Ah... I love rocket...

Today is a fantastic day for rocket lovers... and I don't mean the variety one grows in one's backyard... No I mean the big smoke spewing ones...

First the launch of that big thing, the shuttle, went like clockwork....

second the North Koreans blasted no less than six scuds plus one large intercontinental missile that blew up about one minute later according to official US sources for what they know.

and third, Hamas managed to launch a rocket that flew six miles and hit an empty school in Israel...

Meanwhile, Israel has fired several tonnes of projectiles and one can assume with a certain accuracy that about 20,000 rounds were fired at the Gazans in the last few days...

God is still on both sides of course...

‘Israel is not content with its occupation and
total military domination of Palestine. No, Israel has proven that it wants to
assure the Palestinians continue to live in the most dire poverty, a poverty
created by a near-total lack of affordable energy. That truth was made clear by
the Israeli military's recent bombing of the Gaza City power plant, the only
electric power station inside Palestinian territory.

By using warplanes to launch nine
missiles at the power plant ­ a facility with no military value - the Israelis
have assured that the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have no electric
generating capacity of their own. That's not to say the power plant was huge.
It wasn't. The plant had a rated capacity of just 140 megawatts, far less than
what the residents of Gaza need to be self-sufficient. But the plant wasn't
even operating at capacity. In fact, it had been producing just 70 megawatts of
power due to poor management by the Palestinian authorities, who hadn't built
enough power lines to take all of the power the plant can generate.

By bombing the plant, the
Israelis cut power to 65 percent of the Gaza Strip, a region that is one of the
most impoverished in the Middle East. By destroying the plant, the Israelis also
decimated one of Palestine's most valuable companies, the Palestine Electric
Company, whose shares are traded on the Palestine Stock Exchange. Further, the
Israelis have destroyed any chance for industry in Gaza to grow.’

Gaza In The Dark

From the ABC

Kidnapped soldier's dad urges Israel to negotiate
By Middle East correspondent David Hardaker for AM

The father of kidnapped Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit has criticised his government's policy of not negotiating with terrorists, particularly on Hamas demands for the release of Palestinian prisoners.

It has been two weeks since Palestinian militants snatched the 19-year-old, sparking the worst crisis in Israeli - Palestinian relations since Hamas won elections earlier this year.

For much of the time Noam Shalit has publicly backed the Israeli Government's strategy to free his son, but now that public face is cracking.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is vowing that there will be no let up in Israeli attacks on Gaza until Hamas returns Corporal Shalit safe and sound.

Mr Olmert has also reiterated the Israeli Government's stance on not giving in to Hamas demands which he likens to extortion from terrorists.

Compromise
Mr Shalit says he understands the reasoning, but eventually there will have to be a compromise.

"Yes, it's a policy, but eventually there will have to be some price, because in the Middle East you cannot receive something without paying some price, okay? It's not Europe, it's the Middle East," he said.

‘Under the pretext of forcing the
release of a single soldier "kidnapped by terrorists" (or, if you
prefer, "captured by the resistance"), Israel has done the following:
seized members of a democratically elected government; bombed its interior
ministry, the prime minister's offices, and a school; threatened another
sovereign state (Syria) with a menacing overflight; dropped leaflets from the
air, warning of harm to the civilian population if it does not "follow all
orders of the IDF" (Israel Defense Forces); loosed nocturnal "sound
bombs" under orders from the Israeli prime minister to "make sure no
one sleeps at night in Gaza"; fired missiles into residential areas,
killing children; and demolished a power station that was the sole generator of
electricity and running water for hundreds of thousands of Gazans.

Besieged Palestinian families,
trapped in a locked-up Gaza, are in many cases down to one meal a day, eaten in
candlelight. Yet their desperate conditions go largely ignored by a world
accustomed to extreme Israeli measures in the name of security: nearly 10,000
Palestinians locked in Israeli jails, many without charge; 4,000 Gaza and West
Bank homes demolished since 2000 and hundreds of acres of olive groves plowed
under; three times as many civilians killed as in Israel, many due to
"collateral damage" in operations involving the assassination of
suspected militants.

"Wake up!" shouted the
young Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer from Gaza on San Francisco's
"Arab Talk" radio in late June. "The Gaza people are starving.
There is a real humanitarian crisis. Our children are born to live. Don't these
people have any heart? No feelings at all? The world is silent!"’

Déjà Vu In Gaza

‘As Americans commemorated their
annual celebration of independence from colonial occupation, rejoicing in their
democratic institutions, we Palestinians were yet again besieged by our
occupiers, who destroy our roads and buildings, our power stations and water
plants, and who attack our very means of civil administration. Our homes and
government offices are shelled, our parliamentarians taken prisoner and
threatened with prosecution.

The current Gaza invasion is only
the latest effort to destroy the results of fair and free elections held early
this year. It is the explosive follow-up to a five-month campaign of economic
and diplomatic warfare directed by the United States and Israel. The stated
intention of that strategy was to force the average Palestinian to
"reconsider" her vote when faced with deepening hardship; its failure
was predictable, and the new overt military aggression and collective
punishment are its logical fulfillment. The "kidnapped" Israeli Cpl.
Gilad Shalit is only a pretext for a job scheduled months ago.

