kerkko.fi

YOU

Take my water.
Burn my olive trees.
Destroy my house.
Take my job.
Steal my land.
Imprison my father.
Kill my mother.
Bomb my country.
Starve us all.
Humiliate us all.

BUT

I am to blame:
I shot a rocket back.

The "Gaza Youth Breaks Out" manifesto does not put forth any clear analysis of the current historical situation, or outline a response to it. It does not invite anyone to join anything. Its tone is denunciatory rather than analytical. Its language is apolitical: the terminology of resistance common to Palestinian manifestos is replaced here by use of the f-word. It lacks any mobilisational dimension.

Without being rooted in any particular or collective vision of change, the demands articulated in the manifesto are meaningless. Perhaps this is why it is so attractive to those who have read it on Facebook, and the European and American media who have taken it up. It caters to western tastes and desires, especially to the fantasy of a digitally connected youth emerging from cyberspace as agents of transformative change in the real world.

In the case of Palestine, this fantasy does a number of things besides soothing guilty consciences. It reframes the issue of justice for Palestine in vacuous and unthreatening terms, casts the method by which change may occur into virtual space, and empties the Palestinian body politic of the thoughtfully articulated demands of its millions of citizens.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2011/01/10/karma-nabulsi/facebook-in-gaza/

We, the youth in Gaza, are fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights, and the indifference of the international community. We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice, and indifference; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of the situation we live in.

We are like lice between two nails living a nightmare inside a nightmare, no room for hope, no space for freedom. We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in.

We are sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, homemade fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on.

We are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas, and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

There is reason for Israelis, and for Jews generally, to think long and hard about the dark Hitler era at this particular time. The significance of the Gaza Flotilla incident lies in the larger questions raised about our common human condition by Israel’s occupation policies and its devastation of Gaza's civilian population.

If a people who so recently experienced on its own flesh such unspeakable inhumanities cannot muster the moral imagination to understand the injustice and suffering that its territorial ambitions -- and even its legitimate security concerns -- are inflicting on another people, what hope is there for the rest of us?

http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/israel-s-greatest-loss-its-moral-imagination-1.295600

I express deep regret and shock at the tragic loss of life. There has to be a full investigation into what has happened. I repeat my view that we need a different and better way of helping the people of Gaza.

There are no questions at all. There have been rockets fired from Gaza, there are people in Gaza who want to kill innocent Israelis. When it comes to security, I am one hundred percent on Israel's side.

In 1948, Moscow imposed a blockade on Berlin, cutting off 2 million Germans, most of whom, not long before, had cheered Hitler. Harry Truman responded with the Berlin airlift, perhaps the most magnanimous act of the Cold War.

For nine months, US pilots flew everything from candy to coal, saving a city and earning the eternal gratitude of the people of Berlin, and admiration everywhere that moral courage is admired. That was an America that lived its values.

Today, President Obama should end his and his country's shameful silence over the inhumane blockade of Gaza that is denying 1.5 million beleaguered people the basic necessities of a decent life. It is time to start acting like America again.

The Gaza siege must end. And America will herself be sending aid, but will also support Israel's right to inspect trucks and ships to see to it no weapons get through to Gaza. Let us start behaving like who we once were.

http://vdare.com/buchanan/100603_gaza.htm

A ship full of Jewish refugees, many of them survivors of the Holocaust, tried to break the British blockade of Palestine in 1947. British soldiers boarded the ship 21 miles off the coast of Palestine killing three of the refugees and wounding others. It caused an international scandal and was a PR disaster for the British government. It is seen in Israel today as one of the most significant events that led to the founding of the modern Israeli state.

Hamas police wielding clubs beat and pushed residents out of dozens of homes in the southern Gaza town of Rafah on Sunday before knocking the buildings down with bulldozers.

Gaza's militant Hamas rulers said the homes were built illegally on government land. Newly homeless residents were furious over Palestinians on bulldozers razing Palestinian homes.

http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article54490.ece