UPDATE3:-
JANUARY 13, 2009 – During the past months, Canada has increasingly become one of Israel’s staunchest supporters as reported today in The Toronto Star.
“OTTAWA–Canada stood alone before a United Nations human rights council *** yesterday, the only one among 47 nations to oppose a motion condemning the Israeli military offensive in Gaza. (*** what is that please?)
The vote before the Geneva-based body shows the Stephen Harper government has abandoned a more even-handed approach to the Middle East in favour of unalloyed support of Israel, according to some long-time observers.
Thirty-three countries voted for the strongly worded motion, which called for an investigation into “grave” human rights violations by Israeli forces, while 13 nations, mostly European, abstained.
The United States, regarded as Israel’s greatest ally, is not a member of the council.
Marius Grinius, Canada’s representative on the council, said the language of the motion, which accused Israel of sparking a humanitarian crisis, was “unnecessary, unhelpful and inflammatory.”
He said the text failed to ‘clearly recognize’ that Hamas rocket attacks on Israel triggered the crisis.”
The report can be read in its entirety at: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/569872
UPDATE2:-
Call to move Arab League to Venezuela
KUWAIT CITY (AFP) – A Kuwaiti Islamist MP called on Wednesday for moving Arab League headquarters from Cairo to Caracas after Venezuela expelled Israel’s ambassador because of its onslaught on the Gaza Strip. “I call for moving the Arab League from Cairo to Caracas,” MP Waleed Al Tabtabai said during a special debate in parliament over the Israeli offensive. Tabtabai said that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez “has proved that he was more Arab than some Arabs”, after he expelled Israel’s ambassador to Caracas on January 6. Israel retaliated a day later, saying it was expelling Venezuela’s charge d’affaires. – Jordan Times, January 14, 2009.
(When Hugo Chavez weighs in against you, you know you are right.)
UPDATE:- Actually the phosphorus bit is quite old….here it is on All-That-Jazzera from Monday just gone (12th.) From Moliberty’s newsblog. And here’s some moral relativism from Carmenscafe.
David Davis
Oooooooh……tut tut tut !!! White Phosphorus….what naughty boys….been raiding the chemistry-lab cupboards then, have we? Even that boy Saddam (always persisted in playing with guns and killing his fellow pupils) didn’t do that….not after he gassed the Kurds anyway, and got a bit of a fright witht he ADI he got in 1991.
And hitting a UN building building which would be inevitably and predictably full of top Hamas thugs too (probably smoking indoors)…..wonder if Israel will get a detention for that one? Or will it be an ADI? *** …or, even….EXLUSION FROM SCHOOL?
Will the punishment be mitigated because the occupants were smoking? I think we should be told.
Officially the Libertarian Alliance has nothing that could be described as a foreign policy, in regard to the various wars going on around us today. Insofar as these interest most British Libertarians, if there is no vital british interest at stake, then we should take no position and not become involved. that’s fair enough.
However, the libertarian issues of interest to this blog, which is concerned about creating and maintaining a world in which libertarian ideas can spread and become effective, are that “world opinion” seems inexorably to be turning in favour of totalitarian thugs who oppose Western-style democracies however imperfect, and against the same said democracies. In the UK in particular, much of the same media bias is in favour of the setting up of a Police State that will structurally resemble a theocratic one – although outwardly cloaked in a non-religious legal system.
We should watch the progressing demonisation of Israel with trepidation.
Look at all this hearsay:- (from All-That-Jazzera)
Doctors in Gaza City have told Al Jazeera that people have been admitted suffering burns consistent with the use of the controversial chemical white phosphorus.
Human rights campaigners say that Israeli forces have used the munition, which can burn away human flesh to the bone, over Gaza City and Jabaliya in recent days.
Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, said: “Doctors here say they are seeing unprecedented levels of deep burns.
“They cannot categorically say that white phosphorus is being used, they are saying that the munitions being dropped are unprecendented.”
Residents in densely-packed Jabaliya have described Israeli forces exploding shells that drop scores of burning fragments and spread suffocating smoke.