In addition to removing our
democratically elected government, Israel wants to sow dissent among
Palestinians by claiming that there is a serious leadership rivalry among us. I
am compelled to dispel this notion definitively. The Palestinian leadership is
firmly embedded in the concept of Islamic shura, or mutual consultation;
suffice it to say that while we may have differing opinions, we are united in
mutual respect and focused on the goal of serving our people. Furthermore, the
invasion of Gaza and the kidnapping of our leaders and government officials are
meant to undermine the recent accords reached between the government party and
our brothers and sisters in Fatah and other factions, on achieving consensus
for resolving the conflict. Yet Israeli collective punishment only strengthens
our collective resolve to work together.

As I inspect the ruins of our
infrastructure - the largess of donor nations and international efforts all
turned to rubble once more by F-16s and American-made missiles - my thoughts
again turn to the minds of Americans. What do they think of this?’

Aggression
Under False Pretences

From Al Jazeera

Israel kills women at mosque siege

Saturday 04 November 2006, 0:11 Makka Time, 21:11 GMT
[http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/28281EF3-0276-4DED-B367-B74C0DAFDE89.htm|Two Palestinian women have been killed] during a stand-off near a Gaza mosque while trying to rescue about 60 Palestinian fighters besieged inside.
The events came on the third day of an Israeli assault on the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, the largest operation Israel has conducted in the Gaza Strip in months.
On Friday, about 200 Palestinian women marched towards the al-Nasir mosque in Beit Hanoun, which Israeli forces surrounded on Thursday, in an attempt to rescue fighters who had taken shelter in the mosque during the Israeli incursion.
The women had responded to an appeal from Hamas broadcast on local radio stations.
Israeli forces opened fire on the women, killing two and injuring six others.
The Israeli army later confirmed that the fighters had managed to escape.

'Human shields'
Elham Hamad, a Palestinian woman who attended the protests, told Aljazeera: "We were confronted by a tank, and we raised a white flag [but] without any warning they started shooting at us.
"A number of women, including me, fell injured. We remained for a long time without any aid or ambulances."

From Al Jazeera

Israeli killings pass unnoticed

....
Since July that ratio has risen to 76 Palestinians for every Israeli.
Though the [http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DFFC30F0-8521-4F20-B8B3-F5B63F677396.htm|mainstream media] still reports on a "conflict" between "two sides", over the past seven months it has simply been a slaughter.

From our short-changed ABC

Security Council to hear Gaza shelling concerns

The United Nations Security Council has agreed to let Arab and Muslim nations air their [http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200611/s1784498.htm|concerns about the Israeli shelling] of Beit Hanun in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli artillery shells slammed into five apartment blocks in Beit Hanun at dawn yesterday local time, killing eight children, five women and five men and wounding 58 people, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Eleven members of one family, among them two children, were among the dead.
The attack has drawn widespread international condemnation.
The 15-nation Security Council invited UN members to address a public meeting on Gaza after snubbing an earlier request for an emergency session.
The Palestinian Authority wants the council to adopt a resolution calling for a mutual cease-fire in Gaza.
It also wants UN observers to be sent into the area to enforce the cease-fire, as was done in southern Lebanon after the 34-day war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah that ended in August.

The US responds
But the US, Israel's closest ally and one of five permanent council members with veto power, typically opposes council intervention in the Middle East conflict. The US says council intervention is ineffective in ending the cycle of violence between Palestinians and Israelis.
US President George W Bush has stopped short of reprimanding the Israel, whose Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, is due to meet him in Washington on Monday.
"The United States is deeply saddened by the injuries and loss of life in Gaza today," Mr Bush said in a statement.
"We have seen the Israeli Government's apology and understand an investigation has begun.
We hope it will be completed quickly and that appropriate steps will be taken to avoid a repetition of this tragic incident.
---------------
Gus:::: tragic incident? As if something like this was not deliberate? Give us a break... I can take all the porkying about the US Social security fiddles, about Katrina's official response short of a racial scandal, etc... but this?

From Al Jazeera

Israel accused of 'state terrorism'

Thursday 09 November 2006, 23:08 Makka Time, 20:08 GMT

A Palestinian official has [http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9DB7DCAA-C83A-42CF-A2A8-D77602AD2051.htm|accused Israel of state terrorism] after an attack in Gaza that killed 18 civilians, and said Israeli apologies for such incidents were insincere and no longer acceptable.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN observer, told an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Thursday: "This is terrorism, this is state terrorism.
"These are war crimes for which the perpetrators must be held accountable under international law."

From Al Jazeera

Arabs lift Palestinian financial blockade

Monday 13 November 2006, 8:39 Makka Time, 5:39 GMT

Arab countries have [http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/46E9AA45-460C-4269-B979-52DD5458E781.htm|agreed to lift the financial blockade on the Palestinians] following the US vetoing of a draft United Nations resolution condemning the recent Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary-general, said at a meeting of the organisation in Cairo on Sunday: "There will be no compliance with any restriction imposed ... The Arab banks have to transfer money [to the Palestinians].
"Our message is loud and clear to those who take unfriendly positions against Arabs."
The US and European-led imposition of economic sanctions - along with an Israeli refusal to release revenues it collects on the Palestinians behalf - have severely damaged the Palestinian economy and have led to protests by civil servants who have gone unpaid for months.