Canada's Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff backs Israel's offensive and says Hamas is to blame. Did he learn to be this stupid at Harvard or is this why they call him "the Prince of Darkness?"

By Yves Engler - January 8th, 2009

It’s not certain whether JTF2 commandos or regular Canadian forces participated in...night raids, but it is clear that these operations are becoming more and more important to NATO’s counterinsurgency war. Opposition to night raids from the [Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission]...follows on the heels of comments made by UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary and arbitrary executions, Philip Alston...[H]e denounced foreign forces for organizing informal groups of Afghan fighters that launch secret night raids with little concern for civilian casualties.

By LAWRENCE DAVIDSON - Counterpunch

What turns out to be the new aspect of this tale is the collusion of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority in this aggression toward the Palestinians of Gaza. It would seem that Fatah's leadership has actually decided to ally with the enemy that seeks to ethnically cleanse them. They remind this writer of the Jews who served the Nazis as policemen in the ghettos of German controlled Europe during World War II...The behavior of Fatah means that this organization and its leaders are almost certainly doomed.

By NEVE GORDON - Counterpunch

There is something extremely cynical about how Israel explains its use of humanitarian assistance, and yet such unadulterated explanations actually help uncover an important facet of postmodern warfare. Not unlike raising animals for slaughter on a farm, the Israeli government maintains that it is providing Palestinians with assistance so that it can have a free hand in attacking them. And just as Israel provides basic foodstuff to Palestinians while it continues shooting them, it informs Palestinians--by phone, no less--that they must evacuate their homes before F-16 fighter jets begin bombing them.

By Stephen Zunes - January 05, 2009

No one in the mainstream media or government is willing to acknowledge America's sordid role interfering in Palestinian politics...The United States bears much of the blame for the ongoing bloodshed in the Gaza Strip and nearby parts of Israel. Indeed, were it not for misguided Israeli and American policies, Hamas would not be in control of the territory in the first place.

3rd VANCOUVER RALLY TO END THE SIEGE ON GAZA & PROTEST ISRAELI WAR CRIMES!

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Saturday Jan 10 @ 1 pm
Vancouver Art Gallery
For info email vancouver.gazaprotest@gmail.com
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"The real crime of the Palestinians are not the rockets, not the suicide bombers, but resistance itself: whether peaceful or violent. Non-violent protests have also evoked brutal and even murderous responses from the Israeli army. The Palestinian's very existence denies the legitimacy of the Zionist claim of Palestine having been 'a land without a people.' That they don’t agree to being exiled forever, to being denied their human, civil and political rights, that they don’t agree to disappear—that is the real crime of the Palestinians."

--Statement from Dr. Gabor Mate, an anti-Zionist Jew who spoke at a rally in Vancouver on Jan. 3, 2009 to protest the latest Israeli assault in Gaza

"Those who are familiar intimately with Israeli people realise that they are completely uninformed (though not as bad as Canadians) about the roots of the conflict that dominates their lives..."

By Ilan Pappe - The Electronic Intifada

My visit back home to the Galilee coincided with the genocidal Israeli attack on Gaza. The state, through its media and with the help of its academia, broadcasted one unanimous voice -- even louder than the one heard during the criminal attack against Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Israel is engulfed once more with righteous fury that translates into destructive policies in the Gaza Strip. This appalling self-justification for the inhumanity and impunity is not just annoying, it is a subject worth dwelling on, if one wants to understand the international immunity for the massacre that rages on in Gaza.

By Ron Jacobs - January 03, 2009

...[D]espite the hoopla in the US press and its Iraqi clones, the nature of the control being "given back" to the Iraqis seems quite similar to the control over Gaza that was given them by the Israelis when they withdrew their forces in 2005. In other words, any control the Iraqi government and its security forces might now have can be removed at any time by US forces.

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS - January 2-4, 2009

The Palestinians are no more of a threat to Israel than Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were a threat to the Nazi state. Yet, everywhere in America--Congress, the executive branch, the print and TV media, the universities, evangelical Christian institutions--there is the belief that Israel is on the verge of annihilation by Palestinian terrorists. This ignorance, so carefully cultivated by the Israel Lobby, turns genocidal aggression into self-defense.

There will be a Rally in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on Saturday January 3rd, 2009 from 1:45-4:00 pm at Dundas square, which is at the intersection of Yonge & Dundas, in front of the Eaton's Centre.

This will be to show our support and solidarity with Gaza and its inhabitants at this time of great peril. Israel is murdering civilians, with so far 400+ dead Gazan's.

* updated with Action items, links to articles/photos, talking points, and endorsers. Please forward widely *

END THE SIEGE ON GAZA! PROTEST ISRAELI WAR CRIMES !

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Saturday Jan 3 @ 1 pm
Vancouver Art Gallery (Robson side - corner Hornby)

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By Nir Rosen - Znet

Just as the traditional American cowboy film presented white Americans under siege, with Indians as the aggressors, which was the opposite of reality, so, too, have Palestinians become the aggressors and not the victims...Every day, more of Palestine is stolen, more Palestinians are killed. To call oneself an Israeli Zionist is to engage in the dispossession of entire people...The Palestinians would not have ever bombed cafes or used home-made missiles if they had tanks and airplanes. It is only in the current context that their actions are justified...

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS - December 30, 2008

Israel’s excuse for its violence is that from time to time the Palestinian resistance organization, Hamas, fires off rockets into Israel to protest the ghetto life that Israel imposes on Gazans. The rockets are ineffectual for the most part and seldom claim Israeli casualties. However, the real purpose for the Israeli attack is to destroy Hamas.