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“Its the first time we see this type of weapon, it must be new and its seems like its phosphorous,” one resident told Al Jazeera.
“Its suffocating and has a deadly poisonous smell that I am sure will cause a lot of sickness and disease on all of the civilians here,” he said.
***All-day-Isolation
Or is the tide turning against the thugs who run western style democracies?
True, living under Hamas is probably worse, although even worse is living under Hamas whilst under Israeli oppression as well (the situation the poor people of Gaza have to suffer through).
And Jew != Israeli (!= Jew). That’s just a cheap, lazy attempt to evoke the holocaust.
If you want to create an environment conducive to spreading libertarianism, try to stop promulgating the perception that libertarianism is about ultra-conservatism and support for right wing states and corporate power. That is more damaging to libertarianism than a war between to gangs of thugs intent upon killing each other and anyone in between.
The Holocaust (Shoah to you) has not gone away, Tristan, just because it’s a few years ago now and Mossad has rubbed out most of the murderers who got away.
Although if you want to deny its happening, I for one won’t arrest you. We’d even publish your stuff, unless we can be arrested in Austria for saying it on a US website hosted in Manchester. I’m not an Austrian, with all the problems those people seem to have over David Irving and other loons.
Can you explain to me why, in the 1960s and early 70s, the Jews were good and Israel could do no wrong, and Eichmann’s hanging was reported almost live globally with so much glee, and the “Palestinians” were nowhere, and then tell me what has so very, very deeply changed between then and today?
…and remember, that I am of “mixed-race!”
Better find out which, eh?
Or Trinstan, you could tell me what you think about what this guy thinks:-
http://jewishinfonews.wordpress.com/2009/01/10/sunday-report-hamas-leaves-absolutely-no-room-for-peaceful-negotiation/
I don’t know, guv, I just live here in Lancashire.
Israelis Use of White Phosphorous Airburst Smoke Screening in Gaza
Accrding to IHS Jane’s Weapons Technology Analyst commenting on the discussions surrounding the Israeli use of white phosherous agents in Gaza, “The round so far specified as being fired are the M825A1 which is purely an air-burst white phosherous smoke projectile.” the analyst said. ‘It’s construction and function is highly elaborate and I would say deliberately so to make it inappropriate for anti-personnel use’. M825A1 shell is not defined as an incendiary weapon by the Third Protocol to the Convention on Conventional Weapons because its principal use is to produce smoke to protect troops. White Phosphorous weapons banned by theprotocol are ground or low level burst weapons designed primarily for anti-personnel use. The primary function of the M825A1 is for the rapid creation of a highly effective, but short lived visible and infrared smoke screen.
During the opening stages of Cast Lead land campaign, these munitions were employed at relatively low altitude, creating optimal obscuration for extended period of time. However, at the later stages, smoke screens were activated at higher elevation, thus eliminating much of the risk of collateral damage to non combatants. The activation height is determined by setting the time delay fuse for shorter activation.
According to the London Times, Israel is using white phosphorus shells. The Times claimed these shells are clearly seen on stockpiles used by Israel’s artillery units operating near Gaza. The newspaper said Palestinian citizens had suffered burns caused by the weapons, claiming ‘The use of WP against civilians is prohibited under international law”. Phosphorus ignites on contact with oxygen and, according to the Times, is being used by the Israeli military to create smokescreens to allow its ground forces to operate.
Israeli military spokeswoman referred to the projectile identified by the Times as a ‘quiet shell’. “It is empty, it has no explosives and no white phosphorus. There is nothing inside it… We shoot it to mark the target before we launch a real shell. We launch two or three of the quiet shells which are empty so that the real shells will be accurate. It’s not for killing people.”
“thugs who oppose Western-style democracies ”
Israel is often hailed by western supporters as a beacon of democracy in a region with largely undemocratic governments. This democratic “triumph,” however, is actually one of the biggest obstacles for peace in this conflict. As Hans-Hermann Hoppe points out in his book Democracy: The God That Failed and elsewhere, democratic governments do not fear going to war with other countries and wasting enormous amounts of resources in the process.
http://mises.org/story/3285