Saturday, May 23, 2009

White nights, flagwaving days. Sun and sand

Ain't life a beach these days? In Israel, the spring sunshine is beaming down and the entire armed forces of Israel seem to be up in the sky, practicing for the next pre-emptive strike and ready to take on the new Sejil missiles of Iran. Think loud and proud. And relentless.
No problem, though. A sleepless White Night for urban debauchery is underway in Tel Aviv after the shabbat. White nights are far preferable to white blights: and here in the Big Falafel, there's no sign of Willy Pete- aka white phosphorus- washing up on the rather polluted Mediterranean sands of the shoreline of Zion. (Eretz Israel.) However, cautious Gazans are hesitating to eat locally grown fresh produce in case they ingest any strange chemicals that were dropped as smokescreens back in January. American-manufactured tank shells with depleted uranium (for its armor-piercing properties) also were unleashed, and little of the mildly radioactive rubble has been cleared from Gazas fields and playgrounds. It's an environmental time bomb, and it doesn't glow in the dark.
In seaside Gaza, the rumour mill is buzzing about imminent Israeli attack, as it so often does. But there are some rather broad hints: indeed, Bibi Netanyahu, the new premier, campaigned on strong arm tactics and had even suggested while an international donors' meeting took place earlier this year that expenditures on rebuilding Gaza might be "premature"... the inference being that further lessons might be delivered by Israel to the rocket-launchers in the blighted enclave bordering the Negev. Presumably, the sabras are rattling sabers and will have the decency to wait til after Obama comes back from Egypt.
Jerusalem Day was celebrated yesterday by groups of patriotic Jews roaming around in the sunshine, singing and waving flags, in vista points overlooking "undivided Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Maoz Esther,that outpost which was dismantled before the cameras and international media was quickly re-erected, and the beat goes on. Israelity bites.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gaza action today...people are forbidden to go within
700 m of the boundaries. Exchange of fire today. Still awaiting numbers for the bodycount. Usually 10:1 ratio.

Roger said...

The following is totally false - "American-manufactured tank shells with depleted uranium (for its armor-piercing properties) also were unleashed, and little of the mildly radioactive rubble has been cleared from Gazas fields and playgrounds. It's an environmental time bomb, and it doesn't glow in the dark." -- Hamas did not have a single tank and Israel did not use depleted uranium kinetic energy penetrators - the people sowing this on the net are liars - similar lies were told in Lebanon, mainly by American Neo Nazi sympathesizers Leuren K Moret and Douglas Lind Rokke, but by others as well. As a result, the UN Environment Programme made a detailed field and laboratory study of 32 sites, all of which were found to contain no evidence of depleted uranium. I would like the person who posted this to contact me so that I can find out where they learned the false science that they are spreading. If you would like to learn more, the UN report on Lebanon is at http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications.php?prog=lebanon - you can learn that DU does not glow in the dark at www.depletedcranium.com

Roger
DUStory-owner@yahoogroups.com

Izzy Bee said...

It has been alleged by the ACDN that Israeli forces used GBU-39, American made munitions with depleted uranium. An investigation on Gaza's soil was led by Jean-François Fechino, a consultant on diffuse pollution and an expert accredited to the UN Environment (UNEP), plus a team of three experts. ACDN has just produced a 33-page report concluding that the presence of dozens of tonnes of Depleted Uranium (perhaps as much as 75 tonnes) in the soil and subsoil of Gaza is highly probable.
Last month, Fechino went to Gaza under the auspices of the Arab Commission for Human Rights. The soil samples were analysed by a specialist laboratory, which detected traces of Depleted Uranium and other carcinogens ...

See also http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MUMA-7RT3R4?OpenDocument

The IDF maintains that it uses advanced weaponry within international law, sure. But they said the same about white phosphorus. DOn't they realize that they share the same sea with Gaza, so eventually the radioacitivity will poison israelis as well?

Dimona said...

Shrapnel is a concern, too- pieces of depleted uranium which are radioactive and also chemically toxic which can be embedded in parts of the body.
WIth victims in the thousands, a thorough investigation was not done. Physicians for Human Rights is investigating this angle.