What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world: Robert E. Lee, letter to his wife, 1864

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime: Ernest Hemingway

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war: Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-07-19-israel-lebanon_x.htm?csp=24
Israeli troops push into south Lebanon

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14061.htm a list of typical American news with pointed commentary

http://gaza-flash-news.blogstream.com/ for current Middle Eastern news all day and night....

Like a good laugh but not really funny....... http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20145&Itemid=1
Israeli shells fired at UN convoy leaving Gaza forcing them back ... they had come for Kafi Annin.... UN .... to assess the situation and on leaving came under Israeli fire... that should give them a good perspective of the situation! All that was missing was being hit and loosing a few family members to know just how Palestinians feel.

http://www.fromisraeltolebanon.org/

I read and watch and almost plead…. What is happening is the Gaza? My world news tells so little and only parrots Israel’s self-serving – perennial victim - filth. I go to Palestine’s own sites and those of neighboring nations. The funny thing – I find more truth in Israeli papers than in America’s freedom press. They actually print condemnation of the system while here no one tells much of the truth. Anti-Semitism cuts off the collective tongues—And leaves the reporters both dumb (stupid and ignorant) and speechless…

My love is there but I can not see him. Our only lifeline is an unpredictable Internet connection powered by almost non-existent electricity. Death and heartbreak are on every side. There is too little food. Too little sleep. No place is safe. Even home is a target now. No place is off limits. Families eating together are dying together.

The nightmare that is Gaza seems to have no end. Body parts in the street are common. Sadly families are decimated within their own homes. Bloody pools draw gawkers like football games draw onlookers. With some kind of perverse delight helicopter crews waiting to get more kills, wait for bystanders and medical personnel, then fire a second or even a third missile and call it …. Oops, a miss.

While the carnage piles deeper and the blood pools on the street…. In their perverse delight…. Do they ever think… that “what goes around comes around!” ? Do they remember Hashem – the Name – unspoken personal name – creator – judge – owner of the right to ultimate vengeance – He is watching. Someday He will repay. Or do they think – or – perhaps they’re taught – that as the “chosen ones” it is their right to destroy land, infrastructure, families, and lives of all who are not “ The chosen”.

On the other side the Muslim acquiescence to what comes – It is what Allah wills, is both peace and madness to my mind. It is the thinking inaction is made of until pain and anger and protectiveness take over and one would kill. It feels like a form of insanity. There is not enough calculated action in this resistance and when it becomes angry – it is insane desperation – suicide bombers among the people of the occupation - and the world will not accept it as fair or right. Not even if it is a pretty equal response to the deaths in homes and on beaches and by shelling and by missiles.

Planned action and reaction bounded within the true hopped for borders of the “67” line would make more sense. Go after the infrastructure of the colonies, buildings, Jew’s only roads, military installations….. Those should be fair game. They are illegal anyway. Blow holes in the precious wall they build annexing and dissecting the heart out of the future nation of Palestine. Where it is not built on the border it is steeling land and water and the ability to be free. Destroy the roads that dice up the land and ban you from your own – blow up the internal checkpoints that make your life hell. That is resistance.

The raid that netted the capture of the soldier, Shalat, was a courageous act of resistance. He was part of the tank crews who shell Gaza day after day.

Just a word of warning – it is called Terrorism or insurrection by the opposition until you win…. Then it is resistance and suddenly you are heroes. If you don’t win – Oh God – you remain terrorists and evil.

A perfect example is Menachem Begin head of the Zionist underground group the Irgun, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the first right-wing Likud Prime Minister of Israel. Under England he was a terrorist but in Israel he was a hero. Now Irgun, Stern Gang, and Lehi are heroes in retrospect. How did these killers of the English and the Arabs become heroes? By being in the winning position.

Winners get to tell history their way!

So – Palestine – if you ever want history to tell your suffering and and your heroic efforts – you have to win.

Be aware Israel has perfected the knack of portraying herself as the perennial victim inspite of being the aggressor, occupier, thief, with superior numbers and superior armament.

If you kill an Israeli the name, age, sex, occupation and family are all over the world news hundreds of times until the story is milked dry – then it is used as future reference. Kill 10 Palestinians and not one name, age, or place is mentioned most of the time.

You must learn to use facts but milk them for all they are worth.

Do not whine – Just tell it like it is and tell it again. Tell the names till they are household words.

Every death must be a memorial to your suffering and collective pain, a memorial to the struggle to be free.

Viva Palestine - and today I add - Viva Lebanon

Same kind of war with the same destroying horde.

There is a River Flowing
Dr. Mary Ethridge

There is a river flowing
In Palestine today
It is as old as man
Yet as new as dawn
It runs from splattered droplets
In little trickling rivulets
It flows in trickles and torrents
Depending on the source
Sometimes if gushes out
In unquenchable floods
It seeps into sands
As old as time
It is spattered across walls
And floors and cars
Like graffiti everywhere
The young and the old alike
Contribute to this flow
Israel turns the taps
And again the river rises
Even the unborn
No one is exempt
The river flows from vengeance
The taps are turned by hate.
Greed and power create the flow
And how it will end
No man on earth can know
It is Palestine’s lifeblood
Flowing, flowing, flowing
Her heart is being cut out
One human soul at a time
Her men, her children,
Her wives and mothers
And unborn babies
Pour out their lives
As a blood sacrifice
Exacted by the raiding,
Marauding, hoards
Who come to kill at will
Or sit like cowards
On surrounding lands
In ships at sea
Or hover in the air
They send in death on artillery shell
On missiles winged and armed for killing
Wheelchairs or cars
It really does not matter
Twisted remains of what once was
And a pool to add to the river
Isn’t the river full yet
I guess it is not just yet
For Israel adds to it daily
Self-defense is the excusing cry
Yet her fear and suffering and death
Are measured out in buckets full
While in Gaza and the West Bank
It is a raging torrent
A flood poured out across the sands
And flowing around the world
In Palestine’s Diaspora
The flood is raging
The flood threatens
To drown souls in despair
Anger burns at the careless
Cause of the flood
Fear terrorizes little children
Waves of grief
Break across
Every heart that cares
As Palestine again
Pumps out her life on the sands
With every beat
Of her collective heart
We all die a little
With either heartbreak
Or new callousness
While a river of death and suffering
Flows again in Palestine
Deaf ears and hardened hearts
Turn away from the pleading cries
Palestine is bleeding to death
Her broken wounded collective soul
Is dying piece by piece
Israel has opened the taps
The faucet turned full force
And no one will say
It is enough
The river is full to capacity
But the world just waits
To watch the flood
Bloodthirsty Israel
Bets on a blood lusting world
As the flow builds
Up to the overflowing
A river flows in Palestine
A river as old as man
Each drop as new as the dawn
And no one will quench the flow
Life’s blood soaks into the sands
Still a part of this earth
Bodies return to the dust
But souls belong to the creator
He’s tracking them every one
He’s watched
As the river has filled
Drop by drop by drop