the disparities between the statements of the Israeli military, repeated by the Israeli and international media, and the testimony of the victims' family members, which were collected by a handful of local media agencies and human rights organizations.

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