There are surely millions of us, invisible to each other, enraged and powerless as we watch the massacre of Gaza and listen to our media describe it as a "retaliation against terrorism", "Israel’s right to defend itself". We have reached a point where answering the Zionist arguments is both useless and unworthy of humanity. So long as it is recognized that the shells landing on Ashkelon are likely to have been fired by descendants of the inhabitants of that region who were driven out by the Zionists in 1948, talk of peace is a smoke screen for continued Israeli assault on the survivors of that great injustice.
Mix Mash
Airstrike destroys prominent Gaza school
The Associated PressPublished: January 4, 2009
GAZA: An Israeli airstrike flattened one of Gaza's best private educational institutions, the American International School, which had been attacked a year ago by Islamic militants.
The Israeli Army said the campus on a northern Gaza hilltop overlooking the Mediterranean Sea had been used as a launching base for rockets and was a legitimate target.
Most of the school's buildings, which offered American-style curriculum in English for kindergarten through 12th grade, were destroyed by the strikes, which also killed the night watchman.
"This is the most distinguished and advanced school in Gaza, if not in Gaza and the West Bank," said Iyad Saraj, chairman of the school's board of trustees. "I cannot swear there was no rocket fired, but if there was, you don't destroy a whole school." He added: "This is the destruction of civilization."
The school was founded in 2000 to provide "progressive education," the school's Web site says. It has no connection to the U.S. government. Saraj said the school had 250 students and many of its graduates went on to U.S. universities. "They are very good, highly educated open-minded students who can really be future leaders of Palestine," he said.
------http://www.internationalschoolsreview.com/nonmembers/gaza-school.htm
The above has a comment section from people who worked at the school.
The American International School, after surviving 8 years in war torn Gaza, has now been erased from the map after falling prey to the numerous air strikes from the Israeli Air Force. And while the world is bombarded with images of rocket damage to Israeli schools—one hole in one wall shown from multiple angles—there doesn’t seem to be a single image of the once impressive school that was obviously destroyed by multiple air strikes from a mighty Israeli war machine. Nor does there seem to be any coverage relating to the death of the night watchman, Abu Gleg—an elderly Bedouin, father of 30, who had generously donated the land for the school to build upon.
The one sided nature of the military conflict has never been more obvious (over 400 Palestinian fatalities vs. 4 Israeli fatalities) and this incident with AISG seems to highlight the one sided nature of the media coverage of the conflict as well.
----A new word emerged from the carnage in Gaza this week: "scholasticide" – the systematic destruction by Israeli forces of centres of education dear to Palestinian society, as the ministry of education was bombed, the infrastructure of teaching destroyed, and schools across the Gaza strip targeted for attack by the air, sea and ground offensives.
"Learn, baby, learn" was a slogan of the black rights movement in America's ghettoes a generation ago, but it also epitomises the idea of education as the central pillar of Palestinian identity – a traditional premium on schooling steeled by occupation, and something the Israelis "cannot abide… and seek to destroy", according to Dr Karma Nabulsi, who teaches politics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. "We knew before, and see more clearly now than ever, that Israel is seeking to annihilate an educated Palestine," she says.
A total of 71 Palestinians were killed Tuesday — with just two confirmed as militants, health officials in Gaza said.
Catholic humanitarian agency Caritas is working under desperate and dangerous circumstances in Gaza.
The crisis in Gaza has been brought home very directly to Caritas following the destruction of a Caritas Jerusalem medical clinic last Friday during an Israeli aerial bombardment. The clinic, in the Al Maghazi district of Central Gaza, was completely destroyed in the bombing that also razed four
A new supply of Bibles for Durkha Durkha ?
A Music School Silenced in Gaza
By NADIA HIJAB
There was a music school in Gaza. It was just six months old. The 31 children aged seven to 11 could choose one of five instruments, including the guitar, oud (lute), and piano. Most of the 19 girls gravitated to the guitar and piano while many of the 12 boys showed a preference for the oud.
The school worked out of rented premises in the Palestinian Red Crescent Society building just across the street from the Preventive Security Forces compound in Gaza City. The compound was targeted in the first wave of Israeli bombardments on December 27, and twice more the next day. The five-story building was vaporized; a flat gravel surface is all that remains.
And all the Palestinian children ,well, a couple of hundred fewer all sang happy songs like We love you Israel, OH YES we do oo, as the swept the glass and moved the empty desks.
The world is begining to understand. If Obama can talk to Israel he can certainly talk to Hamas. Oh ja--Abbas, like a good boy is sitting on the West Bank as he was told to do.
